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

2. The instability and fluidness of it. The visible and corporal being of man hath nothing steady or consistent in it. Consider his exterior frame and composition, he is, no time, all himself at once. There is a continual defluence and access of parts; so that some account, Each Climacteric of his age changes his whole Fabric. Whence it would follow, that besides his static individuating Principle (from which we are now to abstract) nothing of him remains; He is another thing; The former man is vanished and gone; while he is, he ⟨p. 21⟩hastens away; and within a little is not. In respect of the duration, as well as the degree of his being, he is next to nothing.¹ He opens his eye, and is not. Gone in the twinkling of an eye. There is nothing in him stable enough, to admit a fixed look. So it is with the whole scene of things in this material world. As was the true Maxim of an Ancient: All things slow,² nothing stays; after the manner of a River. The same thing which the Apostle's words more elegantly express: The fashion of this world passeth away. ³The scheme, the show, the pageantry of it. He speaks of it but as an appearance, as if he knew not whether to call it something or nothing, it was so near to vanishing into nothing. And therefore he there requires, that the affections which mutual nearness in relation challenges, be as if they were not: That we rejoice in reference to one another, (even most nearly related, as the occasion and scope of his discourse teach us to understand him) but as if we rejoiced not, and to weep as if we ⟨p. 22⟩wept not. Which implies, the objects merit no more; and are themselves as if they were not. Whence therefore a continued course of intense passion were very incongruous towards so discontinuing things.

2. The instability and fluidness of it. The visible and corporal beeing of man hath nothing steady or consistent in it. Consider his exterior frame and composition, he is, no time, all himself at once. There is a continual defluence and access of parts; so that some account, Each Climacterick of his age changes his whole Fabrick. Whence it would follow, that besides his statique individuating Principle (from which we are now to abstract) nothing of him remains; He is another thing; The former man is vanished and gone; while he is, he