from producing the same emotions in the soul : by use and habit we become indifferent to the very things which once we most ardently affected: so poor, so empty, so transient is all that passes under the semblance and the name of pleasure.
We may say therefore of "all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life," that it is not only vain, but " vanity" in the abstract : " Vanity of vani- ties, saith the preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity^."]
2. Vexation of spirit —
[So far is the creature from affording any real happiness, that it is an occasion of constant vexation to the mind. The 2)ursuit of earthly things is attended with much labour, and with much uncertainty also as to the attainment of them. When at- tained, they excite nothing but envy in others, and disquietude in ourselves. By reason of the casualties to which the possession of them exposes us, we are filled with care ; insomuch, that those who only behold our acquisitions, often derive more pleasure from them than we who are the owners of them. Besides, the more we have attained, the more our desires are enlarged after something unpossessed ; so that our labours are never at an end : and the pain issuing from a single disappointment fre- quently outweighs the pleasure arising from manifold successes. Indeed, the things from which we promise ourselves most plea- sure, generally become, by some means or other, the sources of our keenest anguish ; and our most sanguine expectations usually terminate in the bitterest disappointment : yea, it not unfrequently happens, that after having attained the object of our wishes, we welcome the period of our separation from it, and bless ourselves more in the loss of it, than ever we did in the acquisition.
Say then whether Solomon's testimony be not strictly true. Young people, when they hear such a sentiment avowed, are ready to think it an effusion of spleen, and a libel on the whole creation : but this testimony is the very truth of God, and shall sooner or later be found true in the experience of every living man : the world, and every thing in it, is a broken cistern, that disappoints the hopes of the thirsty traveller, and becomes to him, not only vanity, but " vexation of spirit:" and he that has most sought to satisfy himself with it, finds after all his labours, that he has only "filled his belly with the east wind^"]
Such is the import of the general assertion. We now proceed to notice,
II. The particular confirmation of it —
Two things are here specified by Solomon, as
a ver. 2. t Job xv. 2.