232 OF SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. rest and happiness which we seek after, butalso poured . contempt upon them, in his holy, wise disposalof them in the world. Secondly. God hath added to their vanity, by short- ening the lives of men, reducing their continuance in this world to so short and uncertain a season, as it is impossible they should take any solid satisfaction in what they enjoy here below. So it is expressed by the Psalmist. 'Behold thou hast made my days as an handbreadth, and my age is nothing before thee.' Hence he draws two conclusions. First. That every man, at his best estate, is but vanity. Second. That every ' man walks in a vain show; surely they are disquieted in vain ; he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them.' Psal. xxxix. 5, 6. The uncertainty and shortness of the lives of men render all their endeavors and contrivan- ces about earthly things bothvain and foolish. When men lived eight or nine hundred years, they had an opportunity to suck out all the sweetness that was in creature comforts, to make large provisions of them, and to have long projections about them. But when they had so, they all issued in that violence, oppression, and wickedness, which brought the flood on the world of ungodly men. And it still so abides ; the more of, and the longer men enjoy these things, the more, with- out the sovereign preservative of grace, will they abound in sin and provocations of God. But God hath reduced the life of man to the small pittance of seventy years ; casting what may fall out of a longer continuance into travail and sorrow. Besides, that space is shortened with the most, by various and innu- merable incidences and occasions. Wherefore, in 4
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