z6 Funeral Sermon. Ìbut cut down, dryed up, and withered ; fee, betwixt greenand withered, flowrifh- ing and fading, growing up and cut down, what a (mall (pace and diflance of time there is, but the refpite of a day at moft,the (pace of a few hours at longef}: juft (uch is the brevity and fadingnefs of our lives here. Our growing up in the morning of our childhood, our floarifbing in the high noon of our mans efface, and then foon after it grows to be evening withus, and we begin to fall into our declenfions : and firf our fenfes begin to droop, next our memories to fail, next our Drength to decay and growweak,after that out heat to retire inward,and thus we continue dying by little and little, untill at length death comes with his Sickle, and cuts down the flower, and wedie for good and all. Oh that men would think ferioufly on theft things ; doubtlefs it mull needs make them more frugal of their time , and mightily work them off of the world , and make them lets delighted and enamoured with this prefent life, and daily more longing and defirous, and thir(ling after heaven, where they (hall be fare to have a longer time of flay and continuance , and (hall ever be with the Lord, and not be thus haflily hurried and polled away, as here they are. When holy David would fairy haveobtained favour and refpite from God Al- mighty, he ufeth chis very argument to him, Pfalm 89.47. Oh remember how (hart my time is : In like manner, were I to perfwadeany man unto pietyand de- devotion, unto ab(linence and mortification, unto a contemptof the world, and a love and delire of heaven, I (hould repeat over the fame words unto him c Oh man remember how fhort thy time is, how few days thou hail to live in the world, how little time to lay in thy provilon, and todo thy work and bufinefs of Eternity ; oh then, fin away none, idle away none, and (if it were poffible) bofe none of this precious time ; thou feel} it is but (hors at moll, but a little in all : and thou can(} full ill fpare any of it for finand vanity, which (when beD emproved) is but jufl enough, if indeed enough for thy work. Herodotus relates a Dory of oneMycerinue King of Egypt, who (being told by the Oracle, that he (hould live but twelve years longer) ufed this device with himfelf; he fits up all night and (pends that whole time in feafling and jollity, and thus ( mot rotes rt pstsrroagor , fays the Dory,) turning (as is were) his nights into days, thought by this means hehad doubled the number of his years and fo cheated the Oracle. Now thedevice of thisheathen King I (hall not com- mend unto you at this time, efpecially not in this way and manner of praélice; but yet why maywenot (by theway) borrow a Jewel of this Egyptian, and em- prove his policy into an item of feafonable inftrudlion and admonition ? And howbeit I cannot peremptorily tell any of you, as the Oracle did, him, that yet within twelve years, and ye (ball all die ; yet this I think I may fay, how loon God knows, but not longhence, we our felves by experience, and the ex- ample of others, may probably conclude and know, that it will be neceffary for us to dye, and give over living any longer. Oh then! let us up and to work, let us lay out providently, and beflir our (elves as fpeedily as may be, to double the number of our days, even by turning ournights into days : Not in the man- nor of that heathenKing, in pra&ifesof excels and intemperance, but in exercifes altogether of piety and devotion ; turning our nightsof vanity, into days of fo. briny, our nights ofintemperance into days of mortification, our nights of slum- ber and idlenefs, into days of vigilance and diligence; take it in the Apoftles words, Rom. 13. II. Knowing the time, that now it if high time to Awake out of deep; let we caft of the work: of darkneft, and let on put on the armour of light : Lot to walk honeftly ere in the day, not in rioting anddrunkenefs, not in chambering and wantonnefi, not in ftrife and envying: But putting on the Lord Jefas Chrift; putting on his juflífying righteoufnefs byapplication of faith, and putting on his fandlifying righteoufnefs by imitation of prallife; and fo doing, we (hall make a long life of a fhort. As holy Hierum reports of one **idiots a young man (ad Salvinam. Spilt. 9.) In brevi state, tempora multa csmplevit. He continued a little while here, but yetlived a long life ; meaning (asI fuppofe) that the piety t
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