THese words are a part of the ruthfull complaint of afflicted Iob: who, ha­ving taken to consideration Gods ju­stice and power in his afflicting the sonnes of men, commending the one to be impeachable and no way to be reproved, especially vers. 2. the other to be impregnable and no way to bee resisted, particularly vers. 19. drawes towards a conclusion well suting with his owne present condition, and his friends partiall censure of the same, viz. that the effects of Gods ju­stice and power in trying men by afflictions are not (simply) sound arguments of Gods displeasure: sith Ʋers 22. the Lord brings to destruction both the perfect and the wicked. So that, whether Ʋers. 23. he pluck away the innocent suddenly, or forbeare & seeme to Ʋers. 24. give [Page 2] the earth, by way of long possession, to the wicked; notwith­standing, so past finding out shall his judgements be to us, (whe­ther for tryall or for terrour) that no man shall discover his in­tentions: yea he covereth the faces of judges, saith the Text: the best discerners may as well finde out the furrow of a ship in the Sea, or tracke the flight of an Eagle in the ayre, as sound Gods insearchables in this kinde; Iob desires to know the mans name and place that dare arrogate the contrary to himselfe, Ʋers. 24. Who, and where is he?

This setled, that misery is no sound argument of Gods an­ger, the Patriarke sticks not (in this verse read unto you) to de­clare the heavie hand of the Lord upon himselfe in a threefold degree of that infirmity and wretchednesse, whereunto, as all mortality is subject, so himselfe was at this present severely subdued. Now my dayes are swifter then a post, &c.

Which words note unto us three remarkables of Iobs and all humane frailty: First, the shortnesse, Secondly, the swift­nesse, Thirdly, the sadnesse of the same.

1. The shortnesse appeares in the small fragments of it, be­ing but Daies. Large extents are measured by long dimensi­ons, furlongs, miles, leagues: short by feet, spannes, ynches: Daies, yee know, are no long durances, and how can life eeked and pieced out by Daies be of any long continuance?

2. The swiftnesse is discovered two waies. First, by a com­parison to a messenger of state, which, notwithstanding his important hast, rideth not so fast to his appointed boundary. Secondly, by a similitude (as all metaphors in substance, are) in a word borrowed from the Fowler, of quicker dispatch then any horse or dromedary, they flee: amplified by a terme of in­creasing distance, away. Swifter then a post, they flee away.

3. The sadnesse glimmers forth in the absence of comfort and prosperity, delivered under the tearme Good; and its partly expressed by the strongest negative, partly confirmed by the surest witnesse (that of the eye) they see no good.

The porch thus opened, lets enter into materials: and first to the first condition of Jobs frailty, and in him, of all mankind in generall, viz.

[Page 3]Daies and small pittances of humane life, teaching us this usefull observation, Doct. 1 That Mans naturall life is but short, short daies are all the limmes of mans time, (like a short line con­sisting but of pricks) the whole body of his time cannot bee long. When Iacob had well neere all his yeeres together, he summes the totall into a Gen. 47.9 few daies. David could gripe all his daies into the compasse of a Ps. 39 5. Span. As nature nurtured the heathen in the cutted state of this mortality by a bladder and a bubble, both sweld, with a puffe, and shrunk with a pricke: by a breath whose being, or vanishing, who can say which is sooner, longer? So grace advertiseth Christians by most sig­nificant comparisons expressing their short abode in this Ps. 146. [...] their dust.

The Apostle Iames would scarce vouchsafe it any compa­rison. Iam. 4.1 [...] Whats your life, saith he? twiting us with our false conceit of long life by a holy flout: if it be, saith he, of any sub­sistence at all, its but like a vapour that appeareth for a litle time, and then vanishes away. What saith David to our daies? They are saith he, 1 Chron. 29, 15. as a shadow, and thers no abiding. And what is Hezekiahs opinion? A [...] Es. 38.12 A shepheards tent, of no long stay. Iob 7.6. A weavers shuttle is of no long race: 2 Cor. 5.1 a pilgrims taber­nacle soone flitted. So vaine a thing is man. How long is wax in melting? Ps. 22.14 So is life in the middest of its fortresse.

How durable is the state of Es. 40.7. grasse? Ps. 90.5. We fade away sud­denly like the grasse. Whats a tales grace? Shortnesse, Ps. 90.9. Our yeeres passe away as a tale that is told, a thing gone and past. Yea, as if these comparisons were yet defective, the Prophet addeth a sleighter manner of similitude, resembling mans life to a Ps. 73.20 dreame, and that when its past, when a man awaketh; a thing gone before you can collect what it was, and when it was, it was but a thing (or rather a just nothing) of meere imagination. But how is it that mans life is thus scant­led?

Reason 1. The principall cause is God. Ps. 39.5. Thou hast made my daies as it were a span in length, saith David.

2. The provoking cause is sinne. Thats a sudden waster. Gen. 2.17. The same day thou eatest, &c. thou shalt surely die: God hath [Page 4] sealed it with an oath, surely.

3. The working cause, the consuming effects of sinne, sor­row and misery both inward and outward: a house of Iob 4.19. clay so strongly beleagured cannot hold out a long siege.

4. The materiall cause, Gē. 3.19. dust; he was appointed no long standing whose Iob 4.19. foundation was laid in dust.

5. The procreating cause of mankinde necessitateth a very short stay: Iob 14.1. Man that is borne of a woman hath hut a short time. If he stand to his pedegree it cannot be, that shee that hath no fee simple nor leasse of one houre, can make over any long entale of time to her posterity.

The truth of our short abode thus confirmed rather by way of meditation upon a thing much usefull, then for proofe of a point so plaine: what better application shall we make then Ʋse 1 First, by way of checke to rayne backe the outrunners of time in this luxuriant age of dingthrifts of time, wastfull lavishers of their small allowance? how many lay about them, as if all their exhibition this way were flong them by talents, and ther­fore spend it with like profusenesse as giddie yongsters newly leapt into their lands, squandring away by pounds, the com­ming in whereof they never knew by pence? such licentious merchants of time trade in every countrey so wastfully, as if they had more time then can be spent whiles good; so prodigall of daies, moneths, yeares, some upon doing nothing, others upon nothing to the purpose, many upon whats contrary to what they should doe, till they turne starke bankrupt both for time and grace. Alas its but winde they feed upon when they thinke they fat their senses with a conceit of living as long as such and such a long liver of their progeny, forgetting Gen. 11. [...]8. Ha­rans case and thousands more that die before their parents. Foolish men, that neither with all their wealth can purchase one minute of time, nor with all their strength procure an houre of health, nor with all their wit differ death, much lesse prevent judgement, yet will never season their thoughts with any meditation of weaknesse▪ death, or judgement. Well, the evill day is never the more distant for their putting it off: sick­nesse may come at an instant: weakenesse will come; death [Page 5] must come: the longer the shadow of life seemes to be, the neerer their sun is to setting; their glasse is running: their houre is at hand when they shall make audit before the impartiall judge for all these flatteries of themselves, and for their inten­tions wherefore they thus deceived themselves, for all the du­ties they have omitted, for all the evills they have commit­ted, all the instructions they have neglected, all the promises they have despised, all the threatnings they have sleighted, all the talents of youth, health, strength, wit, &c. they have hidden, and for all the creatures, meanes, and times they have pre­sumptuously abused. If any will surfet upon hopes of long joy and contentment in licentiousnesse, and resolve (upon that ground) still to turne Gods grace of time yet afforded, and meanes of conversion yet proffered into wantonnesse of sin­ning, let him with his sweet conceits take this sorrow sop amids, that his delights cannot be long and certaine whose life is but short and uncertaine. God will shortly put an end to his pleasures and person, death groans for him, that sergeant is within one span of his bosome, his judge begins to laugh as fast at his destruction as he laughes at his instructions: time is at hand when his dullest sense shall feele, to his woe, what his faith now wil not beleeve, that the joyes of this first life which he fansied to be eternall are but few and short, but the miseries of the second death, which he never dreamt of, shall be num­berlesse, measurelesse, easelesse, remeadilesse, and utterly end­lesse.

2 In the second place, this serves to reprove a generall fault in all whom the Lord pleases to afflict any whit more then or­dinary: it being the guise of impatient man to feed his melan­choly distempers and to wast his spirits with meditations upon the length of his afflictions, amongst whom a yeeres health is shorter then they can have while to feele: but a moneths or weeks sicknesse is long, and long, and longer then they can beare. If the Lord would glorifie himselfe in their faith, in their assurance of eternall joyes for temporall & short paines, he shall not do it: if he will gaine glory by their patience in any tedious durance, he comes to the wrong house; they had [Page 6] rather he lost his honour then they their ease: No, no, benefits be of the shorter sise though they last moneths and yeares; crosses of a day must be long though life it selfe be short.

