a man may travel comfortably. I would have Christians called off from a perplexed over-pressing of this point of their particular assurance. If we were more studious to please him, forgetting ourselves, we should find him remember us the more; yet not for this neither, but simply for himself. In a word, this is thy wisdom; mind thy duty, and refer to him thy comfort.

SERMON III.

PSALM CXix. 96:

I have seen an end of all perfection; but thy commandment is exceeding broad.

GRACE is a divine light in the soul, and shews the true colours of things. The apostle overshoots not, when he says, The spiritual man judgeth all things. He hath undeniably the advantage: he may judge of natural things, but the natural man cannot judge of spiritual things; yea, the truest judgment of natural things, in respect to our chiefest end, springs particularly from spiritual wisdom: that makes the true parallel of things, and gives a just account of their differences, as here.

I have seen an end, &c. All that have All that have any measure of spiritual light are of this mind, but certainly they that are more eminently blessed with it, have a more high and clearer view of both parts. David, who is generally, and with greatest likelihood, supposed to be the author of this Psalm, was singularly advantaged to make this judgment of things: he had, no doubt, a large measure of the knowledge of God and of his law, which here he declares to be so large; and being both a wise and a great man, might know more than

most others, even of all other perfections, trace them to their utmost, and see their end, as he expresses it. This same verdict we have from his son Solomon, after much experience in all things; who, having the advantage of peace and riches, did particularly set himself to this work, to a most exact inquiry after all things of this earth. He set nature on the rack, to confess its utmost strength, for the delighting and satisfying of man; with much pains and art extracted the very spirits of all, and after all gives the same judgment we have here; his book writ on that subject being a paraphrase on this sentence, dilating the sense, and confirming the truth of it. It carries its own sum in these two words, which begin and end it, that Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity; and the other, Fear God and keep his commandments, that is the whole duty of man: and these here are just the equivalent of these two; the former of that beginning word, I have seen an end of all perfection; and the latter of that, But thy commandment is exceeding broad. And when mean men speak of this world's greatness, and poor men cry down riches, it passes but for a querulous, peevish humour, to discredit things they cannot reach, or else an ignorant contempt of things they do not understand; or, taking it a little further, but a self-pleasing shift, willingly underprizing these things of purpose, to allay the displeasure of the want of them; or at the best, if something of truth and goodness be in the opinion, yet that the assent of such persons is (as the temperance of sickly bodies) rather a virtue made of necessity, than embraced of free choice. But to hear a wise man, in the height of these advantages, proclaim their vanity, yea, kings from their very thrones whereon they sit, in their royal robes, to give forth this sentence upon all the glories and delights about them, is certainly above all exception. Here are two, the father and the son; the one raised from a mean condition to the crown; instead of a shepherd's staff, to wield a sceptre, and that after many afflictions and dangers in the way to it, which to some palates gives

a higher relish and sweetness to honour, than if it had slid on them ere they could feel it, in the cheap, easy way of undoubted succession: or if any think David's best days a little cloudy by the remains of insurrections and oppositions, in that case usual, as the jumbling of the water not fully quieted for a while after the same is over; then take the son, succeeding to as fair a day as heart can wish, both a complete calm of peace and bright sun-shine of riches and regal pomp; (and he able to improve these to the highest;) and yet both these are perfectly of the same mind in this great point. The son, having peace and time for it, though a king, would make his throne a pulpit, and be a preacher of this one doctrine, to which the father's sentence is the fittest text I have seen.

The words give an account of a double prospect; the latter, as it were, the discovery of a new world after the travelling over the old, expressed in the former clause-I have seen an end of all perfection, i. e. taken an exact view of all other things, and seen their end; but Thy commandment is of exceeding extent and perfection, and I see but a part, and there is no end of it.

