nothing. Wherefore the first and fountain-being justly appropriates to himself the name, I am; yea, tells us, He is, and there is none besides him; therein leaving no other name than that of nothing unto creatures. And how much more may this be said of the material and mortal part, this outside of man, whatever of him is obnoxious to death and the grave? Which alone (abstractly looked on) is the subject of the Psalmist's present consideration and discourse. By how much any thing hath more of matter, it hath the less of actual essence. Matter being rather a capacity of being, than being itself, or a dark umbrage or shadow of it, actually nothing, but sïdwλov, Leudos (as are the expressions of a noble philosopher) a mere semblance, or a lie. Plotin. En. 2. 1. 6. And it is the language not of philosophers only, but of the Holy Ghost concerning all the nations of men, They are as nothing, less than nothing, and vanity. Isa. 40. 17. What a scarcity then, and penury of being, must we suppose in each individual! especially if we look alone upon the outer part, or rather the umbrage or shadow of the man?

it.

Secondly. The instability and fluidness of it. The visible and corporeal being of man hath nothing steady or consistent in Consider his exterior frame and composition, he is no time all himself at once. There is a continual defluence and access of parts; so that some account, each climacteric of his age changes his whole fabric. Whence it would follow, that besides his statique individuating principle (from which we are now to abstract) nothing of him remains; he is another thing; the former man is vanished and gone; while he is, he hastens away, and within a little is not. In respect to the duration, as well as the degree of his being, he is next to nothing. He opens his eye, and is not. Job 27. 19. Gone in the twinkling of an eye. There is nothing in him stable enough, to admit a fixed look. So it is with the whole scene of things in this material world. As was the true maxim of an ancient, (Heracl.) All things flow, nothing stays; after the manner of a river. The same thing which the apostle's words more elegantly express; The fashion of this world passeth away. 1 Cor. 7. 31. The scheme, the shew, the pageantry of it. He speaks of it but as an appearance, as if he knew not whether to call it something or nothing, it was so near to vanishing into nothing. And therefore he there requires, that the affections which mutual nearness in relation challenges, be as if they were not: that we rejoice in reference to one another, (even most nearly related, as the occasion and scope of his discourse teach us to understand him) but as if we rejoiced not, and to weep, as if we wept not. Which implies, the objects merit no more, and are themselves, as if they were Whence therefore a continued course of intense passion were very incongruous towards so discontinuing things. And the whole state of man being but a shew, the pomp and glitter

not.

ing of the greatest men, make the most splendid and conspicuous part of it; yet all this we find is not otherwise reckoned of, than an image, a dream, a vision of the night; every man at his best state is altogether vanity, walketh in a vain shew, disquieteth, himself in vain, &c. Of all without exception it is pronounced, Man is like to vanity, his days are as a shadow that passeth away. As Ecclesiastes often, of all sublunary things, vanity of vanities, &c. Job 20. 7, 8, 9. Psal. 73. 20.-39. 5. 6. II. But yet there is another notion of vain, as it signifies useless, unprofitable, or to no purpose. And in this sense also, if we consider the universal mortality of mankind without respect to a future state, there was a specious ground for the expostulation, Why hast thou made all men in vain? Vanity in the former notion speaks the emptiness of a thing, absolutely and in itself considered; in this latter relatively, as it is referred to, and measured by an end. That is, in this sense, vain, which serves to no end; or to no worthy and valuable end, which amounts to the same. For inasmuch as all ends, except the last, are means also to a further end; if the end immediately aimed at be vain and worthless, that which is referred to it, as it is so referred, cannot but be also vain. Whereupon now let us make trial what end we could in this case think man made for. Which will best be done by taking some view,-of his nature, and-of the ends for which, upon that supposition, we must suppose him made.

