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and partake of these blessings. While you delay, your danger increases; if you utterly refuse, you perish! "The Spirit and the Bride say, Come; and let him that heareth say, Come; and let him that is athirst, come; and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely."*

VIII.

THE VANITY OF MAN APART FROM HIS IMMORTALITY.† PSALM lxxxix. 47.-Remember how short my time is: wherefore hast thou made all men in vain?

[PREACHED AT BROADMEAD, BRISTOL, AUGUST, 1815.]

THE psalm in which these words occur is supposed to have been written on occasion of the calamities which befell the kingdom of Israel in the reign of Rehoboam; and the Psalmist appears to have been lamenting those distressing events by which the glory of David's family seemed to be extinguished. In the bitterness of his feelings, he is carried out from the particular occasion which excited them, to a general contemplation of the vanity of human existence. From these words I propose to show, that-considered merely in his present state, apart from any reference to eternity, and the prospect disclosed by revelation,―man (it may be truly said) is "made in vain.”

tion.

1. The first thing that strikes us, in such a survey of our being, as circumscribed within the term of mortality, is the shortness of its dura"Remember how short my time is." This circumstance, which cannot have escaped, or failed to affect, any reflecting person, is frequently adverted to by the sacred writers. "My days," says Job, "are swifter than a post: they are passed away as a shadow." "Behold," says the Psalmist, "thou hast made my days as a handbreadth, and mine age is as nothing before thee: as for man, his days are as grass in the morning it is green; in the evening it is cut down and withered." The transient nature of his existence stamps an inexpressible meanness on man, if we confine our view to the present life; and forces us to confess that, laying aside the hope of immortality, "every man, at his best estate, is altogether vanity."

2. The same reflection must have occurred to most persons of a thoughtful character, when they have contemplated the general state of that world in which we are placed: the mischief and misery that pervade it the disorder and desolation which the unruly passions of men perpetually introduce: the wantonness with which they rush to deeds of violence and injustice; the almost incessant national conten

*Rev. xxii. 17.

† Printed from the notes of the Rev. Thomas Grinfield, A. M., of Clifton.

tions, in which the destruction of one part of the human race seems to become the business and sport of the other. Whether the balance of good or of evil preponderate on the whole, is a question we may here leave undecided. In some more favoured conditions of society, it is probable there may be a predominance of good; in others, less favoured, of evil: but that such a question should exist at all is itself a sufficient proof how much evil exists in this world. Viewed, therefore, merely as they are here, and excluding the supposition of a future state, all men will appear to be "made in vain."

3. Again, when we recollect how many thousands of our species are born the subjects of some inherent, incurable disease, or imperfection of body, such as may be said to render their life a protracted malady; when we call to mind how many are constitutionally the victims of dejected spirits and a morbid melancholy, such as cast a gloom over every surrounding object, and dim their perceptions to the fairest scenes of life and nature (a case which is exemplified in the great and amiable Cowper); we are compelled to acknowledge of the multitude so circumstanced, that,—if we consider them merely as existing in that hypothetical state which terminates with death, they also are "made in vain."

4. And, further, when we take into account those millions of mankind, who are condemned, through the whole of life, to manual and mechanical labours; whose day after day is consumed in a constant round of the same unvaried employment,-the twisting of a thread, the continuing the friction of a wheel, the exercise of the file, the saw, or the hammer, and similar operations, which have so little concern with mind, so little tendency to engage the intellectual powers by which man is distinguished from the surrounding creatures, that they are as well, if not better, performed by various machines of modern invention; who, that limits his view of man to this sublunary scene, can forbear to sympathize with the desponding Psalmist in the text? In labours like these, he observes, millions of those beings are employed who are created with a mind capable of looking backward and forward with endless activity of thought,-capable of comprehending truth and advancing in knowledge,-capable of enjoying a happiness commensurate with its own vast desires. The inheritors of such faculties are employed in labours like these; in the performance of which, after the practice of a few years, they attain such a facility and perfection that no room is left for improvement; and for the rest of life nothing remains but the repetition of the self-same labours; labours in which the mind is altogether passive and dormant, nor is any exercise afforded to the reason or the affections. Not that I would be understood to censure the mechanism of civilized society, which evidently requires this arrangement in a greater or less degree: but, walk the streets of a commercial or manufacturing city; observe the multiplicity of handicraft occupations which meet your eye at every point; and, without blaming the existing organization of society, I ask whether, if cares like these are to engage the chief part of human attention (cares rendered, perhaps, necessary by the imperfection of