What conceive we of those exquisite tortures which re­maine the unrepentant idolater, the impenitent blasphemer, the resolved offenders of all sorts in eternall and inextricable wreck and misery without any ease or date? And what intole­rable impatience to murmure at the shorter when we deserve both these? Mend this fault, and do God more honour, the truth more credit, and our selves more ease by musing upon mercies, by comparing eternals with temporals, by conside­ring the shortnesse of thy life, and so confesse and praise the Lord for thy short afflictions, unlesse thou wilt in foolish pe­remptorinesse say, Iob 1 5 9 thou wast the first man that was borne, and wast made before the hills, sufferedst ever since, and resolvest to suffer for ever after thy departure hence.

3 Thirdly, have we but short daies heere to spend? What shall we doe better then to strive with God in prayer, and our selves in practise.

First with God, in commending our requests to him in these daies of our flesh after our Saviours example; he alone is the meats-man of our daies, Iob 7.1. setting forth an appointed time to man upon the earth. Pray him in Davids words, with Da­vids spirit, to Ps. 85.47 remember how short our time is, and to remove all hinderances of mispending, and improve all his owne offred meanes and furtherances for the well-spending our short abode heere: and for our selves, let's often season all outward passages with thoughts of our approaching end, mixe them with our marriages, tradings, purchases, journeyes, all field en and domestick labours, especially with our recrea­tions and delights: take heed of engrossing and griping after more time or temporall things then the Lord affords; bethink how fraile thy selfe art, how short thy time, of what manner thy abode: thy daies, as David told thee, are but of a 1 Cron. 29.15. pilgrim: thy mansion is not thy home, thy house but an Inne; thy fa­mily and neighbours are but fellow-passengers; if thy corrup­tions within, or Satan and the world without beare thee in [Page 7] hand with enough layed up for many yeeres, give them all the lie with the tongue of this Text: and be sure that though thou must converse in the world, yet to keepe thy selfe free from the 2 Pet 1.4 corruptions of the world, as Saint Paul stiles them, Its hard, Bernard. but much discourse of temporall things will gnaw the conscience, as the rivers fret their bancks: but holy circum­spection and moderation will ease that difficulty: the blinde want, though versed all in the earth, still preserves its velvet coat faire from the filth of the earth; thou hast thy eyes about thee, nor needst thou delve so deepe: so converse thou in earthly matters that thy conscience be not defiled, and be­ware thou suffer not the earth so to bury thy soule before thy body die, but that thou maist use thy eyes to discrie death pee­ping over thy shoulder whiles thou lookest upon thy worldly matters, or (if farther off) to ken it in its full gallop and flight to overtake thee, and thats the second part of this taske, viz. the swiftnesse of mans life in the Post, hast or rather flying of the same. My daies are swifter then a Post: they flee away: from whence who cannot spell forth this lesson.

Doct. 2 Mans life is swift as well as short. Our daies seeme wing-footed: Iob seemes doubtfull whether they run or flee. The swiftest rider is too slow to make expressure; the fowles wings best Emblems forth lifes quick dispatch: and that when it makes to the prey: and that of the Iob 9.26. Eagle, not only for swift­nesse but strength, which no humane obstacle of either youth, wit, wealth, honour, or physick can stay or hinder from its ap­pointed goale. The proverb drops too short that saith Time and Tide stay not: Tides creepe on but slowly and have their interstices, stay somwhat when they have their stints, chalenge their returnes: Time is neither so, nor so. The Prophet speakes more home. Our time, yea the Ps. 90.80. strength of it, is soone cut off, we flee, yea we flee away, and that without either 1 Chron. 29.15. abiding saith David, Iob 7.9. returning as Iob hath it.

The Holy Ghost is ample for comparisons, as before: re­sembling mans sliding state to things ever upon the rode of hast. To a Es 40 7. floure that fades apace. To Ps. 12.14 water that runs apace. To a Iob 9.26 ship that sailes apace. To a Post and an Eagle, [Page 8] as ye see, that rides and flees apace. Theres no keeping pace with time but upon the wings of the Iob 7.7. Winde that whirles apace.

But how comes this to passe, that man in his best estate though in honour, is thus altogether a flying vanity and abideth not?

