The Vanity of the Creature

Ecclesiastes 1:14. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.

To have a self-sufficiency in being and operation, and to be unsubordinate to any further end above himself, as it is utterly repugnant to the condition of a creature, so among the rest to man especially; who besides the limitedness of his nature, as he is a creature, has contracted much deficiency and deformity as he is a sinner. God never made him to be an end to himself, to be the center of his own motions, or to be happy only by reflection on his own excellencies. Something still there is without him, to which he moves, and from where God has appointed that he should reap either preservation in, or advancement and perfection to his nature. What that is upon which the desires of man ought to fix as his rest and end, is the main discovery that the wise man makes in this book. And he does it by a historical and penitential review of his former enquiries; from where he states the point in two main conclusions. The first, the creature's insufficiency, in the beginning of the book, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. The second, man's duty to God, and God's all-sufficiency to man, in the end of the book, let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter, fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is Totum hominis, the whole duty, the whole end, the whole happiness of man (Ecclesiastes 12:13). The former of these two, namely the insufficiency of the creature to satiate the desires, and quiet the motions of the soul of man, is the point I am now to speak of, out of these words.

For understanding of this, we must know that it was not God in the creation, but sin and the curse which attended it, that brought this vanity and vexation upon the creature. God made every thing in itself very good, and therefore very fit for the desires of man some way or other to take satisfaction from. As pricks, and quavers, and rests in music serve in their order to commend the cunning of the artist, and to delight the ear of the hearer, as well as more perfect notes: so the meanest of the creatures were at first filled with so much goodness, as did not only declare the glory of God, but in their rank likewise minister content to the mind of man. It was the sin of man that filled the creature with vanity, and it is the vanity of the creature that fills the soul of man with vexation (Romans 8:20, 22). As sin makes man come short of glory, which is the rest of the soul in the fruition of God in himself; so does it make him come short of contentment too, which is the rest of the soul in the fruition of God in his creatures (Romans 3:23). Sin took away God's favor from the soul, and his blessing from the creature. It put bitterness into the soul that it cannot relish the creature, and it put vanity into the creature, that it cannot nourish nor satisfy the soul.

The desires of the soul can never be satisfied with any good, till they find in it these two qualities or relations, wherein indeed the formality of goodness does consist; namely proportion and propriety. First, nothing can satisfy the desires of the soul till it bears convenience and fitness thereto; for it is with the mind as with the body, the richest attire that is, if it be either too loose or too strait, however it may please a man's pride, must needs offend his body. Now nothing is proportionable to the mind of man, but that which has reference to it as it is a spiritual soul. For though a man have the same sensitive appetites about him which we find in beasts; yet, inasmuch as that appetite was in man created subordinate to reason, and obedient to the spirit; the case is plain, that it can never be fully satisfied with its object, unless that likewise be subordinate and linked to the object of the superior faculty, which is God. So then the creature can never be proportionable to the soul of man, till it bring God along with it. So long as it is empty of God, so long must it needs be full of vanity and vexation.

But now it is not sufficient that there be proportion, unless withal there be propriety. For God is a proportionable good to the nature of devils as well as of men or good angels, yet no good comes by that to them, because he is none of their God, they have no interest in him, they have no union to him. Wealth is as commensurate to the mind and occasions of a beggar as of a prince; yet the goodness and comfort of it extends not to him, because he has no propriety to any. Now sin has taken away the propriety which we have in good, has unlinked that golden chain, whereby the creature was joined to God, and God with the creature came along to the mind of man. So that till we can recover this union, and make up this breach again, it is impossible for the soul of man to receive any satisfaction from the creature alone. Though a man may have the possession of it, as a naked creature, yet not the fruition of it, as a good creature. For good the creature is not to any but by virtue of the blessing and word accompanying it. And man naturally has no right to the blessing of the creature; for it is godliness which has the promises, and by consequence the blessing as well of this as of the other life. And God is not in his favor reconciled to us, nor reunited by his blessing to the creature, but only in and through Christ. So then the mind of a man is fully and only satisfied with the creature, when it finds God and Christ together in it: God making the creature suitable to our inferior desires, and Christ making both God and the creature ours; God giving proportion, and Christ giving propriety.

