Ille enim ex Sect. 2. all Day long attended upon his fick and dying Friend; but when he went away, was quickly comforted, fupped merrily, went to Bed chearfully, and on a fudden being furprized by a Squinancy, fcarce drew his Breath until the Morning, but by that time died, being fnatched from the torrent of his Fortune, and the fwelling Tide of Wealth, and a likely Hope bigger than the Neceffities of Ten Men. This accident was much noted then in Rome, becaufe it happened in fo great a Fortune, and in the midst of wealthy Defigns; and presently it made wife Men to confider, how imprudent a Perfon he is who difpofes of Ten Years to come, when he is not Lord of to Morrow. 4. Though we must not look fo far off, and pry futuro fuf- abroad, yet we must be bufie near at Hand; we penditur, muft with all Arts of the Spirit feize upon the precui irritum fent, because it paffes from us while we fpeak, and eft præfens. Seneca. because in it all our Certainty does confift. We must take our waters as out of a Torrent and fudden Shower, which will quickly ceafe dropping from above, and quickly ceafe running in our Chanels here below. This Inftant will never return again, and yet it may be this Inftant will declare or fecure the Fortune of a whole Eternity. The old Greeks and Romans Atate fru- taught us the Prudence of this Rule: But Christianity ere, mobili teaches us the Religion of it. They fo feized upon curfu fugit. the prefent, that they would lofe nothing of the Seneca. Day's Pleasure. Let us eat and drink, for to Morrow we fhall die, that was their Philofophy; and at their folemn Feasts they would talk of Death, to heighten the prefent Drinking, and that they might warm their Veins with a fuller Chalice, as knowing the Drink that was poured upon their Graves would be cold and Martial. 1.2. Without Relifh. Break the Beds, drink your Wine, Epigr. 59. crown your Heads with Rofes, and befmear your curled Locks with Nard; for God bids you to remember Death: So the Epigrammatift fpeaks the Senfe of their drunken Principles. Something towards this Signification is that of Solomon, There is nothing better for a Man, than that be should eat and drink, and that he should make his Soul enjoy Good in his Labour; for that is his Ecclef. 2. 24. & c.3. 22. Portion; Portion; for who shall bring him to fee that which shall be * Amici dum vivimus vivamus. Πῖνε, λέγει τὸ γλύμμα, κι ἔπιε, και περίκεισο Hoc etiam faciunt, ubi difcubuere, tenéntque Ex animo ut dicant,brevis eft hic fructus homulis, To the Pupofe of this Rule is that Collect of Tufcan Hieroglyphicks which we have from Gabriel Simeon: "Our Life is very fhort, Beauty is a cozenage, Money "is falfe and fugitive; Empire is odious, and hated by them that have it not, and uneafie to them that "have it; Victory is always uncertain, and Peace most commonly is but a fraudulent Bargain; Old Age is "miferable; Death is the Period, and is a happy one, "if it be not foured by the Sins of our Life: But nothing continues but the effects of that Wisdom "which employs the prefent Time in the acts of a Ho ly Religion, and a peaceable Confcience: For they make us to live even beyond our Funerals, embalmed in the Spices and Odours of a good Name, and entombed in the Grave of the Holy Jefus, where we shall be dreffed for a bleffed Refurrection to the State of Angels and beatified Spirits. 5. Since we stay not here, being People of a Day's Abode, and our Age is like that of a Fly, and contemporary with a Gourd, we must look fome-where elfe for an abiding City, a Place in another Country to fix our House in, whofe Walls and Foundation is God, where we must find reft, or elfe be reftlefs for ever. For whatfoever Eafe we Quis fapiens bono can have or fanfie here, is Confides fragili dum licet, utere. Tempus fed tacitum fubruit, horáque, fhortly to be changed into Sadnefs or Tediousness: It goes away too foon, like the Periods of our Life; or ftays too long, like the Sorrows of a Sinner: Its own Wearinefs, or a contrary Disturbance, is its Load; or it is eased by its Revolution into Vanity and Forgetfulness: And where either there is Sorrow, or an end of joy, there can be no true Felicity; which because it must be had by fome Inftrument, and in fome Period of our Durations, we must carry up our Affections to the Manfions prepared for us above, where Eternity is the Measure, Felicity is the State, Angels are the Company, the Lamb is the Light, and God is the Portion and Inheritance. SECT. III. Rules and Spiritual Arts of lengthening our Days, and to take off the Objection of a Short Time. [N the Accompts of a Man's Life, we do not reckon Prison of the Womb; we tell our Years from the Day of our Birth: And the fame Reason that makes our Reckoning to stay so long, fays also, that then it begins too foon. For then we are beholden to others to make the Accompt for us; for we know not of a long time, whether we be alive or no, having but fome little Approaches and Symptoms of a Life. To