of no value. It is often in our lives that the creature repulses our too idolatrous addresses to it, with telling us that it is not in it to help

us.

And the best things of common providence are often abused to the worst purposes; as when men turn their table into a snare, and their comforts into crosses; when their abundance makes them forgetful of God, and serves for nothing but fuel to their luxury. But it is no wonder men deal thus with his ordinary allowances, when they make his best gifts a vain thing to them, and turn the grace of God into wantonness. It is remarkable that the worst thing in the world is called by this name. Now, the worst thing that ever Satan or wicked men did, was to set up idols in the world; and these are called vanities; and perhaps for this reason chiefly they are so called, as they are apt to steal away men's hearts from God, and usurp his throne. But more particularly,

1. All created things are vain in comparison with God. As the angels are not pure in his sight, so they are no beings compared with him. Once they were nothing; and what they are is solely owing to him. They are foolishness to his wisdom, emptiness to his all-sufficiency. What is a stream to a fountain, or one beam to the sun? All the nations of the earth are but as the drop of a bucket, and as the dust of a balance, to him. Every creature has somewhat of nothing in its being. The noblest creatures begin with nothing, and then dissolve into nothing-except angels and the souls of men, which are but derivative and dependent beings. God alone is Jehovah, and has an inexhaustible fulness of being. To suppose God not to be, is inconsistent with the notion of a Deity.

2. This vanity is inseparable from a creature, as it does not answer the end for which it was made;

To

3. The satisfaction that these things are capable of giving, is of no long continuance. The joys they afford are like the crackling of thorns under a pot, that make a great noise and blaze, but hardly warm. If things run into a comfortable posture, they do not fix in it. Good things are continually coming and going. If, when they are coming, they make us happy; when departing, they leave us miserable. Again, every state of things is full of motion and changes, which do not make things better to us than they have been to us. Every change occasions fear, or trouble, but does not mend our case; for though it remove our adversity for the present, yet it does not make the riches it brings less deceitful and less ensnaring than they were to others. Man, that should have principles as fixed as the God that made him, is himself as unstable as his enjoyments are. He soon becomes unfit for them, or is removed from them. He is uncertain both as a creature, as a man, and as a

friend. He is frail, or false, or feeble; his constitution is failing, his opinion fallible, and his affections changeable.

4. If the satisfactions were of longer continuance, yet they are very disproportionate to our capacities, necessities, and desires. The soul of man was made for greater and better things than these creature enjoyments. These are earthly, but this is heavenly; they are carnal, but this is spiritual; they are dying, but this is immortal. The understanding is capable of being filled with eternal truth; the will, of uniting to an infinite good; and the affections, of enjoying incomprehensible goodness. Its desires are boundless, and the whole world is but wind and emptiness to its vast capacities. Nothing of this world can be an ingredient in the happiness of a soul, that is so disagreeable in its origin, its nature, and its duration. There can be no durable pleasure nor real beauty, where there is no suitableness nor proportion. All satisfaction is founded in likeness. Psalm xvii. 15. The soul of man is still reaching to what is beyond the present, still moving to what is future and eternal. The whole compass of time, from the first to the last moment of the creation, is not equal to the soul in respect of duration. If all the excellencies of every creature were united, they could not come near to an equivalent for one precious soul. Matt. xvi. 26.

II. This is the first and last thought of a true Christian-that all is vanity, &c. We are baptized into an ill opinion of the world and flesh, and begin our Christianity with a solemn obligation to renounce the vanities of it. This is one of the first principles of our holy profession, that all things in this world are but vanities to the faith of the Gospel and peace of conscience, for we are to

hazard them for all these. If Ec clesiastes was Solomon's penitential book, my text was the first expression of his repentance. In every saving conversion, one of the first things a man turus from is this world, which must be under the apprehension of its vanity. No man can have a due regard to heaven, that has not this estimate of all things here below; and the longer a person lives in the world, the more is he confirmed in the belief of the vanity of all things; the more he feels it, the more he suffers by it. The reputation of these things never improves on the Christian, who is still under the power of his first convictions. A man that has had his eyes opened on both worlds, cannot easily forget what a vile, deceitful, empty world it once appeared to him to be. The first views of an enlightened mind are usually so clear and striking, that they are not easily lost; but a man may suffer himself to be blinded by too strong gazing on these glaring appearances, as Solomon did, who, for some time, gave himself up to his base lusts, which clouded his soul, kept real glory out of his sight, and made him fond of lying vanities. The true Christian has not a better opinion of this world for his longer living in it. How often have I seen an aged soul weary of its vanities, longing to be gone, reaching forward, as if ready to lay its hands upon the crown! How pleasant was the sight, to see one with a foot in the grave, and a heart in heaven, not hankering back to this earth again, not wishing to live longer, but desiring to be dissolved, and to be with Christ.