These things thus explained, let us now consider the insufficiency of the creature to confer, and the unsatisfiableness of the flesh to receive any solid or real satisfaction from any of the works which are done under the sun. Man is naturally a proud creature, of high projects, of unbounded desires, ever framing to himself I know not what imaginary and fantastical felicities, which have no more proportion to real and true contentment, than a king on a stage to a king on a throne, than the houses which children make of cards, to a prince's palace. Ever since the fall of Adam he has an itch in him to be a god within himself, the fountain of his own goodness, the contriver of his own sufficiency; loath he is to go beyond himself, or what he thinks properly his own, for that in which he resolves to place his rest. But alas, after he has toiled out his heart, and wasted his spirits, in the most exact inventions that the creature could minister to him, Solomon here, the most experienced for inquiry, the most wise for contrivance, the most wealthy for compassing such earthly delights, has, after many years sitting out the finest flower, and torturing nature to extract the most exquisite spirits, and purest quintessence, which the varieties of the creatures could afford, at last pronounced of them all, that they are vanity and vexation of spirit: like thorns, in their gathering they prick, that is their vexation, and in their burning they suddenly blaze and waste away, that is their vanity. Vanity in their duration, frail and perishable things; and vexation in their enjoyment, they nothing but molest and disquiet the heart. The eye, says Solomon, is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing. Notwithstanding they be the widest of all the senses, can take in more abundance with less satiety, and serve more immediately for the supplies of the reasonable soul, yet a man's eye-strings may even crack with vehemency of poring, his ears may be filled with all the variety of the most exquisite sounds and harmonies, and lectures in the world, and yet still his soul within him be as greedy to see and hear more as it was at first. Who would have thought that the favor of a prince, the adoration of the people, the most conspicuous honors of the court, the liberty of utterly destroying his most bitter adversaries, the sway of the stern and universal negotiations of state, the concurrency of all the happiness, that wealth, or honor, or intimateness with the prince, or deity with the people, or extremity of luxury could afford, would possibly have left any room or nook in the heart of Haman for discontent? And yet do but observe, how the want of one Jew's knee (who dares not give divine worship to any but his Lord) blasts all his other glories, brings a damp upon all his other delights, makes his head hang down, and his mirth wither: so little leaven was able to sour all the Queen's banquet, and the King's favor. Ahab was a king, in whom therefore we may justly expect a confluence of all the happiness which his dominions could afford; a man that built whole cities, and dwelt in ivory palaces, and yet the want of one poor vineyard of Naboth brings such a heaviness of heart, such a deadness of countenance on so great a person, as seemed in the judgment of Jezebel far unbecoming the honor and distance of a prince. In fact Solomon, a man every way more a king both in the mind and in the state of a king than Ahab, a man that did not use the creature with a sensual, but with a critical fruition, to find out that good which God had given men under the sun, and that in such abundance of all things, learning, honor, pleasure, peace, plenty, magnificence, foreign supplies, royal visits, noble confederacies, as that in him was the pattern of a complete prince beyond all the platforms and ideas of Plato and Xenophon; and yet even he was never able to repose his heart upon any or all these things together, till he brings in the fear of the Lord for the close of all. Lastly, look on the people of Israel; God had delivered them from a bitter thralldom, had divided the sea before them, and destroyed their enemies behind them, had given them bread from heaven, and fed them with angels' food, had commanded the rock to satisfy their thirst, and made the Canaanites to melt before them; his mercies were magnified with the power of his miracles, and his miracles crowned with the sweetness of his mercies, besides the assurance of great promises to be performed in the holy land: and yet in the midst of all this we find nothing but murmuring and repining. God had given them meat for their faith, but they must have meat for their lust too; it was not enough that God showed them mercies, unless his mercies were dressed up and fitted to their palate, they tempted God, and limited the holy one of Israel, says the Prophet. So infinitely unsatisfiable is the fleshly heart of man either with mercies or miracles, that bring nothing but the creatures to it.

The ground of this is the vast disproportion which is between the creature and the soul of man, whereby it comes to pass that it is absolutely impossible for one to fill up the other. The soul of man is a substance of unbounded desires, and that will easily appear if we consider him in any estate, either created or corrupted. In his created estate he was made with a soul capable of more glory than the whole earth or all the frame of nature, though changed into one Paradise, could have afforded him, for he was fitted to so much honor as an infinite and everlasting communion with God could bring along with it. And now God never in the creation gave to any creature a proper capacity of a thing, to which he did not also implant such motions and desires in that creature as should be somewhat suitable to that capacity, and which might (if they had been preserved entire) have brought man to the fruition of that good which he desired. For notwithstanding it be true that the glory of God cannot be attained to by the virtue of any action which man either can or ever could have performed, yet God was pleased out of mercy, for the magnifying of his name, for the communicating of his glory, for the advancement of his creature, to enter into covenant with man, and for his natural obedience to promise him a supernatural reward. And this, I say, was even then out of mercy, inasmuch as Adam's legal obedience of works could no more in any virtue of its own, but only in God's merciful contract and acceptance, merit everlasting life, than our evangelical obedience of faith can now. Only the difference between the mercy of the first and second covenant (and it is a great difference) is this: God did out of mercy propose salvation to Adam as [illegible] an infinite reward of such a finite obedience as Adam was able by his own created abilities to have performed. As if a man should give a day-laborer a hundred pounds for his day's work, which he did indeed perform by his own strength, but yet did not merit the thousandth part of that wages which he receives. But God's mercy to us is this: that he is pleased to bestow upon us not only the reward, but the work and merit which procured the reward, that he is pleased in us to reward another man's work, even the work of Christ our head — as if when one only captain had by his wisdom discomfited and defeated an enemy, the prince nevertheless should reward his alone service with the advancement of the whole army which he led. But this by the way. Certain in the meantime it is that God created man with such capacities and desires as could not be limited by any or all the excellencies of his fellow and finite creatures.

In fact, look even upon corrupted nature, and yet there we shall still discover this restlessness of the mind of man, though in an evil way, to promote itself — from where arise distractions of heart, thoughts for tomorrow, rovings and inquisitions of the soul after infinite varieties of earthly things, swarms of lusts, sparks of endless thoughts, those secret flowings and ebbs and tempests and estuations of that sea of corruption in the heart of man — but because it can never find anything on which to rest, or that has room enough to entertain so ample and so endless a guest? Let us then look a little into the particulars of that great disproportion and insufficiency of any or all the creatures under the sun to make up an adequate and suitable happiness for the soul of man.

