Selected quad for the lemma: prince_n
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A43312
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[Mataiobrachytēs tou biou] The brevity and vanity of man's life : discovered in a sermon preached at the funerals of Mrs. Ellen Hartcourt, youngest daughter to the virtuous and excellent Lady Cony of Stoke in Lincolnshire, who was interr'd in Saint Andrews-Holborn-Church, March 23, 1661, being married that day five weeks before / by Richard Henchman.
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Henchman, Richard.
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1661
(1661)
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Wing H1428; ESTC R227539
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20,951
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44
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that which is Something upon that which is All upon that which is Lasting upon that which is Everlasting upon that which is Truth it self and will not nay cannot deceive us upon that which will be more in Fruition then ever it was in Expectation Oh! let us not trust in lying vanities but in the Ever-living and Never-failing God Man will be trusting in some-what and he is so forward to trust in vanity which indeed is nothing that it is the hardest thing in the World to take him off We cannot press our selves or others too much to trust in God and we cannot Repress them enough from trusting vanity We say Such a man has deceived me once but he shall not deceive me a second time Why should we be so willing to be deceived a Thousand times with vanities God never deceived or failed any man that ever trusted in him Psal ix 10. Oh! therefore let this perswade our Hearts to trust in God we cannot trust him too much or the Creature too little If we make the Creature our Staff it will be our Scourge if we lean upon it as our Rock it will run into our Hands as a broken Reed The best way to keep up our Comforts in the Creature is to keep our Distance from the Creature and let me tell you this That they shall always finde most Comfort from the World who live furthest off it and expect least from it God is good and the more we trust in him the better he will be to us nay he will not be good to us at all unless we trust him Trust not therefore in man that is inconstant changeable mortal vain Rely not on him he 's a broken Reed but trust in God for he is the help of our Countenance and our God It is better to trust in the Lord then to put any Confidence in man Yea 't is better to trust in the Lord then to put any Confidence in Princes Psal cxviii 8 9. But blessed is the man that makes the Lord his Trust and they that know thy Name will put their Trust in thee for thou Lord never failest them that seek thee That 's the first Use Trust not in man which is but vanity Again Secondly Since Every man at his best Estate is c. Then this may check our Pride and pull down our proud Spirits what worth or Excellency is in any man to cause him to be blown up as a Bladder why is Earth and Ashes proud Seeing that when a man dyes he 's but Heir of Worms a Companion of crawling Worms The Unicorn may boast of his Horn which medicineth the poysoned Streams the Bezoar of his pretious Stone the Bever of his Skin the Panther of his Colours the Pink of its Sweetness the Tulip of its Beauty and many other Creatures of some singular Excellency but man vain man mushroom man has nothing of his own to animate Pride but rather should be exceedingly humbled for his manifold Wants and exceeding Vanities If a Beggar may be proud of his Rags or a Lazar of his Soars then have we cause to be proud not else That 's a Second Thirdly Seeing Man at his best Estate c why then this convinces and sharply reproves the Folly and madness of Worldlings who trifle away their pretious time in loathsome Vanities like Swine that root up Beds of Flowers and sweet Roses but wallow in the Mire Oh! ye Sons of Men how long will ye love Vanity Psal iv 2. Why walk ye after vanity and draw Iniquity with Cords of vanity Isa v. 18. Why do ye take pleasure in the vanity of Wickedness thinking it vain not to be vain in your Conversations Oh! how sweet soever it seems to you for the present I must tell you 't will prove very distructful in the End Oh! drink no longer of the pleasant Rivers of Damascus but on the wholsom streams of Jordan Do not affect vain Company or vain and Idle persons who have not the fear of God before their Eys who flatter with their lips and do speak with a double Heart Psal xii 2. Whose mouth speaketh Vanity and their Right-hand is a Right-hand of falshood Psal cxliv. 8. Oh! do not squander away your pretious hours in Vanities but know that whosoever travels with Vanity shall bring forth iniquitie which late Repentance must either drown or damnation Nurse And lastly seeing that every man c. Why then learn from hence to condemn thy vain life with all its Vanities and to seek for a new and better life where vanity is not admitted Oh! let us thirst after Heaven after Christ let our life be hid with Christ in God that so when Christ shall appear we may also c. Whilst we live let 's live by the Faith of the Son of God that so when we dy we may dy in the Faith and favour of Christ let our Conversation be in Heaven whilst we are here upon Earth let 's Meditate continually on Christ and his Merits our Redemption and the Glorious inheritance he has Purchased for us and let us say Thou O Lord Jesus art our Hope and our Stay seeing thou hast given us the World which we Contemn give us thy self whom our Souls desire let others strive for Temporal Kingdoms but let us strive for Eternal let others heap up Riches but let our hearts Hunger and Thirst after Righteousness let others Gape after the vanities of this World but let us pant and breath and gape after Christ desire to be desolved that we may be ever with the Lord whilst we live here one Earth let us Pray also that the life of Jesus may be made manifest in our Mortal Flesh and then come Lord Jesus come quickly Though our lives here be but as a span-long and attended with as many Miseries as there be Stars in the firmament and vanities as sand by the Sea-shore Yet after this life is ended we shall have a building not made with hands but Eternal in the Heavens though we now for a time hang up our Harpes by the Rivers of Babylon and weep for the Floods of vanity that are ready to over-whelm us in our Captivity Yet after a while we shall be brought home with Triumph unto a Land Flowing with Milk and Honey to life without Death to Days without end to such Mufick as we never heard before by a Quite of Angels to a World without Vanity to a Condition without alteration and to Eternal Glory which Ey ha's not seen nor Ear heard c. Which he will give us that has purcha'st for us by his own most pretious Blood to whom with the Father c. So much for the Text I come now to the Occasion Sory I am to be an Actour in this mornfull Scene For truly here I can scarce speak for grief or give you a Funeral Eulogy of this Deceased Lady whose liveless Dust lies here before us unless instead of strewing of Flowers I bedew her Hearse