First. Of the former (neglecting the strictness of philosophical disquisition) no more is intended to be said than may comport with the design of a popular discourse. And it shall suffice therefore, only to take notice of what is more obvious in the nature of man, and subservient to the present purpose. And yet we are here to look further than the mere surface and outside of man, which we only considered before; and to view his nature, as it is in itself; and not as the supposition of its having nothing but what is mortal belonging to it, would make it for as the exility (and almost nothingness) of man's being considered according to that supposition, did best serve to express the vanity of it, in the former notion that hath been given of a vain thing: so the excellency, and solid substantiality of it, considered as it is in itself, will conduce most to the discovery of its vanity in this latter notion thereof. That is, if we first consider that, and then the supposition of such a creature's being only made to perish. And if what shall be said herein, do, in the sequel, tend to destroy that above-mentioned disposition, (as it, being established, would destroy the prime glory of human nature) it can only be said magna est veritas, &c. truth is great, &c. In the mean time we may take a view, in the nature of man;

1. Of his intellective powers. Hereby he frames notions of things, even of such things as are above the sphere of sense; of moral good and evil, right and wrong, what is virtuous and what

is vicious; of abstract and universal natures. Yea, and of a first being, and cause, and of the wisdom, power, goodness, and other perfections, which must primarily agree to him. Hereby he affirms and denies one thing of another, as he observes them to agree and disagree, and discerns the truth and falsehood of what is spoken or denied. He doth hereby infer one thing from another, and argue himself into firm and unwavering assent to many things, not only above the discovery of sense, but directly contrary to their sensible appearances.

2. His power of determining himself, of choosing and refusing, according as things are estimated, and do appear to him. Where also it is evident how far the objects which this faculty is sometimes exercised about, do transcend the reach of all sensible nature; as well as the peculiar nobleness and excellency is remarkable of the faculty itself. It hath often for its object, things of the highest nature, purely spiritual and divine, virtue, religion, God himself. So as that these (the faculty being repaired only by sanctifying grace, not now first put into the nature of man) are chosen by some, and, where it is not so, refused (it is true) by the most; but not by a mere not willing of them, (as mere brutal appetite also doth not-will them, which no way reaches the notion of a refusal,) but by rejecting them with a positive aversion and dislike, wherein there is great iniquity and sin; which could not be but in a nature capable of the opposite temper. And it is apparent, this faculty hath the privilege of determining itself, so as to be exempt from the necessitating influence of any thing foreign to it: upon the supposal whereof, the management of all human affairs, all treaties between man and man, to induce a consent to this or that; the whole frame of government, all legislation and distribution of public justice do depend. For take away this supposition, and these will presently appear most absurd and unjust. With what solemnity are applications and addresses made to the will of man upon all occasions? How is it courted, and solicited, and sued unto? But how absurd were it so to treat the other creatures, that act by a necessity of nature in all they do? to make supplications to the wind, or propound articles to a brute? And how unjust, to determine and inflict severe penalties for unavoidable and necessitated actions and omissions? These things occur to our first notice, upon any (a more sudden and cursory) view of the nature of man. And what should hinder, but we may infer from these, that there is further in his nature;

A capacity of an immortal state, that is, that his nature is such, that he may, if God so please, by the concurrent influence of his ordinary power and providence, without the help of a miracle, subsist in another state of life after this, even a state that shall not be liable to that impairment and decay that we find this subject to. More is not (as yet) contended for; and

