Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

hath given us but one organ to speak with, and two to hear with.

SECTION XXXVI.

A MEDITATION ON THE MISERIES OF THIS LIFE.

It is good for a Christian every day, to meditate seriously on the miseries of this life. He should,

1. Consider of the shortness of it. Job says, that man's days are determined, the number of his months are with God, and that he hath appointed his bounds that he cannot pass, Job xiv. 5. "The days of our years are threescore years and ten: and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow, for it is soon cut off, and we fly away," Psa. xc. 10. And hereof you cannot well reckon the time of your infancy for any part of your life, for in that age there is nothing either learned or done that may well beseem the dignity of a man.

And as touching the time that is spent in sleep, I see not how that can well be called the time of life; seeing the principal part of our life, is to have the use of our senses and reason, which then are, as it were, suspended in us, and dead. Therefore a philosopher said, that in the half of man's life, there is no difference between the happy man and unhappy, for as much as during the time of sleep all men are equal.

Multitudes of people sleep the third part of the day and night, which is eight whole hours, (and some more) whence it follows, that a third part of

our lives is consumed in sleep, and so consequently that during that time we do not live.

But compare this small remnant of life we live here, with the life to come, and how little will it appear! What is this momentary life, compared with life everlasting, but as it were a drop of water compared with the whole ocean? If a thousand years in the sight of God be no more but as it were yesterday, which is now past and gone, what shall the life of seventy or eighty years seem to be, but only a very nothing, compared to eternity?

Christian reader, think then with yourself every day, What greater folly and madness can be imagined, than that men and women, for the enjoying of this short dream of such vain delights and pleasures, should plunge themselves into everlasting torments! and what sottishness has possessed men, that they should take so much labour and pains to provide so many things for so short a life, and not to make any provision at all for their souls, which shall live for ever!

2. Meditate also of the uncertainty of your life. As our life is very short, so it is also uncertain. "Man knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them," Eccl. ix. 12. How often are men surprised with sudden changes, as birds in a snare, and fishes in a net!

"Watch ye therefore," and be always in readiness, because " ye know not the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh," Matt. xxv. 13; because you know not the year, be therefore always in readiness every year; and because you know not the

month, watch every month; and because you know not the hour, watch every hour. I will give you a comparison brought to my hand by a devout man. Suppose there were set thee upon a table, thirty or forty several dishes of meat, and thou wert told by a special friend that there was poison in one of them, thou wouldst scarcely adventure to eat of any one of them, although thou wert very hungry, for fear lest thou shouldst light upon the dish that was poisoned. Now, perhaps, thou thinkest, that thou shalt live thirty or forty years. Well then, if it be certain that in one of these years thou shalt die, and thou knowest not in which of them, why art thou not then afraid in every one of them; and dost not every year, yea, every day, make preparation for death?

Why do soldiers keep a continual watch in the castle that stands in the frontiers, upon an enemy's country? Is it for any other cause, but only for that they know not when the enemy will come to assault it? Surely for no other. O then, seeing you know not at what hour death will assault you, you had always need to be watchful; thy soul is of greater value than all the castles and kingdoms of the world, and thou hast greater enemies that endeavour day and night continually to assault it, and thou art altogether ignorant of the day and hour of thine assault; and the whole matter of the salvation or condemnation of thy soul consists in this point, whether thou be taken provided or unprovided in that dreadful hour.

3. Consider the frailty and brittleness of man's life no glass is so subject to breaking as the life of Some lose their life by the vehement heat of Some die by drinking a draught of cold

man.

the sun.

drink, or by surfeiting at a supper. Some die of excessive pleasure or of grief. Some seem to go well to bed, and there are found dead in the morning. We may not wonder how soon men end their lives, as how they endure so long, the workmanship of their bodies being so tender, and the matter and stuff whereof they are compounded, so frail and weak. God bids the prophet cry, "All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: the grass withereth, the flower fadeth," Isa. xl. 6, 7. What is the grass, but the earth's summer garment, which is put off before winter cometh!

To-day you may see a young gallant in the flower of his age, strong and lively, parading up and down in rich attire, and with a lofty countenance; and to-morrow, a violent disease surprising, may strangely disfigure and alter him. Some are sore broken with adversities; others are pinched with penury and poverty. Some are distempered with delicate meats and sweet wines; others are debili

tated with age. Some mar their complexions with artificial painting, or riotous behaviour, so that their flesh withereth like grass, and the flower thereof fadeth away.

May you not to-day see some, descended of noble parentage, of a very ancient house and family, well befriended, and keeping a great house, attended wi h a great train of tenants and servants, and commanding the whole country where they live; and within a short time after you may see the same men forsaken of all their friends, despised by their equals, and little regarded of all the world; utterly disgraced, and thrust into that prison, where perhaps they not long before had imprisoned others, and there

end their wretched and miserable life? O sinful man! thou that drinkest down iniquity like water, that wallowest daily in sinful delights and pleasures, dost thou not plainly see, that whenever the thread of this frail and short life of thine breaketh in sunder, that if thou continuest still in this thy wicked course, thou shalt fall into the bottomless pit of destruction? How then canst thou sing, laugh, play, sleep, or take any rest! How is it that thou art so senseless of thy peril and danger, who art ready every moment to drop into the pit of hell!

4. Meditate on the variableness of this life. Who is able to reckon up the alterations that are in man ? Now he smiles, anon he frowns; now he is pleased, but shortly he is displeased; now he is merry, anon he is sad and pensive; now he is well, then he is sick: sometimes contented, sometimes discontented; sometimes full of hope, sometimes in despair; sometimes pleased, sometimes angry. That which is past is irksome to him; that which is present is troublesome; and that which is to come disquiets him. He is careful in getting goods, fearful of losing, and sorrowful in parting with them. And how man's life continually moves and wastes away ! every minute he is going a step

further towards his death.

Job says, that his days were swifter than a post, Job ix. 25. He that rides post, though his message require ever so much haste, yet sometimes necessity causes him to stay; but our life never stays one

moment.

5. Meditate on the treacherousness of this life; it is full of deceit and guile. O man, dost thou perceive when thou wast made an infant? Canst thou tell when thou wast made a stripling? Or

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »