X.

SERM. to the vain Labours and Anxiety of life; Surely every man, faith the Pfalmift, walketh in a vain fhadow, and difquieteth himfelf in vain; be heapeth up riches, and cannot tell who shall gather them; (Pfal. xxxix. 6.) And Solomon, who had still greater experience of all the Labours of men under the Sun, thus expreffes it: (Eccl. ii. 23;) For all his days are forrows, and his travel grief; yea, his heart taketh not reft in the night: This alfo is vanity. With refpect to the Oppreffions and Troubles, that good men fuffer from the Wickedness of others; I confidered, faith the fame Wife Obferver; (Eccl. ix. 2.) that all things come alike to all, that there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked, to the clean and to the unclean, to him that Jacrificeth and to him that facrificeth not, to the Good and to the Sinner, to him that fweareth and to him that feareth an Oath: Moreover, I faw under the Sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there; (iii. 16.) I beheld the tears of the oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the fide of their oppressors

J

there

there was power, but they had no comfort-S ER M. er; (iv. 1.) But if there were none of X. thofe external and fuperinduced calamities which men bring upon themselves and others, to augment the neceffary and unavoidable Troubles which Humane Nature is born to; yet even by these inherent ones alone, would the Complaint in the Text fufficiently be verified; and Eliphaz might have justified his Observation, from the confideration only, of the mere natural Vanity, and Shortnefs of Humane Life: Which the Scripture compares, to a va pour that appeareth for a little time, and then vanishes away; (Jam. iv. 14.) to a tale that is told, and then remembred no more; (PJ. xc. 9.) to a wind that palleth away, and cometh not again, (Pf. lxxviii. 39.) Admonishing us upon all occafions, that our days are fwifter than a weaver's Shuttle, and are spent without hope, (Job vii. 6.) that they are fwifter than a post; they flee away, and fee no good; they are paffed away as the fwift Ships, as the eagle that hafteth to the prey, (ix. 25, 26.) that Man who is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble; he cometh forth

SERM, like a flower, and is cut down; he fleeth X. also as a fhadow, and continueth not; (xiv.

1, 2 :) that as for man, his days are as grafs; as a flower of the field, fo be flourifbes; For the wind paffes over it, and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more; (Pf. ciii. 15, 16:) that our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding; (1 Chr. xxix. 15:) that all thefe things pass away like a fhadow, and as a poft that hafteth by; And as a ship that paffeth over the waves of the water, which, when it is gone by, the trace thereof cannot be found, neither the path-way of the keel in the waves; or as when a bird has flown through the air, there is no token of her way to be found; even so we in like manner, as foon as we were born, began to draw to our end, and have no fign of virtue to show; (Wifd. v. 8.) Upon all which accounts the Patriarch Jacob, when he was introduced to the King of Egypt, complains, notwithstanding he far exceeded the ufual measure of mens present Age, and enjoyed much larger Poffeffions than the generality of Mankind, that yet few and evil had the days of the years of his

pilgrimage been; (Gen. xlvii. 9.) This SER M. Shortnefs and Vanity of Humane Life, is X. fo obvious to every man's daily Experience and Obfervation, that it may feem in a manner needless to put men in mind of That, which it is not poffible for them not to know. And yet fo it comes to pass, that even the obviousness itself of the Observation, and the evident certainty of it; is the cause that it has no more effect upon the generality of Men, than if it were very difficult to be observed at all ; And for this very reafon, because men are already fatisfied that they know it fufficiently, they never attend to it; but live as if they knew it not. It requires no reafoning, no arguing, no meditation, for men to discover to themselves that they must shortly die; and therefore, putting away the thoughts of it, as too trivial and obvious, they live as if it would never happen. But

2dly, TOGETHER with this pathetical description of the Shortnefs and Vanity, the Sorrows and Calamities of Humane Life, that Man is born unto trouble, as the parks fly upward; the Text contains like

SERM.wife a Declaration, that thefe Miferies

X.

and Troubles do not arife from Chance of from Neceffity, from blind Fate or unac countable Accidents ; but from the wife Difpofition of the Providence of God, governing the World: Affliction cometh not forth of the duft, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground. And this indeed is the only true and folid comfort, that can poffibly be afforded to a rational and confi derate mind; in order to fupport him both under the troubles of Life, and against the Fears of Death. The Only poffible thing that can effectually enable a man, either to bear patiently the Afflic tions and Troubles that will neceffarily attend him here, or to be willing and contented to depart from them, with any hopes of entring into another and better State hereafter; is, to be able to confider that there is a God, a Powerful and Just, a Wife and Good Being, that governs the World: By whose Wisdom and Goodnefs all things are defigned, by whofe Providence all things are conducted, to bring about the greatest and best Ends:

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