tell whether we shall eat to-morrow, or whether a squinzy shall choke us: and it is written in the unrevealed folds of Divine predestination, that many who are this day alive shall to-morrow be laid upon the cold earth, and the women shall weep over their shroud, and dress them for their funeral. S. James in his Epistle notes the folly of some men, his contemporaries, who were so impatient of the event of to-morrow, or the accidents of next year, or the good or evils of old age, that they would consult astrologers and witches, oracles and devils, what should befall them the next calends; what should be the event of such a voyage, what God had written in His book concerning the success of battles, the election of Emperors, the heir of families, the price of merchandise, the return of the Tyrian fleet, the rate of Sidonian carpets and as they were taught by the crafty and lying demons, so they would expect the issue P; and oftentimes by disposing their affairs in order toward such events, really did produce some little accidents according to their expectation; and that made them trust the oracles in greater things, and in all. Against this he opposes his counsel, that we should not search after forbidden records, much less by uncertain significations for whatsoever is disposed to happen by the order of natural causes or civil counsels, may be rescinded by a peculiar decree of Providence, or be prevented by the death of the interested persons; who, while their hopes are full, and their causes conjoined, and the work brought forward, and the sickle put into the harvest, and the first fruits offered and ready to be eaten, even then if they put forth their : P James iv. 16. a James iv. 13, 15. hand to an event that stands but at the door, at that door their body may be carried forth to burial, before the expectation shall enter into fruition. When Richilda the widow of Albert Earl of Ebersberg had feasted the Emperor Henry III., and petitioned in behalf of her nephew Welpho for some lands formerly possessed by the earl her husband; just as the Emperor held out his hand to signify his consent, the chamber-floor suddenly fell under them, and Richilda falling upon the edge of a bathing vessel was bruised to death, and stayed not to see her nephew sleep in those lands which the Emperor was reaching forth to her, and placed at the door of restitution. 3. As our hopes must be confined, so must our designs: let us not project long designs, crafty plots, and diggings so deep that the intrigues of a design shall never be unfolded till our grand-children have forgotten our virtues or our vices. The work of our soul is cut short, facile, sweet, and plain, and fitted to the small portions of our shorter life: and as we must not trouble our enquiry, so neither must we intricate our labour and purposes with what we shall never enjoy. This rule does not forbid us to plant orchards which shall feed our nephews with their fruit; for by such provisions they do something towards an imaginary immortality, and do charity to their relatives: but such projects are reproved, which discompose our present duty by long and future designs; such, which, by casting our labours to events at distance, make us less to remember our Death standing at the door. It is Certa amittimus, dum incerta petimus: atque hoc evenit Plaut. Pseud. Act ii. Scen. 3. fit for a man to work for his day's wages, or to contrive for the hire of a week, or to lay a train to make provisions for such a time as is within our eye, and in our duty, and within the usual periods of man's life; for whatsoever is made necessary, is also made prudent but while we plot and busy ourselves in the toils of an ambitious war, or the levies of a great estate, night enters in upon us, and tells all the world how like fools we lived, and how deceived and miserably we died. Seneca tells of Senecio Cornelius, a man crafty in getting and tenacious in holding a great estate, and one who was as diligent in the care of his body as of his money, curious of his health as of his possessions; that he all day long attended upon his sick and dying friend; but when he went away was quickly comforted, supped merrily, went to bed cheerfully, and on a sudden being surprised by a squinzy, scarce drew his breath until the morning, but by that time died, being snatched from the torrent of his fortune, and the swelling tide of wealth, and a likely hope bigger than the necessities of ten men. This accident was much noted then in Rome, because it happened in so great a fortune, and in the midst of wealthy designs; and presently it made wise men to consider, how imprudent a person he is, who disposes of ten years to come, when he is not lord of to-morrow. 4. Though we must not look so far off, and pry abroad, yet we must be busy near at hand: we must with all arts of the spirit seize upon the present, because it passes from us while we speak, and because in it all our certainty does consist. We must take our waters as out of a torrent and sudden shower, which will quickly cease dropping from above, and quickly cease running in our channels here below: This instant will never return again, and yet it may be this instant will declare or secure the fortune of a whole eternity. The old Greeks and Romans taught us the prudence of this rule: but Christianity teaches us the Religion of it. They so seized upon the present, that they would lose nothing of the day's pleasure.. Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall diet, that was their philosophy; and at their solemn feasts they would talk of death to heighten the present drinking, and that they might warm their veins with a fuller chalice, as knowing the drink that was poured upon their graves would be cold and without relish. Break the beds, drink your wine, crown your heads with roses, and besmear your curled locks with nard; for God bids you to remember death: so the epigrammatist" speaks the sense of their drunken principles. Something towards this signification is that of Solomon; There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour; for that is his portion; for who shall bring him to see that which shall be after him? But although he concludes all this to be vanity, yet because it was the best thing that was then commonly known*, that they should seize upon the present with a temperate use of permitted pleasures, I had reason to say that Christianity taught us to turn this into religion. For he that by a present and constant holiness secures the present, and makes it useful to his noblest purposes, he turns his condition into his best advantage, ⚫ Ætate fruere, mobili cursu fugit.-Seneca. Martial., 1. ii. epig. 59. 'Amici, dum vivimus, vivamus t 1 Cor. xv. 32-34. Eccl. ii. 24; iii. 22. by making his unavoidable fate become his necessary religion. To the purpose of this rule is that collect of Tuscan Hieroglyphics, which we have from Gabriel Simeon. "Our life is very short, beauty is a cozenage, money is false and fugitive; empire is odious and hated by them that have it not, and uneasy to them that have ; victory is always uncertain, and peace most commonly is but a fraudulent bargain, old age is miserable, death is the period, and is a happy one, if it be not soured by the sins of our life: but nothing continues but the effects of that wisdom which employs the present time in the acts of a holy religion, and a peaceable conscience" for they make us to live even beyond our funerals, embalmed in the spices and odours of a good name, and entombed in the grave of the Holy Jesus, where we shall be dressed for a blessed resurrection to the state of Angels and beatified Spirits. 5. Since we stay not here, being people but of a day's abode, and our age is like that of a fly, and contemporary with a gourd, we must look somewhere else for an abiding city, a place in another country to fix our house in, whose walls and foundation is God", where we must find rest a, or else be restless for ever. For whatsoever ease we can have or fancy here, is shortly to be changed into sadness, or tediousness: it goes away too soon, like the periods of our life; or stays too long, like the sorrows of a sinner: its own weariness, or a contrary disturbance, is its load; or it is eased by its revolution into vanity and forgetfulness and where either there is sorrow or an end of joy, there can be no true felicity; which, because it Heb. xiii. 14. Heb. xi. 16, 10. a Heb. iv. 9. |