The vanity of this mortal life, or, Of man, considered only in his present…

We see thus stands our case, that we must measure our selves by one of these apprehensions; Either [we are made in vain]; or [we are made for a future state]. And can we endure to live according to the former? As if we were impertinences in the Creation, and had no proper business in it? What ingenuous persons would not blush to be always in the posture of an useless hang-by? to be still hanging on, where he hath nothing to do? that if he be asked, Sir, what's your business here? he hath nothing to say?

We see thus stands our case, that we must measure our selves by one of these apprehensions; Either [we are made in vain]; or [we are made for a future state]. And can we endure to live according to the former? As if we were impertinencies in the Creation, and had no proper business in it? What ingenuous persons would not blush to be always in the posture of an useless hang-by? to be still hanging on, where he hath nothing to do? that if he be asked, Sir, what's your business here? he hath nothing to say?

Or how can we bear it, to live as if we came into the world by chance? or rather by mistake? As though our Creation had been a misadventure, a thing that would not have been done, had it been better thought on? And that our Maker had overshot himself, and been guilty of an oversight, in giving us such a being? Who that hath either just value for himself, or any reverence for his Maker, could endure either to undergo the reproach, or be guilty of the blasphemy which this would import? And who can acquit himself of the one or the other, that lives not in some measure agreeably to the expectation of somewhat beyond this present life? Let us therefore gird up the loins of our minds, and set our faces as persons designing for another world; so shaping our course, that all things may concur to signify to men the greatness of our expectations. We otherwise proclaim to the world (to our ⟨p. 91⟩own and our Creator's wrong) that we have reasonable souls given us to no purpose. We are therefore concerned and obliged both to aim at that worthy End, and to discover and make it visible that we do so.