Christ and all Heaven were ours Who would doubt when they see men so busie about impertinencies and the trivial affairs of this World but that they were much more anxious about their souls Who would not conclude that certainly their great work is already done that shall see them so earnest and solicitous about petty matters But alas It may astonish Men and Angels that rational Creatures who have immortal souls Souls whose endless duration must abide either in inconceivable misery or blisse should trifle away that time and strength which might secure their everlasting happiness about those vain nothings that have neither happiness in them nor continuance Certainly the service of God is not more painful than the drudgery of the World and sure I am it is far more cleanly Thou shalt not in his service set thine hand to any foul Office whereas the world employes thee basely to rake together thick clay and load thy self with it and the Devil yet worse to rake in the mire and filth of all manner of defilements which now pollute the soul and will hereafter damn it Both these are most grievous task-masters Some draw iniquity with cords of vanity and sin as it were with a cart-rope Isa 5.18 They are so enslaved to the work of the Devil that he puts them into his Team makes them draw and strain for their iniquities and doth them a courtesie when their sins come easily He makes them toil and sweat in carrying Fagots to their own Fire and blowing up those flames which must for ever burn them Others as the Prophet expresseth it Hab. 2.13 labour in the fire and weary themselves for very Vanity They take great pains in the World and meet with great disappointments for both are signified by labouring in the fire where what they produce cannot be enjoyed but is consumed between their hands Since then you must take so much pains either for sin or Vanity why will you not be perswaded rather to lay it out upon that which is substantially good and eternally so God requires not more but onely other work from you Luke 10.45 and the many things that Martha was careful about Religion and Holinesse reduceth to the One thing necessary which though it contains many particular duties under it yet by reason of its uniformity and subserviency to it self is less distracting and cumbersome The Wheels of a Watch move and click as fast when it goes false as when it goes true and if it be but set right at first the same activity of the Spring will so continue it which before made its motion irregular So is it here The same activity and industry which you irregularly use in pursuit of the World would procure Heaven and Glory for you were it that way directed Your cares your contrivances your endeavours need be no more than now they are onely what before you laid out upon the World reserve now for Heaven And how infinitely reasonable is this Certainly they are most stupidly foolish that will take up Vanity at as dear a rate as Happiness and give as much for Vexation as for endless Joy Fourthly If the things of this World be so vain what inexcusable folly is it to part with the peace or the purity of our Consciences for them And yet what more common If men can get any thing of the World at the price of a sin they think they have made a gainful bargain And therefore the Devil hath recourse to this as his most prevailing temptation When he set on our Saviour in the Wilderness the last assault was a Mat. 4 9. All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me and when this battery could not make a breach he raiseth his siege as despairing of success And this is the usual temptation by which he assaults others Judas comes with his b Mat. 26.15 Quid dabitis what will you give me and sets Christ and his own Conscience to sale for the inconsiderable sum of thirty pieces He demands no more than the common market c Exod. 21.32 price of a slave not amounting to above d Accounting the value of the common shekel to be 15 pence of our money eight and thirty shillings for the Lord of Life and Glory And thinks his bargain so good that he gives himself to the Devil for vantage This is the very root of all that injustice and rapine and oppresion and violence that is to be found among men They all strive and tugg who shall get most of this earth from one another and lose Heaven and their own Consciences in the scuffle This is it that makes men so oft shift their Sails that they may run before every wind that blows If times grow rough and tempestuous and they must throw over-board either their gain or their godliness this perswades them to make shipwrack of Faith and a good Conscience onely that they may bear up in this World though they sink hereafter Now what deplorable folly is this When thy conscience is disquieted with the tormenting review of past crimes what will all thy ill-gotten wealth avail thee Thou wilt then with extream horror cast thy eyes upon all thy treasures of wickednesse when conscience shall tell thee thou hast not onely treasur'd up them but wrath too against the day of wrath Fifthly What desperate folly is it to purchase a vain World with the loss of our precious Souls So our Saviour Matth. 16.26 What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole World and lose his own Soul or what shall a man give in exchange for his Soul O think what great losers they must needs be who lose their Souls to gain the World and must at last lose the World too together with their Souls This is the only thing that damns men that they prefer the Pleasures Honours Profits and pitiful nothings of this World before their precious and immortal Souls which are more worth than ten thousand Worlds What is this but a stupidity as grosse as that of the old Heathens to make a vile Worm our God and sacrifice an Ox to it or a Monster our God and sacrifice a Man to it Think how dreadful and grating will be the reflexions of worldlings in hell to consider that there they must lye and burn to eternity for their inordinate love to that World of which they have nothing left them besides the bitter remembrance What will it then avail them that they have lived here in ease and delights when all their mirth shall be turned into groans and howling What will all their treasures and riches avail them when these shall be melted down about them to encrease their torment Believe it 't is sad to be left to the conviction of that day when the Vanity of Earth shall appear in the torments of Hell Be perswaded therefore as you have renounced it in all its pomps and and vanities when you gave up your
