A DISCOURSE OF THE VANITY OF THE CREATURE  
By a Person of Honour.  
LONDON, Printed by J. Macock for Richard Royston, Bookseller to the Kings Most Excellent Majesty, 1673.   

To speak of nothing, is no good motive to attention; yet, to offer you a Discourse of less than nothing, may invite your ears, whilst Curiosity may raise an expectation; and that may make you tarry to hear. What this may be, you'll find it in my Text.  Ecclesiastes 1. Vers. 2. 
Vanity of Vanities, (saith the Preacher) Vanity of Vanities, all is Vanity.  
THE Text is a description of all worldy things; there is not any thing which falls not under this: the Hebrew hath it, most vain vanity; all the crested Plumes of Honour, all the Treasures of the Universe, with all the delights and pleasures of it, extended and summed up by a most able and most experienced Accountant, amount unto no more than Vanity of vanities (saith the Preacher,) Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.  
Observable in the words are, first an Assertion, Vanity of vanities.  
Secondly, The Assertor (saith the Preacher.)  
Thirdly, The duplication of the Assertion, Vanity of Vanities.  
Fourthly, The Universality of the Assertion, All is Vanity.  
But is not Man, at leastwise, the great Men of the Earth, excepted? Are not Kings and Rulers of the Earth, whose pompous Trains and numerous Attendance, striking awe and terror in the Beholders, serious things? And if single persons be not, are not Armies with Banners terrible? Are not the Nations of the Earth, when united, great and considerable? And if all these things were not so, is not the flux of Mankind the propagation of Ages to come? Immortality, which is denied to persons, yet granted to the kind, a noble and magnificent thing? Some one might think thus: Did not a King inspired with a divine Oracle say, That every man in his best estate is altogether vanity? not only some men, but every man; not only every man in a low condition, but in his best estate; not only in respect of mutable dependencies, which make bright Fortune's britler, but altogether vanity. As for the heaps of Mankind, they serve but for their own oppression, and are like those in throngs, where every one strives to be foremost, although they know the most must come behind; and what is this Combination of men but a great bubble? All the Inhabitants of the 
Dan. 4. 35.  Earth are reputed as nothing: all Nations 
Esa. 40. 17.  before God are as nothing, and they are accounted to him less than nothing and vanity; they are altogether lighter than vanity; and than what is it but to be less than nothing, and that is vanity. Negation of a Being is in silent darkness, but vanity is a cheat, a counterfeit of a Being which is not: Why wilt thou set thy heart upon that 
Psal. 62. 7.  which is not? And as to the immortality annexed to the kind, what is it but the production of mortality, since the generation of one must be the corruption of another, and so no otherwise can pretend to a notion of immortality but by perpetuating death? And if the Maxim be true, The whole Nature of the Species is preserved in the Individual of the kind; the Species or kind may be said to die when the Individual doth, and so properly would, were there not others to support that notion: and this is all that Chimerical Immortality. When Xerxes mustered his numerous Army of five hundred thousand men, (if we believe Herodotus) it is said he wept upon the consideration of their approaching Funerals, which was to be dispatched, as to every member thereof, within one Century, though it fell out much sooner: whereby it appeared, that there was no force comparable to that of death, which swept them all away.  
We shall now descend to examine the words more particularly in respect of the Honours, Treasures, and Pleasures of this life, and search if either of these can evade from this severe censure of Solomon. Vanity is an appearance of something which is not; Honour hath the Trappings of this World, it commands the caps and knees of men, it hath the attendances and dependencies of Suitors and Followers; it hath the breath and applause of multitudes; when Herod speaks, It is the voice of God and not of man, cries the people. The Descents and Genealogies of some have been boasted, and endeavoured to be propagated even beyond Mankind. Julius Caesar said that by his Father's side he was derived from Kings, by his Mother from the Gods; and how many besides Hercules and Achilles have pretended to such Lineage? The Emperors of Constantinople, as to their Extraction, were held so Noble, that it was said of them, they were all engendered of Purple, forgetting the seat we have in the womb, inter sterous & urinam. Of which Pliny says, Fo●dius sterquilinium nusquam videtur; yet must all this be forgotten, and by the vain, so well as foolish pride of man, claim must be laid to Divinity itself. So Alexander the Great feigned himself greater by an extraction from Jupiter, and through the flattery of the Priests of Jupiter Hammon must be owned as his Off spring. A sorry Clear●us of Pontus would be no less than Jupiter; Latian Ulysses, to encounter the Argument of Ajax, who pretended a descent on the one side from the Gods, asserts himself on both sides to be so descended, Deus est in utroque parent.  
