SECTION 3:

 

OF THE RIGHT HUSBANDING OR PROLONGING LIFE.

 

 HAVING, in the two former sections, first proved life to be in its own nature a solid good, a considerable blessing; and next, endeavored to prevent the abuses to which it is liable, by stating the true notion of life, and by prescribing rules for the right conduct of the active, trading, and contemplative life; the next thing that naturally fells under consideration, is, the shortness and uncertainty of this blessing. This is that which puzzles the wit, and baffles the courage of man, the rock against which all the attempts of human philosophy have dashed and split themselves; for, to say truth, whatever complaints men make against the troubles, yet have they ever made more against the shortness and uncertainty of life.

 

 It is time, no cure 1ms ever yet been found of our mortality: yet, as wise men have ever thought it reasonable to make the most of an enjoyment, though it would not come up to all that they could wish; so, were there no other life, it would behoove us to do with this; to keep in the flame as long as we can, though we know it must go out at last.

 

Now life, like enjoyment, is capable of increase two* ways, that is, either in its continuance or perfection; either by lengthening its duration, or by raising, improving, or, as it were, ripening the joys and fruits of life. I will first speak of prolonging life. And here I will, First, demonstrate that life may be prolonged; Secondly, I will treat of the ways of prolonging it.

 

 But before I do either, it may be no very wide digression to take notice of the little artifices by which many endeavor to evade the strokes of time, and flatter themselves with a sort of imaginary immortality.

 

CHAPTER 1:

 

The usual Arts of preventing or retarding the Decays of Nature, and lessening the fears of Death, exploded, and better substituted in their Room.

 

 SOME take sanctuary in physic; for which they expect at least the preservation of the vigor of nature, if not the lengthening of the date of life. I will not dispute, whether this art has deserved so well of mankind, as to justify the Gentiles in enrolling the first authors of it among the gods; or, what is more to the purpose, who have lived longest, they who have made most, or they who have made least use of physic. However these questions be resolved, I am sure our time is better spent in laboring to contemn, than to prevent death; and that those excellent principles which fortify the mind, contribute more to the comfort and pleasure of life, than the most sovereign cordials that fortify the spirits.

 

 Some, willing to conceal those decays which they could not prevent, have devised many ways to counterfeit and supply that youth and beauty which time and various accidents have washed and worn away. But, alas! to what purpose is it to deck and varnish withered nature, and paint the spring upon the face of winter To what purpose is it, when the evil is incurable, to suffer one's self to be flattered and imposed upon, and try in vain to hide a broken fortune, not only from the world, but from one's self Alas! we must feel what we will not see. Nature droops and decays as fast within as it does without; and we lose the life and briskness of our blood, as fast as we do the elegancy of feature, or the floridness of complexion. In a word, as to this perishing body, physic, washes, fucuses, are in vain; yon but paint and patch a ruinous fabric, which can never be made strong and beautiful, until death has taken it down to the ground, and resurrection built it up anew.

 

 If, therefore, you would take my advice, you should lay in a stock of sprightly generous pleasures, which may be ever ready to entertain you, when youth and strength are past. You should take pains to enrich and adorn the mind, whose beauties will more than supply the loss of those of the body. Wisdom, magnanimity, bounty, modesty, sweetness, and humility, are charms able to recommend a deformed or a decrepit body; and I am confident may be purchased at a much cheaper rate than false or counterfeit beauties are by those who are solicitous about them. Let then the morning and noon of your life be spent in acquiring virtue, honor, knowledge, and good humor, and in your evening you will have no reason to complain of the loss of youth and beauty. These will be solid riches, and most amiable charms, that will provide you delight and support at home, and command both love and reverence abroad; and time will do you no other injury that, it does a tree, when it changes its blossoms into fruit, or than it does statues, medals, and pictures, whose value is enhanced by their antiquity.

 

 Convinced that the decays of nature cannot be long concealed or propped up, some please themselves with an opinion of surviving in their posterity; as if man by generation did but multiply himself, and life did not, like a flame, end with its fuel, but were transmitted from father to son, and so on; like a stream that is still the same, though it passeth through numerous pipes.

 

 Well, for my part, I cannot fool myself with a vain gingle of words; I cannot flatter myself that I shall live in him, who probably will in a little time forget me, however he owe his being and fortune to me; nay, it may be, will wish that others did forget me too; like a stream nmning, as soon as it enlarges itself, as far as it can from its little fountain, and laboring, as it were, by its circlings and wanderings, to conceal the meanness of its rise. I cannot flatter myself that I shall live in them, whose hopes and fears, desires and joys, will differ it may be no less from mine, whatever they may now be, than the dead do from the living. Fools that we are, to talk so wildly, as if, when dead, we lived in our children. Do we, when living, share in their distant joys Or do our pulses beat by their passions I would not be mistaken, as if I designed to oppose or extinguish nature: I know the great Author of it, for wise and excellent purposes, has implanted in us kind inclinations towards posterity: but then these are for the sake of others, not myself; they ripen into actions that serve the turn of others, not my own; I only bear the fruit which others must gather. And whatever pleasure I may now feel in a promising prospect of the honor and virtue of my posterity, it is such a one as that of MOSES beholding Canaan at a distance; but such a distance that he must never enter into it.

 

 To conclude: whatever men promise themselves, I think them tolerably fortunate, if instead of reaping any benefit when dead, from their children, their lives be not stained and disturbed by them; extremely fortunate, if they can make then fit to be their friends and favorites, worthy to share their pleasures, and able to give them some ease in their troubles. Though after all, I cannot but think it is infinitely more eligible to be the father of many good works, than many children; and to spend my time nobly in cultivating my mind, than in entangling my life with cares for those who often will take none for themselves.

 

 Some have entertained vain projects of an imaginary immortality; an immortality which they must owe neither to GOD nor nature, but to historians and poets, painters and statuaries, and to the dying echoes pf a surviving memory; I, mean, that which men seek in posthumous fame, in pictures, and statues, and tombs, and embalming carcases. All these seem to carry in them some fading shadows of existence; but, ah! how imaginary a life is this! Something that does infinitely less resemble life, than a dream does enjoyment. Ah, vain support of human frailty! Ah, vain relief of death! If there be any thing in honor, if it be body or substance enough to be seen, or felt, or tasted; if it be reality enough to be any way enjoyed, let me possess it while I live. It comes too late, if it serve only to increase the pomp of my funeral, or to dress and set off my sepulchre, or to silence the groans, or to wipe off the tears of my orphans or my friends, though this be something. I cannot feel any pleasure in the foresight of that glory, which while I strain to gaze upon at a distance, the fogs and mists of death thicken the sky. The voice that will speak me great, will speak me gone; the statues and marbles which adorn my memory, will adorn my grave too; and while they express my image or my actions, will proclaim, that all that is now left of me is rottenness and ashes.

 

 All this I talk, abstracting from the considerations of a future life; for how far the reputation I leave behind, may concern my soul in its state of separation from the body, whether the echoes of those praises bestowed upon my memory here, will reach and please mine ears in another world, know not, nor do I much desire to know; for supposing such a life, my soul must needs have nobler employment, and nobler pleasure, than this can ever give it. I must confess; if the reflections of my light, when I am set and gone, would be of any use to direct and inflame posterity, I should now take some pleasure in that, which it is hard to persuade me I shall take any in hereafter. Nor would it be a trifling satisfaction to me, while I lived, if I could believe that my relations or my friends could receive any honor or patronage from me when dead. And since some sort of character I must leave behind; since I must in this manner, among some at least, and for some little time survive, I had rather leave behind me perfume than stench; I had rather live in commendations, than in satires and invectives. But after all, how lean and miserable a comfort is this! that when I am dead, it will be said, I once lived; and a promiscuous crowd will talk of me and of my actions, what they please; some things good, some things bad; some things true, some things false; and what is worse yet, I must suffer all the revolutions of humors and parties in following ages. These must give my abilities and performances their character, and the prevailing faction must stamp what estimate they please upon my memory.