Reason 1. If natures reason may carry it, the subject and founda­tion of time runs (as it were) all on wheeles: the heavenly Orbs, (of swifter motion then of any flying bullet from the strongest Ordenance) whirle the times about: amongst which, the uncessant circuits of the Sunne and Moone are appointed (by him that Es. 40.22. sits upon the circle of the earth, and meteth out Heaven by the span) to measure forth these earth­ly yeeres, Ʋers. 12. moneths, and dayes, till all time be swallowed up into eternity and these heavens be no more: How then can our daies be slow?

2. Doe not sinne, and sinners make quicke worke in the world? How speedily do men breake into it? Even Ps. 58.3. from the wombe; With what eager pursuit doe men follow sinne? Even (like Iehues furious march) swiftly: Pro. 6.18 their feet are swift in running to mischiefe; some faster, some slower, all too fast. How would wickednesse tyrannize might it in this heat have while to roote and spread, and seed according to the lust of sinfull men? And who shall hinder swift sinners from bringing upon themselves swift destruction?

3. Neither is experience so senselesse of the reason ( a parte post, as they say) by a touch of after-wit, that perceives every minute of time so flight that it prevents the quickest catch, gives the heedfullest attention the slip, and out-strips the spee­diest chase. The time to come is but only in conceit, the time is fled in instants: who can say of any time present, now it is, sith it out-runs thy thought?

Ʋse 1 This shreds off the superfluous desires of many men, male-contented with their present states: who, like infants after youth, and youth after riper age, are ever liquering after fu­ture times. Oh, were such a quarter day come, or such a yeere or time expired, they were made. Why? what hadst got­ten [Page 9] by this catch if thou couldst finger some thred of time be­fore the Sun can spin it? First thou shouldst get but a wilde foule, a shadow, a puft, whose hasty vanishing would more vexe, then its approach did please. Secondly is the thing, for which thou so over-reachest, good or evill? If thou hast such a greedy worme under thy tongue for that which is evill, that like Gē. 85.30 Esau for the pottage, or Elies sonnes for the flesh, thou wilt needs have it. 1 Sam. 2.16. Now, or (in a sort) wilt take it by force: hearken what the next verse telleth thee, Ʋers. 17. Ther­fore thy sinne is very great before the Lord. But admit the thing bee good for which thou wouldst so faine steale upon the time to come; assure thy selfe, it would come so raw (as Iacobs abortive blessing did) that thou wouldst not relish the bitternesse that would accompany the tast of it, for pluck­ing Gods appointed season (which onely ripeneth all) to thy britle lusts: besides, so weake (generally) doe such men prove in the well-ordering of time so over­grip [...]e, that, when its come, they are as unable to use it as to hold it.

Vse 2 Secondly, this aggravates the vexation of a worse sort of men, whose anxiety is most, for that their youth slips away so fast, and their age comes on so closse, that they feare least they shall not have all their sports in, all their cups in, all their pleasures and profits in time enough. Oh, that they could realize that Ps. 49.1 [...] inward thought of some that their houses shall continue for ever! Oh, that they could cause the shadow of their lifes diall to stand still two or three Methuselaes ages, or goe backe to Adams time and take them along to eternity of pastime! No, no, time is irrevocable for the past, unstayable for the present: their shadow is declining, their glasse running, their sunne setting apace: Gods purse­vant death is more then in poste-hast, even like the Eagle towards its prey: their pleasures swift as the Sunne, and flie apace; Gods wrath swift and comes apace: swift death, swift damnation treads upon the heeles of all im­penitent hastening of evill workes, and putting off of the evill day.