Solomon here expresses it in two words, Vanity and Vexation. From the first of these we may observe a threefold disproportion between the soul and the creatures. First in regard of their nature and worth, they are base in comparison of the soul of man: when David would show the infinite distance between God and man in power and strength, he expresses the baseness of man by his vanity, "To be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity" (Psalm 62:9). And surely if we weigh the soul of man and all the creatures under the Sun together, we shall find them lighter than vanity itself. All the goodness and honor of the creature arises from one of these two grounds: either from man's coining or from God's, either from opinion imposed upon them by men, or from some real qualities, which they have in their nature. Many things there are which have all that worth and estimation which they carry among men, not from their own qualities, but from human institution, or from some difficulties that attend them, or from some other outward imposition. When a man gives money for meat, we must not think there is any natural proportion of worth between a piece of silver and a piece of flesh; for that worth which is in the meat is its own, whereas that which is in the money is by human appointment. The like we may say for great titles of honor and secular degrees, though they bring authority, distance, reverence with them from other men, yet notwithstanding they do not of themselves, by any proper virtue of their own, put any solid and fundamental merit into the man himself. Honor is but the raising of the rate and value of a man, it carries nothing of substance necessarily along with it: as in raising the valuations of gold from twenty shillings to twenty-two, the matter is the same, only the estimation different. It is in the power of the king to raise a man out of the prison like Joseph, and give him the [reconstructed: next] place to himself. Now this then is a plain argument of the great baseness of any of these things in comparison of the soul of man, and by consequence of their great disability to satisfy the same: for can a man make anything equal to himself? Can a man advance a piece of gold or silver into a reasonable, a spiritual, an eternal substance? A man may make himself like these things, he may debase himself into the vileness of an idol, "They that make them are like to them;" he may under-value and uncoin himself, blot out God's image and inscription, and write in the image and inscription of earth and Satan, he may turn himself into brass and iron and reprobate silver, as the prophet speaks; but never can any man raise the creatures by all his estimations to the worth of a man: we cannot so much as change the color of a hair or add a cubit to our stature, much less can we make anything of equal worth with our whole selves. We read indeed of some which have sold the righteous, and that at no great rate neither, for a pair of shoes (Joel 3:6; Amos 2:6), but we see there how much the Lord abhorred that detestable fact, and recompensed it upon the neck of the oppressors. How many men are there still that set greater rates upon their own profits, or liberty, or preferments, or secular accommodations, than on the souls of men, whose perdition is oftentimes the price of their advancements? But yet still Saint Paul's rule must hold: "For meat destroy not the work of God, for money betray not the blood of Christ, destroy not him with your meat, with your dignities, with your preferments, for whom Christ died" (Romans 14:15, 20). We were not redeemed with silver and gold from our vain conversation, says the Apostle (1 Peter 1:18), and therefore these things are of too base a nature to be put into the balance with the souls of men; and that man infinitely undervalues the work of God, the image of God, the blood of God, who for so base a purchase as money, or preferment, any earthly and vainglorious respect, does either hazard his own or betray the souls of others commended to him.

And therefore this should reach all those upon whom the Lord has bestowed a greater portion of this opinionative felicity, I mean, of money, honor, reputation, or the like. First, not to trust in uncertain riches, not to rely upon a foundation of their own laying for matter of satisfaction to their soul, nor to boast in the multitude of their riches, as the prophet speaks (Psalm 49:6), for that is certainly one great effect of the deceitfulness of riches spoken of (Matthew 13:22), to persuade the soul that there is more in them than indeed there is. And the Psalmist gives an excellent reason in the same place: "No man can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him, for the redemption of their soul is precious."

And secondly, it may teach them as not to trust, so not to swell with these things neither. It is an argument of their windiness and emptiness that they are apt to make men swell; whereas if they cannot change a hair of a man's head, nor add an inch to his stature, they can much less make an accession of the least dram of merit, or real value to the owners of them. And surely if men could seriously consider, that they are still members of the same common body, and that of a twofold body, a civil and a mystical body, and that though they happily may be the more honorable parts in one body, yet in the other they may be the less honorable; that the poor whom they despise may in Christ's body have a higher room than they (as the Apostle says, "Has not God chosen the poor in this world, rich in faith" (James 2:5)); I say, if men could compare things rightly together, and consider that they are but the greater letters in the same volume, and the poor the smaller, though they take up more room, yet they put no more matter nor worth into the word which they compound, they would never suffer the tympany and inflation of pride or superciliousness, of self-attributions, or contempt of their meaner brethren to prevail within them. We see in the natural body though the head have a hat on of so many shillings price, and the foot a shoe of not half so many pence, yet the head does not therefore despise the foot, but is tender of it, and does derive influence as well to that as to any nobler part: and surely so should it be among men, though God have given you an eminent station in the body, clothed you with purple and scarlet, and has set your poor neighbor in the lowest part of the body, and made him conversant in the dirt, and content to cover himself with leather, yet you are still members of the same common body, animated with the same spirit of Christ, molded out of the same dirt, appointed for the same inheritance, born out of the same womb of natural blindness, partakers of the same great and precious promises (there was not one price for the soul of the poor man, and another for the rich, there is not one table for Christ's meaner guests, and another for his greater, but the faith is a common faith, the salvation a common salvation, the rule a common rule, the hope a common hope, one Lord, and one Spirit, and one Baptism, and one God and Father of all; and one foundation, and one house, and therefore we ought to have care and compassion one of another.