Man is an Empty Man he has nothing in him but that which is good for nothing and therefore saith Saint James Chap ii 20. Wilt thou know Oh vain Man that Faith without works is Dead As if he had said thou Empty Man thou that hast but a Boast of Faith thou whose Faith is fill'd up onely with good Words not good Works Wilt thou know thou shalt whither thou wilt or no that thy Faith is Dead When Man fell from God the Devil emptyed him of that which he was full off the Image of God in Vprightness and fill'd him with that which was but Emptiness his own Image in Unrighteousness Naturally he 's a vain empty Man The Heart of man at the best of Nature is but like a Child's Pocket full of Stones and Trash and how empty is that Heart which is thus filld Vain Man is an Empty Man unless to be full of vain things which are worse then Emptyness may go for Fullness Again Secondly That is Vain which is Unprofitable and thus it is expounded Mal. iii. 14. Ye have said it is vain to serve God and what Profit is it that we keep his Ordinances And Eccles i. 3. having pronounced all things to be Vanity he subjoins What Profit has a man for all the Labour which he takes under the Sun So man is Vain in this Sence what greater Vanity then to let go the Substance for a Shadow Heaven for this World What will it profit a man to gain the world and to lose c. That 's a Second Notion Thirdly Vain man i. e. Deceitful man Homines falsitatis so Cajetane and Psal lxii 9. Surely men of low degree are Vanity and men of high degree are a Lye To be layd in the Balance they are altogether lighter then Vanity Virgil cals him Vanum mendacemque hominem vain and deceitful man and Psal iv 2. How long will ye love vanity and seek after leasing Vanity seeks after Vanity that 's a third Notion Fourthly and lastly Vain man i. e. Transitory man man is vanity because he is frail and transitory that is said to be vain which vanishes that man vanishes away see a plain place of Scripture Psal cxliiii 4. Man is like to Vanity his days are as a Shadow which passes away Here is Man's Picture drawn to the life like to Vanity a poor transitory thing here now and gon anon He is not only empty unprofitable and deceitful but very frail and transitory Well now as the Wiseman said Ecclesiast xi 8. Suppose you live many years to fourscore or an hundred which is very improbable 't is an hundred to one you do not Yet suppose it let me tell you that so many years are a shadow as a Tale that is told Verily every Man old and young rich and poor is a Vanity In the morning they are like Grass flourish a little making a little shew for a time but in the Evening they are Cut down and Withered away But yet further suppose a man live many daies to the Utmost Extent of Nature and rejoyce in all those his days which is in a manner impossible yet I say suppose it that his Head never ached all his Days He knew not what Sorrow or Sickness meant he has what his Heart can desire yet I must tell him that all is but Vanity when all is done What Profit has a Man of all his Labours which be takes under the Sun The total Sum amounts to this Man is at his best Estate altogether Vanity Now you must know that there is a threefold Vanity First Of Creation Secondly Of Transgression Thirdly Of Condition Man is Vanity in all these three Respects First In the Excellency of his Creation he seems not to be void of Vanity for as his Age is nothing before the Lord why so man himself in his Innocency compared with God his Creator is nothing but Vanity Job iv 18. Behold he put no Trust in his Servants and his Angels he charged with Folly And if Cherubins and Seraphins do cover their Faces as being imperfect and vain compared with him how much more may Vanity be attributed to us who dwell in Houses of Clay whose Foundation is in the Dust which are crushed before the Month Job iv 13. But then again Secondly If man be Vanity in his Creation compared with God then he has brought upon him a second and worse kind of vanity by his Fall A vanity of Transgression and Guilt by this Man who was Heir apparent of the World was exil'd Paradise his Glory becomes cloathed with Ignominie and Shame And this brings a third vanity after it a vanity of Condition from which none can be exempted every man living is vanity whether Sinner or Saint as long as he retains the Appellation of a man so long he is Inheritour of vanity whose frame is a brittle as Glass whose Name is a soon forgot as a Tale that is told Let the Heathen know says David Psa ix 20. that they are but men But Men Why is that so slight a matter what is Man Jeremiah tells us Ch. xxii 29. Earth Earth Earth Every man that lives upon the Earth is but a piece of that Earth on which he live Earth by Creation Earth by Conversation and Earth by Dissolution into Dust Man never continues in one Stay but vanishes as a Shadow Job xiv 2. In a word that so I may pass to a short Application As Holiness to the Lord was engraven upon Aaron's Breast-Plate Exod. xxviii 36. so upon every man's Forehead may be written this Motto Man at his best Estate is altogether vanity Give me leave to derive from this two Observations these few Practical Improvements and I have done And first Is it so that every man at his best c. Then this may instruct us not to trust in man Psal cxlvi 3 4. Put not your trust in Princes nor in the Son of man in whom there is no help his breath goes forth he returns to the Earth in that very day his thoughts perish Trust not therefore in the greatest man vanity will deceive you and every man is vanity Every man saies the Psalmist walks in a vain shew there is a shew of this and that and the other thing a promise of it but it is a vain Shew 't is but like a Pageant which feeds the Eye or delights the Pancy or pleases the Far but it passes away and leaves you as Empty as before Every man at his best Estate is altogether vanity not only in his Afflictions and in his Losses in his Troubles and in his Sorrows but take a man in the Height and Perfection and accomplishment of all Creature Comforts take the Creme the Pith the Marrow the Sweetness of all extract a Quintessence of all that can be had in the Creatures and all 's but vanity If therefore the Creature be so vain and the Dayes of man be Vanity Oh! let us set our Eys and Hearts upon