 

 And yet true it is, I love a charity that is universal and boundless, and extends itself to following ages. And certainly there is not a nobler charity, than to furnish the world with an example that may adorn its own times, and enkindle the emulation of posterity. Nay, farther^ I am willing to believe that a gracious GOD will earn up, amongst the accompts of my life, the influence it has upon the world when I am dead; and will consider it, not simply in itself, but with all the happy effects which it may any way be the occasion of in successive ages. Let me then do good, and if I can, great actions, upon any motive, provided it be just and allowable, since this will be the blessed fruit of it. But yet it shall be my business to make sure of my own immortality; if that of my name will follow, let it. It shall be my business to gain the approbation of GOD and angels; and if the praises of this lower world join their harmony, and consent with that above, this cannot disoblige me. I will with all my power make sure of my salvation, let my fame be as it may.

 

 Having exploded those mistaken fancies, by which men support themselves against the shortness of life, I will now proceed to treat of the only two ways by which this evil may be in some measure remedied; that is, by prolonging the date, and by improving the nature of life, so that a man may live much in a little time.

 

CHAPTER 2:

 

Of lengthening Life.

 

UNDER this article I design, 1. To refute the opinion of a fatal period of human life. 2. To consider what ways the date of life may be lengthened. 3. To remove those objections with which this advice is encountered.

 

 1. To begin with the first. It has been too generally taught and believed, that the date of human life cannot be protracted; that every particular man has a fixed and immutable period decreed him, beyond which he cannot go. But this opinion directly defeats the force of all motives and arguments to virtue, derived from temporal considerations, and undermines our dependance upon GOD, and ridicules our addresses to him, as far as they concern this life, and the things of it. And how plain a step is this to the overthrow of Judaism, which was built upon temporal promises; and consequently to the overthrow of Christianity itself, the authority of the New Testament depending in so great a measure upon that of the Old And were there no other reasons to reject this opinion, these, I should think, were abundantly sufficient; since it is impossible that any thing should be consonant to truth, which is so repugnant to the authority of religion: but there are so many more, that I must be forced to crowd them together, that I may avoid tediousness and redundancy. This persuasion then is repugnant to all the instincts of our nature. To what purpose is the love of life implanted in us by ouv great Creator Why is self-preservation the first dictate and law of nature, if all our care and diligence can contribute nothing towards it Vain and impertinent is that law, whose observation can procure us no good, nor its violation any evil. This is a persuasion that flatly contradicts the experience and observation of mankind in general. How can the period of life be fixed and unalterable, which we see every day either lengthened out by care and moderation, or shortened by excess and negligence, unless we can resolve to the utter overthrow of religion, not only that life and death, but also that vice and virtue, wisdom and folly, which lead to the one and the other, are alike pre-determined. 

 

 Nor is this opinion less contrary to the sense and reason of the wise and prudent, than to the experience of the multitude. Self-preservation is the first and chief end of civil societies, and human law: but how ridiculous a thing were it for the sagacious part of mankind to enter into deep consultation, to frame solemn laws, and devise the strongest obligations to fence and secure that life which can neither be invaded one minute before its fatal hour, nor prolonged one minute beyond it. Nor has man only, but GOD himself, endeavored to secure this temporal life by the strictest and most solemn laws: nor this only, but he has made life and death the reward of obedience and punishment of sin.

 

 This opinion, therefore, is a manifest calumny against the wisdom and sincerity of GOD; against his wisdom, if he raise up the bulwarks of laws, to guard that life, which can neither be violated before, nor extended beyond, its, minute: his sincerity, for his promises would be ludicrous and insignificant, and so would his threats too, if neither the obedience of the virtuous could lengthen, nor the disobedience of the sinner, could shorten life. In a word, to what purpose does the SPIRIT, in 1 Pet. 3: 10,11, encourage men to religion by the proposal of life and prosperity, if in truth, life and prosperity depend, not on our behavior, but our fate; and be not dispensed according to the open proposals, but the secret and unconditional, the rigid and inflexible, decrees of the Almighty

 

 The truth of this proposition being thus made out by unanswerable reasons, we are not to suffer ourselves to be moved by any superstitious imaginations, by any obscure or subtle objections, or by any mere colours or appearances of reason: for what is once clear and evident, ought to remain firm and unshaken, though we cannot unravel every objection against it. Therefore, though I should not be able to reconcile this doctrine with some obscure texts of Scripture, yet ought its authority to be preserved, as built upon plain texts, and solid reasons.

 

 But the truth is, there is nothing objected here, but what is capable of a very easy answer. The Scriptures which speak of an appointed time for man upon earth, are not to be understood of any particular personal fate, but of a general law or rule of nature; not of the extent of every particular person's life, but of the duration of man in general, or of the mortality of our frame and constitution, and the shortness of man's residence here upon earth; and imply no more than that man, as well as all other species of animals, and indeed of vegetables, (for so far JOB extends the comparison,) has his time appointed, the bounds of his life or abode here set him, beyond which he cannot pass." The days of our age are threescore years and ten; and though men be so strong that they come to fourscore years; yet is their strength then but labor and sorrow, so soon passeth it away, and we are gone." (Psa. xc. 10.)

 

 As to the Prescience of GOD, I see not how the denial of a fatal period of human life clashes with this. On the quite contrary, he seems to me injuriously to restrain the knowledge of GOD, who thinks he foreknows nothing, but because" He peremptorily predetermined it. This, if we will speak sense, is to magnify his power, but to reduce and confine his knowledge, or at least, to depress and debase it: for thus it would not be a primary and essential perfection, but would result from, or depend upon, an arbitrary will, an unguided power. For my part, I cannot think it necessary, if I could not reconcile GOD'S foreknowledge with contingency in events, therefore, with the Socinian, to deny the one, or with the Fatalist, the other. It is enough to me, that I learn from Scripture, that is, from GOD, who cannot err, that Prescience belongs to the Creator, and contingency to the creature: the measure and bounds of these, if there be any, let who will seek, it is not my business now.

 

 2. Having thus evidenced that the period of life is not fatally fixed, that no peremptory and unconditional decree supersedes our vigilance and industry for the preservation of this blessing; I will now proceed to the second thing proposed, and consider which way the date of life may be lengthened.

 

 It is obvious to every one, that life depends upon these three things:-(].) The cheerfullness of the mind; (2.) The health of the body; and (3.) A favorable Providence of GOD; by which, as none will deny, who admit of Providence, we may at least be protected from violence and accidents, such as human prudence cannot foresee. And to these three, may, for ought I know, be added, the good-will of man, whose ministry and service is very often of excellent use to us in this point.

 

 (1.) The first thing then I am now to inquire into, is, briefly, what cheerfullness of mind contributes to the preservation of life, and then more fully, how we may possess ourselves of it.

 

 It is true, the morose and sour, the froward, the passionate, and the sullen,-those stains and blots of human nature, -often prolong their lives to a great age; but it is as true, that the loose and debauched, the intemperate and incontinent, do sometimes, though rarely, live long, and descend' into the grave, rather oppressed by their years than their excesses. And if from such extraordinary instances as these, we shall take the liberty to form rules of life, and to contradict known and received truths, we shall ever live at the mercy of fancy, and never find any firm footing to rest upon. I will not therefore doubt, notwithstanding these rare instances, but that the cheerfullness -of the mind has a very propitious, its discontent a very malign, influence upon the life of man. The content of the mind preserves the balsam of the blood, and the pleasure of it enlarges the heart, raises the spirits, actuates and invigorates all empowers; so that when the mind shines serene and bright, it seems to impart a new warmth and new life to the body; a new spring and new verdure to this earth: on the contrary, a diseased mind does, as it were, scatter its contagion through the body; discontent and melancholy sour the blood, and clog the spirits; envy pines away; and passion frets and wears out our strength and life. In few words, there is an intimate conjunction between the mind and body, and so close is the dependence of the latter upon the former, that the face of inferior nature does evidently vary, wither, or flourish, according to that variety of weather it makes in the sky above it, as the mind smiles or lowers upon it. 

