never so much toffed with storms of misfortune, that is a SERM. fure haven; be we perfecuted with never fo many enemies, XLVII. that is a fafe refuge; let what pains or difeafes foever infest us, that is an affured anodynon, and infallible remedy for them all; however we be wearied with the labours of the day, the night will come and eafe us; the grave will become a bed of reft unto us. b Shall I die? I fhall then cease to be fick; I fhall be exempted from difgrace; I shall be enlarged from prison; I fhall be no more pinched with want; no more tormented with pain. Death is a winter, that as it withers the rofe and lily, fo it kills the nettle and thiftle; as it ftifles all worldly joy and pleafure, fo it fuppreffes all care and grief; as it hufhes the voice of mirth and melody, fo it fills the clamours and the fighs of mifery; as it defaces all the world's glory, so it covers all difgrace, wipes off all tears, filences all complaint, buries all difquiet and discontent. King Philip of Macedon once threatened the Spartans to vex them forely, and bring them into great ftraits; but, answered they, can he hinder us from dying? that indeed is a way of evading which no enemy can obftruct, no tyrant can debar men from; they who can deprive of life, and its conveniences, cannot take away death from them. There is a place, Job Job iii. 17. tells us, where the wicked ceafe from troubling, and where -the weary be at reft: where the prifoners reft together; they hear not the voice of the oppreffor: the Small and great are there; and the fervant is free from his master. It is therefore but holding out a while, and a deliverance from the worst this world can moleft us with fhall of its own accord arrive unto us; in the mean time it is better that we atɔ μíñaus prefent owe the benefit of our comfort to reafon, than after- reve χαρίζεσθαι, ward to time; by rational confideration to work patience and contentment in ourselves; and to ufe the fhortnefs égiof our life as an argument to sustain us in our affliction, Afol. p.195.

b Dolore perculfi mortem imploramus, eamque unam, ut m feriarum ma

lorumque terminum exoptamus. Cic. Confolat.

Moriar? hoc dicis; definam ægrotare poffe, &c. Sen. Ep. 24.

Eripere vitam nemo non homini poteft; at nemo mortem. Sen. Trag.

cas. Plut. ad

SERM. than to find the end thereof only a natural and neceffary XLVII. means of our refcue from it. The contemplation of this

cannot fail to yield fomething of courage and folace to us in the greatest preffures; thefe tranfient and short-lived evils, if we confider them as fo, cannot appear fuch horrid bugbears, as much to affright or difmay us; if we rememOmnia bre- ber how short they are, we cannot esteem them so great, or bilia effe de-fo intolerable. There be, I must confefs, divers more noble bent, eti- confiderations, proper and available to cure discontent and fint. Cic. impatience. The confidering, that all these evils proceed Lal, ad fin. from God's juft will, and wife providence; unto which it is

via tolera

amfi magna

fit, and we upon all accounts are obliged readily to fubmit; that they do ordinarily come from God's goodness and gracious defign towards us; that they are medicines (although ungrateful, yet wholefome) adminiftered by the Divine Wisdom to prevent, remove, or abate our distempers of foul, (to allay the tumors of pride, to cool the fevers of intemperate defire, to rouse us from the legarthy of sloth, to stop the gangrene of bad confcience;) that they are fatherly corrections, intended to reclaim us from fin, and excite us to duty; that they ferve as inftruments or occafions to exercise, to try, to refine our virtue; to beget in us the hope, to qualify us for the reception of better rewards: fuch difcourfes indeed are of a better nature, and have a more excellent kind of efficacy; yet no fit help, no good art, no juft weapon is to be quite neglected in the combat against our fpiritual foes. A pebble-ftone hath been fometimes found more convenient than a fword or a fpear to flay a giant, Bafer remedies (by reason of the patient's conftitution, or circumstances) do fometime produce good effect, when others in their own nature more rich and potent want efficacy. And furely frequent reflections upon our mortality, and living under the sense of our lives' frailty, cannot but conduce somewhat to the begetting in us an indifferency of mind toward all these temporal occurrents; to extenuate both the goods and the evils we here meet with; confequently therefore to compofe and calm our paffions about them.

