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

We are indeed so far to comply with the pleasure of our Maker, as not to despise the mean abode which he hath assigned us for a while in the body. But withal, to take heed lest we so cross and resist it, as to make caring for the body our whole business: which he hath only enjoined us, in subserviency to an unspeakably greater and more important business. Its health and welfare ought upon very valuable accounts to be carefully preserved by all prudent means. But to indulge its slothful desires, and comply with its licentious wild cravings, is far beneath us, a base unmanning of our selves, and would signify as if so absurd a conceit had past with us into a settled judgment, That a reasonable immortal spirit was created only to tend and serve a Brute. It is monstrous to behold, with how common consent multitudes that professedly agree in the belief of the immortal nature of their souls, do yet agree to debase and ⟨p. 119⟩enslave them to the meanest servility to their mortal bodies; so as these are permitted to give Laws to them, to prescribe them rules of living, and what their daily employment shall be. For observe the designs they drive, and what is the tendency of their actions and affairs (whence the judgment is to be made concerning their inward thoughts, deliberations, and resolves) and is not the body the measure and mark of them all? What import or signification is there in this course, of a design for futurity? And (which increases the folly of it to a wonder) they can make a shift to go on thus from year to year, and take no notice of the absurdity! They agree to justify each one himself, and one another. The commonness of the course takes away all sense of the horrid madness of it. And because each doth as the rest do, they seem to imagine they all do well; and that there is nothing exceptionable in ⟨p. 120⟩in the case;¹ and go on * (as the sequacious sheep) not the way they ought, but which they see others go before them.

We are indeed so far to comply with the pleasure of our Maker, as not to despise the mean abode which he hath assigned us for a while in the body. But withall, to take heed lest we so cross and resist it, as to make caring for the body our whole business: which he hath only enjoyn'd us, in subserviency to an unspeakably greater and more important business. Its health and welfare ought upon very valuable accounts to be carefully preserved by all prudent means. But to indulge its slothful desires, and comply with its licentious wild cravings, is far beneath us, a base unmanning of our selves, and would signifie as if so absurd a conceit had past with us into a setled judgment, That a reasonable immortal spirit was created only to tend and serve a Brute. It is monstrous to behold, with how common consent multitudes that professedly agree in the belief of the immortal nature of their souls, do yet agree to debase and