(God knows how soon) be the same with theirs, and thou shalt repent in hell for not repenting here.

I have done with my first observation, which was this: It is a matter of great use and concernment, mightily conducing to the purposes of religion, for a man to know his end, and the number of his days, what it is, i. e. seriously to consider the shortness and uncertainty of his life here on earth.

I have shewn you, that to know the measure of our days, or to number our days aright, is to consider seriously the shortness of our life, 1. absolutely and in itself; 2. comparatively: and that, 1. as compared with God's eternity; 2. as compared with our own eternity; 3. as compared with the main work and business of our life, the business of religion.

I pass now to the other observation, which I shall but briefly touch upon, and so conclude. It is this:

II. A due consideration of the shortness and uncertainty of man's life in this world is a gift of God, and the effect of His grace, which therefore we ought by prayer humbly and earnestly to ask of Him.

So David doth in my text; "Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days," &c. One would think this were a needless prayer; for who knows not that he must die, and that the time of his death is uncertain, and yet certainly not far off? And who so brutish as not to consider this? But he must shut his eyes, and never look abroad into the world, that sees not the necessity of this prayer. A spirit of slumber and sottishness is fallen upon the generality of men, so that they seldom or never seriously think of that which so much concerns them. They see many of all ages fall into their graves round about them, and yet they live as if they themselves should never die.

The lesson of our mortality Divine Providence doth every day, yea, every hour and minute, press and inculcate on us, and as it were beat into us. The funeral bell ever and anon rings in our ears, and we daily tread upon the graves of others. Many of us already find the harbingers of death within us, we all see the triumphs of death without us, and (as our Church expresseth it)" in the midst of life we are in death." Alas! that among so many remembrancers, wherewith Providence hath surrounded us, we should, with that Monarch in story, need yet another

monitor to tell us every day," Remember that thou art mortal." Yet this is our case. What fatal stupidity is it that hath seized on us? Hath the frequency of these admonitions made them to lose their force and virtue on us? Are we become like sextons or grave-diggers, that by living as it were in the charnel-house, and daily conversing with the bones and sculls of dead men, at last become hardened, and of all mortals are the least apprehensive of their mortality? Or rather are we affectedly ignorant, and do we wilfully put the evil day far from us? Whatever the cause be, the effect is sadly visible.

So that every one of us hath reason to pray with David, "Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is, that I may know how frail I am:" and with Moses, "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." We have reason to pray, that God would never suffer us to fall into the folly of the blinded and infatuated world, who never entertain any serious thoughts of death and judgment, of heaven and hell, till death surprises them, till judgment arrests them, till heaven's gates be finally shut against them, and hell swallows them up.

From this infatuation, God of His infinite mercy deliver us, through the merits of His only Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

To Whom, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, be ascribed all honour and glory, all adoration and worship, both now and for evermore. Amen.

DISCOURSES.

DISCOURSE I.a

TIIE DOCTRINE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH FOR THE FIRST THREE AGES OF CHRISTIANITY, CONCERNING THE BLESSED TRINITY, CONSIDERED, IN OPPOSITION TO SABELLIANISM AND TRITHEISM.

THE unanimous sense of the Catholic Doctors of the Church, for the first three ages of Christianity, concerning the article of the Trinity, is in short this:

I. That there are in the Godhead three (not mere names or modes, but) really distinct hypostases or persons, the Father, the Son or Word of God, and the Holy Ghost.

II. That these three Persons are one God; which they thus explain :

1. There is but one fountain or principle of Divinity, God the Father, Who only is Avτóleos, God of and from Himself; the Son and Holy Ghost deriving their Divinity from Him; the Son immediately from the Father, the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son, or from the Father by the Son.

2. The Son and Holy Ghost are so derived from the fountain of the Divinity, as that they are not separate or separable from it, but do still exist in it, and are most intimately united to it.

All the Fathers insist upon this, that if there were more than one fountain of the Divinity, or if the three Persons were each of them a self-dependent principle of Divinity, or if the three Persons were separate from each other, then there would be three Gods. But being there is but one fountain of the Divinity, the Father, the Son and Holy Ghost deriving their Divinity from that fountain, and that so, as still to exist in it,

[This Discourse was written 1697, is stated at length in the Life, §. lxxxii. for the satisfaction of Lord Arundel, as p. 422.]