feed, and fleep, and move a little, and imperfectly, is the State of an unborn Child; and when he is born, he does no more for a good while: And what is it that fhall make him to be esteemed to live the Life of a Man? And when hall that Accompt begin? For we fhall be loth to have the Accompt of our Age taken by the Measures of a Beaft; and Fools and diftracted Perfons are reckoned as civilly dead; they are no Parts of the Common-wealth, nor fubject to Laws, but fecured by them in Charity, and kept trom Violence as a Man keeps his Ox: and a third part of our Life is fpent, before we enter into an higher Order, into the State of a Man. 2. Neither 2. Neither must we think that the Life of a Man begins, when he can feed himself, or walk alone, when he can fight, or beget his like; for fo he is contemporary with a Camel or a Cow; but he is firft a Man, when he comes to a certain fteady use of Reafon, according to his proportion; and when that is, all the World of Men cannot tell precifely. Some are call'd at Age at Fourteen, fome at One and Twenty, fome never; but all Men late enough, for the Life of a Man comes upon him flowly and infenfibly. But as when the Sun approaching towards the Gates of the Morning, he first opens a little Eye of Heaven, and fends away the Spirits of Darknefs, and gives light to a Cock, and calls up the Lark to Mattens, and by and by gilds the fringes of a Cloud, and peeps over the Eaftern Hills, thrufting out his golden Horns, like thofe which deck'd the Brows of Mofes when he was forced to wear a Veil, becaufe himself had seen the Face of God; and ftill, while a Man tells the Story, the Sun gets up higher, till he fhews a fair Face and a full Light, and then he fhines one whole Day, under a Cloud often, and fometimes weeping great and little Showers, and fets quickly: So is a Man's Reafon and his Life. He first begins to perceive himself to fee or tafte, making little Reflections upon his Actions of Senfe, and can dif courfe of Flies and Dogs, Shells and Play, Horfes and Liberty: But when he is ftrong enough to enter into Arts and little Inftitutions, he is at first entertain'd with Trifles and impertinent Things, not because he needs them, but becaufe his Understanding is no bigger, and little Images of Things are laid before him, like a Cockboat to a Whale, only to play withal: But before a Man comes to be wife, he is half dead with Gouts and Confumption, with Catarrhs and Aches, with SoreEyes and a worn-out Body. So that if we must not reckon the Life of a Man but by the Accompts of his Reafon, he is long before his Soul be dreffed: And he is not to be called a Man, without a wife and an adorned Soul, a Soul at leaft furnished with what is neceffary towards his Well-being. But by that time his Soul is thus furnished, his Body is decay'd; and then you G can can hardly reckon him to be alive, when his Body is poffeffed by fo many degrees of Death. 3. But there is yet another Arreft. At first he wants ftrength of Body, and then he wants the ufe of Reafon, and when that is come, it is ten to one but he flops by the impediment of Vice, and wants the ftrengths of the Spirit; and we know, that Body and Soul and Spirit are the conftituent Parts of every Chriftian Man. And now let us confider what that Thing is, which we call Years of Difcretion. The young Man is paft his Tutors, and arrived at the Bondage of a caitive Spirit; he is run from Difcipline, and is let loofe to Paffion; the Man by this Time hath Wit enough to chufe his Vice, to act his Luft, to court his Miftrels, to talk confidently and ignorantly and perpetually, to defpife his Betters, to deny nothing to his Appetite, to do Things, that when he is indeed a Man, he must for ever be afhamed of: For this is all the difcretion that moft Men fhew in the first Stage of their Manhood; they can difcern Good from Evil; and they prove their Skill, by leaving all that is Good, and wallowing in the Evils of Folly and an unbridled Appetite. And by this Time the young Man hath contra&ted vicious Habits, and is a Beatt in Manners, and therefore it will not be fitting to reckon the beginning of his Life; he is a Fool in his Understanding, and that is a fad Death and he is dead in Trefpaffes and Sins, and that is a fadder: So that he hath no Life but a Natural, the Life of a Beaft or a Tree; in all other Capacities he is dead; he neither hath the intelle&tual nor the fpiritual Life, neither the Life of a Man nor of a Chriftian; and this fad Truth lafts too long. For Old-age feizes upon moft Men while they ftill retain the Minds of Boys and vicious Youth, doing A&tions from Principles of great Folly and a mighty Ignorance, admiring Things ufelefs and hurtful, and filling up all the dimensions of their Abode with Bufineffes of empty Affairs, being at leifure to attend no Virtue. They cannot pray, because they are bufy, and because they are paffionate: They cannot communicate, because they have Quarrels and Intrigues of per |