chooseth strangling and death, rather than my life.' But here he considers God would bring him to it; yea, bring him back to it, as the word imports. Whereby he seems to intimate, that we have no life in this world, but as runaways from death, which stretcheth out its cold arms, to receive us from the womb; but though we do then narrowly escape its clutches, we cannot escape long; we will be brought back again to it. Job knew this, he had laid his account with it, and was looking for it.

DOCTRINE, ALL MUST DIE.

Although this doctrine be confirmed by the experience of all former generations, ever since Abel entered into the house appointed for all living, and though the living know that they shall die; yet it is needful to discourse of the certainty of death, that it may be impressed on the mind, and duly considered.

Wherefore consider, first, There is an unalterable statute of death, under which men are included: It is appointed unto men once to die,' Heb. ix. 27. It is laid up for them, as parents lay up for their children: they may look for it, and cannot miss it, seeing God has designed and reserved it for them. There is no peradventure in it: We must needs die,' 2 Sam. xiv. 14. Though some men will not hear of death, yet every man must see death, Psal. lxxxix. 48. Death is a champion all must grapple with: we must enter the list with it, and it will have the mastery. Eccles. viii. 8, "There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit, neither hath he power in the day of wrath." They indeed who are found alive at Christ's coming, shall all be changed, 1 Cor. xv. 51, but that change will be equivalent to death, will answer the purposes of it. All other persons must go the common road, the way of all flesh. Secondly, Let us consult daily observation. Every man seeth that wise men die, likewise the fool and brutish person,' Psal. xlix. 10. There is room enough on this earth for us notwithstanding the multitudes that were upon it before us; they are gone to make room for us, as we must depart to leave room for others. It is long since death began to transport men into another world, and vast shoals and multitudes are gone thither already, yet the trade is going on still; death is carrying off new inhabitants daily, to the house appointed for all living. Who could ever hear the grave say, It is enough? Long has it been getting, but still it asketh. This world is

like a great fair or market, where some are coming in, others going out; while the assembly that is in it is confused, and

the most part know not wherefore they are come together; or, like a town situate on the road to a great city, through which some travellers have passed, some are passing, while others are only coming in, Eccles. i. 4, One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth for ever.' Death is an inexorable, irresistible messenger, who cannot be diverted from executing his orders, by the force of the mighty, the bribes of the rich, nor the intreaties of the poor. It doth not reverence the hoary head, nor pity the harmless babe. The bold and daring cannot outbrave it: nor can the faint-hearted obtain a discharge in this war. Thirdly, the human body consists of perishing principles, Gen. iii. 19, Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.' The strongest are but brittle earthen vessels, easily broken in shivers. The soul is but meanly housed, while in this mortal body, which is not a house of stone, but a house of clay; the mud walls cannot but moulder away, especially seeing the foundation is not on a rock, but in the dust; they are crushed before the moth, though this insect be so tender that the gentle touch of a finger will dispatch it, Job. iv. 19. These principles are like gunpowder; a very small spark lighting on them will set them on fire, and blow up the house. The stone of a raisin, or a hair in milk, have choaked men, and laid the house of clay in the dust. If we consider the frame and structure of our bodies, how fearfully and wonderfully we are made; and on how regular and exact a motion of the fluids, and balance of humours, our life depends; and that death has as many doors to enter in by, as the body hath pores; and if we compare the soul and body together, we may justly reckon, there is somewhat more astonishing in our life, than in our death; and that it is more strange, to see dust walking up and down on the dust, than lying down in it. Though the lamp of our life be not violently blown out, yet the flame must go out at length, for want of oil. And what are those distempers and diseases we are liable to, but death's harbingers, and come to prepare its way? They meet us, as soon as we set our foot on earth, to tell us at our entry, that we do but come into the world to go out again. Howbeit, some are snatched away in a moment, without being warned by sickness or disease. Fourthly, We have sinful souls, and therefore have dying bodies: death follows sin, as the shadow lows the body. The wicked must die, by virtue of the threatening of the covenant of works, Gen. ii. 17, In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.' And the g glory must die too; that, as death entered by sin, sin may go out by death.

Christ has taken away the sting of death, as to them; albeit he has not as yet removed death itself. Wherefore, though it fasten on them, as the viper on Paul's hand, it shall do them no harm; but because the leprosy of sin is in the walls of the house, it must be broken down, and all the materials thereof carried forth. Lastly, Man's life in this world, according to the scripture account of it, is but a few degrees removed from death. The scripture represents it, as a vain and empty thing, short in its continuance, and swift in its passing away.

FIRST, Man's life is a vain and empty thing, while it is: it vanisheth away; and lo! it is not. Job viii. 6, "My days are vanity." If ye suspect afflicted Job of partiality in this matter, hear the wise and prosperous Solomon's character of the days of his life, Eccles. viii. 15, "All things have I seen in the days of my vanity," i. e. my vain days. Moses, who was a very active man, compares our days to a sleep, Psal. xc. 5. They are as a sleep, which is not noticed till it be ended.

The resem

blance is pat; few men have right apprehensions of life, until death awaken them, then we begin to know we were living. "We spend our years as a tale that is told," ver. 9. When an idle tale is telling, it may affect a little; but when it is ended, it is forgotten: and so is man forgotten, when the fable of his life is ended. It is a dream, or vision of the night, in which there is nothing solid: when one awakes all vanisheth, Job xx. 8, "He shall fly away as a dream and shall not be found; yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of the night." It is but a vain show, or image, Psal. xxxix. 6, "Surely every man walketh in a vain show." Man, in this world, is but, as it were, a walking statue: his life is but an image of life; there is so much of death in it.

