thou sleep O Sluggard when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep We may be so often called on and 't is not easie to awaken us when we are got into a spiritual slumber but when we are dead in trespasses and sins so that all breath of holy affection is stopt and no spiritual pulse from our heart doth appear that all sense of duty is lost all appetite to good doth fail no strength or activity to move in a good course doth exert it self that our good complexion is dissolved and all our finer spirits are dissipated that our mind is quite crazed and all its Powers are shattered or spoiled when thus I say we are spiritually dead how can we raise our selves what beneath omnipotency can effect it as a stick when once 't is dry and stiff you may break it but you can never bend it into a streighter posture so doth the Man become incorrigible who is settled and stiffned in vice The stain of habitual sin may sink in so deep and so thoroughly tincture all our Soul that we may be like those People of whom the Prophet saith Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the Leopard his spots then may ye do good that are accustomed to doe evil Such an impossibility may arise from nature one greater and more insuperable may come from God To an effectual repentance the succour of divine grace is necessary but that is arbitrarily dispensed the spirit bloweth where it listeth yet it listeth wisely with regard both to the past behaviour and present capacities of Men so that to such who have abused it and to such who will not treat it well it shall not be imparted And can we be well assured can we reasonably hope that after we by our presumptuous delays have put off God and dallied with his grace after that he long in vain hath waited to be gratious after that he hath endured so many neglects and so many repulses from us after that we frequently have slighted his open invitations and smothered his kindly motions in us in short after we so unworthily have misused his goodness and patience that he farther will vouchsafe his grace to us when we have forfeited it when we have rejected it when we have spurned and driven it away can we hope to recover it There is a time a season a day allotted to us our day it is termed a day of salvation the season of our visitation an acceptable time wherein God freely doth exhibit grace and presenteth his mercy to us if we let this day slip the night cometh when no man can work when the things belonging to our peace will be hidden from our eyes when as the Prophet expresseth it we shall grope for the wall like the blind and stumble at noon-day as in the night and be in desolate places as dead men after that day is spent and that comfortable light is set a dismal night of darkness of cold of disconsolateness will succeed when God being weary of bearing with Men doth utterly desert them and delivereth them over to a reprobate mind when subtracting his gratious direction and assistence he giveth them over to their own hearts lusts and to walk in their own counsels when they are brought to complain with those in the Prophet O Lord why hast thou made us to err from thy ways and hardned our heart from thy fear when like Pharaoh they survive only as objects of God's justice or occasions to glorify his power when like Esau they cannot find a place of repentance although they seek it carefully with tears when as to the foolish loitering Virgins the door of mercy is shut upon them when the master of the house doth rise and shut the door c. when that menace of divine wisedom cometh to be executed They shall call upon me but I will not answer they shall seek me early but they shall not find me for that they hated knowledge and did not chuse the fear of the Lord And if neglecting our season and present means we once fall into this state then is our case most deplorable we are dead Men irreversibly doomed and only for a few moments reprieved from the stroak of final vengeance we are vessels of wrath fitted or made up for destruction by a fatal blindness and obduration sealed up to ruine we are like the terra damnata that earth in the Apostle which drinking up the rain that cometh oft upon it and bearing thorns and briars is rejected and is nigh unto cursing and whose end is to be burned Wherefore according to the advice of the Prophet Seek ye the Lord when he may be found call ye upon him while he is near It is true that God is ever ready upon our true conversion to receive us into favour that his arms are always open to embrace a sincere Penitent that he hath declared whenever a wicked man turneth from his wickedness and doeth that which is right he shall save his soul alive that if we do wash our selves make us clean put away the evil of our doings and cease to do evil then although our sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow though they be like crimson they shall be as wool that if we rend our hearts and turn unto the Lord he is gratious and mercifull and will repent of the evil that God is good and ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy unto all that call upon him that whenever a prodigal Son with humble confession and hearty contrition for his sin doth arise and go to his father he will embrace him tenderly and entertain him kindly that even a profane Apostate and a bloody Oppressour as Manasses a lewd Strumpet as Magdalene a notable Thief as he upon the Cross a timorous Renouncer as St. Peter a furious Persecutour as St. Paul a stupid Idolater as all the Heathen World