2. The last thought of a Christian is the same. The sight of the grave makes the glories of this world to vanish. The most glittering vanities of it cannot shine against the shadows of that dark night. The king of terrors, at a

distance, opposes the appetite to vain things, and represents them with disgrace. How mortifying are such thoughts as these:-that all these things I must shortly leave; to what purpose should I hold them fast, that cannot hold me, but will let me go-that cannot keep off death, nor its harbingers? O vanities! In prosperity they were dangerous, in adversity they were useless. They have often hindered me from living as I ought, and now they cannot help me dying. O vain possessions, which I could not make safe to me, but by sitting loose from them! Vain treasures, that I cannot be happy until I leave you all behind me! Vain delights, that I cannot be free without a wound! Lord, give me the riches that I may embrace without a sting, lay up without a curse; that I may set my heart upon, and be happy in so doing! One sight of approaching glory will look all the gaieties of this life into dulness and melancholy. As heaven comes in view, the world fails in its credit. How many pious souls have wished that they had had the same thoughts of these sublunary things in their young and healthful years, that they have when they come within a few steps of yonder glorious world. How are they then amazed, that it should be so difficult to open their eyes to see the world's vanity! How bitterly do they exclaim against their own folly, that ever they should count its entertainments as their only happiness! Hence Solomon begins and ends this book as he does.

APPLICATION.

First.-I infer that sin is the greatest vanity. Nothing could destroy the works of God; nothing could make them useless or hurtful but this. This is the deformity and weakness, the defect and disorder, the disease and death.

Wherever it is, it is this makes every thing appear otherwise than it is, and puts a lie upon God and all his creatures. This gives a false representation of every thing, and is all delusion. It promises what it cannot perform, and raises the hopes that it will disappoint. All its attempts to make men happy without God, and in defiance to him, are the vanity of vanities. Though vanity might afflict thee, yet it could not undo thee, without this ingredient in it. With all thy frailty and mortality, thou mayest be a happy creature. But though thou didst enjoy all worldly substance, yet one indulged, unpardoned sin would make it a miserable vanity and vexation to thee. This is the cause of all the other vanities in the world, and is the worst of them.

Secondly. Then what a vain creature is man, that brought sin and all other vanities into the world, and still pursues both! Man cannot hinder the creature from being frail, uncertain, and unsatisfying, and disproportionate to his soul. This is a vanity which no man can cure the creature of; but to make this an idol, a God, this is a vanity that it had not before, which man superadded to it. There is a thousand times more vanity in our loving a creature, than in the creature itself. If thy faith and hope be vain, if all thy labours be in vain, this is a vanity of thy own making, and may be prevented, if thyself be not in fault. O vain man! is it not enough that thou art a frail, sinful, unstable, dying creature? Is it not enough that all thy outward enjoyments are vanity? But wilt thou make the best things in the world-thy faith and hope-vain too? If thou make these, and all thy prayers and praises, which have such a near relation to heaven, vain, what wouldst thou do there with thy vain mind? O profane

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wretch! thou art a creature of vanity, who art making thy own heaven in the ways of disorder and folly. Thou that art a hypocrite, thou art making vanity too, when all thy religion, which should be the most substantial thing, is but a vain show. O, thou that art a covetous wretch, thou art also a maker of vanity, who art idolizing the world! Nothing can be more vain, than the profane man's heaven, the hypocrite's hope, and the worldling's good. Every one is guilty who expects more than he ought from the creature; for the creature was never made to answer the expectations that should be placed on God. There would not be the thousandth part of that vanity in the world, but for such as these. Every creature would have less vanity-I am sure it would have less vexation-in it, if it were sanctified by the word of God and prayer. Faith, and hope, and love, patience and resignation to the divine will, are proper to remove the vexation.