our present circumstances, but immensely disproportioned to the capacity of our nature),—if men are condemned to terminate their existence in these pursuits, and are not reserved for another and higher state of being, I ask whether the great majority of mankind are not "made in vain ?"

5. But there are those, it may be said, who do not fall under this melancholy representation; men of wealth, minions of fortune, who bask in her smiles, and revel in her favours; whose circumstances seem to be formed by their will, and who appropriate whatever they desire. Surely, you will say, such "men of this world have their portion in this life;" surely an existence like theirs, even if we suppose it confined to earth, apart from any ulterior consideration, has a sufficient end in itself; and, though their existence is short, they are exempt from the charge of having been "made in vain." Now there is a delusion in this view: and if we examine the advantages which men of wealth possess over others, we shall find that nearly all the pleasures peculiar to superfluous opulence are reducible to two classes; the class of sensual gratifications, and that of ambitious distinctions. (1.) And first, with regard to the gratifications of sense which the rich have at their command; how little these can be said to redeem their possessors from the lot of a vain existence,-how little these conduce to supply that happiness which is the end and perfection of our being, will appear by the following considerations.

The pleasures of sense, in the first place, can never be proposed as an adequate end of our creation; because, in pursuing them we always regard them as subordinate to something of superior importance, our regard to which is allowed to be the just rule of sensual indulgence. The inferiority of these pleasures to something beyond and above themselves is never doubted: a wise man advises a proper abstinence from such pleasures for the sake of health; a good man, for the sake of virtue; either of which is justly regarded as an object superior to that which it ought to regulate. But the true end of existence must be something final, something beyond which nothing can be proposed as of superior magnitude: and unless there be alleged some worthier object of our creation than one which is thus referred to another which has a right to supersede it, it cannot be disproved that "men are made in vain."

Besides which, let it be recollected, in the next place, that the pleasures of sense, pursued beyond a certain limit, so far from tending to create happiness, tend to destroy it, by the very construction of those organs which are the instruments of sensual enjoyment. That craving after happiness which every bosom feels, and the satisfaction of which involves the perfection of our existence, cannot be supposed to attain its proper object in any of those animal pleasures, of which the pursuit (unless kept in continual check) leads to the extinction of happiness and existence itself. The proper object of this grand desire of our nature must be something, in the pursuit of which we may safely let loose the utmost energy and ardour of the soul; something essentially, entirely, and eternally good, in the pursuit of which we need not fear

lest we should injure ourselves, but may reckon upon benefit and success proportioned to our zeal and diligence, the pursuit of such an object constituting, in effect, the proper business of our being.

And in the third and last place, the enjoyment of the senses cannot present to human beings the appropriate and distinguishing end of their existence, because they are only enjoyed by man in common with the lower animals. That, whatever it be, which forms the true end of human existence, must be something which is adapted to the great peculiarities of our nature as rational and moral beings: but sensual fruition is received in an equal, perhaps a greater degree, by the brutes. To what purpose this comprehensiveness of reason, this prodigality of powers, this grasp of memory, this vigour of imagination, this restless activity of hope and desire, if the inheritor of such high endowments were doomed to seek the perfection of his existence in the command of sensual gratifications? Few, in fact, are so infatuated as to believe that such gratifications are the end of their creation. Notwithstanding the ardour with which the pleasures of sense are pursued by many, still they are always regarded (at least where society is not unusually depraved) as matter of shame and concealment to their votaries; all thinking persons are anxious to redeem their character from the degrading imputation of devoted sensuality, by intermingling other and worthier pursuits with pleasures of this description: and he who should abandon himself, in the gratification of animal propensities, to the neglect of every higher aim, would be universally allowed to have lived "in vain."

