[3.] Thirdly, As there is nothing more sudden than death, so there is nothing more short than life ; and why then should you put the day of your death so far from you ? i If you consider the life of man absolutely, it is but short, it is but as a span, a shadow, a dream, a bubble, a blast, a puff of wind, a pile of dust, a fading leaf, or a tale that is told, &c. The life of man is as a dream that vanisheth when one awaketh, it is a wind that goeth away and cometh not again, it is as a cloud that is soon dispersed with the wind, it is as a vapour that appeareth for a time, and then vanisheth away, it is as the grass that soon withereth, it is as the flower that soon fadeth, it is as the candle that every light puff of wind bloweth out. The life of man is rather made up of days than years : Ps. xc. 12, 'So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.' Moses does not say, Lord, teach us to number our years, but ' Lord, teach us to number our days.' Fallen man is apt to misreckon, and to compute days for years ; and therefore this holy prophet desires that God would teach them this divine arithmetic, of numbering their days, it being a lesson that none but a God can teach. So Job xiv. 1,2,' Man that is born of a woman is of few days,' or short of days, ' and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down : he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.' He speaks not of an age, nor of years, nor of many days, but of a few days. Man's days are short in themselves, and shorter in respect of the troubles that attends this present life. Man's life is so short, Austin doubteth whether to call it a dying life, or a living death.^ Now these few days of man's life are upon the Aving, hastening and flying from us as the eagle hasteneth to his prey; and therefore man had need set a greater price upon every moment and minute of time, than he does upon all the world, and accordingly improve it.
2. Secondly, If you consider the life of man comparatively, it is but short, and that will appear briefly thus :
[1.] First, If you compare the life of man to what man might have reached to had he continued in his primitive glory. Had man stood fast in innocency, he had never known what death and misery had meant. Death is a fall that came in by a fall. Had man kept sin out of the world, he had kept death out of the world. Had maA kept fast his holiness and purity, he had remained a piece of immortality to this day ; death could never have carried man out of the world, had not man first let sin into the world, Eom. v. 12, seq.
[2.] Secondly, If you compare the life of man to the long lives of the patriarchs before the flood, then the life of man is but short: threescore years and ten is man's age, Ps. xc. 10. And where one man lives to this age, how many thousands die before they come to it ! But what is this age to the age that men lived to in former times ? Enoch lived as many years as there be days in the year, and Adam lived nine hundred and thirty years, and Methuselah lived nine hun- dred sixty and nine years. Gen. v. JS'ow what were Plato's eighty
1 Job viii. 9 ; Ps. cii. 11, Ixxiii. 20, and xc. 5 ; Job xx. 8, and vii. 7. * Aug., 1. i. Confess.
HeB. XII. 14.] AND BEAUTY OF HOLINESS. 209
years, or Thomas Paris's one hundred and sixty years, or Johannes de Temporibus, John of the Times's, tliree hundred threescore and one years, to the long Hves of the patriarchs? And though in David's time old age and seventy often shook hands, yet it is otherwise in our times ; for as men's wickedness do more and more increase, so their days do more and more decrease. The more wicked any generation is, the shorter hved that generation shall be. God will quickly despatch them out of the world who make quick despatches in ways of wickedness.
[3.] Thirdly, The life of man is but short, if you compare it to what it shall be after the morning of the resurrection. Oh, then man's days shall reach to eternity ! Eternity is that unum perpetuum hodie, one perpetual day that shall never have end. When men after the resurrection begin to live, they shall never die after that day ; every man shall live in everlasting bliss or in everlasting woe ; when the last trumpet has sounded, man shall live for ever and ever.
[4.] Fourthly, The life of man is but short, if you compare it with the days of God : Ps. xxxix. 5, ' Mine age is nothing before him ;' all time is nothing to eternity ; man's life is but a minute, it is but a point of time to the days of eternity. What head, what heart can conceive or reckon up the duration of God, who ever was, who still is, and who ever will be ! Every child and every fool can tell you their age, but what man on earth or what angel in heaven can tell you the years of the Most High ? Surely none.
[5.] Fifthly and lastly. The life of man is but short, if you compare it with the lives of other creatures. Some say that it is neither age nor sickness that killeth the eagle ; she casteth her feathers yearly, and so gets new, whereby her youth and strength is renewed, by which means she will live till she be a hundred years old ; she dies not till her upper bill be so grown over her under that she cannot take in her meat, and so at last she is starved, i And some elephants live three hundred years ; witness ^lian, Solinus, and Strabo, &c. : by all which you see the brevity of man's life. And why then should man be so weak, so vain, as to put the day of his death so far from him ? I have read of the birds of Norway, that they fly faster than the fowls of any other country ; they knowing, by an instinct that God has put into them, that the days in that climate are very short — not above three hours long, say some — do therefore make the more haste to their nests. And oh that all that hear me this day would learn by these birds of Norway, to make haste to believe, and to make haste to repent, and to make haste to love God, and to make haste to be holy, &c., seeing their day of life is so short, and their night of death is posting towards them.
And as the life of man is very short, so it is very considerable that a very small matter, a very little thing, may quickly put an end to man's life. When the emperor threatened the philosopher with death, he replied, What is that more than a Spanish fly may do ? 2 An ordinary fly flying casually into the mouth of the proud Pope Adrian, stifled him that made the highest state then in the Christian world
^ Pliny, Augustine, Calvin, Ps. ciii. 5.
' Conrad., Vesperg., Naucler., and Jo. Boel. in Adrian. Paulus Jovius, Elog.. lib. ii. VOL, IV. O
210 THE NECESSITY, EXCELLENCY, KAKITY, [HeB. XII. 14.