3. But I proceed to another use of that confideration we

fpeak of emergent from the former, but fo as to improve SERM. it to higher purposes. For fince it is ufeful to the dimi- XLVII. nishing our admiration of these worldly things, to the withdrawing our affections from them, to the flackening our endeavours about them; it will follow that it must conduce alfo to beget an esteem, a defire, a prosecution of things conducing to our future welfare; both by removing the obstacles of doing so, and by engaging us to confider the importance of those things in comparison with these. By removing obftacles, I fay; for while our hearts are poffeffed with regard and paffion toward these present things, there can be no room left in them for refpe&t and affection toward things future. It is in our foul as in the reft of nature; there can be no penetration of objects, as it were, in our hearts, nor any vacuity in them: our mind no more than our body can be in feveral places, or tend several ways, or abide in perfect reft; yet somewhere it will always be; fomewhither it will always go; fomewhat it will ever be doing. If we have a treafure here, (fome- Matt. vi. 21. what we greatly like and much confide in,) our hearts will be here with it; and if here, they cannot be otherwhere; they will be taken up; they will reft fatisfied; they will not care to feek farther. If we affect worldly glory, and John v. 44. delight in the applause of men, we fhall not be fo careful xii. 43. to please God, and feek his favour. If we admire and re- Mat. vi. 24. pose confidence in riches, it will make us neglectful of God, and distrustful of his providence: if our mind thirsts Rom. viii. 5. after, and fucks in greedily fenfual pleasures, we shall not relish spiritual delights, attending the practice of virtue and piety, or arifing from good confcience: adhering to, attending upon masters of so different, so oppofite a quality is inconfiftent; they cannot abide peaceably together, hey cannot both rule in our narrow breasts; we fhall love and hold to the one, hate and despise the other. If any 1 Johnii.15. nan love the world, the love of the Father is not in him; the ove of the world, as the present guest, so occupies and fills the room, that it will not admit, cannot hold the love of God. But when the heart is discharged and emptied of hese things; when we begin to defpife them as bafe and

SERM. vain; to diftafte them as infipid and unfavoury; then naXLVII. turally will fucceed a defire after other things promifing a

16.

more folid content; and defire will breed endeavour; and endeavour (furthered by God's affistance always ready to back it) will yield such a glimpse and taste of those things, as will fo comfort and fatisfy our minds, that thereby they will be drawn and engaged into a more earneft profecution of them. When, I fay, driving on ambitious projects. heaping up wealth, providing for the flesh, (by our reflecting on the shortness and frailty of our life,) become fo infipid to us, that we find little appetite to them, or relifh in them; our reftlefs minds will begin to hunger and thirst after righteoufnefs, defiring fome fatisfaction thence: difcernLuke xv. ing thefe fecular and carnal fruitions to be mere husks, (the proper food of fwine,) we fhall bethink ourselves of that better nourishment (of rational or spiritual comfort) which our Father's houfe doth afford to his children and fervants. Being fomewhat difentangled from the care of our farms and our traffics; from yoking our oxen, and being marMat. xxii. 5. ried to our prefent delights; we may be at leisure, and in difpofition to comply with divine invitations to entertainments fpiritual. Experiencing that our trade about these petty commodities turns to fmall account, and that in the end we shall be nothing richer thereby; reafon will induce Matt. xiii. us, with the merchant in the Gospel, to fell all that we have (to forego our present interefts and defigns) for the purchafing that rich pearl of God's kingdom, which will yield fo exceeding profit; the gain of prefent comfort to our confcience, and eternal happiness to our fouls. In Heb. xiii. fine, when we confider feriously, that we have here no abiding city, but are only fojourners and pilgrims upcr earth; that all our care and pain here do regard only an uncertain and tranfitory ftate; and will therefore fuddenly as to all fruit and benefit be loft unto us; this will fugget Heb. xi. 16. unto us, with the good patriarchs, xpeíttovos ópéyeo Gaι zazpidos, to long after a better country; a more affured and lafting ftate of life; where we may enjoy fome certain and durable repofe; to tend homeward, in our defires and hopes, toward thofe eternal manfions of joy and reft prepared for God's

46.

14.

1 Pet. ii. 11.

faithful fervants in heaven. Thus will this confideration SER M. help toward the bringing us to inquire after and regard XLVII. the things concerning our future ftate; and in the refult will engage us to compare them with these present things, as to our concernment in them and the confequence of them to our advantage or damage, whence a right judgment and a congruous practice will naturally follow. There be four ways of comparing the things relating to this prefent life with thofe which respect our future state: comparing the goods of this with the goods of that; the evils of this with the evils of that; the goods of this with the evils of that; the evils of this with the goods of that. All these comparisons we may find often made in Scripture; in order to the informing our judgment about the refpective value of both forts; the prefent confideration intervening, as a standard to measure and try them by.

First, then; comparing the prefent goods with those which concern our future ftate, fince the tranfitorinefs and uncertainty of temporal goods detract from their worth, and render them in great degree contemptible; but the durability and certainty of fpiritual goods doth increase their rate, and make them exceedingly valuable; it is evident hence, that spiritual goods are infinitely to be preferred in our opinion, to be more willingly embraced, to be more zealously pursued, than temporal goods; that, in cafe of competition, when both cannot be enjoyed, we are in reafon obliged readily to part with all thefe, rather than to forfeit our title unto, or hazard our hope of those. Thus in the Scripture it is often difcourfed: The world, faith St. 1 John ii. John, paffeth away, and the defire thereof; but he that do- 17. eth the will of God, abideth for ever. The world, and all that is defirable therein, is tranfient; but obedience to God's commandments is of an everlafting confequence; whence he infers, that we should not love the world; that is, not entertain fuch an affection thereto, as may any way prejudice the love of God, or hinder the obedience fpringing thence, or fuitable thereto.

All flesh is grafs, faith St. Peter, and all the glory of 1 Pet. i. 24. man as the flower of the grafs; the grafs withereth, and the