Volumes may be made in summing the Pretenders to this kind of Poetical Heraldry; I shall only refer these extravagant Pretenders to what all of them have now felt, being a better record of the descent of men; I have said to corruption 
Job 17. 14.  thou art my father, and to the worm thou art my mother. And as there is a vanity in these impossible pretences above mentioned, so is there in the Pageantry of the Genealogies among men. The ancient Britain's must have no less Founder of their Race than Brutus the Trojan, if Geffrey of Monmouth may be believed, and single persons would strive to be of kin to some famous person or house by the most evident conclusions of truth and reason, not remembering the Poet herein to be a Prophet; to wit, Majorum primus quisquis fuit ille tuarum, aut pastor fuit, aut alius quem dicere nolo; and this is vanity in Mood without a Figure, but when we shall see this improved to a challenge and belief of Immortality, he, as Ptolemy Philadelphos said, that he had found the way to live always upon earth. We may then think Solomon's multiplication very proper, as to these things; Vanity of vanities.  
Now as some men boast of their descent, though our bodies are made but of a mud wall, and all Nations are made of one blood, and all persons descended from one man, so others pretend to honour with their actions by conquering Kingdoms, destroying Armies, making many wretched, multiplying the number of the dead; burning Cities, destroying houses, using cruelties, changing Governments, trampling down Laws, thinking they have much honour when they have much power, and are then truly great when they have made such little; but what is this more than to be Butchers of men? Is it brave to exercise ferine cruelty on our fellow Creatures? Is it a blessed condition to make others wretched? to use the natural force, common with beasts, and leave the moral, proper to man? Can it be thought brave to be a great Thief (as the Pirate told Alexander) and infamous to be a little one? Is not the Sword bloody enough, unless it kill whole Nations? and must glory be acquired by the destruction of States? How much better were it said of Pericles the Athenian, surnamed Olympius, which title, some say, was given him for his supereminent eloquence. Other Writers, for this, that being long a powerful man in Athens, he never abused his power so far, as to cause any Citizen to wear a black Gown; where then is the honour of these Executioners of the World, these general Hangmen and Butchers of Mankind? Is not that office held ignominious among men; albeit these are usually the Ministers of Justice, they of injustice? Doth the Crown endure to all generations? Are they not often made the Footstools of Power, who had domineered in the Throne over others? Is not History full of the variety and calamity of Princes? How often they that have reigned over others, have been made subject to the vilest death by others? How often Families have been thrown out as well as Princes from their Thrones? and how the forms of Governments themselves have changed, and yet must the Map of their Magnificence be drawn out with the purple gore and blood of Mankind? Is it bravery to make the whole Earth a Golgotha, and to pave the Highways with dead men's Skulls? to turn fenced Cities into ruinous heaps, and to endeavour, as far as they can, to destroy the Works of God, by erecting those of the Devil, whilst they seek to enraule this beauteous Frame, and to introduce the old Chaos? If these crested Plumes, swollen up with Cruelty and Carnage, have any pretence to Honour, and if those Arms, so destructive to Mankind, must be enrolled in the Heraldry of Fame, and painted out in Shields, I hope no sober mind can deny but this aught to be the Motto, Vanity of vanities.  
And as in the empty bubbles of Honour, the puff-pastes of the pride of men, nothing is found but vanity, humane honour not being in the honoured, but in the honouring, and so the great Potentates borrow their splendour from the meanest Peasants and Vassals of them; so is vanity inscribed on all the Treasures of the Earth; for what is gold and silver but white and red Clay, made estimable only by the folly and covetousness of men? What is there in the Pearls and precious Stones of the World more than in Beads and the Shells of Fishes, which some Indians are willing to purchase with expense of any the former, amongst us accounted valuable? What is the difference between a Jewel and its counterfeit, but our uneven estimation? and what good is in all these, but from the vain conceits and common follies of mankind? 'Tis reported of the Emperor Tiberius, that he hanged an Artist who had made Glass to endure the stroke of the Hammer, ne aurum prae vitra vilesceret, lest gold should lose its estimation; so careful was this Prince of the reputation of that metal, I need not say cruel or vain, both which the execution manifests.  