Secondly, consider that goodness and value which is fixed to the being of the creature, implanted in it by God and the institution of nature, and even thus we shall find them absolutely unable to satisfy the desires of the reasonable and spiritual soul. God is the Lord of all the creatures, they are but as his several coins, he coined them all. So much then of his image as [reconstructed: any] creature has in it, so much value and worth it carries. Now God has more communicated himself to man, than to any other creature; in his creation we find man made after the similitude of God, and in his restoration we find God made after the similitude of man, and man once again after the similitude of God. And now it is needless to search out the worth of the creature, our Saviour will decide the point, What shall a man gain though he wins the whole world, and lose his own soul, or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? (Matthew 16:26) To which of the creatures did God at any time say, Let us create it after our image? Of which of the angels did he at any time say, Let us restore them to our image again? There is no creature in heaven or earth, which is recompense enough for the loss of a soul. Can a man carry the world into hell with him to bribe the flames, or corrupt his tormentors? No, says the Psalmist, His glory shall not descend after him (Psalm 49:17), but can he buy out his pardon before he comes there? No, neither, the redemption of a soul is more precious (verse 8). We know the Apostle counts all things dung (Philippians 3:8), and will God take dung in exchange for a soul? Certainly, beloved, when a man can sow grace in the furrows of the field, when he can fill his barns with glory, when he can get bags full of salvation, when he can plow up heaven out of the earth and extract God out of the creatures, then he may be able to find that in them which shall satisfy his desires. But till then, let a man have all the most exquisite curiosities of nature heaped into one vessel, let him be molded out of the most delicate ingredients, and noblest principles that the world can contribute, let there be in his body a concurrency of all beauty and feature, in his nature an eminence of all sweetness and ingenuity, in his mind a conspiration of the most polished, and most choice varieties of all kinds of learning, yet still the spirit of that man is no whit more valuable and precious, no whit more proportionable to eternal happiness, than the soul of a poor and illiterate beggar. Difference indeed there is, and that justly to be made between them in the eyes of men, which difference is to expire within a few years: and then after the dust of the beautiful and deformed, of the learned and ignorant, of the honorable and base are promiscuously intermingled, and death has equaled all, then at last there will come a day when all mankind shall be summoned naked, without difference of degrees before the same tribunal; when the crowns of kings and the shackles of prisoners, when the robes of princes and the rags of beggars, when the gallants' bravery and the peasant's russet, and the statist's policy, and the courtier's luxury, and the scholar's curiosity shall be all laid aside; when all men shall be reduced to an equal plea, and without respect of persons shall be doomed according to their works; when Nero the persecuting emperor shall be thrown to hell, and Paul the persecuted Apostle shall shine in glory, when the learned scribes and Pharisees shall gnash their teeth, and the ignorant, and as they term them, cursed people shall see their Saviour: when the proud antichristian prelates, that dyed their robes in the blood of the saints, shall be hurried to damnation, and the poor despised martyrs whom they persecuted shall wash their feet in the blood of their enemies; when those puntoes, and formalities, and cuts, and fashions, and distances, and compliments, which are now the darling sins of the upper end of the world, shall be proved to have been nothing else but well-acted vanities: when the pride, luxury, riot, swaggering, interlarded and complemental oaths, nice and quaint lasciviousness, new invented courtings and adorations of beauty, the so much studied and admitted sins of the gallantry of the world, shall be pronounced out of the mouth of God himself to have been nothing else but glittering abominations; when the adulterating of wares, the counterfeiting of lights, the double weight and false measures, the courteous equivocations of men greedy of gain, which are now almost woven into the very arts of trading, shall be pronounced nothing else but mysteries of iniquity and self-deceivings: when the curious subtleties of more choice wits, the knotty questions, and vain strife of words, the disputes of reason, the variety of reading, the very circle of general and secular learning pursued with so much eagerness by the more ingenious spirits of the world, shall be all pronounced but the thin cobwebs, and vanishing delicacies of a better-tempered profaneness; and lastly, when that poor despised profession of the power of Christianity, a trembling at the Word of God, a scrupulous forbearance not of oaths only, but of idle words, a tenderness and aptness to bleed at the touch of any sin, a boldness to withstand the corruptions of the times, a conscience of but the appearances of evil, a walking mournfully and humbly before God, a heroic resolution to be strict and circumspect, to walk in an exact and geometrical holiness in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, the so much conclamated and scorned peevishness of a few silly, impolitic, unregarded hypocrites as the world esteems them, shall in good earnest from the mouth of God himself be declared to have been the true narrow way which leads to salvation, and the enemies thereof shall, when it is too late, be driven to that desperate and shameful confession, We fools counted their life madness, and their end to have been without honor; how are they now reckoned among the saints, and have their portion with the Almighty?