 

 And accordingly, if we appeal to experience and observation, I believe we may safely pronounce, that, generally, such live longest, as either think very little, or whose thoughts are always calm and cheerful; such as are stupid, and have no passions; or are wise and good, and have none but such as are regular and delightful. All this, I think, is not contested; and all the difficulty lies in possessing ourselves of this satisfaction and content of mind. Men seek it in every thing, and even those things which are diametrically opposite to one another, pretend to be infallible guides to it: atheism and religion, philosophy and ignorance, worldly prudence, and an affected contempt of it, do all promise to teach us the art of satisfaction;- but it will not be a very difficult task, when we have examined the pretences of each, to resolve which we are to follow.

 

 Ignorance, lust, and fancy, are too blind, rash, and violent, for us to abandon ourselves to their conduct; nor are they more giddy and inconstant in themselves, than weak and subject to all the changes and accidents of the world; so that should they lead us on to pleasure, we have reason to apprehend pain the next moment: and at best, they leave us not in a condition, either rationally to approve our enjoyments, or'to fortify ourselves against the loss of them.

 

 Worldly policy is built wholly upon mistakes. It proposes to us things under the notion of great and good, which when we have examined, we jind not worth our seeking: and of these it can give us no assurance, whether we respect their acquisition or possession: and the ways it prescribes to put us in possession of all that satisfaction which results from these things, have something in them so mean, so laborious, so uncertain, so vexatious, that no success can compensate that trouble and shame, which the canvassing for them puts us to.

 

 Atheism pretends, indeed, to extinguish our guilt and fears, but it does also deface all the beauty and loveliness of human actions. It pretends to let loose the reins to pleasure, but withal, it leaves us no support under evil. It takes off many restraints, but withal, it unchains and lets loose our passions. In a word, it leaves us nothing truly great or lovely to enjoy in this world, or hope for in another. And if its tenets were useful to us, yet have they no certainty, no foundation. It derives all its credit from the confidence, not reason of men, who under colour of a free and impartial philosophy, advance the interest of those lusts to which they are entirely enslaved.

 

 Religion, then, only remains to be followed. This rectifies our opinions, and dispels our errors, and routs those armies of imaginary evils, which terrify and torment the world, much more than spirits and ghosts do. This discovers to us objects worthy of all the love and admiration of our souls. This extinguishes our fear; shows us the happiness of our present condition, and opens us a glorious prospect of our future one. This discovers to us the happy tendency of temporal evils, and the glorious reward of them: and, in one word, teaches us both to enjoy and suffer. It moderates our desires of things uncertain, and fixes them upon those things for which we can be responsible: it raises the mind, clears the reason, and, finally, forms us into such a united, settled, and compacted state of strength, that neither the judgment is easily shaken, nor the affections hurried, by any violent transport. 

 

 But do I not here imitate Physicians, who attend only to the most dangerous symptoms, and neglect others Whether I do or no, they who read such general directions, are wont to do so in their applications of them: and most are apt to look upon religion as designed only to redress substantial and formidable evils. And yet it is with the mind as witlr the body, though fevers, imposthumes, defluxions, kill, the anger of a pustule, the pain of a tooth, strangely disorder and disturb: and thus, though pain, and death, and such like evils, overthrow and overwhelm the mind; yet are there a crowd of slight evils which disquiet and discompose it. And this is a matter not to be contemned, especially by me, in the prosecution of the design I am here upon; since I persuade myself that the great and formidable evils, guilt, pain, poverty, sickness, death, or the thoughts and apprehensions of them, but rarely afflict the life of man. But there are other evils of a slighter nature, which, like pirates, are perpetually cruizing on our coasts, and though they cannot invade and destroy, do much disturb and annoy us. Nay, what is yet more, it is very usual to see men acquit themselves very honorably under true and substantial evils, who come off very poorly from the encounter of slight and despicable ones. How common is it, for one who maintains bravely his courage and judgment amidst swords and bullets, to lose all patience, prudence, and government, when attacked by a rude jest 

 

 To see a man that hears very calmly the loss of a ship, or a considerable sum of money, transported into strange indecency upon the breaking of a glass, or the spoiling of a dish of meat; and he who sits very tamely and unconcernedly down under a high disgrace, sweats and raves if robbed but of a cabbage or an apricot.

 

 These, and such like remarks, one may make every day, and almost in every company: and what is the worst of all, our fears and sorrows, our hate and anger, are as violent and uneasy, when they spring from causes of the least, as of the highest, moment. We bewail fantastic and true misfortunes, with the same sighs and tears, and resent imaginary and substantial injuries with the same disordered pulse and deformed looks. When I have reflected on all this, I have often thought that it was as necessary to the tranquillity of life, to guard myself against dust and flies, as against storms and tempests; to arm myself against the stings of a swarm of vexatious accidents, as against pestilence, and war, and poverty. And to this end, these following rules have often been of great use to me.

 

 1. Of the evils of life, I never take more to my share than are really my own. I never travel abroad to find out foreign mischiefs to torment myself; as if there were not enough of the native growth of my country. My own mind, my own body, my own house, are provinces, wide enough for me, and a little too fruitful too. Nay, I am not ashamed to confess, I decline, if I can, an evil, even lying in my way, as I do a bustle, or a fray, by passing on the other side of the street. I will never split upon a shelf or rock, if I have sea-room enough. And as a little distance of place, so a little distance of time, serves my turn to make me reckon such evils as none of mine: I will no more distract or disturb myself with the evils that are fancied teeming in the womb of time, than with those that are now in being in Peru or Mexico. This is the very lecture religion reads me, for sure to incorporate distant evils, or to anticipate future ones, were far from' studying to be quiet, and doing one's own business;' or from thinking with our SAVIOR," Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof" and were indeed to suffer as" busy bodies, fearful, and unbelievers." If any man will impute this to me as brutality and uncharitableness, I cannot help it; I thank GOD that I have sense enough to practise caution without fear, care without anxiety, and charity without distress or agony of mind.

 

 2. As to those evils (I speak still of slight and daily ones) which I cannot avoid; my next care is to weaken their force, to disarm them of their sting, their teeth and venom, if they have any. I take from them all the terror that fancy and opinion have given them, and will no more, if I can help it, suffer my imagination, than my taste or feeling, to be imposed upon. In the next place, I carefully strengthen myself, see that my state be healthy, and my nature firm, lest I should complain of the meat, when the fault is in my stomach; or think the bed ill made when the cause of my uneasiness is in the body. And, lastly, when I have reduced the evil to its own natural size, generally it is of such a pigmy, dwarfish growth, that I can securely slight it. I can master it with very little trouble and industry, or at worst, with very little patience.

 

 I labor above all things to fill my soul with great and ravishing pleasures, to possess it with that habitual poverty of spirit, meekness, purity, charity, commended to his disciples by our LORD and Master, that I am generally above the buzz and fluttering of these, rather impertinences, than evils; and do often suffer them without being sensible of them. But 1 can never often enough put the world in mind of the vast difference there is between the fits and habits of these virtues. What we could do in a pious humor, that we should always do, were but the weak impression once converted into nature, the short-lived passion changed into steady habit.

 

 The next thing to be considered, after the cheerfulness of the mind, is, The health of the body. Life does so apparently depend on this, that in the vulgar notion, it signifies much the same thing. It is notorious, life decay and expires with the health and strength of the body, and when it is protracted after these are gone, it scarce deserves the name of life, any more than the noise of an ill-strung, and ill-tuned, instrument, does that of music. But I need not teach any body the value of health, or press them to the preservation of the body: I should be sufficiently obliging to the world, if I could teach it any art by which they might be restored to that blessing which it enjoyed before the flood, a life of many hundred years. But I know no art that can raise nature above its own laws, or retrieve its youth, if it be now in its decline. One thing I know, that we too commonly debauch and corrupt nature first, and then load her with our reproaches and accusations. We should undoubtedly live much longer, and this life would be more healthy, that is, more vital than it is, did we but observe the dictates of religion, and not prefer before them those of lust and fancy. 