when the Gospel came to them was the most heinous Sinner that ever hath been or can be imagined to be if he be disposed to repent is capable of mercy those declarations and promises are infallibly true those instances peremptorily do evince that repentance is never super-annuated that if we can turn at all we shall not turn too late that poenitentia nunquam sera modo seria is an irrefragable rule yet nevertheless delay is very unsafe for what assurance can we have that God hereafter will enable us to perform those conditions of bewailing our sins and forsaking them have we not cause rather to fear that he will chastise our presumption by withholding his Grace for although God faileth not to yield competent aids to Persons who have not despised his goodness and long-suffering that leadeth them to repentance yet he that wilfully or wantonly loitereth away the time and squandereth the means allowed him who refuseth to come when God calleth yea woeth
his earth in that very day his thoughts perish There is no work nor device nor knowledge nor wisedom in the grave whither he goeth 'T is seen saith the Psalmist seen indeed every day and observed by all that wise men dye likewise the fool and brutish person perisheth one event happeneth to them both there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever both dye alike both alike are sorgotten as the wisest man himself did not without some distast observe and complain All our subtile conceits and nice criticisms all our fine inventions and goodly speculations shall be swallowed up either in the utter darkness or in the clearer light of the future state One Potion of that Lethean cup which we must all take down upon our entrance into that land of forgetfulness will probably drown the memory deface the shape of all those Idea's with which we have here stuffed our minds however they are not like to be of use to us in that new so different state where none of our languages are spoken none of our experience will suit where all things have quite another face unknown unthought of by us Where Aristotle and Varro shall appear mere Idiots Demosthenes and Cicero shall become very insants the wisest and eloquentest Greeks will prove senseless and dumb Barbarians where all our Authours shall have no authority where we must all go fresh to school again must unlearn perhaps what in these misty regions we thought our selves best to know and begin to learn what we not once ever dream'd of Doth therefore I pray you so transitory and fruitless a good for it self I mean and excepting our duty to God or the reasonable diligence we are bound to use in our calling deserve such anxious desire or so restless toil so carefull attention of mind or assiduous pain of body about it Doth it become us to contend or emulate so much about it Above all do we not most unreasonably and against the nature of the thing it self we pretend to that is ignorantly and foolishly if we are proud and conceited much value our selves or contemn others in respect thereto Solomon the most experienc'd in this matter and best able to judge thereof He that gave his heart to seek and search out by wisedom concerning all things that had been done under Heaven and this with extream success even he passeth the same sentence of vanity vexation and unprofitableness upon this as upon all other subcelestial things True he commends wisedom as an excellent and usefull thing comparatively exceeding folly so far as light exceedeth darkness But since light it self is not permanent but must give way to darkness the difference soon vanished and his opinion thereos abated considering that as it happened to the fool so it happened to him he breaks into that expostulation And why then was I more wise to what purpose was such a distinction made that signified in effect so little And indeed the Testimony of this great personage may serve for a good Epilogue to all this discourse discovering sufficiently the slender worth of all earthly things Seeing he that had given himself industriously to experiment the worth of all things here below to sound the depth of their utmost perfection and use who had all the advantages imaginable of performing it Who flourished in the greatest magnificences of worldly pomp and power who enjoyed an incredible affluence of all riches who tasted all varieties of most exquisite pleasure whose heart was by God's special gift and by his own industrious care enlarged with all kind of knowledge furnished with notions many as the sand upon the sea shore above all that were before him who had possessed and enjoyed all that fancy could conceive or heart could wish and had arrived to the top of secular Happiness Yet even He with pathetical reiteration pronounces all to be vanity and vexation of spirit altogether unprofitable and unsatisfactory to the mind of Man And so therefore we may justly conclude them to be so finishing the first grand advantage this present consideration affordeth us in order to that wisedom to which we should apply our hearts I should proceed to gather other good fruits which it is apt to produce and contribute to the same purpose but since my thoughts have taken so large scope upon that former head so that I have already too much I fear exercised your patience I shall onely mention the rest As this consideration doth as we have seen First dispose us rightly to value these temporal goods and moderate our affections about them so it doth Secondly in like manner conduce to the right estimation of temporal