I have seen an end. I have tried and made experiment of much of what this world affords, and the rest I see to the uttermost of it, how far it reaches. The Psalmist, as standing on a vantage ground, sees clearly round about him the farthest horizon of earthly excellencies and advantages, and finds them not to be infinite or unmeasurable; sees that they are bounded, yea, what their bounds are, how far they go at their very farthest, an end of all, even perfection; and this is in effect what I find, that their end drops short of satisfaction. A man may think and desire beyond them, yea, not only may, but must; he cannot be terminated by their bounds, will still have a stretch further, and feels them leave him, and then finds a void. which he says most ponderously in these short words; giving the world the slight thus: "It is not so great a matter as men imagine it; the best of it I have ex

All

amined, and considered it to the full, taken the whole dimension. All the profits and pleasures under the sun, their utmost goes but a short way; the soul is vaster than all, can look and go much farther."

I will not attempt the particulars, to reckon all, or be large in any; the preacher Solomon hath done this matchlessly, and who is he that can come after the king? If any be sick of that poor disease, esteem of riches, he can tell you the utmost of these, that when they increase, they are increased that eat them, and what good is to the owners thereof, save the beholding of them with their eyes? Yea, locking them up, and not using them, and still gathering, and all to no use; this is a madness, it is all one as if they were still in the mines under the ground, and the difference none, but in turmoiling pains in gathering, and tormenting care in keeping. But take the best view of them, supposing that they be used, i. e. spent on family and retinue; why, then, what hath the owner but the sight of them for himself? Of all his dishes, he fills but one belly; of all his fair houses, and richly-furnished rooms, he lodges but in one at once: and if his great rent be needful for his great train, or any other ways of expense, is it an advantage to need much? Or is he not rather poorer that needs five or six thousand pounds a year, than he that needs but one hundred?

Of all the festivities of the world, and delights of sense, the result is, laughter is mad; and mirth, and orchards, and music, these things pass away as a dream, and as still to begin; and so gross and earthly are they, that for the beasts they may be a fit good; for the divine, immortal soul they cannot. A horse lying at ease in a fat pasture may be compared with those that take delight in them.

Honour and esteem are yet vainer than those pleasures and riches that furnish them. Though they be nothing but wind, compared to solid soul-delights; yet as to nature, there is in them somewhat more real than in the fame of honour, which is no more indeed than an airy, imaginary thing, and hangs more on

others than any thing else, and not only on persons above them, but even those below; especially that kind, that the vanity of man is much taken with, all popular opinion, than which there is nothing more light and poor, and that is more despised by the elevated sort of natural spirits; a thing as unworthy as it is inconstant. No slavery like the affecting of vulgar esteem; it enthrals the mind to all sorts; often the worthiest share least in it, Eccles. ix. 11-15. True worth is but sometimes honoured, but always envied, Eccles. iv. 4. And with whomsoever it is thou seekest to be esteemed, be it with the multitude, or more chiefly with the wiser and better sort, what a narrow thing is it at largest! How many nations know neither thee, nor those that know thee!

Beyond all these things is inward worth, and even that natural wisdom, such as some minds have, to a far more refined height than others; a man by it sees round about him, yea, and within himself. That Solomon grants to be an excellent thing, (iv. 13,) yet presently finds the end of that perfection (ver. 16). That guards not from disasters and vexations; yea, there is in it an innate grief, amidst so many follies (vii. 18). Yea, give a man the confluence of all these, which is so rare, make him at once rich and honourable and healthful, and encompassed with all the delights of nature and art, and wise, to make the best improvement of all they can well afford, and there is much in that; yet there is an end of all these perfections: for there is quickly an end of himself that hath them; he dies, and that spoils all; death breaks the strings, and that ends the music. And the highest of natural wisdom, which is the soul of all nature's advantages, that ends then, if practical or political. In that day are all state projects and high thoughts laid low, if speculative; for in spite of all sciences and knowledge of nature, a man goes out in the dark; and if thou art learned in many languages, one death silences all thy tongues at once. So Solomon, Eccles. ii. 16. Yea, suppose a man were not broke off, but continued