 

 How much so ever men complain of the shortness of life, most men do, notwithstanding, shorten it themselves by some crime or error, or other. If we could consult the sickly, crazy, part of mankind, I mean such as are so in the middle, or almost beginning, of their years, and demand of them, What blasted their beauty, and impaired their strength What thus violated their nature we should soon be resolved to what original their diseases were owing, if, at least, their shame and blushes would give them leave to inform us. And if we should endeavor to trace the deaths of most of those who have gone hence before their time, back to their first cause, I do not think but our search would soon end in some vice or folly, or other. This man drank too much; the other, too much indulged his appetite: one was devoted to his lust, and another putrefied in his sloth. All of them, in our common phrase, did live too fast; but in truth and propriety of speech, died too fast. For since life is nothing else but acting by reason, every deviation from it is an approach towards death.

 

 But to proceed: It is not unusual to see pride kill one, passion another, avarice and ambition a third, while, to gratify these affections, the body is either exposed to dangers, or worn out by labor. Now, if we can generally find the causes of early deaths in men's vices, when so little of other men's lives comes to our knowledge, what think you should we not be able to discover, if we could enter into the retirements, and penetrate all the secrets of mankind How many hidden passions gnaw the heart how many secret sins consume the strength where not only concealment excludes the eye, but a show of probity, nay, a real practice of some particular virtue, excludes even suspicion If, then, immorality often contract the term of life, it is evident what is to be prescribed for the prolonging it. Religion is the best physic: it has often mended an ill constitution, but never spoiled a good one. When did ever chastity impoverish the body, or deflower the face When did ever temperance inflame the blood, or oppress the spirits When did ever industry or vigilance sour the humors, and enfeeble the nerves No crudities, no plethories, no obstructions, no acidities, no stagnations, extravasations, and I know not what hard names, and harder things, derive themselves from religion.

 

 It is true, a man may entitle his folly, his melancholy, his particular fancy, or his particular constitution, religion. And this may prove mischievous to him, to his health, to his strength: but then this is not the fault of religion, but the man; and to speak properly, this ib not religion, though it be called so, but it is fancy and folly, or an ill constitution disguised under the garb of religion. Virtue, then, is the most probable way to a long life, or, if not so, at least to a more comfortable and honorable death. For where an early death is the result of a Providence, not a crime, we must needs meet it with less amazement ourselves, and our friends behold it with less regret and affliction.

 

 The third way of prolonging life, is, to engage the Providence 6f GOD in its preservation. If all the promises GOD has made the virtuous of a long life, did really signify nothing, I cannot see how we could put up any request to GOD, relating to temporal protection, with faith or fervor, or so much as sincerity: but if they signify any thing, then surely they must signify, that his Providence is actively employed for the preservation of virtuous men. And how great security is this What can be impossible to-him who is the Governor and Creator of the world, in whose disposal all created means are, and in whose power it is, if these be insufficient, to create new ones To him, whose unerring laws can never miss of those ends he aims at Or if they could, his power is ever at hand to supply their defects, and accommodate and temper them to particular emergencies; and his prerogative is under no ties, no limitations, but those of his divine wisdom. Well might the Psalmist say," I laid me down and slept, for it is thou, LORD, makest me dwell in safety." Every good man may say the same, not In peace and health only, but in sickness, in a tempest, whether by sea or land, in a plague, in a battle, in a siege, in a storm: to believe ourselves under the patronage and protection of GOD, seems to me nothing less than to believe, that he will make those things we are concerned in, flow with a smooth and gentle stream; that he will place us in a condition of life safe and agreeable; or, if not, that in distresses and dangers, he will contrive the methods of our rescue, and where the ordinary are insufficient, find out extraordinary; that he will concur and co-operate with the natural course of things, or, if he see it fit, that he will exert a supernatural force, and vouchsafe an extraordinary succour. Plainly, thus, though,! know not the unsearchable methods of divine Providence, yet from GOD'S concerning himself for my good, I may boldly infer, that in my sickness I may hope for that from GOD, which I cannot from the skill of my Physician; that in troublesome times, I may expect that from Providence, which I cannot from the wisdom, justice, or power, of the magistrate; that in necessitous, intricate, circumstances, I may promise myself that issue from his favor, which I cannot from the prudence, integrity, or bounty, of my friends; and, in a word, that in all cases, I can hope for that from my prayers, which I could not from human power or policy. The sum of all is, all the natural means of our security and life are in the hands of GOD. And if these should be deficient, nothing can restrain him from exerting a supernatural force for our preservation. His fixed and universal laws are infinitely wise. But if at any tune our affairs should require his immediate interposal, I know not why I should fancy his prerogative so bounded, that he cannot, or will not, interpose. And though his pavilion be thick clouds, and he walk upon the wings of the wind; though his Providence be a great abyss, and the swiftness and secrecy of his actings elude our search, and bafHe our inquiries, so that we cannot discern when he acts by prerogative, when by law; yet I doubt not but that he does frequently exert a miraculous and extraordinary power.

 

 This being so, it is plain that our great business is to engage the Providence of GOD on our behalf, that we may have an unerring guide of this dubious and floating life, a firm support of this mortal corruptible nature: and I think I need not prove, that religion is the effectual way to oblige GOD: if this be the great message that we have received of the SON of GOD," that GOD is light," then ST. JOHN'S inference must needs be good, that he only who walks in the light, can hold communion with him; that is, be dear and acceptable to him: a spiritual and rational worship, must be the only method to endear ourselves to a GOD, who is a wise Spirit. Nay, though all the precepts of religion should not be necessarily founded in their agreeableness to the divine nature, yet still, since they are the precepts of GOD, we need search for no other reason for the acceptableness of our obedience. It is true, all the heights of purity, to which the Gospel invites us, are not necessary to the health and strength of the body; yet are they serviceable to the perfection and improvement of our nature: they are not all indispensable to the happy conduct of our temporal affairs; but they are useful to the felicity and glory of our eternal; and therefore the more religious we are, the more we shall please GOD. But I will insist no longer on so uncontested a point; nature itself dictates, that an imitation of their virtues is the strongest obligation we can lay upon the wise or good; and obedience, the most effectual recommendation of us to the sovereign powers: whether, therefore, we consider GOD as the best, or the greatest, the characters under which the light of nature did ever represent him, religion, that is, imitation and obedience, are the only ways by which we may secure his favor.

 

 Nor is virtue less apt to procure the favor and amity of man, than that of GOD. It fences us about with the arms and succors of mankind; it guards us with all their eyes, and with all their prayers: for their love and reverence make them both active and wakeful in our service.

 

 How directly repugnant to all this are the effects of irre-ligion It leaves us no other safeguard than that of our own strength and vigilance; which, to speak properly, is to deliver us up into the hands of folly and fear, our weakness and cowardice. For, alas, what were my single reason or force, when I have neither GOD nor man to second me How much less, when the indignation of the one, and the secret aversion, or open enmity, of the other, scare and intimidate me! How can a man hold out against dangers, if he be betrayed by his own guilt within, and his reason, overthrown by ominous fears, do not lessen, but multiply his terrors Hence is that of SOLOMON, *' The wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous are bold as a lion: " abandoned by GOD and man, he seems at last abandoned by himself too.

 

 The sum of what I have said amounts to this: First, I have proved that the date of life is not fatal and unalterable: from whence it necessarily followed, that it was capable of being prolonged or protracted. Therefore, I proceeded, Secondly, To consider by what means it might be prolonged: and here, supposing that nothing could be more conducive to this than a cheerful mind, a healthful body, and a propitious Providence; I have made it evident that these are to be sought in the practice of religion and virtue, which is nothing else than what inspired authors have frequently taught: " Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and honor."" Thou shall come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in its season." O blessed and perfect religion, at once the guard and joy of life; at once the support and delight of human nature!

 

 But against this whole discourse, it will be objected, First, How is this that you contend for How are those texts which make length of days the reward of obedience to the divine laws, reconcileable with those other, which, as far as concerns their temporal effects, seem to equal wisdom and folly, and level righteousness with wickedness, asserting the promiscuousness of all events to the virtuous and vitious" All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked, to the good, and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificed!, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner, and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath." (Eccles. 9: 2.) And this is extended as far as death itself: "How dieth the wise man As the fool." (Eccles. 2: 16.) Innumerable are the answers to this objection; but one only fits my purpose, which is plainly this.