evils and thereby to the well tempering our passions in the resentment of them to the begetting of patience and contentedness in our minds Also Thirdly it may help us to value and excite us to regard those things good or evil which relate to our future state being the things onely of a permanent nature and of an everlasting consequence to us Fourthly It will engage us to husband carefully and well employ this short time of our present life Not to defer or procrastinate our endeavours to live well not to be lazy and loitering in the dispatch of our onely considerable business relating to eternity to embrace all opportunities and improve all means and follow the best compendiums of good practice leading to eternal bliss Fifthly It will be apt to confer much toward the begetting and preserving sincerity in our thoughts words and actions causing us to decline all oblique designs upon present mean interests or base regards to the opinions or affections of men bearing single respects to our conscience and duty in our actions Teaching us to speak as we mean and be what we would seem to be in our hearts and in our closets what we appear in our outward expressions and conversations with Men For considering that within a very short time all the thoughts of our hearts shall be disclosed and all the actions of our lives exposed to publick view being strictly to be examined at the great bar of divine judgment before Angels and Men we cannot but perceive it to be the greatest folly in the World for this short present time to disguise our selves to conceal our intentions or smother our actions What hath occurred upon these important subjects to my meditation I must at present in regard to your patience omit I shall close all with that good Collect of our Church Almighty God give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness and put upon us the armour of light now in the time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility that in the last day when he shall come again in his glorious Majesty to judge both the quick and the dead we may rise to the life immortal through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy
our hearts with passion so wast our spirits with incessant toil about these transitory things why do we so highly value so ardently desire so eagerly pursue so fondly delight in so impatiently want or lose so passionately contend for and emulate one another in regard to these bubbles forseiting and foregoing our homebred most precious goods tranquillity and repose either of mind or body for them Why erect we such mighty fabricks of expectation and confidence upon such unsteady sands Why dress we up these our Inns as if they were our homes and are as carefull about a few nights lodging here as if we designed an everlasting aboad we that are but sojourners and pilgrims here and have no fixed habitation upon earth who come forth like a flower and are soon cut down flee like a shadow and continue not are winds passing away and coming not again who fade all like a leaf whose life is a vapour appearing for a little time and then vanishing away whose days are a handbreadth and age as nothing whose days are consumed like smoak and years are spent as a tale Who wither like the grass upon which we feed and crumble as the dust of which we are compacted for thus the Scripture by apposite comparisons represents our condition yet we build like the Men of Agrigentum as if we were to dwell here for ever and hoard up as if we were to enjoy after many ages and inquire as if we would never have done knowing The Citizens of Croton a Town in Italy had a manner it is said of inviting to Feasts a Year before the time that the Guests in appetite and garb might come well prepared to them do we not usually resemble them in this ridiculous solicitude and curiosity spes inchoando longas commencing designs driving on projects which a longer time than our life would not suffice to accomplish How deeply do we concern our selves in all that is said or done when the morrow all will be done away and forgotten when excepting what our duty to God and charity towards men requires of us and that which concerns our future eternal state what is done in the World who gets or loses which of the spokes in fortune's wheel is up and which down is of very little consequence to us But the more to abstract our minds from and temper our affections about these secular matters let us examine particularly by this standard whether the most valued things in this World deserve that estimate which they bear in the common Market or which popular opinion assigns them 1. To begin then with that which takes chief place which the World most dotes on which seems most great and eminent among men secular state and grandeur might and prowess honour and reputation favour and applause of men all the objects of humane pride and ambition of this kind St. Peter thus pronounces 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All the glory of the men is as the flower of the grass the grass is dried up and the flower thereof doth fall off 't is as the flower of the grass how specious so ever yet the most fading and failing part thereof the grass it self will soon wither and the flower doth commonly fall off before that We cannot hold this flower of worldly glory beyond our short time of life and we may easily much sooner be deprived of it Many tempests of fortune may beat it down many violent hands may crop it 't is apt of its self to fade upon the stalk how-ever