A second branch of the disproportion between the soul of man and the creatures, arising from the vanity thereof, is their deadness, unprofitableness, inefficacy by any inward virtue of their own to convey or preserve life in the soul. Happiness in the Scripture phrase is called life, consisting in a communion with God in his holiness and glory. Nothing then can truly be a prop to hold up the soul, which cannot either preserve that life which it has, or convey to it that which it has not. Charge those, says the Apostle, that are rich in this world, that they be not high minded, neither trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God (1 Timothy 6:17) — he opposes the life of God to the vanity and uncertainty, the word is, to the inevidence of riches, whereby a man can never demonstrate to himself or others the certainty or happiness of his life. The like opposition we shall find excellently expressed in the Prophet Jeremiah, My people have committed two evils, they have forsaken me the fountain of living water, and have hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water (Jeremiah 2:13). That is, my people are willing to attribute the blessings they enjoy, and to sue for more rather to any cause than to me the Lord. She did not know, says the Lord elsewhere, that I gave her her corn and her wine, and multiplied her silver and gold, etc., but said of them, these are my rewards which my lovers have given me. But says the Lord, so long as they trusted me, they rested upon a sure fountain that would never fail them; with you, says the Psalmist, is the fountain of life: and so says the Apostle too, Let your conversation be without covetousness, that is, Do not make an idol of the creature, do not heap vessels full of money together, and then think that you are all sure, the creature has no life in it, in fact it has no truth in it neither, there is deceit and cheating in riches; but says he, Let your conversation be with contentment, consider that what you have is the dimensum, the portion which God has allotted you, that food which he finds most convenient for you; he knows that more would but cloy you with a surfeit of pride or worldliness, that you have not wisdom, humility, faith, heavenly-mindedness enough to concoct a more plentiful estate; and therefore receive your portion from him, trust his wisdom and care over you, For he has said, I will not fail you nor forsake you. Well then, says the Lord, so long as they rested on me, they rested upon a sure supply (all his mercies are sure mercies) upon a fountain which would never fail them: but when once they forsake me, and will not trust their lives in my keeping, but with the prodigal will have their portion in their own hands, their water in their own cisterns, their pits prove to them but like Job's torrent, deep and plentiful though they seem for a time, yet at length they make those ashamed that relied upon them. And so I find the Prophets assuring us, that Israel which put so much confidence in the carnal policies of Jeroboam for preserving the kingdom of the ten tribes from any reunion with the house of David, was at last constrained to blush at their own wisdom, and to be ashamed of Bethel their confidence. Briefly then for that place, there are two excellent things intimated in those two words of cisterns and broken cisterns. First the wealth and honor which men get not from the Lord, but by carnal dependencies, are but cisterns at the best, and in that respect they have an evil quality in them, they are like dead water, apt to putrefy and corrupt; being cut off from the influence of God the fountain of life, they have no savor nor sweetness in them. Besides they are broken cisterns too, as they have much mud and rottenness in them, so they are full of chinks, at which whatever is clear and sweet runs away, and nothing but dregs remain behind. The worldly pleasures which men enjoy, their youthful vigor that carried them with delight and fury to the pursuit of fleshly lusts, the content which they were wont to take in the formalities and compliments of courtship and good fellowship, with a storm of sickness, or at farthest a winter of age blows all away, and then when the fruit is gone, there remains nothing but the diseases of it behind, which their surfeit had begotten, a conscience worm to torment the soul.

Thus the life which we fetch from the cistern is a vanishing life, there is still, after the use of it, less left behind than there was before: but the life which we fetch from the fountain is a fixed, an abiding life, as Saint John speaks, or, as our Savior calls it, a life that abounds, like the pumping of water out of a fountain, the more it is drawn, the faster it comes.

We grant indeed that the Lord, being the fountain of life, does allow the creature in regard of life temporal some subordinate operation and concurrence in the work of preserving life in us. But we must also remember, that the creatures are but God's instruments in that respect: and that not as servants are to their masters, living instruments, able to work without concurrence of the superior cause; but dead instruments, and therefore must never be separated from the principal. Let God subduct from them that concourse of his own which actuates and applies them to their several services, and all the creatures in the world are no more able to preserve the body or to comfort the mind, than an axe and a hammer and those other dead instruments are able by themselves alone to erect some stately edifice. It is not the corn or the flour, but the staff of bread which supports the life, and that is not anything that comes out of the earth, but something which comes down from heaven, even the blessing which sanctifies the creature — for man lives not by bread alone, but by the word which proceeds out of God's mouth. The creature cannot hold up itself, much less contribute to the subsistence of other things, unless God continue the influence of his blessing upon it. As soon as Christ had cursed the fig tree, it presently withered and dried up [illegible] from the roots; to show that it was not the root alone, but the blessing of Christ which did support the fig tree. The creatures of themselves are indifferent to contrary operations, according as they have been by God severally applied. Fire preserved the three children in the furnace, and the same fire licked up the instruments of the persecution. Fire came down from heaven to destroy Sodom, and fire came down from heaven to advance Elijah; the same sea a sanctuary to Israel and a grave to Egypt; Jonah had been drowned if he had not been devoured, the latter destruction was a deliverance from the former, and the ravine of the fish a refuge from the rage of the sea; pulse kept Daniel in good liking, which the meat of the king's table could not do in the other children: for indeed life is not a thing merely natural, but of promise, as the Apostle speaks. Let the promise be removed, and however a wicked man lives as well as a righteous man, yet his life is indeed but a breathing death, only the cramming of him to a day of slaughter. When the blessing of God is once subducted, though men labor in the very fire, turn their vital heat with extremity of pains into a very flame, yet the close of all their labor will prove nothing but vanity, as the Prophet speaks. We should therefore pray to God that we may live not only by the creature, but by the word which sanctifies the creature, that we may not lean upon our substance, but upon God's promises, that we may not live by that which we have only, but by that which we hope for, and may still find God accompanying his own blessings to our soul.

