Religion & morality > Human nature in its fourfold state

Head I. Mans Life Vanity. 269
affect a little; but when it is ended, it is forgot: and so is
man forgotten, when the fable of his life is ended. It is as
a dream, or vision of the night, in which there is nothing
solid; when one awakes, all evanisfieth. Job xx. 8, “ He
shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found : yea, he
shall be chaced away as a vision of the night.” It is but a
vain show or image * Psal. xxxix. 6, “ Surely every man
walketh in a vain show.” Man, in this world, is but, as it
were, a walking statue: his life is but an image of life, there
is so much of death in it.
If we look on our life, in the several periods of it, we will
find it a heap of vanities. “ Childhood and youth are va¬
nity,” Eccles. ix. 10. We come into the world, the most
helpless of all animals: young birds and beasts can do some¬
thing for themselves, but infant man is altogether unable to,
help himself. Our childhood is spent in pitiful trifling plea¬
sures, which become the scorn of our own after-thoughts.
Youth is a flower that soon withereth, a blossom that qyick-
ly falls off; it is a space of time in which we are rash, fool¬
ish, and inconsiderate, pleasing ourselves with a variety of
vanities, and swimming as it were through a flood of them.
But ere we are aware, it is past, and we are in a middle age,
encompassed with a thick cloud of cares, through which
we must grope; and finding ourselves beset with prick¬
ling thorns of difficulties, through them me must force
our way, to accomplish the projects and contrivances of
our riper thoughts. And the more we solace ourselves
in any earthly enjoyment we attain to, the more bitter¬
ness do we find in parting with it. Then comes old age,
attended with its own train of infirmities, labour and
sorrow, Psal. xc. 10, and sets us down next door to the
grave. In a word, “ All flesh is grass,” Isa. xl. 6. Every
stage or period in life is vanity. “ Man at his best state
(his middle age, when the heat of youth is spent, and the
sorrows of old age have not yet overtaken him) is altoge¬
ther vanity,” Psal. xxxix. 5, death carries off some in the
bud of childhood, others in the blossom of youth, and
others when they are come to their fruit; few are left
standing, till, like ripe com, they forsake the ground: all
die one time or other.
Secondly, Man’s life is a short thing: it is'not only a va¬
nity, but a short-lived vanity. Consider, Jirst, How the
life of man is reckoned in the scriptures. It was indeed