ECCLES. XII. 1.

Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt fay, I have no pleasure in them.

ТИТ

WO Things are principally commended to us in this Text. 1. A Duty enjoyned, To Remember our Creator. 2. The principal Seafon of that Duty, The days our Youth. Which Seafon is recommended for this Duty by way of Preference above the Evil days; not as if the Remembring our Creator were unfeasonable at any time; but because the time of our Youth is more seasonable than that Evil Time, or thofe Evil Days, wherein we fhall fay, We have no pleasure in them.

1. The Duty enjoyned, is to Remember our Creator; which imports two things: 1. To Know our Creator; for we cannot remember what we have not fome knowledge of. 2. To Remember him, often to call him to mind.

1. The former part of this Duty is to know our Creator. This is that which Aged David recommended to his young Son Solomon, I Chron. 28. 9. And thou Solomon my Son, know thou the God of thy Father. And we have two excellent Books, wherein the Knowledge of God is discovered to us; the Book of bis Works, the Works of his Creation and Providence; and the Book of bis Word, contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, wherein he is more fully, and explicitly, and plainly discovered unto us: Thefe Books we are often to read and confider. And this is the chief Reason, why Understanding and Reafon is given unto Mankind, and not unto the Beafts that perish; Namely, that we might improve it to the attaining of the Knowledge of Almighty God, in the due confideration of the Works and Word of God: and hereby we learn his Eternity, his Infiniteness, his Wifdom, his Power, his Goodness, his Juftice, his Mercy, his All-fufficiency,

his Soveraignty, his Providence, his Will, his Purpose concerning Mankind, his Care of them, his Beneficence towards them. And the Nature of this Knowledge is not barely Speculative, but it is a Knowledge that is Operative; that perfects our Nature; that conforms it to the Image of that God we thus know; that fets Mankind in its due State and Station; keeps it in his juft fubordination unto the God we thus know, which is our greatest Perfection. This Knowledge muft neceffarily make us love him, because he is Good, Merciful, Bountiful, Beneficent; and therefore the Wife Man chuseth to express him by that Title of Creator, from whom we receive our very Being, and all the good that can accompany it. This Knowledge teacheth us to be thankful unto him, as our greatest Benefactor; to depend upon him, because of his Power and Goodness; to fear him, because of his Power and Justice; to obey him, because of his Power, Juftice, and Soveraignty; to walk before him in Sincerity, because of his Power, Juftice, and Wisdom. In fum, the feveral Attributes of Almighty God to ftrike upon the choiceft Parts, and Faculties, and Affections, and Tendencies of our Hearts and Souls, and to tune them into that Order and Harmony that is best suitable to the perfecting of our Nature, and the placing of them in a right and juft Pofture, both in relation to Almighty God, our felves, and others.

2. The fecond part of our Duty is, To Remember our Creator thus known; which is to have the Sense and Exercife of this Knowledge always about us; to fet Almighty God always before our eyes, frequently to think of him, to make our Application to him: For many there are that may have a knowledge of God, but yet the exercise of that knowledge is fufpended; fometimes by Inadvertence and Inconfideratenefs, fometimes by a wilful Abdication of the exercise of that Knowledge. And these are fuch as forget God, that have not God in all their Thoughts, that fay to the Almighty, Depart from us, we defire not the Knowledge of thy Ways.

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The Benefits of this Remembring our Creator, are very great 1. It keeps the Soul and Life in a Conftant, and True, and Regular Frame. As the want of the Knowledge, fo the want of the Remembrance of God, is the caufe of that Disorder and Irregularity of our Minds and Lives. 2. And confequently, the beft Preventive of Sin, and Apoftacy,and Backfliding from God, and our Duty to him. 3. It keeps the Mind and Soul full of conftant Peace and Tranquility; because it maintains a conftant, humble, and comfortable Converse of the Soul, with the Prefence and Favour of God. 4. It renders all Conditions of Life comfortable, and full of Contentment, because it keeps the Soul in the Prefence of God, and communicates unto it continual Influxes of Contentment and Comfort; for what can difturb him, who by the continual Remembrance of his Creator, hath the conftant Acquaintance with this Power, Goodness, and All-fufficiency? 5. Though no Man hath ground enough to promife to himself an Immunity from Temporal Calamities, yet certainly there is no better expedient in the World to fecure a Man against them, and preferve him from them than this: For the moft part of thofe fharp Afflictions that befal Men, are but to make them Remember their Creator when they have forgotten him, that he may open their Ears to Difcipline, and awake them to Remember their Creator. Read fob 33. A Man that keeps about him the Remembrance of his Creator, prevents in a great measure the neceffity of that fevere Discipline. 6. In fhort, this Remembrance of our Creator, is an Antidote against the Allurements of the World; the Temptation of Satan; the deceitfulness of Sin. It renders the beft things the World can afford inconfiderable, in comparison of him whom we remember; it renders the worft the World.can do, but little and contemptible; fo long as we Remember our Creator, it makes our Lives happy, our Deaths eafie, and carries us to an Everlasting Enjoyment of that Creator, whom we have here remembred.

