Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

2. The beauties of the world are transitory and perishing. The whole world is nothing else but a fluid thing, the Fashion of it is a Pageantry, passing away; ^*tho the glories of it might be conceived greater than they are, yet they are not consistent, but transient; There cannot be an entire enjoyment of them; because they grow up, and expire every moment, and slip away between our fingers, while we are using them. Have we not heard of Gods dispersing the greatest Empires like Chaff before a whirlwind, or as smoke out of a Chimney;^* which tho it appears as a compacted cloud, as if it would choke the Sun, is quickly scattered into several parts of the Air, and becomes invisible? Nettles have often been heirs to stately Palaces, as God threatens Israel. ^*We cannot promise our selves over night any thing the next day. A Kingdom with the glory of a throne may be cut off in a morning; ^*The new wine may be taken from the mouth, when the Vintage is ripe; the ⟨p. 200⟩devouring locust may snatch away both the hopes of that, and the harvest:^* they are therefore things which are not, and Nothing cannot be a fit object for confidence or affection.^* Wilt thou set thy eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings. They are not properly beings; because they are not stable, but flitting; They are not; because they may not be the next moment to us, what they are this; they are but Cisterns, not Springs, and broken Cisterns, not sound and stable; no solidity in their substance, nor stability in their duration. What a foolish thing is it then, to prefer a transient felicity, a mere nullity before an eternal God? What a senseless thing would it be in a man, to prefer the Map of a Kingdom, which the hand of a Child can tear in pieces, before the Kingdom shadowed by it? How much more inexcusable is it to value things, that are so far from being Eternal, that they are not so much as dusky resemblances of an Eternity? Were the things of the world more glorious than they are, yet they are but as a counterfeit Sun in a Cloud, which comes short of the true Sun in the heavens both in glory and duration; and to esteem them before God, is unconceivably baser, than if a man should Value a party-coloured bubble in the Air, before a durable rock of Diamonds. The comforts of this world are as Candles, that will end in a Snuff;