(2.) But there is another class of pleasures, as was observed, with the command of which wealth supplies us; the pleasures of ambition, -the respect and homage which are paid to high station and splendid circumstance. Now, on an examination of these pleasures, it will be found that they are unreal and imaginary; that they consist of nothing more than a fiction of the imagination, a false elation of the mind, by which we may be said to identify ourselves, or to be identified by others, with all those varied instruments of pleasure which affluence commands; by which we diffuse ourselves, as it were, over the whole sphere in which we preside. Of those who place their happiness in pleasures of this class it may be most emphatically said, that "they walk in a vain show:" and could we assign no better end of our being than that which thus places it in a mere delusion,-a false semblance, of enjoyment, we should be reduced to confess that "all men are made in vain."

Thus it appears that neither the pleasures of sense nor those of ambition (to the one or the other of which classes all the pleasures of wealth are reducible) afford any adequate account of our existence as confined to the present scene; and that men of wealth are not, more than others, exempt from the mournful charge of the Psalmist.

6. To proceed. Neither can we exempt from the same condition men of knowledge, who pass life in the cultivation of intellect and the pursuit of truth; an object, it must be allowed, better suited to the nature, and better proportioned to the dignity of man as a rational

being, than those before mentioned; an object which too many, it is to be feared, have in every age regarded as the very highest which they could propose to themselves, as characteristic of a state beyond which they could aspire to none more exalted: and in which, if they could but escape from all intrusions of passion and accident, they would be completely happy, they would desire no higher order of existence.

That the favourite pleasures of such men,-the pleasures of knowledge and intellect, are noble in their nature, exquisite in their degree, and permanent in their continuance, will not be denied by those who have sufficiently experienced, and who are competent to estimate them. But, in the first place, to how few are these pleasures confined! What a mere scantling of the race is qualified to enjoy them in any considerable degree! Not one person in a thousand has either the abilities or the opportunities requisite to their high enjoyment; while to the rest, to the great bulk of mankind, they are the hidden treasures of a sealed book. And can that be supposed the final object of our being which can be enjoyed but by a small proportion of those who inherit that being? Is it to be conceived that, while the million are "made in vain," only here and there a chosen individual is permitted to attain a destiny worthy of his nature? The truth is, of the few who make knowledge the aim of their engagements, none can secure himself from the intrusion of disturbing passions or distressing accidents. It is only in the smooth expanse of the lake, when there is no wind to agitate its bosom, that the forms of surrounding nature are reflected clear and unbroken: and thus it is only where the mind is in a state of undisturbed tranquillity that the pleasures of science and literature can be pursued with success. But the lights of philosophy are liable to be broken by the waves of adversity, and darkened by the clouds of grief; the man of study is obnoxious to the same external privations, -of health, friends, or fortune,-with other men; the invasions of calamity, to which all are exposed, will find him out in the most sequestered retreat; and, after all, he will be feelingly convinced that, if knowledge be the end of our being, and that being terminates on earth,--he, like all other men, has been "made in vain."

Besides which, we have it on the testimony of one of the greatest proficients in knowledge that ever appeared among men, that "increase of knowledge," far from being increase of happiness, "is increase of sorrow." And though this proposition may require to be received with some limitations, certain it is that the mere knowledge of things, the mere perception of truth, is something extremely different, something entirely separable from the enjoyment of things, the possession of real happiness. There is not between the two the slightest necessary connexion: there may exist in the same character the scantiest portion of the one in union with the largest measure of the other. We by no means find that, the more things we know, the more we enjoy our existence; and the simple reason is, that knowledge has its abode in the understanding, while happiness is seated, not in the understanding, but in the heart; so that the condition of the rudest peasant may be an object of envy to the most enlightened philosopher. In a

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