SERMON VI.

PSALM XC. 12.

So teach us to number our Days, that we may apply our Hearts unto Wisdom.

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HERE are not many Subjects recommended so often from the Pulpit to your ferious Confideration, as the Shortness and Uncertainty of human Life: indeed there are very few, that deferve it fo well. For our Business is, not to entertain the Curiofity of our Hearers with learned Discoveries, refined Speculations, or uncommon Remarks ; but to remind them continually of fuch Truths, as are most useful to direct their Practice by mending their Hearts. And how impoffible foever it may appear, that any one should be ignorant of fome of them, yet if Men will forget

forget or neglect them, and live as if they knew them not, they must be still repeated and inculcated. The Wisdom of our gracious Maker hath provided, that the greatest Part, not only of our Duties, but of the Motives to perform them, fhall naturally and frequently fuggeft themselves to our Minds. And amongst the latter, one should think there was none more obvious, more unavoidable, than the Confideration of our own Mortality. But as those Objects which are continually prefent to our Senfes, are apt for that Reason fcarcely to affect us more, than if they were abfent: fo this Truth, being familiarized to us by daily Examples, about which we are indifferent, makes almost as little Impreffion upon us, as if the Cafe were otherwife. It is a Fact, which we have no Doubt of, and no Pleasure in: we therefore turn our Thoughts to somewhat else with fuch unhappy Succefs, that, though the Confequences of it are the most interesting to us all, that poffibly can be, Multitudes of us live, as if we neither believed nor fufpected any Thing of the Matter. When indeed the Voice of Exhortation, or the unexpected Decease of a Friend or Acquaintance, forces us to attend, we acknowledge for that Moment,

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and perhaps with fome Concern, that we must expect to die foon: but quickly proceed again to act, as if we hoped to live for ever. And therefore it was a wife Prayer of Mofes, that God would condefcend to help our Infirmity in this important Point. So teach us to number our Days, that we may apply our Hearts to Wifdom. Or, as the Words may be tranflated, without any material Change in the Sense: Teach us to number our Days thus; to count them, as the preceding Part of the Pfalm had done, like the Sleep of a Night, like the Grass, which in the Morning flourisheth, but by the Evening is cut down and withered: or again, Teach us to number our Days aright; and we will bring, that is, in order to learn, or, we fhall acquire, an Heart of Wisdom.

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The Expreffion of numbering our Days carries in it an Implication, that they are not many. For in Scripture, as being without Number denotes a large Multitude, so the contrary Phrase hath of course the contrary Signification. Thus, when Mofes mentions the Continuance of the Cloud only a few Days upon the Tabernacle, it is in the Hebrew, Days of Num

Gen. xli. 49. Numb. xxiii. 10. Judges vi. 5. vii. 12. 1 Kings i. 8. Job v. 9. ix. 10. xxxiv. 24. Eccl. i. 15.

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ber". When he threatens, The Lord fhall feat ter you amongst the Nations, and ye shall be left few in Number, it is again, only Men of Num ber. And when Belshazzar is told, that God hath numbered his Kingdom", the Meaning is, that its Conclufion was near at Hand. Yet we cannot fay, that Life is too fhort for us to enjoy the proper Happiness of it. For in our prefent fallen Condition, all Things confidered, we have much Reafon to be contented, nay thankful, that the Duration of Man upon Earth is no longer; and fhould have fufficient Caufe to be weary of it, if it were. For furely threefcore Years and ten is full Space enough to be Spectators of, and Sharers in, the Follies, the Sins, the Sufferings, of fuch a World as this. And both they who are fo ftrong, that they come to fourfcore Years, experience a peculiar Degree of Labour and Sorrow: and they that, after walking with God, are taken by him ever fo early, ought to be confidered as taken away in Mercy from Evil of one Kind or another. Nor is Life too fhort for the Bufinefs we have to do in it. For God requires, in this and all Refpects, only in Proportion to what he gives.