The Injunction of the Duty of Remembring our Creator, is the more Importantly neceffary: 1. In regard of the great

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confequence of the benefit we receive from it, as before. 2. In regard of the great danger of omitting it. The truth is, the greatest part of the mifcarriages of our lives are occafioned by the want of the remembrance of our Creator; then it is that we fail in our Duty when we forget him. 3. In regard of the many Temptations this World affords to make us forget our Creator; the Pleafures, and Profits, and Recreations, and Preferments, and Noife, and Bufinefs of this Life, yea, many of them which are in themfelves and in their Nature lawful, are apt to ingrofs our Thoughts, our Time, our Cares, and to leave too little room in our memory for this great Duty that most deferves it, namely, The Remembrance of our Creator. Our Memory is a noble Cabinet, and there cannot be a more excellent Jewel to lodge in (it) than our Great and Bountiful Creator; yet for the most part. we fill this noble Cabinet with pebbles and ftraws, if not with dung and filth; with either finful, or, at least, with Unprofitable, Impertinent, Trifling Furniture.

2. The Seafon for this Duty, that is here principally commended, 'is, The Days of our Youth: And the Reasons that commend that Seafon for this Duty are principally thefe:

1. Because this is the moft Accepted Time. God Almighty was pleafed under the Old Law to intimate this, in (the) refervation to himself of the first Fruits and the firft Born; and furely the firft fruits of our Lives, when dedicated to his remembrance, are beft accepted to him.

2. Because this Seafon is commonly our Turning Seafon to Good or Evil. And if in Youth we forget our Creator, it is very great difficulty to refume our Duty: Commonly it requires either very extraordinary Grace, or very ftrong Affliction to reclaim a Man to his Duty, whofe Youth hath been seasoned with ill Principles, and the Forgetfulness of God.

3. Because the time of Youth is most Obnoxious to forget God; there is great Inadvertency and Inconfideratenefs, Incogitancy, Unftableness, Vanity, love of Pleafures, Eafinefs to be corrupted in Youth; and therefore

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neceffary in this feafon to lodge the Remembrance of our Creator in our Youth, to be an Antidote against these defects, to establish and fix the entrance of our Lives with this great Prefervative, the Remembrance of our Creator.

4. When Almighty God lays hold of our Youth, by as timely Remembrance of himself, and thereby takes the firft poffeffion of our Souls, commonly it keeps its ground, and feafons the whole courfe of our enfuing Lives; it prevents and anticipates the Devil and the World. It is true it may poffibly be, that Natural Corruption and Worldly Temptations may fufpend the actings of this Principle, but it is rarely extinguished: It is like that abiding feed remaining in him: fpoken of by John, 1 Job. 3. 9. which will recover him again.

5. The laft reafon is because there are Evil days that will certainly come, which will render this work of Remembring our Creator difficult to be firft begun; and therefore it is the greatest Prudence imaginable to lay in this ftock before they come, for it will certainly ftand us in great ftead when they come. It is the greatest Imprudence in the World to defer that bufinefs which is neceffary to be done, unto such a time wherein it is very difficult be done: and it is the greatest Prudence in the World to do that work which must be done, in fuch a season wherein it may be easily and fafely done. He that lays in this ftore of Remembrance of his Creator before the Evil Day come, will find it of the greatest use and service to him in that Evil Day.

Now those Evil Days are many, and all of them befal fome, but fome of them will certainly befal all Mankind.

1. An Evil day of Publick or Private Calamities. He that before-hand had laid in this ftock of Remembring his Creator, will be easily able to bear any Calamity when it comes; but a Man, that hath not done this before-hand, will find it a very unfeasonable time to begin to fet about it, when Fear, and Anguish, and Perplexity, and Storms, and Confufion are round about him, and take up all his Thoughts.