Thirdly. Then what a miserable creature would man be, if there were no better things than these present vanities. This would be to impute the greatest vanity and folly to the only wise God, if he furnished man with an immortal soul, and provided nothing suitable to entertain it. What should such a spiritual being do in a world of vanity, if it could not act in prospect of a more enduring substance? These only serve to exercise and try it. But it is not consistent with the wisdom and goodness of God to make such a noble being only for eternal trials, and to perpetuate its state of probation, without assigning it a state of rest. What should it do with a power to love? What should it do with a power to trust, if there was nothing but feebleness and frailty to trust in? What could it make of its boundless de

sires but continual inquietude, if there was nothing but fading, finite enjoyments to inquire after? Its eternal capacity to do all this would signify nothing, if there was nothing but dying objects before it. There is enough in a crowd of vanities to torment, but nothing to satisfy, such a soul. Its own faculties would be its misery, if there were no invisible realities for it to contemplate; if there was not a future eternal life for it to make sure of and to prepare for.

These were the things which this elect lady, whose mournful funeral gave occasion for this subject, had in her eye. To prepare for these was her daily work, to foretaste these was her daily food; and since God answered her prayers in turning her eyes from beholding vanity, her steady and uniform course in religion showed the glorious prize she was reaching to. ing to. The early education she had among those of the first rank, raised her spirit to such a height, as made work for humbling grace, and the remains whereof were happily turned towards that glory, honour, and immortality, which lead to eternal life. This virtuous person spake her own experience when she gave me this text, and uttered with her mouth what was inscribed on her heart. But what her modesty intended for a shroud to her virtues, will set them in a fairer view, and will apologize for my endeavour to rescue somewhat of her praise from the grave, which her self-abasing soul would have buried with her; and how could I discourse of the world's vanity, without a glance at heaven's glory, and how could I do this without mentioning so bright a candidate of it as our justly honoured friend was? For this is one way of recommending heaven to us, to think of the blessed souls that are gone, and are going thither, Heb. xii. 23.

And how could I speak of the vain ways of sin, without opposing to them the substantial pleasure and peace of wisdom's paths? but how could I do this, and omit such an illustrious example, that preferred them to the grandeur of the world, and proved the reality of religion by her patient continuance in well-doing? Her self-denial was wonderful, in one of her quality and estate, her age and weakness. She would let no fleshly ease hinder a duty. She might have spared herself a hundred times, without the sin of indulgence. Her extreme abstemiousness, and most regular way of living, procured her long life, and the church of God a long blessing. She spent almost half her life in the valley of the shadow of death, where she had brighter views of heaven, and nobler elevations of soul, than many that live always on the mountain of prosperity, and would often speak feelingly of the good of affliction, always justifying God, and condemning herself under the severest dispensations. When we consider the niceness of her temper, the sprightliness of her mind, the greatness of her spirit, and quickness of her apprehension, we must wonder at her easiness and contentment with a dying life, that rendered all her great things in the world so insipid to her. Frowardness and impatience are so natural to old age, to tedious wasting infirmities, that it was admirable to find her so free from either. Her patience had its perfect work in dying agonies. She was wont to ask me about them, and to express her fears she should not get well through them. Upon which I advised her not to trouble herself with such fears beforehand, but only prepare, and God would carry her through them; and so he did, for an entire resignation ran through the whole con

flict. How often did she break out, "O pray, pray!" She lived praying, and commended it to others with her dying breath.

Her piety towards God commends itself to your imitation in many instances thereof, especially in her affection to divine ordinances. Nothing could keep her from the public worship of God, but absolute inability. How often has she come hither, rather on the wings of her desires than upon her own legs! With what pleasure of mind would this ancient disciple sit at her Lord's feet, with Mary, hearing his word! Her house was a church of God, for his uninterrupted worship in it. She was daily retired for secret devotion, even when, by reason of her weakness, it was not safe for her to be left alone. How unwearied was she in the duties of every Sabbath, a sign how she would employ her everlasting Sabbath above. Will the hypocrite pray always? Job, xvii. 10.; but she did. What could keep up her relish for religious exercises when they were so fatiguing and spending to the body, but some prelibation of God's love in them, and an unquenchable thirst after the everlasting enjoyment of him. In all these she had an afflicting sense of a dead heart, and flat affections, and a want of love to God. Her sinful infirmities she bitterly bemoaned; a base and treacherous heart was a burden she groaned under. None could speak more severely, as to the state of her soul, than she did herself. Her charity was universal and extensive, the most illustrious example of it in our age. She has not left her equal behind her. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou, my honoured, but now departed friend, hast out-done them all. She was a mother in Israel, to whom many had recourse for wise counsel, and by whose means