If we look on our life, in the several periods of it, we will find it a heap of vanities. "Childhood and youth are vanity," Eccles. xi. 10. We come into the world the most helpless of all animals: young birds and beasts can do something for themselves, but infant man is altogether unable to help himself. Our childhood is spent in pitiful trifling pleasures, which become the scorn of our own after thoughts. Youth is a flower that soon withereth, a blossom that quickly falls off; it is a space of time in which we are rash, foolish, and inconsiderate, pleasing ourselves with a variety of vanities, and swimming, as it were, through a flood of them. But ere we are aware, it is past, and we are in middle age, encompassed with a thick cloud of cares, through which we must grope; and finding ourselves beset with pricking thorns of difficulties, through them we must force our way, to accomplish the pro

jects and contrivances of our riper thoughts. And the more we solace ourselves in any earthly enjoyment we attain to, the more bitterness do we find in parting with it. Then comes old age, attended with its own train of infirmities, "labour and sorrow, ‚” Psal. xc. 10, and sets us down next door to the grave. In a word, "all flesh is grass, "Isa. xl. 6. Every stage, or period of life, is vanity. Man, at his best state, (his middle age, when the heat of youth is spent, and the sorrows of old age have not yet overtaken him) is altogether vanity," Psal. xxxix. 5. Death carries off some in the bud of childhood, others in the blossom of youth, and others when they are come to their fruit; few are left standing, till, like ripe corn, they forsake the ground: all die one time or other.

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SECONDLY, Man's life is a short thing: it is not only a vanity, but a short lived vanity. Consider, first, How the life of man is reckoned in the scripture. It was indeed sometimes reckoned by hundreds of years: but no man ever arrived at a thousand, which yet bears no proportion to eternity. Now, hundreds are brought down to scores; three score and ten, or four score, is its utmost length, Psal. xc. 10. But few men arrive at that length of life. Death does but rarely wait till men be bowing down, by reason of age, to meet the grave. Yet, as if years were to big a word for so small a thing as the life of man on earth, we find it counted by months, Job xiv. 5, "The number of his months are with thee." Our course, like that of the moon, is run in a little time; we are always waxing or waning, till we disappear. But frequently it is reckoned by days, and these but few. Job. xiv. 1, “Man that is born of a woman, is of few days." Nay, it is but one day in scripture account, and that a hireling's day, who will precisely observe when his day ends, and give over his work: ver. 6, "Till he shall accomplish as an hireling his day." Yea, the scripture brings it down to the shortest space of time, and calls it a moment, 2 Cor. iv. 17, "Our light affliction (though it last all our life long,) is but for a moment." But elsewhere it is brought down to yet a lower pitch, farther than which one cannot carry it, Psal. xxxix. 5, "Mine age is as nothing before thee." Agreeable to this, Solomon tells us, Eccles. iii. 2, "There is a time to be born, and a time to die:" but makes no mention of a time to live; as if our life were but a skip from the womb to the grave. Secondly, Consider the various similitudes by which the scripture represents the shortness of man's life. Hear Hezekiah, Isa. xxxviii. 12, "Mine age departed, and is removed from me, as a shepherd's tent: I

is

have cut off like a weaver my life." The shepherd's tent is soon removed: such a man's life on this earth, quickly gone. It is a web he is incessantly working; he is not idle so much as one moment: in a short time it is wrought, and then it is cut off. Every breathing is a thread in this web, when the last breath is drawn, the web is woven out, he expires, and then it is cut off, he breathes no more. Man is like the grass, and like a flower, Isa. xl. 6, "All flesh (even the strongest and most healthy flesh) is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field." The grass is flourishing in the morning; but, in the evening is lying a corpse, being cut down by the mowers, it is withered: so man sometimes is walking up and down at ease in the morning, and in the evening lying a corpse, being knocked down by a sudden stroke, with one or other of death's weapons. The flower, at best, is but a weak and tender thing, of short continuance, wherever it grows: but (observe) man is not compared to the flower of the garden, but to the flower of the field, which the foot of every beast may tread down at any time. Thus is our life liable to a thousand accidents every day, any of which may cut us off. But though we should escape all these, yet at length this grass withereth, this flower fadeth of itself. It is carried off, " as the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away," Job vii. 9. It looks big as the morning cloud, which promiseth great things, and raiseth the expectations of the husbandman: but the sun riseth, and the cloud is scattered: death comes, and man vanisheth. The apostle James proposeth the question, "What is your life?" chap. iv. 14. Hear his own answer, "It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." It is frail, uncertain, and lasteth not. It is as smoke, which goes out of the chimney, as if it would darken the face of the heavens: but quickly is scattered, and appears no more. Thus goeth man's life, and where is he? It is a wind, Job vii. 7,"O remember that my life is wind." It is but a passing blast, a short puff, "a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again,” Psal. Ixxviii. 39. Our breath is in our nostrils, as it were, always upon the wing to depart, ever passing and repassing, like a traveller, until it go away for good and all, not to return, till the heavens be no more.

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LASTLY, Man's life is a swift thing: not only a passing, but a flying vanity. Have you not observed how swiftly a shadow hath run along the ground, in a cloudy and windy day, suddenly darkening the places beautified before with the beams of the sun, but as suddenly disappearing? Such is the life of man on the earth, for "he fleeth as a shadow, and continueth not,"