There was a Spanish Merchant, who, observing what some Jewellers had gained by selling of Jewels, sold all the Land and Goods he had to buy some; on the evening following, when he went to bed, he was disturbed with this anxious thought (which kept him that night sleepless) what if mwn should return to their wits, and value these Pebbles at their true worth (which is nothing) I were then undone. This tormented him till he had sold away what he so greedily had purchased; and did men consider the vanity of Apparel, stripped off from the backs of Birds, and Beasts, and creeping Worms, who can but think every Plume of Feathers and every gaudy Dress to be all over Vanity, whilst we, wrapped up in the Skins of Beasts, think ourselves more than men, and having stripped all Animals and Vegetables for Clothing, we prick up ourselves and look big, as if thus apparelled, we triumphed over the whole Creation; forgetting our Wardrobes are filled with Moths, the devourer of all this Bravery, and not remembering the rust which is the Canker of our valued Metals, and all these laid up in places where thiefs may break through and steal, and so deprive us of all those Treasures, which are hardly acquired with great difficulty, preserved in solicitude of mind, and lost with anguish and trouble of spirit, riches make themselves wings and fly away; they are styled uncertain riches, riches 
Job 20. 15.  often swallowed down and vomited up again; often heaping up riches, and knows not who shall gather them, riches are not 
Prov. 27. 24.  for ever, and yet for all this man's vain eye is not satisfied with riches, they are uncertain riches, therefore we are advised not to trust in them, and they are such things as are corrupt, and garments motheaten; what then are these things summed up, but truly nothing or something worse than that; that have an appearance of Treasure, and are not so; that have an appearance of Bravery, as the triangular Glass hath of colours, yet indeed have none, that serve only to deceive, to abuse, and to undo us; wherefore we may safely say of these, as the Poet did of Parentage, 
— Vix ea nostra voco.  and may label the whole Inventory of these things with the Proposition in the Text, Vanity of vanities.  
But what if riches be vain, must pleasures be so, those brisk entertainments of Nature, the choice delights of the Sons of men? Were not the Cinque-ports of the Senses made to entertain this, and is the satisfaction of them to no purpose? Did not the Epicureans hold the chief good to be in pleasure? and could such Learned men mistake nothing for a superlative Being? Who will show us any good, is the voice of Nature, and if pleasure be not so, what is? Doth not our Preacher say in this Book; Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the 
Eccl. 11. 7.  eyes to behold the Sun. Was it not pleasant to behold Solomon in his Royalty, and is it not so to see the Lilies in the field better clothed than he, when the Spring hath made the Earth like the Garden of Eden, decked with all things sightly and comely, except the Tree of Life, and is the partaking of this rich Carpet, spread by the Divinity for our admiration and content, a vanity? Is not beauty a real good? the heart of man loveth nothing better; it is that which triumphed over the strength of Samson, the holiness of David, the wisdom of Solomon, that which is stronger than Wine, or a King, is that Vanity? What are harmonious Sounds, the choice Compositions in Music, those ravishing Airs, which not only put Humans in a rapture, but have a power to charm evil Spirits, and to promote the effusion of the good; are not these valuable, who could withstand the voices of these Sirens, who had ears, whose sweet chanting drawn more effectually the hearers to them, than the Loadstone Iron? these running upon the nimble wings of their will, that dull in moving without these, and is the touch and taste less considerable? Philoxenus wished his throat to have the length of a Cranes, that so the pleasure of a taste might be produced, and what the blandishment of the first stroke of these pleasures did not effect, the lengthening of them might increase. Are those Perfumes made by Nature, raised by Art empty things, which fill the nostrils with delight and pleasure? And if these be not great things, sure the conversation of the witty are? Who would not hear the Eloquent longer than they could speak, and to converse with the wise? Wisdom maketh a man's face to shine, and the hardness of his face shall be changed. Are not those Verses valuable, which have been esteemed more worth than a Crown? Are not their handsome addresses and expressions of such a tincture, as seem to threaten Time to do its worst, and yet subsist, when rust hath eaten out the Brass Statues, Water and Air consumed Marble masses, yet these seem too hard for Time to chew, and seem to have a duration beyond the measure of it; if this be not great, what is? May not mirth be called a real good, and those Festivities in discourse, which make men forget sorrow valuable? A Feast is made for laughter, says the Preacher himself; but, Alas! are 
Eccles. 7. 19  not our senses subject to mistakes? are not their pleasures quickly transient? The pleasures of them are but points, the displeasures of them Maps and Cards; we have pleasure by grains, but pain by pounds; the pleasure of them are bounded by saticty, the pains of them infinite: The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing, and if the light be pleasant to the eyes; If a man live many 
Eccles. 11. 8.  years, and rejoice in them all, yet let him remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many. All that cometh is vanity: and as for the Lilies of the field, they are made the examples of our frailty. All flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof as the flowers of the field, in the morning it is fresh and growing, in the evening cut down and withers. Doth not Winter, as a rough attendant, take off the flourishing Carpet spread there by Summer, and give death's stroke to all the flourishing verdure of the field, and make the glory thereof vanish? And what was Solomon's bravery, which could not equal one simple Flower, nor apparel himself like it? How do these Vegetables vanish and expire, not only in our hands, but on the stalks that bear them. 