the Sun the influence of age and time will assuredly burn and dry it up with our life that upholds it Surely saith the Psalmist men of low degree are vanity and men of high degree are a lye Men of high degree the mighty Princes the famous Captains the subtile Statesmen the grave Senatours they who turn and toss about the World at their pleasure who in the Prophet's language make the Earth tremble and shake Kingdoms Even these they are a lie said he who himself was none of the least considerable among them and by experience well knew their condition the greatest and most glorious Man of his time King David They are a lie that is their state presents something of brave and admirable to the eye of Men but 't is onely deceptio visus a shew without a substance it doth but delude the careless spectatours with false appearance it hath nothing under it solid or stable being laid in the balance the royal Prophet there subjoins that is being weighed in the scales of right judgment being thoroughly considered it will prove lighter than vanity it self it is less valuable than mere emptiness and nothing it self that saying sounds like an hyperbole but it may be true in a strict sense Sceing that the care and pains in maintaining it the fear and jealousie of losing it the envy obloquy and danger that surround it the snares it hath in it and temptations inclining men to be pufft up with Pride to be insolent and injurious to be corrupt with pleasure with other bad concomitants thereof do more than countervail what-ever either of imaginary worth or real convenience may be in it Perhaps could it without much care trouble and hazard continue for ever or for a long time it might be thought somewhat considerable but since its duration is uncertain and short since man in honour abideth not but is like the beasts that perish that they who look so like Gods and are called so and are worshipped as so yet must die like like men yea like sheep shall be laid in the grave Since as 't is said of the King of Babylon in Esay their pomp must be brought down to the grave and the noise of their viols the worm shall be spread under them and the worm shall cover them seeing that a moment of time shall extinguish all their lustre and still all that tumult about them that they must be disrobed of their Purple and be cloathed with Corruption that their so spatious and splendid Palaces must soon be exchanged for close darksome Coffins that both their own breath and the breath of them who now applaud them must be stopped that they who now bow to them may presently trample on them and they who to day trembled at their presence may the morrow scornfully insult upon their memory Is this the man will they say as they did of that great King who made the Earth to tremble that did shake Kingdoms that made the World as a Wilderness and destroyed the Kingdoms thereof Since this is the fate of the greatest and most glorious among Men what reason can there be to admire their condition to prize such vain and short-liv'd preeminences For who can accompt it a great happiness to be styled and respected as a Prince to enjoy all the Powers and Prerogatives of highest dignity for a day or two then being obliged to descend into a sordid and despicable
from troubling and where the weary be at rest where the prisoners rest together they hear not the voice of the oppressour the small and great are there and the servant is free from his Master 'T is therefore but holding out a while and a deliverance from the worst this World can molest us with shall of its own accord arrive unto us in the mean time 't is better that we at present owe the benefit of our comfort to reason than afterward to time by rational consideration to work patience and contentment in our selves and to use the shortness of our life as an argument to sustain us in our assliction than to find the end thereof onely a natural and necessary means of our rescue from it The contemplation of this cannot fail to yield something of courage and solace to us in the greatest pressures these transient and short-liv'd evils if we consider them as so cannot appear such horrid bugbears as much to affright or dismay us if we remember how short they are we cannot esteem them so great or so intolerable There be I must confess divers more noble considerations proper and available to cure discontent and impatience The considering that all these evils proceed from God's just will and wise providence unto which it is fit and we upon all accompts are obliged readily to submit that they do ordinarily come from God's goodness and gratious design towards us that they are medicines although ungratefull yet wholsome administred by the Divine Wisedom to prevent remove or abate our distempers of soul to allay the tumours of pride to cool the fevers of intemperate desire to rouse us from the lethargy of sloath to stop the gangrene of bad conscience that they are fatherly corrections intended to reclaim us from sin and excite us to duty that they serve as instruments or occasions to exercise to try to refine our vertue to beget in us the hope to qualifie us for the reception of better rewards such discourses indeed are of a better nature and have a more excellent kind of efficacy yet no fit help no good art no just weapon is to be quite neglected in the combat against our spiritual foes A Pebble-stone hath been sometimes found more convenient than a Sword or a Spear to slay a Giant Baser remedies by reason of the Patient's constitution or circumstances