But here the vanity and wickedness of many worldly men is justly to be reproved, who rest on the creature as on the only staff and comfort of their life, who count it their principal joy when their corn, and wine, and oil increases, who magnify their own arts, sacrifice to their own net and drag (which is the idolatry of covetousness, so often spoken of by the Apostle, when all the trust, and hope, and glory, and rejoicing which men have is in the creature, and not in God). They boast, says the Psalmist, in the multitude of their riches. In fact so much foolishness there is in the nature of man, and so much sophistry in the creature, that the proud fool in the Gospel from the greatness of his wealth, concludes the length of his life, 'You have much laid up for many years,' and the certainty of his mirth and pleasure, 'Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.' Their inward thought is that their houses shall endure forever, and their dwelling places to all generations. And David himself was overtaken with this folly, 'I said in my prosperity, I shall never be moved.' Indeed so much seed there is of pride in the heart of man, and so much heat (as I may so speak) and vigor in the creature to quicken it, as that men are apt to deify themselves in the reflection on their own greatness, and to deify anything else which contributes to the enlargement of their ambitious purposes. The greatness of the Persian emperors made them all usurp religious worship from their subjects. The like insolence we find in the Babylonian monarchs, they exalted themselves above the height of the clouds, and made themselves equal to the most high (Isaiah 14:14). Indeed their pride made them forget any God save themselves, 'I am, and there is none besides me' (Isaiah 47:7-8). It was the blasphemous arrogance of Tyrus the rich city, 'I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, I have a heart like the heart of God' (Ezekiel 28:26). Neither are these the sins of those times alone; the fountain of them is in the nature, and the fruits of them in the lives of those, who dare not venture upon the words: for albeit men with their mouths profess God, there is yet a bitter root of atheism and of polytheism in the minds of men by nature, which is mightily actuated by the abundance of earthly things. Where the treasure is there is the heart, where the heart there the happiness, and where the happiness there the God.

Now worldly men put their trust in their riches, set their heart upon them, make them their strong city, and therefore no marvel if they be their idol too. What is the reason why oftentimes we may observe rich and mighty men in the world to be more impatient of the Word of God, more bitter scorners of the power of religion, more fearfully given over to the pursuit of fleshly lusts and secular purposes, to vanity, vain-glory, ambition, revenge, fierce, implacable, bloody passions, brazen and boasting abominations, than other men, but because they have some secret opinion that there is not so great a distance between God and them, as between God and other men; but because the abundance of worldly things has hardened their heart, and fattened their conscience, and thickened their eyes against any fear, or faith, or notice at all of that supreme dominion and impartial revenge which the most powerful and just God bears over all sinners, and against all sin? What is the reason why many ordinary men drudge and toil all the year long, think every hour in the Church so much time lost from their life, are not able to forbear their covetous practices on God's own day, count any time of their life, any work of their hand, any sheaf of their corn, any penny of their purse thrown quite away, even as so much blood poured out of their veins, which is bestowed on the worship of God, and on the service of the altar; but because men think that there is indeed more life in their money, and the fruits of their ground, than in their God or the promises of his Gospel? Else how could it possibly be, if men did not in their hearts make God a liar, as the Apostle speaks (1 John 5:10), that the Lord should profess so plainly, from this day onward, since a stone has been laid of my house, since you have put yourselves to any charges for my worship, I will surely bless you (Haggai 2:15-19), and again, Bring all my tithes into my house, and prove me if I will not open the windows of heaven, and pour a blessing upon you that there shall not be room enough to hold it (Malachi 3:10): and again, He that has pity on the poor lends to the Lord, and that which he has given, will he pay him again (Proverbs 19:17): and again, If you will listen to me, and observe to do all these things, then all these blessings shall come on you and overtake you, blessings in the city and in the field, etc. (Deuteronomy 28:2-14)? If men did in good earnest personally, and hypothetically, believe and embrace these divine truths, how could it be, that men should grudge Almighty God and his worship every farthing which he requires from them of his own gifts, that they should dare let the service and house of God lie dumb and naked, that they should shut up their bowels of compassion against their poor brothers, and in them venture to deny Christ himself a morsel of bread or a mite of money (Matthew 25:42), that they should neglect the obedience, profane the name, word, and worship of God, use all base and unwarrantable arts of getting, and all this out of love of that life, and greediness of that gain, which yet themselves, in their general subscription to God's truth, have confessed, will either never be gotten, or at least never blessed, by such cursed courses? So prodigious a property is there in worldly things to obliterate all notions of God out of the heart of a man, and to harden him to any impudent abominations. I spoke to you in your prosperity, says the Lord, but you said, I will not hear (Jeremiah 22:21). According to their pasture, so were they filled, they were filled and their heart was exalted, therefore have they forgotten me (Hosea 13:6). Take heed, lest when you have eaten and are full, your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God (Deuteronomy 6:10-12; Deuteronomy 8:10-18). Therefore it is that we read of the poor rich in faith, and of the Gospel preached to the poor, and revealed to babes (James 2:5; Matthew 11:5, 25); because greatness and abundance stops the ear, and hardens the heart, and makes men stand at defiance with the simplicity of the Gospel.

