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Of Arithmetick: number the dayes that you have past, and what of that?
1. How many they have been, some of you have passed a great many Dayes, and Weeks, and Months, and Years; it is a long time you have been in this World, are you yet weary of it? how
many dayes would you live longer, and how would you imploy those dayes? or do you consider that you cannot live al∣wayes?
2. How many changes you have seen and passed through in those dayes; How many conditions and places you have been in, how many removes you have made, what tossings to and fro, how many ups and downs, what obser∣vations you made in your passage; how much your paths you have walked in resemble the journeyings of the Israelites in the Wilderness; how, that which is, is that which has been, and there is no new thing under the Sun; how many in thy time have come into the World, and grown up, and grown old, and gone out of the World, some at one age, some at another, and very many that lived ne∣ver to see thy years; how many Friends and intimate acquaintance thou hast bu∣ried, with whom thou hast Eat and Drunk and Lodged, and now thou wal∣kest over their Graves; how many re∣lations of thine have left this World; Husband or Wife, or Children, or Fa∣ther, or Mother, (and dost thou here∣upon enjoy thy present Relations in any of those Kinds as if thou had none;)
How many of thy own Neighbours, and School-fellows living; how time has hur∣ried some to their Graves, others at a great distance from thee, others to beg∣gary and a mean condition, though some are got to great estates, and set an inch above their Neighbours; How ma∣ny great ones thou hast our-lived, and how many changes of Government thou hast seen in thy time.
Governments are heavy things, and as it were unmoveable, guarded both by the Laws of God and Men, and are as the Mount that might not be touched; yet an ordinary Man of an ordinary age does ordinarily outlive four or five Go∣vernours or Governments, so that thou observes changes in Publick, and changes in thy Private state. What a change did Job see in his Condition (take him ei∣ther as a Publick or as a Private Person? time was when he could say. * 1.1
He had his Children about him, he washed his steps with Butter, and the Rock poured out Rivers of Oyl; when he went out to the Gate of the City, when he prepa∣red his Seat in the street, the young men saw him and hid themselves, the aged aged aged arose and stood up; The Princes refrained talking, &c.But now
all on a sudden he becomes as low as he was high, and in a moment as it were, the case was altered with him that he com∣plains that they that are younger than he had him in derision, whose Fathers he would have disdained to have set with the Dogs of his Flock, they spared not to spit upon him, &c.
3. How quickly they are gone; ma∣ny years even among men, are but as yesterday, when they are past, but as t'other day. It is but a little while me thinks, saids he, since that so many years ago I lived in such a place, conversed so and so, did this and the other thing, how fast does time pass away; It is but as yesterday since I was a Child and went to School, and now I am grown old, I can remember it as well as if it were but yesterday: My life has ever been post∣ing, as a Dream, as a Tale that is told; the Dream ends, and the Tale is con∣cluded insensibly before we are aware. The whole time of this World is but as a Dream; The proper time of awaking will be at the Resurrection; then Men will know whereabout they are, and what they are, then they will be out of the hurry of time, and have lei∣sure in Eternity (which is a fixed now wherein they shall stand still) to behold
themselves, and understand themselves, their state and way. Just as in a Dream, a man seems to be very busie, hard tra∣velling, in the midst of a crowd of peo∣ple vehemently pursuing an Argument, driving on a Bargain 〈◊〉〈◊〉 solemn Fune∣ral, pleasant at a M••••••••ge, cast down under a sad Providence befalling him, much refreshed with good News, telling great sums of Money, sate at a good Ban∣quet, &c. but when he awakes, all is vanished away as a conceit, and the man is naked in his Bed, very still and quiet, and it may be finds himself hun∣gry, and knows not where to get six-pence: Even so it is with Men in the World, they are much in agitation and motion, cumbred about many things; but when they come to dye, which is the time of awaking, then they are seen na∣ked, their state and condition is known; no more to do with the World, or world∣ly things, no eating, or drinking, or buy∣ing, and selling, or converting; if they have Christ their Friend and Advocate, and be found upright, and lovers of God? then to glory with them, and everlast∣ing joy; but if they be found wicked and Hypocrites, then to everlasting confusion: But to conclude this Simi∣litude.
A Man when he is dreaming, by some noise or jog may be a little awakened, & come to himself, but may quickly go to sleep and fall a dreaming again the same Dream: So dreamish Professors that are very busie w••••••••g to and fro in the Earth in a sleepy condition, and mind∣ing the things of it, may by some awa∣kening Ordinance or Providence, by some amazing Judgment, come to them∣selves, and sit down, and think other thoughts than they did before, let the World stand still, and have to do with God; but assoon as the noise is over, they fall to dream again.
In the great Plague and Fire in Lon∣don, there was such a noise, that I be∣lieve there were very few but were a∣wakened, and for the present, left off dreaming; but how quickly did security & sleepiness creep on, & they fel to dream∣ing again one after another, to building, to buying, and selling, &c. (which at the best are but dreamish things, and may prove much worse, if you do them as they did them in the dayes or Noah, and Lot;) I wish with all my heart, the next Jog be not so hard, and the cry so loud, that instead of being kindly awakened, they be not mazed, and stunned, and
deaf, and disabled from getting up, and putting on their clothes.
4. How irrecoverable they are, and lever to be recalled; If I would give all the World I cannot call yesterday back, nor be placed where I was yesterday morning. He that cries out, Call time again, call time again, is as unlikely to be heard, and answered as any man I know; ••ay, but cannot you set me one day or two backward, place me where I was but t'other morning, that I may pass over those three or tour hours as I did then, No, I cannot do it; And this is the first Rule in this Christian Arithmetick; Num∣ber the dayes that yon have past, this will make you wise.
Job 21.7.