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SERM. To know the determinate time of our life, or to know certainly that our life fhall not exceed fuch a term (which was the cafe of the Ifraelites in the wilderness) is a very awakening thing, and does commonly roufe men more than the general confideration of our own frailty and mortality. And yet to a wife and confiderate man, it ought in reason to be the fame for that which will certainly be, ought to be reckoned upon and provided for; and if it be uncertain when it will be, whether at fome diftance, or the next moment, we ought presently to take care about it, and to be always in a readiness for it, lest we should be furprised and overtaken.

And then this prayer is as proper for us, as it was for Mofes and the Ifraelites, tho' we are not juft under the fame circumftances that they were. They were under a peremptory fentence of death within "forty years," and none of them knew how much fooner they might be taken away: and this is not much different from our cafe; for we are liable to death at any time, every day, every moment; and how few of us in this congregation can reafonably either hope, or expect to have our lives prolonged beyond the term of "forty years?" nay, it is very probable, that not one of us in an hundred will hold out fo long. And then this prayer may be as fit for us, as it was for Mofes and the Ifraelites, that GOD would teach us fo to number our days," that is, to make fuch an account of the fhortness and uncertainty of our lives, and fo to confider and lay to heart our latter end, "that we may apply our hearts unto wifdom," that is, that we may manage and conduct this frail, and fhort, and uncertain life, in the best manner, and to the wifeft purposes.

And

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And this confideration of our latter end was al- SERM. ways esteemed by the wifeft men, a principal part and main point of wifdom. Socrates, who was by the general confent of wife men (a more infallible oracle, than that of Apollo) esteemed the wifest of all the philofophers, gives us this definition of philofophy, that "it is the meditation or study of death;' to intimate to us, that this is true wisdom, to be much in the thought of our latter end, and in a conftant readiness and preparation for it. And this a greater than Socrates had long before him obferved to be a chief point of wisdom, I mean Mofes the man of GOD, that divine perfon and prince of the ancient prophets, not only in this pfalm, but also in his last divine fong, a little before his death, in which he makes this the fum of all his wishes for the people of Ifrael, that GoD would endow them with this high point of wisdom, Deut. xxxii. 29. "O that they were wife, that they understood this, "that they would confider their latter end!" This is true wifdom and philofophy, "to confider "our latter end."

And this, by GoD's affiftance, fhall be the argu ment which I intend to handle from these words; namely, to fhew what influence and effect the ferious confideration of our latter end, and of the fhortnefs and uncertainty of this prefent life, ought in reason to have upon us. And of this I fhall give you an account in thefe following particulars :

I. The meditation of our latter end fhould make us to take into confideration our whole lives, and our whole duration, that we may refolve and a& accordingly. And this is a main point of wisdom, to understand ourselves, and the nature of our be

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SERM. ings, of what we confist, and for what duration we are defigned; whether we confift only of matter a little better fashioned and moulded, and made up into a more curious and complicated engine, confisting of many fecret and hidden fprings and wheels, and fitted for greater variety of motions, and for more fine and fubtile operations, than the bodies of those other, creatures which we esteem below us: or whether we be endowed with a fpiritual principle, wholly distinct from matter, and capable not only of fenfe, but of acts of reason, and of the impreffions of religion, from the apprehenfions of a deity and a fuperior being that is of itself, and made us and all other things. In a word, whether we shall "die like beafts;" or whether there be " an im"mortal spirit within us," which hath no dependence upon matter and the bodily and visible part of ourselves, but is a much better and enduring "fubftance," which hath no principle of corruption in itself, but fhall furvive these perifhing bodies, and when they are mouldered into duft, fhall fubfift in a happy or miferable condition, according as we have behaved ourfelves in this world.

For these are two very different hypotheses and schemes of things, and ought to affect us very differently, and to infpire us with different refolutions, and to put us upon a quite contrary method and conduct of our lives.

For on the one hand, if we be well affured, that we shall be utterly extinguished by death," like "the beafts that perish," then we have nothing to care of but of our bodies, because we are nothing elfe; then we need not to extend our thoughts, our hopes, or fears, beyond this world, and this present

life; because we have nothing to do, but to please SERM, ourselves with prefent enjoyments, and to live fo with CLXXXVIII other men, as may make most for our temporal

quiet, and fatisfaction, and fecurity.

But then we are to confider very well, whether these things be certainly fo, and whether we may rely upon it, and whether it will bear all that weight which we lay upon it; whether these principles will not fail us, when we come most to ftand in need of the comfort and fupport of them, and when death is in view, and making up towards us, quite vanish and difappear because it is of infinite confequence to us, to be well affured of this, fince our happiness or misery to all eternity depends upon it. And therefore nothing less than a demonftration of the impoffibility of the thing, of our having immortal spirits that shall survive our bodies, and subsist apart from them, and be extremely miserable or happy in another world; I fay, nothing but a demonstration of the impoffibility of this, ought to be fatisfaction to us in a cafe of fo great danger, and upon which fo much does depend.

Fo if there be a poffibility on the other fide, of our having immortal fouls, which shall live for ever in another world, nothing can acquit us from the greatest imprudence, if we should neglect to take care of that better and more lafting part of ourselves, and to provide for that duration which fhall never have an end.

And therefore if the fuppofition of the foul's immortality be infinitely more probable, as better agreeing with all the notions which men have of GOD and his providence, and with the natural defires, and hopes, and fears of mankind, and as most fuitable

SERM. fuitable to all our capacities and expectations, and to CLXXXVIII the general opinion and confent of wife men in all, ages; then it is infinitely more fafe, and confequently more wife, to proceed upon this fuppofition, and to provide and act accordingly.

Thus to number our days," that is, to make fuch an account of the shortness and uncertainty of this life, as to employ it mainly in the care and preparation for a better life, will engage us effectually in the business of religion. And this, perhaps, is the meaning of this phrafe in the text, of " ap"plying our hearts to wisdom," according to that of Job, Job xxviii. 28. "But unto man he said, be"hold the fear of the LORD, that is wisdom;" as if he had faid, this is the true wisdom, the great excellency and perfection of humane nature is religion, the lively fenfe and firm belief of a deity, and a carriage and demeanour fuitable to that belief; and that man is well taught, and rightly instructed in the great bufinefs and concernment of this life, and makes a wife reckoning and account of the shortness and uncertainty of it, who applies himself to the business of religion: for this is the fundamental principle of wisdom, by which our whole life, and all the actions of it, ought to be governed and conducted.

So that if we have immortal fpirits, which fhall live and continue for ever; we cannot in reason but take our whole life and our whole duration into confideration. And if we do fo, we can never juftify it to ourselves, to employ all our care and time about the worst and more ignoble part of ourselves, and to make provision only for the few days of our pilgrimage here in this world, without any regard to that

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