Now then that we may be instructed how to use the creature, as becomes a dead and impotent thing, we may make use of these few directions. First, have your eye ever upon the power of God, which alone animates and raises the creature to that pitch of livelihood which is in it, and who alone has infinite ways to weaken the strongest, or to arm the weakest creature against the stoutest sinner. Perhaps you have as much lands and possessions, as many sheep and oxen as Job or Nabal; yet you have not the lordship of the clouds, God can harden the heavens over you, he can send the mildew and canker into your corn, the rot and murrain into your cattle; though your barns be full of corn, and your vats overflow with new wine, yet he can break the staff of your bread, that the flour and the winepress shall not feed you; though you have a house full of silver and gold, he can put holes into every bag, and chinks into every cistern, that it shall all sink away like a winter torrent. God can either deny you a power and will to enjoy it, and this is as sore a disease as poverty itself: or else he can take away your strength that you shall not relish any of your choicest delicacies; he can send a stone or a gout that shall make you willing to buy with all your riches a poor and a dishonorable health; and, which is yet worst of all, he can open your conscience, and let in upon your soul that lion which lies at the door, amaze you with the sight of your own sins, the history of your evil life, the experience of his terrors, the glimpses and preoccupations of hell, the evident presumptions of irreconciliation with him; the frenzy of Cain, the despair of Judas, the madness of Ahithophel, the trembling of Felix, which will damp all your delights, and make all your sweetest morsels as the white of an egg; at which pinch, however now you admire and adore your thick clay, you would count it the wisest bargain you ever made, to give all your goods to the poor, to go barefoot the whole day with the Prophet Isaiah, to dress your meat with the dung of a man, as the Lord commanded the Prophet Ezekiel, to feed with Micaiah in a dungeon on bread of affliction and water of affliction for many years together, that by these or any other means you might purchase that inestimable peace, which the whole earth, though changed into a globe of gold, or center of diamond cannot procure. So utterly unable are all the creatures in the world to give life, as that they cannot preserve it entire from foreign or domestic assaults, nor remove those dumps and pressures which do any way disquiet it.

Secondly, to remove this natural deadness of the creature, or rather to recompense it by the accession of a blessing from God, use means to reduce it to its primitive goodness. The Apostle shows us the way. Every creature of God is good, being sanctified by the Word of God and by prayer. In which place, because it is a text than which there are few places of Scripture that come more into daily and general use with all sorts of men, it will be needful to unfold: 1. What is meant by the sanctification of the creature. 2. How it is sanctified by the Word. 3. How we are to sanctify it to ourselves by prayer.

For the first, the creature is then sanctified, when the curse and poison which sin brought upon it is removed, when we can use the creature with a clean conscience, and with assurance of a renewed and comfortable estate in them. It is an allusion to legal purifications and differences of meats (Leviticus 11). No creature is impure of itself, says the Apostle, in its own simple created nature: but inasmuch as the sin of man forfeited all his interest in the creature, because by that very act a man is legally dead; and a condemned man is utterly deprived the right of any worldly goods (nothing is his by right, but only by generosity) and inasmuch as the sin of man has made him — though not a sacrilegious intruder, yet a profane abuser of the good things which remain, partly by indirectly procuring them, partly by despising the author of them, by mustering up God's own gifts against him in riot, luxury, pride, uncleanness, earthly-mindedness, hereby it comes to pass that to the unclean all things are unclean, because their minds and consciences are defiled. Now the whole creation being thus by the sin of man unclean, and by consequence unfitted for human use, as Saint Peter intimates, I never ate anything common or unclean, it was therefore requisite that the creature should have some purification, before it was to men allowed: which was indeed legally done in the ceremony, but really in the substance and body of the ceremony by Christ, who has now to us in their use, and will at last for themselves in their own being, deliver the creatures from that vanity and malediction, to which by reason of the sin of man they were subjected, and fashion them to the glorious liberty of the children of God, make them fit palaces for the saints to inhabit, or confer upon them a glory which shall be in the proportion of their natures a suitable advancement to them, as the glory of the children of God shall be to them. The blood of Christ does not only renew and purify the soul and body of man, but washes away the curse and dirt which adheres to every creature that man uses; does not only cleanse and sanctify his church, but renews all the creatures — Behold, says he, I make all things new; and if any man be in Christ, not only he is a new creature, but says the Apostle, all things are become new. Those men then who keep themselves out of Christ, and are by consequence under the curse, as their persons, so their possessions are still under the curse, as their consciences, so their estates are still unclean; they eat their meat like swine rolled up in dirt, the dirt of their own sin, and of God's malediction. So then the creature is then sanctified, when the curse thereof is washed away by Christ.