[Page 10] Ʋse 3 How much better to hasten with the time to a profitable instruction to redeeme the time past, and improve the pre­sent. If mis-spending of the time past be sufficient, as that 1 Pet. 4.3 Apostle saith; what shall wee better set about then the Eph. 5.16 redeeming it being suffered by us (for want of due care and watchfulnesse) to be carried captive by Satan to the servitude of sinne: labour we by prayer and repentance and new obe­dience, to make our evill daies good daies, and so to rescue and recover our time into its liberty againe: And for our present allowance of time, if Reu. 12.12. Sathan so much the more be­stirs himselfe for evill by how much shorter time he knoweth he hath: how much more should we bustle for good, know­ing how many hundred times shorter ours is in these cabbins of clay? O, then be we thriftie of our time being short and precipitate also: and the faster we discerne our Sun to set, the more hast like honest labourers and wise travellers lets make to dispatch our worke and journey: goe wee along with the day, and let a day have a daies worke, a weeke a weekes, &c. and proceed as fast in service as our daies in passage, spend this speciall intrustment no faster then it comes in: its best wisedome to take our daies before us, not neg­lecting if young to remember our Creator Eccle. 12. [...]. in the daies of our youth. It cannot be denied but that its possible for an old sinner to repent and turne: howbeit, he is likeliest to bee ri­chest, as in wealth, so in grace, that begins betimes: be­sides how unlikely that a man should be able to catch repen­tance at pleasure in age and sicknesse, who hath beaten backe the Lords proffered grace in youth and health; the Lord is likely to bee well requited for all his favours, to have all the blade and floure of a mans age cast to his vtter foes, and the refuse and stumps reserved for him: and its very likely wee shall fight a goodly field when for very impotency wee are ready to be turned forth of th'campe.

Oh, then learne better, while we have strength, and me­mory to number our daies more wisely, and with Ʋespatian the Heathen prince plucke our selves by the eare for every lost day, and redeeme the next.

[Page 11]What a feast will it be to a mans conscience, when hee hath spent according to his exhibition of time; and having a price put into his Pro. 17.16. hand, hath not wanted a heart to use it? Resolve upon it, howsoever thou hast failed in thy for­mer beginnings this way, thy constant proceedings in well imploying thy short time will quit the cost, and bring in com­fort in sicknesse, distresse, temptation, death when world of preferments, profits, and pastimes shall stand but as vex­ations before thy conscience.

As that mans state upon his deaths couch is miserable whose conscience (then most of all) will embolden disputes against him, what he hath done with time, why he melted the fat of it to ennimble the wheeles of his lusts for quicker dispatch of sinne: objecteth why done so much evill so little good: and now after so much sinne contracted, so little grace glea­ned, what will now become of him, when his time and hee are both at last cast? So, on the contrary, how happie hee, whose walke can shew him, and his conscience witnesse with him, that ever since he knew what time meant, and percei­ved how fast it passed, hath beene no looser by the use of good opportunities, but as he felt them slipping away, so he layed on better holt, casting how to imploy the smallest mites of time some about his honest vocation, other some in hearing, reading, meditating, conferring, and especially praying: some for his own particular, some for his family, some for others, all for the working and atchieving some true good for himselfe and as many as he can: with what courage shall he look temp­tation and death in th'face, and, after all his painefull daies works in courses of piety, shut up the windowes of his life to­wards a blissefull rest in happy immortality?

The second comfort belongs to all Gods children under any affliction: their daies passe apace, their sorrowes cannot stay long; paine shal not long vexe, foes shall persecute but a while: The 2 Cor. 4.17. Apostle summes up the afflictions of this life into a mo­ment. What speake we of those nibbling crosses of the body? The kill-cow of all, sinne shall make no long havocke in their soules, not long bane their peace, nor shipwrack their security: [Page 12] pluck they up their hearts, these stormes will over, these sad daies will have a night of joy: the time flies towards us when we shall have no time nor heart to grieve the Lord, no time to provoke him to grieve us: the 1 Sam 31 4. sword that pierced Sauls brest was nothing to the weapon wherewith our Lord Iesus Christ hath wounded Satans head: his spirits, and sins vitals are blee­ding forth apace: meane time, all that Satan and sin can do to us, is but to make us more heedfull and watchfull in our waies; all that death can do is but to turne the key and open the dore before us to a heavenly mansion. Comfort one another in these words, that the time hies apace, even swifter then a Post, that Satan and sin shall have no more to do with us; heaven misseth us as much as we earne for it, God will shortly call for us, the Angels shall carry us, Christ Iesus shall intertaine us, his Spi­rit shall welcome us, his Ps 17.15 image shall satisfie us. Let this mi­tigate the sadnesse of humane life, (especially of the Saints) be­ing the Third and last consideration from the Text. They see no good.