 

 These, and the like speeches, design not to derogate from the efficacy of virtue, or weaken the force of the divine promises, but to humble the vanity of man, and convert his fondness for the world into a greater for a better; and are not therefore to be understood in such a general and unlimited sense, as if there were no difference between the righteous and the wicked, with respect to tern* poral good and evil, life and death; but only thus, that the righteous are not so universally exempt from temporal evils, but that some or other of them in all ages are liable to them, even to an untimely death itself. But what then Such extraordinary instances of an inscrutable Providence ought no more to derogate from the excellency of wisdom and virtue, or the veracity of GOD, than some few shipwrecks ought to discredit navigation, or the failing of some few traders disparage art and industry. It is enough that the experienced and skilful, the careful and diligent, generally sail and trade successfully. And this may in part suffice for an answer to another objection of the same nature with this; only, that this relates to all events in general, but the objection following to a particular one.

 

 If long life be a great blessing at present, and recommends men to greater afterwards, and if religion be on both these accounts entitled to it, whence is it that an immature death snatches away sometimes the best of men, that it stops them in the very progress of their virtue, and in a full career towards perfection and glory I answer,

 

 1. The Providence of GOD is a great deep: " His judgments are unsearchable, and his ways past finding out."

 

 2. I cannot believe that this early death which intercepts the fruits of a growing virtue, shall bereave the virtuous of any degree of that future glory, to which such fruits would have entitled them. I should rather think,, with the author of the Book of Wisdom, that having completed their perfection in a little time, they had in a little time finished their course; and by what they did do, gave such plain proofs of what they would do, that GOD rewards their purposes as he does the actions of others, and therefore hastens to take them to himself. But however this matter may be, I am content to believe,

 

 3. That as GOD orders all the particular events of life, to the good of those that love him, so much more must he dispose this biggest event, to their interest and benefit t and, therefore, this immature death is doubtless, to the righteous, better than life, though we should not be able to discern why. They die in their perfection, their glory yet unsullied, their felicity unstained, no vile temptation, no misfortune, having yet triumphed over them; an advantage which we much admire when we see great and good men surprised or overpowered by weakness and calamities. For then we cannot but acknowledge, that if death had come sooner, it had been much kinder; for they had been gathered into the storehouse of the dead, like corn into the granary, before unseasonable or immoderate rain had corrupted it, or any malignant vapor blasted it.

 

 Lastly, I know not how Heaven has dealt with these its favorites: peradventure it is in the moral as in the political world; some are born to that greatness which others acquire with labor. He never dies too soon who dies ripe and perfect; and if these divine souls were soon enriched with more light and beauty, with more impetuous inclinations to virtue than other men; if their short life were so innocent, so bright, that out of a particular grace, GOD thought fit to exempt them from the miseries of this life; or that upon account of a particular pre-eminence, they needed not pass through the trial, the discipline, and purgations of it, on either of these supposals, we ought not to commiserate but revere their fate.

 

CHAPTER 3:

 

Of improving Life, or living much in a little Time.

 

 To understand aright what it is I here aim at, what I mean by the Improvement of Life, it is necessary to call to mind the true notion of life, laid dawn in the beginning; that it is the right use of all our powers and faculties, the rational exercise, the wise employment, of our whole nature.

 

 Now if this be so, it is plain that we live just as much as we act and enjoy, I mean, always rationally; that as we advance and grow up towards a perfection of nature, the more it, life also raised and refined. Thus, if the life of the understanding be to think, to discover and contemplate truth and goodness, then, surely, its life is enlarged with its knowledge: if the life of the soul of man, I mean his will and affections, be to choose and pursue, admire and love, true good, then certainly our life is perfected with our virtue, and augmented with our religion.

 

 In a word, if the life of man do not consist in the motion of animal spirits, but the exercise of his rational powers and faculties; if the true health of man be not to be judged by the regularity of his pulse, but the harmony of his affections; if, finally, the thing called life be not to be measured by hours, and days, and months, and years, but by activity and enjoyment; then, sure I may boldly conclude, that the more regularly and constantly we pursue the proper business of our nature, the more actively and vigorously we are carried on towards that which is our proper good, so much the more we live so much the more true, natural, and pure life; and all this is no other philosophy than what the wise man has long ago advanced: " For honorable age is not that which standeth in length of time, nor that is measured by number of years. But wisdom is the gray hair unto men, and an unspotted life is old age." (Wisd. 4: 8, 9.) This is a truth of vast importance; were it but once thoroughly imbibed, it would relieve all the pressures, and redress all the grievances of life.

 

 We complain of life, that it is dull and nauseous, we impeach it of vanity and vexation, of shortness and uncertainty. How would this one notion, well pursued, soon silence all their complaints He would never think life too short, who were ripe for death: he would never complain that life were uncertain, who were always ready to di: He would not accuse life of dullness and nauseous-ness, who was daily advancing his discovery of truth, and enlarging his possession of good: nor would he ever charge it with vanity and vexation, were his actions still wise and rational: for thus, every act of life would be an act of fruition too, being both agreeable to nature, and attended by a delightful approbation and complacency of conscience. By this time it is plain what the design of this chapter is, namely, to compensate the shortness, by the excellency, of life, and redress the vanity and vexation of it, by its perfection; a design, I confess, worthy of a more comprehensive mind, and a more elevated fancy than mine; a design, demanding all the wisdom and experience of an active, and all the thought and learning of a contemplative, life; a design, in a word, that requires at once the prudence of old age, and the vigor of blooming years. I shall here discourse but very briefly, and iu general terms, of the Improvement of Life, All the advice I shall oner here, is, 1. That we endeavor to perfect and exalt our nature. 2. That we begin to live betimes; or, if we cannot now do that, our years being far spent, that we begin to live immediately. 3. That we avoid those things that are enemies to our true life.

 

 1. We must endeavor to perfect and exalt our nature. The necessity of this will be very conspicuous to any one, who shall consider that the perfection of our acts depends upon the perfection of our faculties and powers; just as the pleasure of seeing does on the goodness of the eye, or that of hearing on the perfection of the ear: so much, and much more, does the beauty of human action, and the gust of all our enjoyments, depend upon the clearness of the judgment, the rectitude of the will, and the vigor of our passions. To render this argument yet more visible and palpable, let us consider how mean a thing man was, and how contemptible life, without cultivation or improvement. The body is but a heap of dust; something there needs to stamp a value upon it; something there must be to give sweetness to the eye, charm to the tongue, and grace to motion. It is a mere machine, alike capable of being made the instrument of cruelty or mercy, of lust or chastity, of avarice or charity: it is religion that must purge and sanctify it; it is wisdom that must conduct and guide, and make it the happy instrument of great and glorious actions. The spirit within us is a volatile, mutable, unsteady thing, capable of" all sorts of impressions, suspended as it were between heaven and earth, floating between the different shores of good and evil. Knowledge and virtue form it into an angel, stamp a sort of divinity upon it; for we are not born but made great; it is wisdom that imprints it with bright ideas, that impregnates it with noble passions, and determines its tendency towards its true good and supreme felicity. Our conversation with the world is naturally nothing else but a dull intercourse of forms, and ceremonies, and civilities; a nauseous circulation of the same tasteless and superficial entertainments: a tedious and repeated pursuit of vain mistaken ends, and often baffled designs. It is virtue and knowledge that giye relish to our enjoyments, and life and spirit to all our actions; that lead us on toward excellent ends, and inspire us with immortal hopes. Our fortune and condition in the world is naturally a fluctuating unstable agitation, made up of a confused and motley variety of events; knowledge and virtue fix the floating island, and give light and beauty to the chaos.

