worm? all the pleasant walks and gardens are, methinks, the most innocent vanities: if there the heart be not fet to take root; but from thence takes occafion to mount up to a better paradife, where vanity fhall never enter, to make any fpoil or diforder. Mufic alfo will be the lefs vain, if used to the fame purpose; not as an occafion to the flesh, but to carry away the foul in admiration and defire of the heavenly harmony; not of, but above, the fpheres for dancing. But I fhould be a very forry advocate, when to me it appears fuch a vanity all over, that I know not what to fay in its excuse, but that fome who are wife and ferious, do (in compliance otherwise with a prevailing cuftom,) prevent my speaking what elfe I fhould think of it, it feems to carry fo much more of the child than the Christian in it, that none fure, who truly makes good the latter denomination can be offended, to hear it numbered among the vanities of the world. And whether one of thofe, which our baptifm obliges us to renounce, I fhall leave to others confideration. But O! how vain is the fportfman, the gamefter, that makes a business of his play; and plays and trifles with the biggest of all his bufinefs! how little does the great one look, in the midst of all the bustle and cry; when not only the horses and the dogs, but the whole poffe of the family, must be mustered up, and all the fportive part of the neighbourhood come in, to pursue (as it were for their own lives,) the life of a diminutive contemptible animal, whose skin and flesh will not pay for a thoufandth part of the pains and coft; efpecially, if fo much precious time, thrown away, fhall come into the reckoning. And they that are all for diverfions to drive away that time, which flies fo fwift, they could never yet keep pace with it. O how foon may they come fadly to wifh, for a few

a few of thofe hours, to be spent to a much greater and better purpose.

To make use of the creatures mettle and fierceness, in setting and provoking them, to wound, and tear, and kill one another, I should have called a vanity, but that cruelty is much the more proper name. And how any of human kind, that would be thought a good man, (who is faid to be merciful even to the poor brutes,) fhould make this his game and merriment; I must leave to fuch as know better than myself how to be accountable.

How vain are they that tie up themselves to the laws of vifiting, rather according to reputed honour, and a certain cuftom; than any kind inclination or hearty friendship? and there spend all the time in talking of others, inftead of enjoying one another. O! the vanity of prattlers, and fuch goffips, as do little but talk; and yet fcarce a word to any good purpose! O the vanity of those, whose even trade of life is drinking, and playing, laugh. ing, and fooling! as if they had nothing to do in the world but to fee and be feen, and hear, and tattle, and please their flesh, and divert themselves like fuch as lived all in jeft, and should never die in earneft fplendid entertainments alfo, when made more for oftentation, and riot, and luxury; than for the conciliating of friendship, expreffing of gratitude, or refreshing fuch of the poorer fort as want to be encouraged, I muft count not only vanities of the age, but the feminaries of vice: where the coft might much better have been spared, and turned to run into another channel; to do good, inftead of all the mifchief to fo many.

After all the vanities of life, my foul, doft thou not fee a vanity even in death? when the funeral pomp fhall fo difguife the grim face, to make it look with a grinning honour; and ferve more to pu

blish the pride and gallantry of the house, than any real forrow, or ferious concern of the furvivors. As if they meant a proceffion in triumph over death, with flying colours: inftead of any memorial of mortality, or humbling of themselves under the ftroke of God's hand. And fhall I call it a vanity or brutality; when the guests, at the very house of mourning, fo forget the folemn occafion; that they come to sponge upon the mourners, and to guzzle, and regale themselves, even juft over the corpfe : feeding without fear, and giving themselves to eating and drinking, and vain chatting, if not wanton fporting; as thofe that never lay to heart the reason of their meeting; nor how their own turns are coming?

The vanity of affecting to be pointed at in the world, and to be talked of when dead, is fo filly as well as haughty; that it needs but a very little ferious thinking, to make any man of sense for ever afhamed to be fo concerned. But all thefe, and fuch like vanities, my foul, are a wilderness too wide, in which to wander about: yet too rueful, long to stay there. Because it gives fuch a profpect of the world, as a wild maze, and a great bedlam: and even they that should fet the fashion to others, as the most confiderable in it, feem to be even the vaineft part of it. Yet thou knoweft, my foul, how far I am from looking with an invidious eye, upon any of their liberty and gaiety. And if they must have their vanities, let them (for me) take them; and make their most of them. I have many vanities too; which do more incline me to bear with others. But may the blessed Saviour of the world, redeem me ftill more and more from my vain converfation; as well as from all foul tranfgreffion. That I may not run into any way and habit of trifling and impertinence; which I cannot answer to God, or to my own reafon and confcience: nor

ever give myself over to fuch intolerable vanities, as fhall make me forget for what I came into the world, and whither I am going, and how I must carry; that I may fpeed better, where I am to live for ever. O may I not be fo vain, as to truft in any thing to bring me to heaven, that fhall leave me fhort of that glorious expectation. But fo wifely and warily pass through this disorderly scene of vanity; that I may reach fafe at laft to the bleffed regions of fubftantial felicity and everlasting glory.

L

THE PRAYER.

ORD! what a fhadow and pageant is this world; fhewing to be what it is not; and "promifing to do, what it does not? and even the "men that complain of its vanity, help to make it "more vain. For O! what impertinents are the "moft, full of concern and action, to effect even

nothing? Lord, I have been one of those fons " of men, that love vanity: and O! to what little purpofe have I lived fo long in the world. Pity, "I beseech thee, and pardon thy fervant, and all

my partners in any fuch vanity, whereof I have "been guilty. And engage me now, at the laft, "to attend and follow the bufinefs of life; and "make me earnest about the work of him that fent "me: that giving my mind and myself, to fecure "a better world, I may fhortly pass from these fha"dows to the fubftance; and leave this world, "whofe fashion paffeth away, for that which fhall "abide in the greatest reality, and the richeft glory, "for evermore. Amen."

ર

ME

MEDITATION XXXIV.

How

Of the brevity of this life.

OW fhort-lived are all the things of this world! and O how unworthy thy love, my foul? because fo extremely inadequate to thy everlasting duration; and cannot follow thee into the future condition; nor then ftick to thee, when thou art departing away from hence, and beginning to be, what thou must be for ever. O what a blaze is honour, that makes a mighty flash, and is presently all extinct! what a fpurt is pleasure, that no fooner than we feel it, we lofe it! what a flower, beauty, that has just time to open and fhow itfelf: and then shuts up, and withers away! yea, riches themfelves, which men call their fubftance, yet what mountains of fnow are they, that foon diffolve, and run away from their hoarders! nay, this world itfelf, what a fhew, a pageant; whofe fashion paffes away! our life which is the fubftratum, whereupon all its enjoyments bear up to our perception, it is the vaineft thing of all. And verily, every man living, is not only vain, but vanity. The briefeft things in nature, this life has for its emblems. A fying shadow, a running post, a sudden race, a quick fhuttle, a fwift arrow, a violent blast, a fwelling bubble, a vapour that appears a little, and then vanifheth, are the ufual fimiles, by which it is decyphered. How little do fome furvive their very birth? what a quick difpatch do others find, even in their full ftrength? And they that hold out to the utmost period of threefcore and ten, or four

fcore