The word good is of easie explication by noting how the word evill (its contrary) is in Scripture distinguished. There's one evill in the roote, as it were, partaking of that 1 Iob. 5.18. Evill one Satan and thats the evill of sin, in relation whereunto its said of wicked times, Ephes. 5.16. the daies are evill. Theres another evill in the branches, and thats the effect and fruit of sin, viz. misery; in which respect daies of sorrow are termed Eccles. 12 1. Evill daies. So (ac­cording to the rule of Opposites) the word Good hath a double sense drawne upon it: First as it participateth of the Good God in holinesse and righteousnesse: so Godly works are stiled 1 Tim. 6.18. good works: Secondly, as it partakes of Gods bounty in the prosperity & comfort of the creature: in which respect Ps. 34.12 pros­perous daies are called Good, and this is the proper sense of the word in this Text; Iobs daies saw no Good, that is, much misery: much losse in state, much feare in his children, much paine in his body, much discouragement from his friends, much horrour in his soule: all which as Iob suffered by way of triall, so all are sufferable by demerit: which takes us out a Doct. 3 Third profitable, though hard, lesson, viz. Our short swift time is sub­ject [Page 13] to great and sore affliction. Short and sweet were some miti­gation, but our daies are as sowre as short. Swift and pleasant were some qualification, but they are knotty and sad as well as swift. All our daies are not faire, long, sommer daies, but many gloomy, short, winter nippy daies among. Iobs whole story to the last Chapter, what ist but a ruthfull Martyrologie of afflicti­on. Iacobs story well concurred with his confession, that his daies were Gen. 49.7 few and evill: The Patriarke David had his stint this way, being exercised with Ps. 71.20 great and sore troubles: and if the righteous are recompensed upon earth with troubles for number Ps. 34.19 many, for measure Iob 2.13. great, Pro. 11.31. how much more, saith Solomon, the wicked and the sinner? Speake experience; of what condition is the vanishing vapour of our life? When we have made a hard scape from stifling in the wombe, whats in­famy, but a brak of discontents? whats child-hood, but a schoole of restraint from without, a very bridewell of frowardnesse within? Whats youth, but a pitcht field of passions and distem­pers? Whats age, but a meere hospitall of infirmities? Our whole life worse than a tragedy, (for that begins with some mixture of delight) wherein the first act is crying; the second grieving: groaning is the last Catastrophe. No marvaile then if Iob calculate mans time to be not only short, but Iob 14.1. full of mi­sery.

Reason 1 For why? The Lord hath so appointed it, as David and He­zekiah upon their sick beds acknowledge. God hath layed this heavie yoke upon all the sons of Adam either for punishment or for tryall, and thers no escaping a thing decreed. Were it any way avoideable, wisdome might discry some prevention. Were these stormes only upon the land or upon the sea alone, the advantage of ease might be taken by the place; were they only without dores, one might house himselfe within: but be he where he can be, he cannot avoid what he is borne to. Man is borne saith Iob to trouble, Iob 5.7. as the sparks flie upwards.

Reason 2 Affliction is sins native brood; if this hang on, the other will not fall off: its sin that makes mans time narrow as a well for breadth, deepe as hell for bitternes, why els doth Ps. 18.4. David and Ionah Ionah 2.2 complaine of hellish sorrowes? whosoever therefore [Page 14] followes sin becomes afflictions prey, neither have the law; and the Prophets noted any other chace for afflictions hunting but only the sinner. If no man can say, he hath clensed his heart from sin, no man shall be able to rid his soule or body from sor­row. Truth is, sin hath no fitter meanes wherby to execute its own ends then this. What aimeth sin at? Death and destructi­on. What breaks and battereth downe more forcibly then af­fliction? Man made mortall must downe, iniquity is the axe, miseries the ordinary severall strokes that lay the sinner along.

Vse 1 Do all suffer or deserve to feele these stormes that passe the sea of this mortality? Then this must first resolve what to trust to heere. This world is not a meadow full of flowers, but a wil­dernesse of brakes and briars; now, this affliction catches at us; now, an other, at sins sute, arests us; now a foe dogges us, anon a sicknes laies us up: waking, sleeping, dreaming: cares, atches, feares, crasinesses and distempers, as thick as Iob 1.14.16.17, 18. Iobs ill messen­gers, haunt us; Dreame of what ease and comfort thou wilt af­ter thy state and condition so and so altered to thy mind, how thou shalt live as merrily as the day is long to (as your proverbe runs) after thy yoke-fellow obtained to thy minde, after all thy reversions outlived, all thy purchases compassed, preferments atchieved, children placed; deceive not thy selfe: even after all those, thou wilt flote upon a sea of sin, and therfore no lesse then a sea of waves, and rocks and shelves and stormes and pi­rats shall annoy and continually endanger thee. Art Gods tree? thou must be pruned; art Gods tilth? thou must be bowelled up with plow and harrow, els thou wilt be fruitlesse: art Gods childe, chastised thou must be or graceles. Art Gods enemy? he notes thy prancks, and is providing sowre sauce for thy plea­sant morsels: His hand is taking holt of vengeance, he is fur­bushing his Deut. 32 41. glittering sword, that his arrowes may drink the blood, & his sword eate the flesh of thē that hate him. Finally, be thou good or bad, set not to thy heart any descant of pleasant ditty, whiles all the tune of thy life runs upon discords of ini­quity; if any comforts appeare, they are but as the gleames of a March day beaten with stormes as fast as they glimmer forth; and therefore as thou dost not unslate thy house when the [Page 15] showre is past, but keepest it to award another: so, put not a­way faith and patience and watchfulnesse at the departure of any crosse, but taking a short farwell, reserve thy selfe to wel­come the same againe or worse, sith this is not the haven but the Ocean.