of all worldly and earthly things for he speaks onely of these And if we enquire what these wordly things are that have this censure of Vanity so vehemently past upon them Saint John hath drawn up a full and true Inventory of all the goods that are to be found in this great House of the Universe 1 John 2.16 All that is in the world is the lust of the flesh the lust of the eye and the pride of Life The Lusts of the flesh are the pleasures of the world which are all of them suited to gratifie the sensual and fleshly part of man The Lusts of the eye are riches so called because their greatest serviceableness is onely to make a glittering and dazling shew Which since Solomon approves Eccles 5.11 What good is there to the owners thereof save the beholding them with their eyes The Pride of life is honour and dignity that flatulent and aiery notion that puffes up mens pride and vain-glory and makes them look upon their inferiours as though they were not their fellow Creatures This is all that the world can shew Pleasures Riches Honors and this is that All concerning which the Wiseman pronounceth that it is Vanity For these things though they make a fair and gaudy shew yet it is all but shew and appearance As bubbles blown into the air will represent great variety of Orient and glittering colours not as some suppose that there are any such really there but onely they appear so to us thorough a false reflexion of light cast upon them so truly this world this earth on which we live is nothing else but a great bubble blown up by the breath of God in the midst of the air where it now hangs It sparkles with ten thousand glories not that they are so in themselves but onely they seem so to us thorough the false light by which we look upon them If we come to grasp it like a thin filme it breaks and leaves nothing but wind and disappointment in our hands as histories report of the fruits that grow near the dead sea Tacit. hist lib. 5. Fumum exhilant fa iscuat in vagum pulverem Solin Joseph Antiquit l. 5. c. 5. where once Sodome and Gomorah stood they appear very fair and beautifull to the eye but if they be crusht in cinerem vanescunt turn straight to smoak and ashes The Subject which I have propounded to discourse of is this Vanity of the world and of all things here below that being hereof convinced we may desist our vain pursuit of vain objects and may set our affections on those things which are above which are the alone valuable because the only permanent and stable good Whence is it that we are become so degenerate that we who have immortal and heaven-born Souls should stake them down to these perishing injoyments Whence is it that we who should soar aloft unto God and were to that end fitted with the fleet wings of Meditation and affections to cut through the Heavens in an instant and to appear there before the Throne of the great God that we should lye here groveling in the thick clay and muck of this world as if the Serpents curse were become ours to creep upon our bellies Gen. 3.14 and to lick up the dust of the earth Do we not shamefully degrade our selves when we stoop to admire what is so vastely below us and barter away our pretious Souls Souls more worth than ten thousand worlds onely to gain some small part of one Certainly the God of this world hath blinded mens eyes and cast a strange mist before them that they cannot discern what is most evident and obvious even the instability and vanity of all sublunary enjoyments That I may therefore contribute somewhat to scatter this mist I shall endeavour to represent to you the native and genuine Vanity that is in all earthly things free from that deceitful varnish which the Devil usually puts upon them and so to deform and wound that great Sorcerer that his charms may have no more power to prevail over you Now that we may rightly proceed in this I shall premise these two or three things First There is nothing in the world vain in respect of its natural being Whatsoever God hath made is in its kind good And so the great Creator pronounced of them when he took a survey of all the works of his hands Gen. 1.31 God saw every thing that he had made and behold it was very good There is a most harmonious order and beauty in all the Creation and every part of it And therefore Solomon must not be here so interpreted as if he disparaged the works of God in pronouncing them all Vanity Certainly he doth not libell his Creator nor upraid him as though he had filled the world onely with vain toyes and trifles If we regard the wonderful artifice and wisdom that shines forth in the frame of nature we cannot have so unworthy a thought either of the world it self or of God who made it Veiw the Sun next unto * Jam. 1 17. God the great Father of lights Veiw the numerous assembly of the Starres observe their Influences their Courses and Measures Is it a vain or impertinent thing to spread forth the Heavens and to beat out a Path for every one of these to walk in The Air that thin and subtil Vail that God hath spread over the face of Nature the Earth that God hath pois'd in the midst of the Air and the whole Universe in the midst of a vast and boundless Nothing The great Sea whose proud waves God binds in with a girdle of sand and checks its rage by a body almost as unsetled and roling as it self The various kinds of Creatures that God governs by a wonderful Aeconomy the great family of brute Beasts which God brings up and educates without disorder but especially Man the Lord and Chief of the World that knot that God hath tyed between Heaven and Earth that sacred band of Time with Eternity If we consider the frame and composure of all these things in themselves or their usefulness and subserviency unto us we shall be so far from branding them with Vanity that unless our contemplations lead us from natural things to the great God who formed them we might rather fear lest their beauty and excellency should inviegle us as it did the Heathen to look no farther for a Deity but Worship them as Gods Secondly There is nothing vain in respect of God the Creator He makes his ends out of all for they all glorifie him according to their several ranks and orders and to rational and considerate men are most evident Demonstrations of his infinite Being Wisdom a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plut. de placitis philos c. 6. and Power In which sence the Apostle tells us Rom. 1.20 The invisible things of God are clearly seen being understood by the things which are made even his