do sometime produce good effect when others in their own nature more rich and potent want efficacy And surely frequent reflexions upon our mortality and living under the sense of our life's frailty cannot but conduce somewhat to the begetting in us an indifferency of mind toward all these temporal occurents to extenuate both the goods and the evils we here meet with consequently therefore to compose and calm our passions about them III. But I proceed to another use of that consideration we speak of emergent from the former but so as to improve it to higher purposes For since it is usefull to the diminishing our admiration of these worldly things to the withdrawing our affections from them to the slackning our endeavours about them it will follow that it must conduce also to beget an esteem a desire a prosecution of things conducing to our future welfare both by removing the obstacles of doing so and by engaging us to consider the importance of those things in comparison with these By removing obstacles I say for while our hearts are possessed with regard and passion toward these present things there can be no room left in them for respect and affection toward things future 'T is in our soul as in the rest 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 several places or tend several ways or abide in perfect rest yet some-where it will always be some-whither it will always go some-what it will ever be doing If we have a treasure here some-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 rest satisfied they will not care to seek farther If we affect worldly glory and delight in the applause of men we shall not be so carefull to please God and seek his favour If we admire and repose confidence in riches it will make us neglectfull of God and distrustfull of his Providence if our mind thirsts after and sucks in greedily sensual pleasures we shall not relish spiritual delights attending the practice of vertue and piety or arising from good conscience adhering to attending upon Masters of so different so opposite a quality is inconsistent they cannot abide peaceably together they cannot both rule in our narrow breasts we shall love and hold to the one hate and despise the other If any man love the World the love of the Father is not in him the love 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 these things when we begin to despise them as base and vain to distast them as insipid and unsavoury then naturally will succeed a desire after other things promising a more solid content and desire will breed endeavour and endeavour furthered by God's assistence always ready to back it will yeild such a glimps and taste of those things as will so comfort and satisfie our minds that thereby they will be drawn and engaged into a more earnest prosecution of them When I say driving on ambitious Projects heaping up Wealth providing for the flesh by our reflecting on the shortness and frailty of our life become so insipid to us that we find little appetite to them or relish in them our restless minds will begin to hunger and thirst after righteousness desiring some satisfaction thence Discerning these secular and carnal fruitions to be mere husks the proper food of swine we shall bethink our selves of that better nourishment of rational or spiritual comfort which our Fathers house doth afford to his children and servants Being somewhat disentangled from the care of our sarms and our trafficks from yoaking our oxen and being married to our present delights we may be at leisure and in disposition to comply with divine invitations to entertainments spiritual Experiencing that our trade about these petty commodities turns to small accompt and that in the end we shall be nothing richer thereby reason will induce us with the Merchant in the Gospel to sell all that we have to forego our present interests and designs for the purchasing that rich Pearl of God's Kingdom which will yeild so exceeding profit the gain of present comfort to our conscience and eternal happiness to our souls In fine when we consider seriously that we have here no abiding City but are onely sojourners and pilgrims
length and that within a very short time no man knows how soon the whispers of every mouth the closest murmurs of detraction slander and sycophantry shall become audible to every ear the abstrusest thoughts of all hearts the closest malice and envy shall be disclosed in the most publick Theatre before innumerable spectatours the truth of all pretences shall be throughly examined the just merit of every Person and every cause shall with a most exact scrutiny be scann'd openly in the face of all the World to what purpose can it be to juggle or basfle for a time for a few days perhaps for a few minutes to abuse or to amuse those about us with crafty dissimulation or deceit Is it worth the pains to devise plausible shifts which shall instantly we know be detected and defeated to bedaub foul designs with a fair varnish which death will presently wipe off to be dark and cloudy in our proceedings whenas a clear day that will certainly dispel all darkness and scatter all mists is breaking in upon us to make vizors for our faces and cloaks for our actions whenas we must very shortly be exposed perfectly naked and undisguised in our true colours to the general view of Angels and Men Heaven sees at present what we think and doe and our conscience cannot be wholly ignorant or insensible nor can Earth it self be long unacquainted therewith Is it not much