The Cup of Blef3ing. 523 feóions, and weary us ftill,and yet they whet our tired Sfi a. II. appetites with a new edge. In a word, every conditi- on here is peltered and troubled with bufineffe; one in- vites and drawes on another : wee are hamperc d with fucceeding fetters, and makes this fhort life more fhorr than it would be,with carefull griefe, with bitter feares, and with corrupt j oyes ; and at left, all cut off and end, as many men many times fpread their branches and flourifh; their eftate over fwallowes their wifhes, their fuccefheexceeds their defires : now on afudden, their pompe is no where to be found , their defires vanifh, the foud of their wealth is dryed up, the owners and their goods perifh together ; they will not fee "this by experience. 'What is it in this life youwould have, if there were immortality a But, I fay, it cannot be fo, that is not fo; you cannot have immortality in this life, but as evidently as you fee the heavens roll about every day , fo plainely wee may fee, if wee will take it into confederation, mankind hurried along with an unwea ,rigid motion to the Weft of his dayes ; their pofterity polling after them by an unrepealeable law of fucccflî<< on : our fathers you know are gone before, and we are pang, and our children (hall follow us at our heeles: that as you fee the billowes of the Sea , one tumble on the neck of another , and in the end all are dafhed upon the !here ; fo all generations and ages in the end, are fplit on the bankes of death , and this is the condition of every man : Is it not our wifedome then to provide for another lifer Certainely, if there be any wifedome in the world,it is wifedom to remember our latter end. The wifcft among the heathen were wont to fay; There fhould bee nothing but a meditation of death: L 4 that
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