Miraber celerem fugitiuâ aetate ruinam,  
Et dum nascuntur consenuisse rosas.   
And for Solomon's bravery, when at the 
Psal. 39 6.  best, he walked but as every man doth, in a vain show; and as for beauty, the Preacher in my Text, who had experience of a thousand of them, pronounceth that vain. What if the heart of man loveth much, The Lord knows the thoughts 
Prov. 31. 30. 1 Cor. 3. 20.  of the wise to be vain. And if the thoughts of the wise be so, we need not appeal to those fools. What is that glittering earth, that thin appearance being but skindeep, which men do so much dote on? how sudden do diseases, and how certainly doth time make it to appear vain; nay, did men inquire, they might often receive more mortifications from the very objects they admire. And by how much it is less reasonable it should, by so much it will trouble discerning men to see that which is so little to have an influence so great, which yet proceeds not from the worth in itself in the example's instance, but by the weakness contracted by the sin of Adam, whereby mankind is apt to mistake the least appearance of good for the greatest; and, as Swine, delight to wallow even in the dirt and mire, as most suitable to sinful inclinations, and then 'tis not the Woman that reigns but the sin; 'tis not the Fly on the Coach-wheel that raiseth all this dust, but these trotting Lusts, which draw men to perdition; and as the eye is not satisfied with seeing, so the ear is not with hearing, unless 
Eccles. 1. 8.  it be with things that displease us. Sweet Sounds die as soon as brought forth, and as the Swan warble out their own Elegies: and if a place be so favourable as to yield an Echo to them, it is all, and by a long winged expression seem to make the Epitaph to the dying sound; and though David's Music seemed sometimes to relieve Saul, yet was the Devil too hard for the Harp, which had been too weak a Buckler to have saved David from saul's Javelin, had not an overruling hand directed Saul to miss his mark. 
1 Sam. 18. 11.  And for Elisha's prophesying, excited by a Minstrel, 'tis probable it was none of the best Instruments, which may be conceived by the Prophet's indifferency in calling for any, not making choice of consorts or persons.  
And for the Siren voices, they are beholden to the Poets for improving them, who were willing to support the defects of Nature by their Romantic supplements. As to the pleasures of the touch or taste, how short are they to the opposites of them? pleasures are feeble, pain forcible, the one momentary, the other fixed. And for Philoxenus his wish, it reaches no farther than to make a Glurton; when could he have perpetual appetite and constant food to entertain it? 'twould be so far from the felicity, that it might parallel the Poetical Fiction of Tantalus his torment in Hell, who was to have desirable Fruits hang near his lips, but was not able to touch them. For what is the difference between not feeding and not shilling. And as for Perfume, besides the unhealthiness of many of them, what serve they for but to make ill smells more odious. And as for witty Conversation, what is it but a froth which makes much show, but has little substance. And for the wise, how often are they taken 
Job 11. 12.  in their own craft? Vain man would be 
Job 5. 13.  wise, though he be born as a wild Asses Colt. God respecteth not any that are wise in heart, who turneth the wise man backward. Every man is brutish by his 
Jer. 51. 17. Job 37. 24.  own knowledge. Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom.  