 

 I can never carry this argument too far, and therefore I will yet a little more particularly consider what increase of life we derive from perfecting our natures. Does life consist in the exercise of our faculties True life then is the portion of the active and industrious. The dull and heavy motion of the sluggard is but a faint imitation or resemblance of it; it is a diseased languishing thing, a compound or mixture, wherein there seems to be more of death than life. Does life consist in fruition How dark and dismal are those of the wicked, compared to the calm and bright'days of the good! For what can there be like enjoyment to that man, who dares make no reflections on the past, nor can entertain any just hopes of the future and whose mind concurs not with his present passions, and refuses to join in the senseless designs he is upon Does life, lastly, consist, as I have proved it does, in the knowledge of truth and love of goodness How scanty, narrow, and beggarly is the life of a fool and sinner, compared to that of the wise and virtuous TULLY said,' One virtuous day was to be preferred before a sinful immortality.' This is true in the present sense and notion of life. Error and ignorance are as it were a disease, or state of insensibility and death to the understanding. The mind that is utterly ignorant of objects worthy of it, has nothing to employ itself upon, or at least nothing that gives it any solid satisfaction; but the mind which is filled with the knowledge of excellent things, has a great variety of scenes to entertain it, and never wants some fresh occasion of delight and wonder.

 

 But it will be said, Does not the fool behold the visible world, as well as the philosopher He does; but just as he reads a poem; without discovering the artfullness of its contrivance, the richness of the fancy, or variety of the incidents. The sinner hears talk too of an invisible world, of moral perfections here, and of divine joys hereafter; but he hears it unmoved, unaffected; which shows he has no lively notion, no distinct perception of any thing of this kind. . The glass is dulled and sullied; beauty itself would lose all charm, reflected thus.

 

 But human perfection consists not in knowledge alone, but also in the purity of the heart, in the regulation of the affections, in love and true liberty; that is, the heart must be set upon objects worthy of it, and we must pursue out-true good with vigor and constancy; and this is that which renders life truly delightful and uniform. without objects to engage our affections, we can scarcely be said to live; we shall be becalmed, and scarce be sensible of the breath we draw; and unless these objects be worthy and agreeable, all is but storm and tempest, cheat and torment; and our faculties are not rationally employed, but abused, deluded, depraved, tortured.

 

 Could we but comprehend what all this did amount to, or at least, 'could we feel and experience it, we should soon discern that the wise and good, and they only, did truly live; for these only know GOD and themselves; these only admire, and love, and rejoice, and hope rationally; and these only are not confined nor limited in their knowledge or their affections; for the objects of both are infinite. Their minds can never travel so far in the contemplation of God, and the most important truths, but that there is still a new world to be further discovered; nor can their admiration or love, their joy or hope, so enlarge themselves, as ever to equal the objects of these passions, and reach the utmost that is in them.

 

 But it is probable, after all, the fool and sinner will pretend to engross the goods of the earth; as if they alone were to possess and enjoy them, as if they were the heirs of this world, the righteous of the other; but this is a vain fancy, and has been often baffled. Who can hasten more to enjoy, than he who knows the true value and right use of all things And who can enjoy more in any thing, than he who at once gratifies his reason and his appetite, and pleases his inclination, without forfeiting his true liberty If to be fooled and cheated,-if to be ensnared and to be tormented by the things of this world, be a pleasure,-in this the Christian must indeed give place to the infidel; the righteous man to the sinner.

 

 The sum then of the whole matter is,-Life in the foolish, mean, and vicious soul, seems like a little rill of water, confined within narrow or scanty bounds; or, like the light of a candle, enclosed within the narrow compass of a dark lantern; but in the wise and understanding, it is like a mighty stream, which swells above its banks, and spreads itself over a vast plain; or, like light unconfined, which diffuses and darts itself over all the face of nature. Ah, therefore, how much does it import me to fill my understanding with bright and lovely images, with pleasing and important notions, with all the truths that can serve, either to delight or guide, to nourish or adorn, to support or fortify me in this world, or advance my rank in the joys of another! How much does it import me to fill my soul with love; love of all that is good or great; love of all that is pure or sacred; love of all that is beautiful or delightful! And lastly, that my body be a fit instrument of such a mind, it does not a little import me, that this be strong and healthy, vigorous and vivacious.

 

 2. The second way to improve life, is, to begin to live betimes; or at least, if your years be far spent, to begin to live immediately, which is all we can do. Life, in my notion of it, dawns with our reason, and grows up to ripeness and perfection with the virtue, liberty, and tranquillity of the soul. To be wise, and to be religious, this is to live; for in this consist fruition and enjoyment; in this the health and vigor of our faculties; in this the harmony and beauty of the whole frame of our nature; and this, and no other, is a rational and agreeable exercise of our powers and capacities. Whoever, therefore, will improve life, ought to begin the next moment to assert his liberty, and to give himself up to true wisdom.

 

 It is strange to see how men put off this, or attempt it only superficially, and by the by. They prefer, I will not say, trades and husbandry, and various sorts of knowledge, foreign and remote from the service and conduct of human life; (ah! that time were but so well spent in-general;) but they prefer even dressing, painting, drinking, gaming, and all, not only the most silly and trifling, but the most vile and infamous ways of consuming time, before true wisdom. Nay, among those that make profession of wisdom, and pretend to have dedicated themselves to the doctrine of JESUS, it is common to see great numbers hearing, talking, reading, disputing, without ever making any use of those truths they study and contend for, or feeling any warmth or influence of them; like those wise ones in temporals, who are laying up provision all their life long, which they will never use, never enjoy. Ah, wretched consumption of life! How soon will the last minute expire!" and the unhappy man will not have lived one year, one month, one day; but will have wasted a precious treasure of time, and he must go immediately and account for it.

 

 Well, let the world live after its own fashion; I plainly see the point I am to make. No day, no hour, shall pass me unemployed; every moment, if I can, I will grow wise and better it is not how long I last, but how much I live; I will know, I will act, I will enjoy to-day, and then I am sure I have lived a day. This most propose to do, some time or other; but not to-day. And why not to-day Why not presently Is there any evil in being immediately wise, immediately free, immediately rational, immediately happy It cannot be. 

 

 If the state I am in be really good; if the pleasures I enjoy be really such as my reason can share in, and my conscience can approve; I then indeed live; there is no need of change and reformation, but continuance and perseverance. But if they be not, why will I not exchange false for true, and irrational for rational pleasures If I am in the right, if my condition be good and safe, it is well; there is nothing further to be done, but to maintain my ground: but if I am in the wrong, if the foundation be unsound, and whilst I dream not of it, my health and fortune consume inwardly, waste and decay insensibly; why am I fond of the cheat Why am I unwilling to be undeceived, disabused And why not presently The reason is plain: They acknowledge the representation I have made of a virtuous and rational life is very pleasant; but to be born into this new state, to come forth into this moral light, is as troublesome as the infant's being born into the natural. They love the ease and wealth of a prosperous trader; but not the hardships of his apprenticeship, the thrift and confinement of his beginnings. They love laurels and triumphal arches, the glory and the pleasure of victory; but cannot endure the toils and hazards of war. Or plainly thus: they admire liberty of mind, serenity, and rational joy. but it will cost them much labor and pains to purchase it.

 

 Thus the wretched man, fearing the regimen of physic, wears out a miserable life in the pains of a disease; and one that has a cancer or gangrene, chooses to waste and rot in pain by piecemeal, rather than undergo the short pain of amputation. Nay, what is worse than all, men are fond of their diseases, love the things that increase and nourish them, as the gross and corpulent do rest, the lethargic sleep, and hydropic drink.

 

 This is the state, the deplorable state, of the far greater part of mankind; a state of disease and death, a state of bondage and captivity, a state of infatuation and enchantment. And I very much fear, that whatever motives can be extracted out of the subject I am now upon, will be too weak and feeble; for what can all the discourses in the world about rational pleasure, and the satisfactions of a regular and virtuous life, amount to, with men wholly given up to sensuality, and incapable of relishing any pure and sacred delights If I have succeeded so far, as to possess them with an opinion that a life of reason or religion is a life of pleasure, though they have not any clear and lively notion of this pleasure, it is the utmost I can hope for; but to persuade men to embrace this life, there is need of all the arguments that either reason or religion can administer; and these too pointed with all the life and spirit, with all the edge and flame that wit or judgment can give them; a task too hard for me. O GOD! Thou Lover of mankind, aid me by thy SPIRIT, while I strive to prevail with young and old to seek thy glory and their own happiness; to pursue virtue and true pleasure!

 

 I will first address myself to the young, and then to those more advanced in years.

 

(1.) To the younger. You are now in your bloom. What glorious fruit may you bring forth! What honor may you do GOD! What service may you render your relations and your country! And what joys and blessings may you heap on yourselves! Time and tide seem to wait on you; even the providence and grace of GOD (with reverence be it said) seem to attend and court you! But, ah! remember they will not do so for ever; these smiles and invitations of heaven and nature will not last continually; your infidelity or ingratitude, your folly and sensuality, will soon blast and wither all these fair hopes, turn all your pleasures into gall and wormwood, and all your blessed advantages into the instruments of your ruin, and aggravations of it too. 

 

 Grace will soon retire, nature degenerate, time grow old, the world despise you, the GOD of it frown upon you, and conscience, guilty conscience, will be either stupified and benumbed, or fester and rage within you; and death will come, and then judgment. And how sudden it will come, ah! who knows Sudden and early deaths ought to convince you on what uncertain ground you stand. The scythe of death stays not always until the harvest be ripe; but promiscuously mows down the young and old. Ah! begin, begin then to live. Seize upon pleasure and happiness, while they stand courting and inviting you. Pursue virtue and glory immediately, while the difficulties are fewer, your strength and aids greater; your judgments being not yet corrupted by the maxims, or rather the fancies of the world; nor your wills yet disabled and enslaved by a custom of sin. Ah! Venture not to devote your youth to vanity and folly, on presumption of devoting your age to religion. For if this were a rational and just design in itself, yet it is to you a very unsafe and doubtful one; for, which way can you insure life or on what ground can you confide on the morrow" Boast not of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth."

 

 I know what opposition will be raised against this kind of exhortation, and with what rude reflections it will be treated. 'Come,' say they, 'this is our spring; let us enjoy ourselves whilst we have time and vigor. Religion looks too grave and formal for these years; we shall have time enough to be dull and melancholy. Come on then, let us enjoy ourselves as becomes our youth; this is our portion, and our lot is this; and whatever they who have now outlived themselves, whose blood is sour, and spirits low, may gravely talk against these things, they too, when time was, admired what they now would have us despise, and committed themselves what they now condemn in us.' In answer to this, let us pass over the flourish, and examine the sense and reason of this sort of talk. The substance of it may be reduced to three heads:

 

 [1.] Youth is the season of pleasure, 1:e., sin and folly; inclination and opportunity conspire to invite you to it, therefore you indulge it. What a strange argument is this Is there any period of our life, from our cradle almost to our coffin,-I mean, from the moment we arrive at the use of reason to our grave,-wherein some sin or other is not in season May not manhood defend ambition, and old age covetousness, by the same argument by which you do your sinful pleasures If inclination to a folly would justify our commission of it, in what part of life should we begin to be wise and virtuous.' It will be hard to find the time wherein we shall have no inclination to any sin or folly; or rather, if this be so, who can be guilty The adulterer will impute his uncleanness to the violence of his lust; the murderer his bloodshed to the violence of his rage; z. e., each of them their sins to the strength of inclinations; and if your argument be good, they will be innocent. But do not deceive yourselves; then is your obedience, as most acceptable to GOD, so most indispensable in itself, when you lie under temptations to sin; and heaven is proposed as a reward, not of following but conquering your inclinations.

 

 [2.] The second part of the objection is, That religion doth not look graceful in young years. This I could never well understand. If you be so foolish as to think that religion consists in sour faces, or an affected morose-ness and sullenness, or in stupidity and melancholy; this becomes no age. But if by religion you understand devotion towards your parents and superiors, temperance and chastity in yourselves, and such like virtues; I must needs say, nothing can appear to me more lovely than religion in youth. What can better become those who possess the gifts of nature in their perfection, than gratitude to the GOD of nature What can be a greater glory to the young, than obedience to parents, and reverence to their elders and superiors What does more preserve, or better become, strength, than sobriety and temperance What is a more charming or more lasting ornament to beauty, than modesty and chastity

 

 After all this, it is a vain thing to comfort yourselves with saying, That the grave and wise, when they had the same inclinations you now have, did, as you do, indulge and gratify them. For, first, this is not universally true; and secondly, the less they did it, the more were they honored and beloved; but, thirdly, if they did, it is certain they have bitterly condemned it, and repented of it. And is it not strangely absurd, that you should propose to yourselves nothing in the lives of the wise and virtuous, but their frailties and errors, for your example That you should pitch upon that only for your imitation, which all the wise and good detest and bemoan as their sin and shame

 

 To conclude this address to the younger sort. Unless there be any who are possessed with a spirit of infidelity, against which I will not now enter the lists, all the pretences you can possibly form for your deferring to devote yourselves instantly to wisdom and religion, are founded on two suppositions, of which the one is false, and the other absurd. The false one is, That sin is a state of pleasure; virtue, of trouble and uneasiness: the contrary of which is, I think, sufficiently demonstrated through this whole treatise. And would you but be prevailed with to taste the pleasures of a sincere virtue, your experience would soon confute this fancy. What madness then is it to be afraid of becoming happy too soon! Ah, how differently are we affected under the maladies of the mind and of the body! Did the lame or blind, the lepers, the lunatics, or demoniacs, ever entreat our LORD to defer their cure, and give them leave to enjoy miseries, diseases, and devils a little longer The other supposition is absurd, which is, That you will repent hereafter. Must you then repent hereafter Must this be the fruit of all your sinful pleasures: guilt and remorse, grief and fear, distress and agony of soul Do revelation and reason, death and judgment, do all your sober and retired thoughts, preach you this one lesson, Repentance And yet can you resolve to plunge yourselves in that filthiness which must be washed off with tears Can you resolve to indulge those cheating and deceitful lusts which will one day fill your soul with shame and sorrow, with distraction, horror, and amazement Ah, infatuation! ah, bewitchery that ever a rational creature should live in such open hostility against his reason! And yet, if repentance after many years, and innumerable sins, would be more easy; if your sins would be more easily conquered; this frenzy would not want some little color: but how contrary is this to truth! Which puts me in mind of another sort of readers, to whom I am now to apply myself, namely,-

 

 (2.) To those who are advanced in years. It is observed of CAESAR, by SUETONIUS, that lighting upon the statue of ALEXANDER the Great, in the temple of Hercules, at Gades, and reflecting on himself, that he had yet done nothing remarkable at those years, wherein that brave man had overrun all the East, he blushed under the keen reproaches of his own mind, and groaned under the conscience of his sloth, and presently desired to be dismissed from his Questorship, that he might pursue glory and immortality. Had you but one spark, I will not say of the zeal of a Christian, but of this generosity of a Pagan, you would blush to think that you have not yet put on the armour of light, at an age in which many others have been covered with laurels; that you have not started at those years in which some others have finished, though, not their race, yet all the difficulties of it. The miserable account that you will give of thirty, forty, peradventure of fifty years! I will not say that you have lived to no purpose, but to the worst imaginable; ignorant, enslaved to lust, oppressed by guilt! All that you have done is,, you have" treasured up wrath against the day of wrath." For this to be the product of so many years! Shame and confusion! But greater, infinitely greater, to go on thus. Sin may to some seem the misfortune of youth; but it is unquestionably the reproach of age. Unhappy nature and unhappy education bear a share of the imputation in youth; but in these years, your own obstinacy and choice engross the whole guilt. Yo^ng people are like weak barks, which in boisterous seas and winds carry too much sail, and too little ballast; their judgment is weak and unresolved, and their passions light and violent as hurricanes; but riper years do, or should, bring on wiser thoughts, cooler, sedater tempers; and therefore certainly sin in these carries a deeper guilt and shame in H. The raw unexperienced sinner perisheth whilst he but tastes and gazes; the virgin soul coming into a strange world, is deflowered whilst it gratifies its curiosity, like DINAH when she went forth only to see the daughters of the land; but the full-grown sinner sins against, not only the Pieacher's instruction, but his own experience too; he repeats those sins which he has often confessed to be his folly and his shame; and returns, like foolish mariners, to treacherous seas, where they were shipwrecked but the other day. If this be not to outrage conscience, defy reason, and dare GOD, what is No, you will say, you too resolve to repent hereafter. Hereafter! How ill does this word sound in one who begins to bow already under the weight of years! Hereafter! How ill does this language become this decaying, mouldering body! But suppose the wheels of time would stop, though running now down a headlong precipice; suppose your sun would for a while stand still; yet what a work have you to finish! what guilt to be washed out! what sins to vanquish! and what a day of judgment to prepare for! Are these slight considerations Will your sins, think you, be easily removed, when their number is swollen, not only by length of time, but also by an uncontrolled licentiousness For a novice in sin is awed by modesty, held in by scruples, and discouraged by regret and remorse; but the veteran sinner is carried away by a torrent of debauched affections, and repeats his follies with a relentless confidence, and an authority that brooks no opposition. Will it be an easy task to subdue those sins which have maintained a long and undisturbed dominion over you What shall awaken that sinner, who, like SOLOMON'S drunkard, is insensible of stripes and wounds; (Prov. 23: 35;) and, alas, when roused out of the arms of his Delilah, his locks, like SAMSON'S, are cut off, the spirits retired, his strength impaired, and the force of his enemy augmented; and with what will he conquer Is it, lastly, a trivial thing to appear before the judgment-seat of GOD, that you should think a moment will serve to prepare for it I will suppose the Judge of the whole world as merciful as you can desire him, if you will suppose him too, (with reverence be it spoken,) to have so much sense as not to be imposed on; and this alone will make that judgment formidable.

