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

One would think whosoever have remaining in them any conscience of obligation and duty to the common Parent and Author of our Beings, any remembrance of our Divine Original, any breathings of our ancient hope, any sense of humane honour, any resentments of so vile an indignity to the nature of man, any spark of a just and generous indignation for so opprobrious a contumely to their own Kind and Order in the Creation, should oppose themselves with an Heroic vigour to this treacherous and unnatural combination.

One would think whosoever have remaining in them any conscience of obligation and duty to the common Parent and Author of our Beings, any remembrance of our Divine Original, any breathings of our ancient hope, any sense of humane honour, any resentments of so vile an indignity to the nature of man, any spark of a just and generous indignation for so opprobrious a contumely to their own Kind and Order in the Creation, should oppose themselves with an Heroick vigour to this treacherous and unnatural combination.

And let us (my worthy Friends) he provoked, in our several capacities to do our parts herein; and, at least, so to live, and converse in this world, that the course and tenor of our lives may import an open asserting of our hopes in another; and may let men see we are not ashamed to own the belief of a life ⟨image 8⟩to come: Let us by a patient continuance in well-doing (how low designs soever others content themselves to pursue) seek honour, glory, and immortality to our selves; and, by our avowed, warrantable ambition in this pursuit, justify our great and bountiful Creator, who hath made us not in vain, but for so high and great things: And glorify our blessed Redeemer, who amidst the gloomy and disconsolate darkness of this wretched world, when it was overspread with the shadow of death, hath brought life and immortality to light in the Gospel. Let us labour both to see and express the power of that Religion, which hath the inchoation of the (participated) divine life, for its principle; and the perfection and eternal perpetuation thereof, for its scope and end.