better and more easie since it requires no pains or study to act our selves than to accommodate our selves to other unbeseeming and undue parts to be upright in our intentions consistent in our discourses plain in our dealings following the single and uniform guidance of our reason and conscience than to shuffle and shift wandring after the various uncertain and inconstant opinions or humours of men What matter is it what cloaths we wear what garb we appear in during this posture of travel and sojourning here what for the present we go for how men esteem us what they think of our actions St. Paul at least did not much stand upon it for with me said he 't is a very small thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the least thing that can come under consideration to be judged of you or of humane day that is of this present transitory fallible reversible judgment of men If we mean well and doe righteously our conscience will at present satisfie us and the divine unerring and impartial sentence will hereafter acquit us no unjust or uncharitable censure shall prejudice us if we entertain base designs and deal unrighteously as our conscience will accuse and vex us here so God will shortly condemn and punish us neither shall the most favourable conceit of men stand us in stead Every man's work shall become manifest for the day shall declare it becuase it shall be revealed by fire and the fire that is a severe and strict inquiry shall try every man's work of what sort it is I cannot insist more on this Point I shall onely say that considering the brevity and uncertainty of our present state the greatest simplicity may justly be deemed the truest wisedom that who deceives others doth cozen himself most that the deepest policy used to compass or to conceal bad designs will in the end appear the most downright folly I might add to the precedent discourses that Philosophy it self hath commended this consideration as a proper and powerfull instrument of vertue reckoning the practice thereof a main part of wisedom the greatest proficient therein in common esteem Socrates having desined Philosophy or the study of wisedom to be nothing else but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the study of death intimating also in Plato's Phoedon that this study the meditation of death and preparation of his mind to leave this World had been the constant and chief employment of his life That likewise according to experience nothing more avails to render the minds of men sober and well composed than such spectacles of Mortality as do impress this consideration upon them For whom doth not the sight of a Coffin or of a Grave gaping to receive a friend perhaps an ancient Acquaintance however a man in nature and state altogether like our selves of the mournfull looks and habits of all the sad pomps and solemnities attending man unto his long home by minding him of his own frail condition affect with some serious some honest some wise thoughts And if we be reasonable men we may every day supply the need of such occasions by representing to our selves the necessity of our soon returning to the dust dressing in thought our own Herses and celebrating our own Funerals by living under the continual apprehension and sense of our transitory and uncertain condition dying daily or becoming already dead unto this World The doing which effectually being the gift of God and an especial work of his Grace let us of him humbly implore it saying after the Holy Prophet Lord so teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisedom Amen SERMON III. The Danger and mischief of delaying Repentance PSALM CXIX 60. I made haste and delayed not to keep thy Commandments THIS Psalm no less excellent in vertue than large in bulk containeth manifold reflexions upon the nature the properties the adjuncts and effects of God's Law many sprightly ejaculations about it conceived in different forms of speech some in way of petition some of thanksgiving some of resolution some of assertion or aphorism many usefull directions many zealous exhortations to the observance of it the which are not ranged in any strict order but like a variety of fair flowers and wholesome herbs in a wild field do with a gratefull confusion lie dispersed as they freely did spring up in the heart or were suggested by the devout spirit of him who indited the Psalm whence no coherence of sentences being designed we may consider any one of them absolutely or singly by it self Among them that which I have picked out for the subject of my discourse implieth an excellent rule of practice authorised by the Psalmist's example it is propounded in way of devotion or immediate address to God unto whose infallible knowledge his conscience maketh an appeal concerning his practice not as boasting thereof but as praising God for it unto whose gratious instruction and succour he frequently doth ascribe all his performances But the manner of propounding I shall not insist upon the rule it self is that speedily without any procrastination or delay we should apply our selves to the observance of God's Commandments the practice of which rule it shall be my endeavour to recommend and press It is a common practice of men that are engaged in bad courses which their own conscience discerneth and disapproveth to adjourn the reformation of their lives to a farther time so indulging themselves in the present commission of sin that yet they would seem to purpose and promise themselves hereafter to repent and take