177 VIII. THE VANITY OF MAN APART FROM HIS [PREACHED AT BROADMEAD, BRISTOL, AUGUST, 1815.] PSALM lxxxix. 47.—Remember how short my time is: wherefore hast thou made all men in vain ? 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 shew, 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." 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 duration. "Remember how short my time is." This circumstance, which cannot have escaped, or failed to affect, any reflecting person, is frequently adverted * Printed from the Notes of the Rev. Thomas Grinfield, A.M. of Clifton. 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." 6.6 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 contentions, 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 farther, when we take into the 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 sympathise 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 |