 

 I very much fear that both young and old entertain too mild a notion of that day, and so elude and baffle the force of the most powerful motive to virtue and religion the Gospel has; I shall therefore close this exhortation to begin to live immediately, with a short reflection on that day.

 

 We must first bid adieu to this world, to every thing in it that is dear to us, and die ere we can go and appear before GOD. What a perfect mortification of all our sensual appetites is necessary, ere we can calmly part with all below! What a long experience of love and duty is necessary to confirm and assure the soul against all its fears and apprehensions! What a vigorous faith to carry us through this dark passage into another world! When we are got there, what a strict trial are we to undergo! There all disguises will be taken off, and every thing appear in its naked nature; there all our superstructures of hay and stubble will be burned up, only pure solid virtue will bear the test; there darling vices will not pass under the disguise of sins of infirmity; there an honest sloth and harmless luxury, will not be thought innocent; there some few good fits will not pass for godly sorrow, nor some feeble and short-lived attempts for repentance; there the effects of a lucky constitution will not be crowned as the works of grace, and fruits of the divine life; there, in a word, talk will not pass, for action, nor tenure of others commute for mortification in ourselves. Finally, nothing shall be rewarded there but a conquering faith, an active charity, and humble, constant zeal, patient, persevering hopes, spiritual joys, and pious fears. This needs no application. Begin, begin to live before you die; begin to repent and reform before you be judged.

 

 A third way of improving life, is to avoid and cut off all those things that are injurious to it. Such are^ Sloth, that wastes, and impertinence, that embroils it; coldness or remissness in religion, that dispirits and dilutes, levity and inconstancy, that disorder and confound it; and finally, all those evils that sour and embitter it.

 

 (1.) We must avoid idleness. Sloth is the rust of time; sleep is an image of death, and sloth of sleep. The life of the sluggish is but a waking dream, a vacation from all business and true enjoyment too; a cessation and stop, though not of time, which still runs on, yet of the very powers and faculties of the soul; whereas life consists in the exercise of both. How remote then must idleness be from improving or exalting life! It never ploughs nor sows, and therefore never reaps; it never plants nor sets, and therefore never gathers any fruit: nothing great was ever performed by it, nothing great ever enjoyed by it. And shall the richest fruit that ever grew upon any of the trees of Paradise, wisdom and virtue, 1:e., knowledge and life, be gathered by a sluggish hand No; though no angel, or flaming sword, stop his way, yet are there difficulties in it, too many and too great for this heavy, dastardly animal to conquer. Even temporal goods cannot be obtained without the travail of the mind, and toil of the body; and yet what lean, starved, and beggarly blessings are these, compared to those I treat of! The rich man may starve for want of true pleasure, in the midst of his glittering heaps; sorrow may sit heavy on the heart of the conqueror, or the bride, even on the days of solemn triumph: the Prince may be a slave, an Egyptian slave, even while he reigns with absolute and uncontrolled power: but life and pleasure, content and happiness, are the inseparable companions of wisdom and virtue. Let no man therefore, matter himself with the hopes of such a treasure, who lives idly, and at his ease: he must pray, meditate, watch, and exercise himself in industry, sobriety, and purity, who will overcome the corruptions of his nature, and obtain the tranquility and liberty of a true Christian.

 

 (2.) Impertinence, or being busied and employed in trifles, is as different from sloth, as motion from rest; but yet such a wretched consumption of time cannot deserve the name of life: for this is not activity of soul, but a poor and mean debasing of it. Fancy, and that a silly and extravagant one, may be said to live, but reason cannot. That idleness which consists in heavy, passive dullness, is like a state of dead sleep; that which consists in a fluttering and impertinent activity, is nothing else but a giddy ferment of the spirits, and agitation of the fancy, the incoherent disjointed thoughts, the confused and fruitless projections, of a dream: and we may almost as properly say of him that dreams, that he eats and drinks, rights or travels, or whatever he fancies himself to do, as we can of this sort of sluggard, that he lives. It is true, could a man be for ever impertinent, this sort of idleness would seem to some men to have no great evil in it: but how could such a mind bear the shock of misfortunes How could such a soul discharge the great duties of society How could it entertain itself with objects agreeable to a rational nature And if it could do none of these things, it is impossible to conceive how it could be other than miserable: for though we could suppose such a creature to be so mere a trifle, as never to be nearly concerned in any changes of fortune, nor ever called upon by that community he belongs to; that is, I should almost say, never to be regarded or minded either by GOD or man; yet still, such a one did no way live up to the excellence of his nature: his business was not manly and rational, and his childish life was, therefore, only pretty and pleasing to him, because he had a childish and silly soul.

 

 Nor is the grave much better than the gay impertinent; or the man of business, if he neglect the main, the one thing necessary, to be preferred before the man of mode. Sensuality, it is 'true, softens, and drudgery hardens the mind; but both alike intoxicate it; both wed it to this, and alienate it from the other world. It imports very little to what idol one sacrifice, whether ASHTAHOTH, MOLOCH, or MAMMON, if we sacrifice not to the true GOD. In vain do they pretend to any other art, who are ignorant of the art of living: to plod or drudge, intrigue or trade, canvass and court, it is all but solemn impertinence, if virtue and religion be neglected. Ah! what phantoms, and clouds, and dreams, do men pursue, instead of life and peace, rest and pleasure!

 

 (3.) Remissness or lukewarmness in religion, a sort of neutrality between vice and virtue, is the next thing to be avoided. We can never truly live, unless we be entirely uniform, unless we be wholly given up, and without reserve, to the conduct of reason. There is little pleasure in religion, if there be no fervency in it: it is love that makes the duty easy, and the prospect delightful. If there be no strength in faith, no life in devotion, no spirit in duty, no desire in hope, this is religion without a soul, it is the carcass of an unanimated virtue. What peace, what assurance, what joy, what transport, can ever be the portion of such a Christian

 

 (4.) Levity and inconstancy is the last thing I will now mention, and the most irreconcilable enemy to life. For this does not only interrupt the course of life, or like sleep or sloth, make a vast chasm in it, but puts us more back than we had advanced forward; an unhappy gust of wind that throws us off to sea again, when we were almost come to shore. If we will reap the fruit of victory, we must pursue it; if we will find rest, we must be steadfast and immoveable; if we will enjoy virtue, we must unite and incorporate it with us; it is impossible that the inconstant unstable proselyte of virtue, should either have a pleasant life, or a comfortable death: for if he build to-day what he pulled down yesterday, if he practice one hour what he condemns another, it is impossible he should please himself, much less his GOD.