2. Neither may we omit one duty in respect of our decea­sed friend, sorrow indeed becomes us considering what strange havock sin and death make of creatures so excellent: howbeit in respect of the deceased, what strange matter is be­fallen them? What more usuall, more naturall then for a man to die. Yesterday, saith the Philosopher, I saw a pitcher break, and to day I see a man die: the matter is no more strange thats befallen thy wife, thy childe, thy brother, thy friend: he is but gone the way of all the earth; But whats the alteration, what hath the Ios. 23.14 party let fall to th'ground? any more but nerves and sinews, as the verse hath it? ought els but a weak, crasy, putre­fying body there to be perfumed against the resurrection? Whats the losse but a losse of much sinne, a losse of many sor­rowes, of more dangers: and why should these divisions be such thoughts of heart? What would we desire more in our friends behalfe then the Lord hath done for them in their hap­py translation if they lived and died in him? Would we pull them back againe and hold tugge 2 Sam. 18 33. as David for his Absolom against the Lord himselfe for them? No. What then? would you have them smart longer, suffer longer? Would you have the moth of anguish fret the garment of their flesh longer, af­fliction grind their very bones longer? Would you have Satans blowes to assaile them still, sins poyson to endanger them for ever? Mend this fault of over-grieving at friends departure: so mourne, as Abraham for deceased Sarah, and to rise from our friends corps, as Gen▪ 23.3 he did from hers. View we our owne condition in the glasse of their mortality; theres no long time of division twixt them and us: we must shortly cut over the same ferry and meet them on the other side of th'shore: deaths boat was not appointed to carry all at once: the ferry not made to land all at one tide: stay the returne of the water for our turne: and taking but a short leave of the deceased, joying at [Page 16] their safe arivall, using survivers better, preparing to part with all, pray for a prosperous gale. In the meane, husband we out uncertaine, short, and swift time well: dispatch our works and willes against the tides returne: and sith we have many talents committed to our traffique, and barks of our owne to furnish, lets play the wise merchants, not to load our little vessels with all ordinary lumber and trumpery which every seller saith is good (more like to shipwrack us by the way then pleasure us at the shore) but take up that which David preferres before Ps. 19.10. much fine gold, bart for that which Iob 28.18. corall & pearles are not to be named with; nor Pro. 3.15 Rubies or any other desirables are to be compared unto: buy the Pro 23.23. Truth: purchase that hid trea­sure commended by our Luk. 13 44. Master, if the selling of all we have will reach it, and so ballace our small vessels with the choysest wares, that an ever blessed thirst may welcome our arivall. There our faith will leave us, not our charity: let that grace work by this vertue now, for the best improving of al comforts, for whats our wit or state to procure, continue, use, or misse the least of them? and for the bearing of all crosses of this life, for whats our strength or naturall armour to prevent, with­stand, remove, or award the easiest of them? Lay holt of the promises by faith in our Redeemers life, Iob 19.25 as Iob, in his extrea­mities; wrestle it out by prayer, as Gē. 32 26 Iacob, in his anxieties: commit our selves to our 1 Pet. 4.18. faithfull Creator, get Rom. 15.4 comfort in his word, Rom. 14.17. joy in his spirit, and Dan. 12.1. Prince Michael to stand up for us amongst the children of his people, and then al­though it bee true, Ioh. 16.33. In the world yee shall have tribulation, yet it is as true, Christ hath overcome the world, in him yee shall have peace.