calling; that God hath revealed to us this glory! It is only by Jesus Christ and his gospel that "life and immortality are brought to light." It is by God's becoming man, that man may become like God, a partaker of the divine nature. Let us not, my brethren, deem ourselves unworthy; let us not sit down content with inferior things, like Esau, who, for "one mess of pottage, sold his birthright." It is infinitely better to suffer in this life, than to lie down in death. Go forward, then, christian; go forward: "forgetting the things that are behind, and reaching forth to those that are before." I pray God that these plain truths may be blessed to your souls; that you may be stirred up to diligent perseverance in the ways of God; that you may be a comfort to the minister whom God hath placed over you; and that he may present you with joy at the coming of Jesus Christ. And, if any of you have not yet entered on this way, to such we would affectionately say, "Come thou with us, and we will do thee good; for the Lord hath spoken good concerning Israel." Come, ye careless ones, "ye simple ones, turn in hither." You think not of death, but of the gaieties of life; you walk after the desire of your hearts and the delight of your eyes: but there is no happiness in your path; if you proceed, you must perish; for it leadeth to destruction. All your pleasure is but for a moment; there is more true pleasure in the roughest path of the christian than in the smoothest road you find you will never have peace, consolation, or rest, till you come to the Saviour. Come, and he will do you good: you shall have all the innocent enjoyments of life that will be for your real comfort; all your trials shall be ordered by wisdom and love; you shall have the best support in the day of adversity, and, in the life to come, everlasting glory. "All things shall be yours;" Christ your Saviour, and God, the Creator of the universe, your God and Father. We do not know what you may meet with by the way, nor what you shall enjoy in the end; but what we enjoy, you shall enjoy. God will remember you "with the favour that he beareth to his own people, and visit you with his salvation." O, that every one might come! None would be turned away without the blessing: there is room enough; "there is bread enough and to spare." We invite, nay entreat you, to leave those muddy streams, which must be given back in tears of repentance. Come and taste of the "water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb."* Come 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."+ * Rev. xxii. 1. + Rev. xxii. 17. 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. "My days," says Job, they are passed away to by the sacred writers. "are swifter than a post: 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 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 |