How rightly did old Socrates pronounce nullity of wisdom upon all Mankind, when being declared by the Oracle to be the wisest man of Greece, professed 
Isa. 44. 25.  that he did only know this, which other brainsick and conceited men did not, That he knew nothing; and now where is the wisdom of the wise, where is the Scribe, 
1 Cor. 3. 20.  where is the disputer of this world? The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain. Even in those Verses, which the folly of some men have put too great a price on, what is their matter but words, Gibberish by common consent made intelligible? and if their duration add to their commendation, sin, cruelty and many enormous crimes can pretend to a lasting, even beyond these. What is there in that Ode of Horace, Donec gratus eram tibi, which Scaliger prefers before the Crown of Persia, but a recantation of the swerving of its affection? And when we have extracted by the greatest curiosity with our most earnest industry, all that can be gathered from the wand'ring wits of men, we may say with the Poet,  — Vox & praeterea nihil. 
And as to mirth, ye have an answer of the Preacher; I have said of laughter it is madness, and of mirth, what dost thou? as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is laughter of a fool, this also is vanity. So as the pain we take to obtain pleasure is abundantly outweighed by the pains we suffer afterwards for it; man wearieth himself for that which doth not profit him: and as the Satirist said of the Patricians in his time, whom years had made grey and not grave; 
Et nostrum istic vivere triste vidimus,  
Et nucibus facimus quaecunque relictis.  So as when we have laboured and spent our substance to grasp that which we think good; these humane things, like Air and Apparitions, slip from us, and so we embrace a Cloud instead of Juno, and inherit only the wind, and in our embraces the East wind, which blows away all these things, leaving only behind the account of them, which is, Vanity of vanities; which leads me to the next particular, the Assertor, saith the Preacher.  
It was said long since, that the World was happy when Kings were Philosophers, or Philosopher's Kings; and should we not think the World would be holy, when Preachers were Kings, or King's Preachers? Noah was a Preacher of Righteousness to a World hard of hearing, and here we have in the Text a King that is a Preacher, I the Preacher was 
Isa. 1. 12.  King over Israel in Jerusalem. King's are not usually Prophets nor Declamours against those things which Courts do nurse; yet there we have a King preaching, a King wiser than other sons of men, Solomon whose Wisdom the Queen of Sheba came so far to hear. Who would not hear such a Preacher? who would not give an attentive ear and an obedient heart to what King Solomon said, Yet behold a greater than Solomon is here. For the same divine Spirit, which of old inspired the Prophets, and afterwards the Apostles, and which preached to the old World in the Patriarch Noah, this divine 
1 Per. 18, 19, 20.  Spirit by Solomon speaking; who is so hard of hearing, that will not hear this? For, if the words spoken by Angels were steadfast, how should this spoken by the Spirit of Christ be looked on? so as we may truly say, not only said the Preacher, but thus saith the Lord, Vanity of vanities, Vanity of vanities; which brings me to the next Particular, the Duplication of the Assertion.  
When Pharoahs' dream was doubled, Joseph told him, it was because the thing was established; divine Echoes are always significant, and as always they show the certainty, so usually the importance by a repetition. Pythagoras' offered a Hecatom for the duplication of the Cube; of how much greater value is this doubling of the Preacher, not terminated in a superficial measuring of the outsides of bodies, but giving a true account of the intrinsic Nature, not only of humane bodies, but of worldly actions also? Vehement asseverations are made by duplications, Verily, verily, I say unto you. Christ foretold Peter before the Cock should crow twice, he should deny him thrice; and the duplication of the Cock's voice was a seasonable Monitor of the Apostles fault, and to his repentance also. A single expression seems not enough to proclaim the vanity of worldly things, it must be ingeminated, God speaketh once yea twice, and man perceiveth it not; in a Dream, in a Vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men; but here he speaketh to men awake, and doubleth what he saith, Vanity of vanities, Vanity of vanities: and so I descend to the last Particular, the Universality of the Assertion, All is vanity.  
