it felf be long unacquainted therewith. Is it not much better and more eafie (fince it requires no pains or ftudy) to act our felves, than to accommodate our felves to other unbefeeming and undue parts; to be upright in our intentions, confiftent in our discourses, plain in our dealings, following the fingle and uniform guidance of our reafon and confcience, than to fhuffle and shift, wandring after the various uncertain and inconftant opinions or humours of men? What matter is it, what cloaths we wear, what garb we appear in, during this pofture of travel and fojourning here; what for the present we go for; how men efteem us, what they think of our actions? St. Paul at least did not much stand upon it; for with me, faid he, tis a very small thing (λd- 1 Cor. 4. 3. X150V, the least thing that can come under confideration) to be judged of you, or of humane day (that is, of this prefent tranfitory, fallible, reverfible judgment of men.) If we H 2 mean mean well and doe righteously, our conscience will at present satisfie us, and the divine (unerring and impartial) sentence will hereafter acquit us; no unjust or uncharitable cenfure fhall prejudice us; if we entertain base designs, and deal unrighteously; as our confcience will accuse and vex us here, fo God will fhortly condemn and punish us; neither fhall the most favourable conceit of 1 Cor. 3. 13. men ftand us in ftead. Every man's work fhall become manifeft; for the day fhall declare it; because it fhall be revealed by fire; and the fire (that is, a fevere and ftrict inquiry) shall try every man's work, of what fort it is. I cannot infift more on this Point; I fhall onely fay, that confidering the brevity and uncertainty of our prefent ftate, the greateft fimplicity may justly be deemed the trueft wifedom; that who deceives others doth cozen himself moft; that the deepest policy (ufed to compass, or to conceal bad designs) will in the end appear the most downright folly. I Anton, lib. 7. I might add to the precedent dif- Tox courses, that Philofophy it felf hath T commended this confideration as a our nutegy is ἦθος τὸ πα proper and powerfull inftrument of TEEUTala διεξάγειν. vertue; reckoning the practice thereof a main part of wifedom; the greateft proficient therein in common efteem, Socrates, having defined Philofophy (or the study of wifedom) to be nothing elfe, but (ueλion Da vars) the study of death; intimating alfo (in Plato's Phadon) that this study, the meditation of death and preparation of his mind to leave this World, had been the conftant and chief employment of his life. That likewife, according to experience, nothing more avails to render the minds of men fober and well composed, than such spectacles of Mortality as do impress this confideration upon them. For whom doth not the fight of a Coffin or of a Grave gaping to receive a friend perhaps, an ancient Acquaintance; however a man in nature and state altogether like our felves; of the mournfull looks and habits, of all the fad pomps and folemuities attending man unto his long home, by minding him of his own frail condition, affect with fome ferious, fome honeft, fome wife thoughts? And if we be reafonable men, we may every day fupply the need of fuch occafions, by representing to our felves the neceffity of our foon returning to the duft; dreffing in thought our own Herses, and celebrating our own Funerals; by living under the continual apprehenfion and fenfe of our tranfitory and uncertain condition; dying daily, or becoming already dead unto this World. The doing which effectually being the gift of God, and an efpecial work of his Grace, let us of him humbly imore it, faying after the Holy Prophet, Lord, fo teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wifedom. Amen. SER SERMON III. The Danger and mifchief of delaying Repentance. PSALM CXIX. 60. I made hafte, and delayed not to keep thy Commandments. TH HIS Pfalm (no less excellent in vertue, than large in bulk) containeth manifold reflexions upon the nature, the properties, the adjuncts and effects of God's Law many pightly ejaculations about it (conceived in different forms of fpeech; fome in way of petition, fome H 4 |