so much methinks none should make a difficulty to admit, from what is evidently found in him. For it may well be supposed, that the admitting of this (at least) will seem much more easy to any free and unprejudiced reason, than to ascribe the operations before instanced in, to alterable or perishable matter, or indeed to any matter at all. It being justly presumed, that none will ascribe to matter, as such, the powers of ratiocination or volition. For then every particle of matter must needs be rational and intelligent, (a high advance to what one would never have thought at all active.) And how unconceivable is it, that the minute particles of matter, in themselves, each of them destitute of any such powers, should by their mutual intercourse with one another, become furnished with them! That they should be able to understand, deliberate, resolve, and choose, being assembled and duly disposed in counsel together: but, apart, rest all in a deep and sluggish silence! Besides, if the particles of matter howsoever modified and moved, to the utmost subtilty or tenuity, and to the highest vigor, shall then become intelligent and rational, how is it that we observe not, as any matter is more subtile and more swiftly and vigorously moved, it makes not a discernibly nearer approach (proportionably) to the faculty and power of reasoning? And that nothing more of an aptitude or tendency towards intelligence and wisdom is to be perceived in an aspiring flame or a brisk wind, than in a clod or a stone? If to understand, to define, to distinguish, to syllogize, be nothing else but agitation and collision of the minute parts of a rarified matter among one another; methinks, some happy chemist or other, when he hath missed his designed mark, should have hit upon some such more noble product, and by one other prosperous sublimation have caused some temporary resemblance (at least) of these operations. Or, if the paths of nature, in these affairs of the mind, be more abstruse, and quite out of the reach and road of artificial achievement, whence is it, that nature herself (that is vainly enough supposed by some to have been so happy, as by some casual strokes to have fabricated the first of human creatures, that have since propagated themselves) is grown so effete and dull, as never since to hit upon any like effect in the like way and that no records of any time or age give us the notice of some such creature sprung out of some epicurean womb of the earth, and elaborated by the only immediate hand of nature, so disposing the parts of matter in its constitution, that it should be able to perform the operation belonging to the mind of man. But if we cannot, with any tolerable pretence or shew of reason, attribute these operations to any mere matter, that there must be somewhat else in man to which they may agree, that is distinct from his corruptible part, and that is therefore capable, by the advantage of its own nature, of subsisting hereafter, (while God shall continue to it an influence

agreeable to its nature, as he doth to other creatures.) And hence it seems a modest and sober deduction, that there is in the nature of man, at least, a capacity of an immortal state.

Secondly, Now, if we yet suppose there is actually no such state for man hereafter, It is our next business to view the ends for which, upon that supposition, he may be thought to have been made. Whence we shall soon see, there is not any of them whereof it may be said, this is what he was created for, as his adequate end. And here we have a double agent to be accommodated with a suitable end;-Man now made: and-God who made him.

1. Man himself. For it must be considered, that inasmuch as man is a creature capable of propounding to himself an end, and of acting knowingly and with design towards it, (and indeed uncapable of acting otherwise as a man,) it would therefore not be reasonable to speak of him, in this discourse, as if he were merely passive, and to be acted only by another: but we must reckon him obliged, in subordination to his Maker, to intend and pursue (himself) the proper end for which he appointed and made him. And in reason we are to expect that what God hath appointed to be his proper end, should be such as is in itself most highly desirable, suitable to the utmost capacity of his nature, and attainable by his action; so carrying with it sufficient inducements, both of desire and hope, to a vigorous and rational prosecution of it. Thus we must, at least, conceive it to have been in the primitive institution of man's end, unto which the expostulation hath reference.—Wherefore hast thou made all men in vain? And we can think of no ends which men either do or ought to propound to themselves, but by the direction of one of these principles, sense, reason, or religion.

(1.) Sense is actually the great dictator to the most of men, and de facto, in fact, determines them to the mark and scope which they pursue, and animates the whole pursuit. Not that sense is by itself capable of designating an end, but it too generally inclines and biasses reason herein. So that reason hath no other hand in the business, than only as a slave to sense, to form the design and contrive the methods which may most conduce to it, for the gratification of sensual appetite and inclination at last. And the appetitions of sense (wherein it hath so much mastery and dominion) are but such as we find enumerated, 1 John 2. 16. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life. Or (if we understand the apostle to use the name of lust objectively) the objects sufficiently connote the appetitions themselves. All which may fitly be referred to sense: either the outward senses, or the fancy or imagination, which as deservedly comes under the same common denomination.

Now, who can think the satisfying of these lusts the commensurate end of man? Who would not, upon the supposition of no