That some things of the World are vain and illusory, scarce any will deny; Children are cozened with Toys, men with Oaths Lisander said of old; Heraclitus wept, Democritus laughed at the vain courses held by men, and therefore were thought mad, by those that indeed were little better; as sober persons will be looked upon in Bedlam amongst the distracted. Mechanical Arts would not take it well to be counted vain; the Silversmiths at Ephesus held their crafts valuable, and rather than they should be in danger, would put all in an uproar; and canonize the Fable of Diana's Image as fallen from Jupiter, with a Great is the Diana of the Ephesians. Liberal Arts triumph as serious things; yet what is the Grammar but canting by Rule? What is Rhetoric but a Cadens of words chiming handsomely in the ear? What is Logic but a delfick Sword, which may be bend this way or that, and arm men by mistaking Sophistry for Truth? How defective is Astronomy, which cannot teach us certainly, whether the Sun move or stand? How imperfect is Geometry, that cannot measure the distance between us and the Celestial bodies, nor give the exact proportion between a right Line and a crooked? And how little is Arithmetic, that cannot find a number to the defects of Nature? That which is wanting 
Eccles. 1. 15.  cannot be numbered. And what is Music but a medley of Concord's and Discords thrown on heaps, the judgement of which is as various as the Auditors? Hence Midas preferred Pan's Whistle to Apollo's Viol; for what if Art's be vain, is not Physic divine, that can restore that which is near to death to health again? Alas! what are all Medicines, when rightly placed and prosperously succeed, but small differings of approaching death? Meat for the belly, and the belly for meat, God shall destroy both it and them. The Physician must die as well as his Patient, the caviling Lawyer as well as the cozened Client, the Line is drawn over all worldly things by the unerring Pencil, nothing is excepted; Vanity of vanities, (saith the Preacher) all is vanity.  
This Position may be improved to cast into the Scale of the Sanctuary all worldly things, and that will inform us how light, how empty these are. A single vanity is not sufficient to express it, you have a Gradation, Vanity of vanities.  
Secondly, It pointeth what estimation we should have of these things: no other than of Vanities, and that by Gradation, Vanity of vanities. The Assertor gives us the certainty of the Assertion; 'tis not the saying of an ignorant man; nor is it said probably or problematically, but positively, saith the Preacher, said he who had Wisdom above all Mortals. But this is not all, says he, who is the Wisdom of God, by the Pen of Solomon, who made all Mortals, so as this truth is not to be doubted, being uttered by the God of Truth, Vanity of vanities, Vanity of vanities (saith the Preacher.)  
From the Duplication we may draw the importance of the truth as well as the certainty thereof; and therefore we should be doubly diligent to awaken our hearts, to quell the inordinate love of earthly things, to see the emptiness and nothingness of them lively expressed in the twice vanity thereof; to remember to abstain from those fleshly vanities which fight against the soul; to double the files of our thoughts, and fortify our imaginations against being carried away with the trifles and dotages of this World, with the empty Pomps and petty Pageantry of Wax and Parchment, of the fading breaths and false acclamations of men, or with fleeting things, which sometimes attend a wasting life, the necessary Ushers to a certain death; to know we are here as strangers and pilgrims, travellers, not dwellers, such as death will draw from our houses, or adversity them from us; to wind up our bottom upon stable things, to see the difference between counterfeit Ware and true Riches, between worldly Pelf and everlasting Righteousness, between the deceit of appearances and reality of good, between walking in a vain show, and waiting for a new Heaven and a new Earth, wherein dwells Righteousness.  
From the Universality of the Assertion we may learn, that it is not one or two particular things which are Vanity; the whole System of worldly things, the Creature itself is subject to vanity, and groaneth under the bondage of corruption: So that it is not this or that, but all is vanity; and not singly so, but in gradation, Vanity of vanities. Whatsoever good appears is momentany and unsatisfactory; whence it is, that humane desires hunt after varieties, inidentities, and please themselves with somewhat new, though there be nothing so but what number makes. Pliny speaks of some Inhabitants in Asia, who not wearied with adversity, but surfeited with prosperities of this life, tired with the repetition of earthly things, cast themselves into the Sea to avoid an irksome life, which doing the same things so many thousand times over and over, make that to them intolerable, which most of Mankind do esteem desirable. Where then should we place our thoughts, seeing nothing is to be found here but Vanity of vanities; but on that City which has foundation, whose builder and maker is God. That leaving the pursuit of these earthly trifles, we may be mortified, not only toward all evil, but toward all earthly things, that so ascending in our thoughts, and aspiring by our endeavours to surmount this World, and to get the ascendant as to our appetites towards these transitory things, we may arrive at that blessed Region, where there is no Time but Eternity, no Accurant but Felicity, no Change but Perpetuity, and where there is no Vanity but a blessed Stability, where an infinite good shall everlastingly entertain such as have wisely judged, and righteously walked in this World, with those Joys that are at his right hand for evermore, which neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man hath conceived. So as they that have walked as they should in this Valley of Tears, shall be there transfigured and transplanted into eternal Glory. Which God of his infinite mercy grant us all for his Son Jesus Christ's sake, to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost, be all Glory and Honour.  
Amen.  
FINIS.