or who so dead as with death in h•s eye, to refuse to live a godly life, if he have any spiritual light and feeling? Experience te•leth us, that when health and folly cause us to promise our selves long life, and think that death is a great way off, it lamentably cools our zeal, and strengtheneth our temptations, and dulls our souls to holy operations: and the approach of death pu•s life into all our apprehensions and affections. It is a wonderful hard thing to maintain our lively apprehensions, and str•ng affections, and tenderness of conscience, and self-denial, and easy contempt of earthly things, when we put far from us the day of death. We see what a stir men make for the profits and honours of this world, and how fast they hold their fleshly pleasures, while they are in health, and how contemptuously they ⟨p. 100⟩speak of all, and bitterly complain of the vanity and vexation, when they come to die. And if our lives and the world be brought hereby into such disorders, when men live so short a time on earth, what monsters of ambition, and covetousness, and luxury would men be, if they lived as long as before the flood, even to eight hundred, or nine hundred years of age? Doubtless long life was so great a temptation then to man, (in his corrupted state) that it is no wonder if his wickedness was great upon •he earth, and if it prepared for that great destruction of the universal deluge. Should men live now but to the age of three hundred, or four hundred years, I fear it would so tempt them to overvalue the world, and so embolden them to delay repentance, that one would be as Wolf to another, and the ⟨p. 101⟩weak but be a prey to the strong, and wickedness would overwhelm the world, despising the reins, and bearing down Religious and civil opposition. But when we stand over the grave, and see our friends laid in the dust, how mortified do we seem? how do we even shake the head at the folly of ambitious and covetous worldlings, and are ashamed to think of fleshly lusts! So far are men from owning their vanities, when that silent teacher standeth by. It is Death that helps to humble the proud, and abate the arrogancy and obstinacy of the wicked, and make them regard the messengers of Christ, that before despised them and their message.
or who so dead as with death in h•s eye, to refuse to live a godly life, if he have any spiritual light and feeling? Experience te•leth us, that when health and folly cause us to promise our selves long life, and think that death is a great way off, it lamentably cools our zeal, and strentheneth our temptations, and duls our souls to holy operations: and the approach of death pu•s life into all our apprehensions and affections. It is a wonderfull hard thing to maintain our lively apprehensions, and str•ng affections, and tenderness of conscience, and self-denyal, and easie contempt of earthly things, when we put far from us the day of death. We see what a stir men make for the profits and honours of this world, and how fast they hold their fleshly pleasures, while they are in health, and how contemptuously they ⟨p. 100⟩speak of all, and bitterly complain of the vanity and vexation, when they come to die. And if our lives and the world be brought hereby into such disorders, when men live so short a time on earth, what monsters of ambition, and covetousness, and luxury would men be, if they lived as long as before the flood, even to eight hundred, or nine hundred years of age? Doubtless long life was so great a temptation then to man, (in his corrupted state) that it is no wonder if his wickedness was great upon •he earth, and if it prepared for that great destruction of the universal deluge. Should men live now but to the age of three hundred, or four hundred years, I fear it would so tempt them to overvalue the world, and so embolden them to delay repentance, that one would be as Wolf to another, and the ⟨p. 101⟩weak but be a prey to the strong, and wickedness would overwhelm the world, despising the reins, and bearing down Religious and civil opposition. But when we stand over the grave, and see our friends laid in the dust, how mortified do we seem? how do we even shake the head at the folly of ambitious and covetous worldlings, and are ashamed to think of fleshly lusts! So far are men from owning their vanities, when that silent teacher standeth by. It is Death that helps to humble the proud, and abate the arrogan•y and obstinacy of the wicked, and make them regard the messengers of Christ, that b•fore despised them and their message.
