few days, considered with respect to this hasty fuccession of things, which soon carries him into the decline of his life, so may he likewise be said to flee like a shadow and continue not, when his duration is compared with other parts of God's works, and even the works of his own hands, which outlast him many generations; whilft, as Homer observes, like leaves, ore generation drops, and another springs up to fall again and be forgotten. But when we further consider his days in the light in which we ought chiefly to view them, as they appear in thy fight, O GOD! with whom a thousand years are but as yesterday; when we reflect that this hand-breadth of life is all that is measured out to us from that eternity for which he is created, how does his short span vanish to nothing in the comparison! 'Tis true, the greatest portion of time will do the fame when compared with what is to come, and therefore so fhort and transitory a one, as threescore years and ten, beyond which all is declared to be labour and sorrow, may the easier be allowed: and yet how uncertain are we of that portion, short as it is? Do not ten thousand accidents break off the flender flender thread of human life, long before it can be drawn out to that extent? The newborn babe falls down an easy prey, and moulders back again into dust; like a tender blofsom put forth in an untimely hour. The hopeful youth in the very pride and beauty of life is cut off, some cruel distemper or unthought of accident lays him prostrate upon the earth, to pursue Job's comparison, like a blooming flower smit and shrivelled up with a malignant blaft.-In this stage of life chances multiply upon us, the feeds of disorders are sown by intemperance or neglect, infectious distempers are more easily contracted, when contracted they rage with greater violence, and the fuccess in many cases is more doubtful, infomuch that they who have exercised themselves in computations of this kind tell us, "That one half of the whole species which are born into the world, go out of it again, and are all dead in so short a space as the first seventeen years." These reflections may be sufficient to illustrate the first part of Job's declaration, "That man is of few days." Let us examine the truth of the other, and see, whether he is not likewife full of trouble. And And here we must not take our account from the flattering outside of things, which are generally set off with a glittering appearance enough, especially in what is called higher life. -Nor can we safely trust the evidence of some of the more merry and thoughtless amongst us, who are so set upon the enjoyment of life, as feldom to reflect upon the troubles of it;-or who, perhaps, because they are not yet come to this portion of their inheritance, imagine it is not their common lot. Nor, lastly, are we to form an idea of it, from the delusive stories of a few of the most profperous paffengers, who have fortunately failed through and escaped the rougher toils and distresses. But we are to take our account from a close survey of human life, and the real face of things, stript of every thing that can palliate or gild it over. We must hear the general complaint of all ages, and read the histories of mankind. If we look into them, and examine them to the bottom, what do they contain but the history of sad and uncomfortable passages, which a good-natured man cannot read but with oppression of spirits. Confider the dreadful succession of wars in one part or other of the earth, earth, perpetuated from one century to another with so little intermission, that mankind have scarce had time to breathe from them, fince ambition first came into the world; confider the horrid effects of them in all those barbarous devastations we read of, where whole nations have been put to the sword, or have been driven out to nakedness and famine to make room for new-corners. -Consider how great a part of our species in all ages down to this, have been trod under the feet of cruel and capricious tyrants, who would neither hear their cries, nor pity their distresses. Confider flavery, -what it is, how bitter a draught, and how many millions have been made to drink of it ;which, if it can poison all earthly happiness when exercised barely upon our bodies, what must it be, when it comprehends both the flavery of body and mind? - To conceive this, look into the history of the Romish church and her tyrants, (or rather executioners), who seem to have taken pleasure in the pangs and convulsions of their fellow-creatures. Examine the inquifition, hear the melancholy notes founded in every cell. -Confider the anguith of 'mock trials, and the exquifite tortures consequent thereupon, mercilessly inflicted upon the unfortunate, unfortunate, where the racked and weary foul has so often wished to take its leave,-but cruelly not fuffered to depart. Confider how many of these helpless wretches have been haled from thence in all periods of this tyrannic ufurpation, to undergo the massacres and flames to which a false and a bloody religion has condemned them, If this sad history and detail of the more public causes of the miseries of man are not fufficient, let us behold him in another light, with respect to the more private causes of them, and see whether he is not full of trouble likewise there, and almost born to it as naturally as the sparks fly upwards. If we consider man as a creature full of wants and necessities (whether real or imaginary) which he is not able to fupply of himself, what a train of disappointments, vexations and dependencies are to be seen, ifsuing from thence to perplex and make his being uneasy? How many justlings and hard struggles do we undergo, in making our way in the world? How barbarously held back? -How often and basely overthrown, in aiming only at getting bread?-How many of us never attain it-at least not comfortably, -but |