can no more live upon these things than the body can upon a thought or notion There is a threefold unsuitableness between worldly things and the soul First The soul is spiritual these are drossie and material Of all things belonging to a man his breath is the most subtile invisible and spiritual But now the soul is called the * Gen. 2.7 Breath of God and therefore must needs be spiritual in a high degree And what then hath a spiritual soul to do with clods of Earth or acres of Land with Barns full of Corn or Bags full of Gold These are too thick and gross to correspond with its refined nature But rather bring spiritual things to Spiritual God who is the * Heb. 12.9 Father of Spirits his love and favour an interest in him and communion with him the consolations of the Holy Ghost the actings of Grace and the hopes of Glory these spiritual and clarified Essences which a carnal eye cannot see nor a carnal judgment value these are most suitable to the soul that is a Spirit and ought not to be unequaly yoak't to the dregs and dross of earthly enjoyments Secondly The soul is immortal but all worldly things are perishing and wear out in the using And therefore it was but small comfort when the rich man sung his Requiem to say Soul take thy ease thou hast Goods laid up for many years Thou fool What is an estate for many years to a soul whose duration is not measured by years but by Eternity What when those years of plenty are expired How destitute will thy soul be when it shall have out lived all its good things It may out-live them even in this world God may nip and blast all that thou settest thy heart on and make all thy comforts fall off from thee like so many withered leaves However if thou hast no other than what this miserable world can afford thou shalt certainly out-live them in the world to come And what wilt thou do not in those years but in that Eternity of Famine As it is with those that are invited to feast in some noble Family the Furniture is rich the Entertainment splendid and magnificent but when they depart they cannot of all that pomp and bravery carry any thing away with them So is it here the world is Gods great House richly furnisht and we well entertain'd in it we have all things liberally afforded us for our use but nothing of all is ours And therefore God hath set that grim Porter Death at his Gate to see that as we brought nothing into it so we carry nothing out of it What a sad parting hour will it be to the soul when it must go into another world and leave all that it admired and loved behind in this How will it protract and linger How loath will it be to enter upon so great a journey and carry nothing to defray the charges of it Certainly dying must needs be a terrible thing to those who have gotten nothing but what they can no longer keep when their souls must be set on shore in a vast and black Eternity all naked and destitute having nothing to releive or support them Thirdly The necessities of the soul are altogether of another kind than those which worldly things are able to supply and therefore they are wholly unsuitable Natural things may well serve for natural wants Food will satisfie hunger and Rayment fence off the injuries of the weather and Riches will procure both But the souls necessities are spiritual and these no Natural thing can reach It wants a price to redeem it nothing can do this but the pretious Blood of Christ It wants pardon and forgiveness nothing can grant it but the free and abundant mercy of God It wants Sanctification and Holiness Comfort and Assurance nothing can effect these but the Holy Ghost Here all worldly things fall short The Exigencies of the outward man they may supply but the greatest abundance of them can never quiet a troubled Conscience nor appease an angry God nor remove the condemning guilt of the least sin No Psal 49.8 The redemption of the soul is pretious more pretious than to be purchased by these poor things and it ceaseth for ever Possibly now in the time of your peace and prosperity you regard not these spiritual wants but when the dayes of sorrow and darkness shall come upon you when God shall drop into your Consciences a little of his wrath and displeasure you may as well seek to cure a wound in your body by applying a plaister to your garment as seek to ease a wounded Spirit by all the Treasures Pleasures and Enjoyments of this world Prov. 11.4 Riches saith the wise man profit not in the day of wrath For indeed they cannot reach the soul to bring any true solace to it Thus you see how unsuitable the World is to the Soul Unsuitable to the Nature of it for the Soul is spiritual but all earthly enjoyments are drossie and material the soul is immortal but these are all perishing Unsuitable also to the necessities of the soul which they can never reach nor supply Again The Vanity of the World appears in its Inconstancy and Fickleness Gods Providence administers all things here below in perpetual vicissitudes His Hand turns them about like so many wheels to which they are compared Ezek. 1. the same part is now uppermost and anon lowermost now lifted up in the Air and by and by grated through the mire This is the mutable condition of the world And therefore we find it compared to the Moon Rev. 12.1 where the Church is described to be Cloathed with the Sun and to have the Moon that is the World under her seâ—t And well may it bear the resemblance for it is still waxing and waning sometimes full of brightness at other times scarce a small streak of light to be discerned There are none of us but have had experience in some kind or other of the inconstancy of these sublunary enjoyments When the Sun shines bright and warm all the flowers of the Field open and display their leaves to receive him into their bosomes but when night comes they fold together and shut up all their glories And though they were like so many little Suns shining here below able one would think to force a day for themselves yet when the Sun withdraws his Beams they droop and hang the head and stand neglected dull and obscure things So hath it fared with us While God hath shone upon us with warm and cherishing influences we opened and spread and flourisht into a great pomp and glory But he onely hides his Face draws in his Beams and all our beautiful leaves shut up or fall to the ground and leave us a bare stalk poor and contemptible Or if there have been no such considerable mutations in what concerns us yet the revolutions that God hath of late years brought upon others so