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SERM. perance, that, at the last, it biteth like a serpent, and XLVI. flingeth like an adder; with us, I fay, who reflect thus, Prov. xxii. that (πρόσκαιρος ἁμαρτίας ἀπόλαυσις) enjoyment of finful pleasure for a feafon cannot obtain much esteem and love; but will rather, I hope, be despised and abhorred by us. I will add only,

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Heb. xi. 25.

Δοκεῖ γᾶν ἡ σοφία θαν

X. 7.

4. Concerning fecular wisdom and knowledge; the asas davàs which men do alfo commonly with great earnestness and xx- ambition feek after, as the most fpecious ornament, and ριότητι, καὶ Bai. pure content of their mind; this confideration doth also Arift. Eth. detect the juft value thereof; fo as to allay intemperate ardour toward it, pride and conceitedness upon the having or feeming to have it, envy and emulation about it. For imagine, if you please, a man accomplished with all varieties of learning commendable, able to recount all the ftories that have been ever written, or the deeds acted, fince the world's beginning; to understand, or with the moft delightful fluency and elegancy to speak all the languages, that have at any time been in use among the fons of men; skilful in twisting and untwisting all kinds of subtilties; versed in all forts of natural experiments, and ready to affign plaufible conjectures about the causes of them; ftudied in all books whatever, and in all monuments of antiquity; deeply knowing in all the mysteries of art, or science, or policy, fuch as have ever been devised by human wit, or study, or observation; yet all this, fuch is the pity, he must be forced presently to abandon; all the ufe he could make of all his notions, the pleasure he might find in them, the reputation accruing to him Pf. cxlvi.4. from them, must at that fatal minute vanish; his breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, in that very day his Eccl. ix. 10, thoughts perish. There is no work, nor device, nor know

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ledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither he goeth. It is Pfal. xlix. Seen, faith the Pfalmift, feen indeed every day, and observed by all, that wife men die, likewife the fool and bruEccl.ii. 14, tifh perfon perisheth; one event happeneth to them both; there is no remembrance of the wife more than of the fool for ever; (both die alike, both alike are forgotten;) as the wifest man himself did (not without some distaste) obferve

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and complain. All our fubtile conceits and nice criti- SERM. cifms, all our fine inventions and goodly fpeculations, XLVI. shall be swallowed up either in the utter darkness, or in the clearer light of the future ftate. One potion of that Lethean cup (which we must all take down upon our entrance into that land of forgetfulness) will probably Pf. lxxxviii, drown the memory, deface the fhape of all thofe ideas, 12. with which we have here stuffed our mindss: however they are not like to be of use to us in that new, so different, flate; where none of our languages are spoken; none of our experience will fuit; where all things have quite another face unknown, unthought of by us; where Aristotle and Varro shall appear mere idiots; Demofthenes and Cicero fhall become very infants; the wifest and eloquenteft Greeks will prove senseless and dumb barbarians; where all our authors fhall have no authority; where we must all go fresh to school again; muft unlearn, perhaps, what in these mifty regions we thought ourselves best to know, and begin to learn what we not once ever dreamed of. Doth therefore, I pray you, so tranfitory and fruitless a good (for itself I mean and excepting our duty to God, or the reasonable diligence we are bound to use in our calling) deserve fuch anxious defire, or so restless toil; fo careful attention of mind, or affiduous 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 itself we pretend to, (that is, ignorantly and foolishly,) if we are proud and conceited, much value ourselves or contemn others, in respect thereto? Solomon, the most experienced in this matter, and best able to judge thereof, (he that gave his heart to feek and fearch out by wisdom concerning all things, that had been done under heaven, and this with extreme fuccefs; even he,) passeth the fame fentence of vanity, vexation, and unprofitableness, upon this, as upon all other fubcelestial things. True, he commends wifdom as an excellent and

5 Τὴν δ ̓ Ἰσοκράτες διατριβὴν ἐπισκώπτων, γηρᾷν φησι παρ' αὐτῷ τὰς μαθητὰς, ὡς ἐν ᾅδε χρησομένες ταῖς τέχναις, καὶ δίκας ἐρῶντας. Cato Sen. apud Plut. p. 641. Edit. Steph.

