SERM. as that which next to our immortal fouls, and for CLXXXVIII the fake of them, is the most precious and valuable

thing in the world. For as on the one hand, nothing will comfort us more when we come to die and leave this world, than the remembrance of a well-fpent life, carefully employed in the fervice of GOD, and for the benefit and advantage of men ; fo on the other hand, there is nothing for which our confciencies will more bitterly reproach us at that time, and fly in our faces with greater fury and rage, than for an useless and unprofitable, especially if it have been likewife (as is too commonly feen) a wicked and vicious life.

Our life is uncertain, and therefore we should feize the present time, and improve it to the best advan tage, tho' it be but fhort in itself, and very fhort in refpect of the great and long work which we have to do in it. To prevent or cure the manifold diftempers of our minds, and to preserve our fouls in a good state of health, and to keep them free from the diforders of our appetites and paffions, requires a wife conduct, and a very careful management of ourfelves. Evil and inveterate habits are not mafter'd and mortify'd in an inftant; nor the contrary virtues attained in any measure of perfection but by long practice and flow degrees. There must be time, and patience, and perfeverance, for the doing of thefe things, and we muft" give all diligence to "add to our faith knowledge, and to our know"ledge virtue," and one virtue to another, and one degree of virtue to another; and nothing without this can minifter true comfort to us in the hour of death, and make us to lift up our heads with joy "in the day of judgment."

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The confideration of this should make us careful, SERM. not to neglect any occafion of doing good, or of CLXXXVIII making ourselves better; and restrain us from allowing too much of our time to those great wafters and devourers of it, diverfions and vifits; because they do not only hinder us from better work and employment, but are apt infenfibly to work us off from that ferious temper of mind, which becomes those who do in good earnest design for another world.

VI.. The meditation of our latter end fhould make us always to prefer the doing of our duty, and the keeping of a good confcience, to all temporal confiderations whatsoever, whether of fame, and the good opinion of men, or of wealth and riches, of honour and dignity, of authority and power," choof"ing rather with Mofes, to fuffer afflictions with "the people of GOD, than to have the temporary enjoyments of fin."

And as for pleasure, there is little in this world. that is true and fincere, befides the pleasure of doing our duty, and of doing good; I am fure none that is comparable to it. A good confcience is "a con"tinual feaft," and he certainly pleaseth himself best, and is most easy in his own mind, who is conscious to himself, that he endeavours as well as he can to do what he ought.

VII. The meditation of our mortality should teach us the true price and value of all temporal enjoyments, and make us duly affected towards them, and to fit as loofe to them in our affections as we can; for nothing furely can be more apt to beget in us a coldnefs and indifferency towards the enjoyments of this world, than the confideration of the uncertainty of VOL. X.

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SER M. all these things, and of the fhortnefs, and uncertainty CLXXXVIII of our own lives.

Or if we fuppofe that they and we both fhould continue for fome number of years, yet there will be an end of them or us; and nothing is to be reckon❜d a lafting happiness that will have an end, tho* it fhould be long firft; for where there can be either forrow or an end of our joy, there can be no true felicity.

Befides, that the nature of the things of this world is fuch, that they afford but little happiness to us whilft we have them; we cannot do well without them, and yet we can hardly do well with them. Moft of the enjoyments of this world, as defirable as they are to us, are very dangerous, and are always attended with fome inconvenience or other; and even when we have all that we can wish for in this world, we are apt to be ftill uneafy, either fomething troubles us, or nothing pleases us; we are pained with fulnefs, and cloyed with the long enjoyment of the best things this world can give us. Why then fhould we fet fuch an high and unreasonable value upon these temporary enjoyments, and be fo much concerned for those things, of which we have fo flippery a hold and fo flender an affurance, and which afford us fo very little contentment and fatisfaction when we have them, and yet give us fo much grief and trouble when we lose them? confidering how foon we must, and how fuddenly we may leave this world, and all the enjoyments of it, we ought in reafon to fet no great price upon them.

VIII. The confideration of the fhortnefs and uncertainty of our lives, fhould make us contented with our prefent condition, and patient under all the evils and afflictions which may befal us in this world.

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A little may content us for a little while, for the fhort SERM. time of our abode here; and fince we do not expect our reft and happiness in this world, we cannot think ourselves disappointed, if we do not meet with it. If our condition be tolerable, it is well, and we have reafon to be contented with it, fince it is as much as this world ufually affords. If it be very mean and ftrait, it cannot laft long; and even that confideration fhould filence our murmurings, and should reftrain and check our discontent.

And it fhould make us patient likewife under the greatest evils and afflictions of this prefent life, to confider that they will fhortly have an end; either they will give off of themselves, or they will carry us off and make an end of us, and all the patience we have exercised will be rewarded far beyond the proportion of our sufferings.

At the worst, the afflictions and fufferings of this present time are not like the troubles and miferies of the other world, they will not laft always. The most grievous things that can befal us here are not like the torments of hell, neither for the degree, nor the duration of them, without intermiffion and without end.

IX. The meditation of death, and of the confequences of it, fhould make us upright and fincere in all our words and actions. Hypocrify and diffimula. tion, as much as they are practifed, are no part of true wisdom, no, not as to this world; they recoil terribly upon men, and turn to their reproach and disadvan tage fo foon as they are difcerned, and they cannotbe long practifed without being difcover'd. But if we regard the other world, all difguifes and arts of deceit are perfect folly; because then, "GOD will bring

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SEP M." bring every work into judgment, and every fecret CLXXXVII« thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil," as Solomon affures us, Ecclef. xii. 14. And our blesfed SAVIOUR cautions us against hypocrify, upon this confideration, that there is a day coming, when all the falfe pretences of men shall be expofed and laid open, and all those masks and vizors which men wear in this world will fall off, and the actions of men shall appear in their true colours, Luke xii. 1, 2. "Beware, fays our SAVIOUR there first of all, "of the leaven of the Pharifees, which is hypocrify: "for there is nothing cover'd, that shall not be re"vealed; nor hid, that fhall not be known."

Laftly, the meditation of our latter end should put us upon a careful, and continual, and particular preparation for the time of our death and diffolution. And this is very well worth our while; and the fooner we fet about it, the better: because, when this work is in any good measure done, we have rescued ourselves from that "bondage," to which most men are all their life long " subject," because of the continual "fear of death." Nothing abates the terror of death, like a due preparation for it. When this is once made, we cannot be much concerned when it comes; for to a well-prepared mind, fooner or later makes no great difference: but if we have delayed this neceffary work, the longer we have delayed it, the more unfit we shall be for it, and the more unwilling to fet about it; and if neceffity drives us to it at laft, we fhall find that old age and fickness are but bad times to make preparation for death in, to begin our repentance and the change of a bad life. He that prepares not for death, before he draws near to it, and comes to lie upon a fick-bed, is like him that begins to ftudy the art of navigation,

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