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SERM. ufeful thing comparatively; exceeding folly, fo far as XLVI. light exceedeth darkness; but fince light itself is not perΔιπλῶν ὁρῶmanent, but muft give way to darkness, the difference voi adóv-foon vanished, and his opinion thereof abated; confidering, Tsygaμ- that as it happened to the fool, so it happened to him, he Eccl. ii. 15. breaks into that expoftulation; And why then was I more wife? to what purpose was such a distinction made, that fignified in effect so little? And indeed the teftimony of this great perfonage may ferve for a good epilogue to all this discourse, discovering fufficiently the slender worth of all earthly things: seeing he, that had given himself industriously to experiment the worth of all things here below, to found the depth of their utmost perfection and ufe; 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 molt exquifite pleasure; whofe heart was (by God's special gift, and by his own induftrious care) enlarged with all kind of knowledge (fur1 Kings iv. nifhed with notions many as the fand upon the fea-fhore) above all that were before him; who had poffeffed and enjoyed all that fancy could conceive, or heart could wish, and had arrived to the top of fecular happiness; yet even he with pathetical reiteration pronounces all to be vanity and vexation of Spirit; altogether unprofitable and unfatisfactory to the mind of man. And fo therefore we may juftly conclude them to be; fo finishing the first grand advantage this prefent confideration affordeth us in order to that wisdom, to which we should apply our hearts.

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I fhould proceed to gather other good fruits, which it is apt to produce, "and contribute to the fame purpose; but fince my thoughts have taken fo large fcope upon that former head, fo that I have already too much, I fear, exercised your patience, I fhall only mention the reft. As this confideration doth, as we have feen, Firft, dispose us rightly to value these temporal goods, and moderate our affections about them; fo it doth, Secondly, in like manner, conduce to the right estimation of temporal evils; and thereby to the well tempering our paffions in the re

fentment of them; to the begetting of patience and con- SERM. tentedness in our minds. Alfo, Thirdly, it may help us XLVI. to value, and excite us to regard those things, good or evil, which relate to our future ftate; being the things only of a permanent nature, and of an everlasting confequence to us. Fourthly, it will engage us to husband carefully and well employ this fhort 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 only confiderable business, relating to eternity; to embrace all opportunities, and improve all means, and follow the best compendiums of good practice leading to eternal blifs. Fifthly, it will be apt to confer much toward the begetting and preferving fincerity in our thoughts, words, and actions; caufing us to decline all oblique defigns upon prefent mean interests, or base regards to the opinions or affections of men; bearing fingle refpects to our confcience and duty in our actions; teaching us to speak as we mean, and be what we would feem; to be in our hearts and in our closets, what we appear in our outward expreffions and converfations with men. For confidering, that within a very short time all the thoughts of our hearts fhall be disclosed, and all the actions of our lives exposed to public 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 difguife ourfelves; to conceal our intentions, or fmother our actions. What hath occurred, upon these important subjects, to my meditation, I muft at present, in regard to your patience, omit. I fhall clofe all with that good Collect of our Church.

Almighty God, give us grace, that we may caft 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 Jefus Chrift came to vifit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majefty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rife to the life immortal, through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.

SERMON XLVII.

THE CONSIDERATION OF OUR LATTER END.

PSALM XC. 12.

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

SERM. IN difcourfing formerly upon these words, (expounded XLVII. according to the most common and paffable interpretaJob xiv. 14. tion,) that which I chiefly obferved was this: That the All the days ferious confideration of the fhortnefs and frailty of our life is a fit mean or rational inftrument fubfervient to the time will bringing our hearts to wifdom; that is, to the making us my change discern, attend unto, embrace, and profecute fuch things, as according to the dictates of right reason are truly best

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1. The truth of which obfervation I largely declared from hence, that the faid confideration difpofeth us to judge rightly about those goods, (which ordinarily court and tempt us, viz. worldly glory and honour; riches, pleasure, knowledge; to which I might have added wit, ftrength, and beauty,) what their juft worth and value is; and confequently to moderate our affections, our cares, our endeavours about them; for that if all those goods be uncertain and tranfitory, there can be no great reason to prize them much, or to affect them vehemently, or to fpend much care and pains about them.

2. I fhall next in the fame fcales weigh our temporal evils; and fay, that alfo, The confideration of our lives'

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