Now secondly, let us see how the creature is sanctified by the Word.

By 'Word' we are not to understand the Word of Creation, wherein God spoke and all things were made good and serviceable to the use of man. For sin came after that Word, and defaced as well the goodness which God put into the creature, as his image which he put into man. But by 'Word' I understand first in general God's command and blessing which strengthens the creature to those operations for which they serve: in which sense our Savior uses it (Matthew 4:4). And elsewhere: If you call those gods to whom the Word of God came, that is, who by God's authority and commission are fitted for subordinate services of government under him, say you of him whom the Father has sanctified, that is, to whom the Word of the Father and his commission or command came, to whom the Father has given authority by his power, and fitness by his Spirit to judge and save the world, 'You blaspheme,' because I said, 'I am the Son of God?' Secondly, by that Word I understand more particularly the fountain of that blessing, which the Apostle calls in general the Word of Truth, and more particularly, the Gospel of Salvation; and this word is a sanctifying word: 'Sanctify them by your truth; your Word is truth' (John 17:17). And as it sanctifies us, so it sanctifies the creatures too; it is the fountain not only of eternal, but of temporal blessings. And therefore we find Christ did not only say to the sick of the palsy, 'Your sins are forgiven you,' but also, 'Arise and walk' (Matthew 9:2, 6), intimating that temporal blessings come along with the Gospel — it has the promises as well of this life as that to come. 'I never saw the righteous forsaken,' says the prophet David — suitable to that of the Apostle, 'He has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you' (Hebrews 13:5) — 'nor their seed begging their bread' (Psalm 37:25). That is, never so wholly forsaken by God, if they were the seed of the righteous, inheritors of their father's hope and profession, as to make a constant trade of begging their bread, and so to expose the promises of Christ — that those who seek the kingdom of heaven shall have all other things added to them (Matthew 6:33) — to reproach and imputation from wicked men. Or thus: I never saw the righteous forsaken, or their seed forsaken by God, though they begged their bread, but even in that extremity God was present with them, to sanctify to their use, and to give them a comfortable enjoyment of that very bread which the exigency of their present condition had constrained them to beg. Thus we see in general that the blessing or command of God, and the fountain of that blessing, the Gospel of Salvation, do sanctify the creature.

But yet neither by the blessing nor the Gospel is the creature effectually sanctified to us, until it is by us apprehended with the Word and promise, and this is done by faith; for the Word, says the Apostle, profited not those that heard it, because it was not mingled or tempered with faith (Hebrews 4:2). For faith has this singular operation: to particularize and single out God and his promises to a man's self. So then the creature is sanctified by the Word and blessing believed and embraced, whereby we come to have a nearer right and peculiarity in the creatures which we enjoy. For being by faith united to Christ and made one with him — which is that noble effect of faith to incorporate Christ and a Christian together (Ephesians 3:17; Galatians 2:20) — we thereby share with him in the inheritance, not only of eternal life, but even of the common creatures. Fellow heirs we are and copartners with him (Romans 8:17); therefore inasmuch as God has appointed him to be heir of all things, as the Apostle says (Hebrews 1:2), we likewise, in the virtue of our fellowship with him, must in a subordinate sense be heirs of all things too. 'All is yours,' says the Apostle, 'and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's' (1 Corinthians 3:21, 23; Romans 8:32). The saints, says Saint Augustine, have all the world for their possession. And if it be here demanded how this can be true, since we find the saints of God often in great want, and it would doubtless be sin in them to usurp another man's goods upon presumption of that promise that Christ is theirs, and with him all things — to this I answer, first in general: as Christ, though he were the heir of all things, yet for our sakes became poor, that we by his poverty might be made rich (2 Corinthians 8:9), so God oftentimes is pleased to make the faithful partake not only in the privileges, but in the poverty of Christ, that even by that means they may be rich in faith and dependence upon God — as Saint James spoke (James 2:5) — having nothing, and yet possessing all things. Secondly, all is ours in regard of Christian liberty; though our hands are bound from the possession, yet our consciences are not bound from the use of any. Thirdly, though the faithful have not in the right of their inheritance any monopoly or engrossment of the creatures to themselves, yet still they have and shall have the service of them all. That is thus: if it were possible for any member of Christ to stand absolutely in need of the use and service of the whole creation, all the creatures in the world should undoubtedly wait upon him, and be appropriated to him. The moon should stand still, the sun go back, the lions should stop their mouths, the fire should give over burning, the ravens should bring him meat, the heavens should rain down bread, the rocks should gush out with water — all the creatures should muster up themselves to defend the body of Christ. But though no such absolute necessity shall ever be, yet ordinarily we must learn to believe that those things which God allows us are best suitable to our particular estate, God knowing us better than we do ourselves: that as less would perhaps make us complain, so more would make us full, and lift up our hearts against God, and set them on the world. So that all is ours — not absolutely, but subordinately, serviceably according to the exigency of our condition, to the proportion of our faith and furtherance of our salvation.

The third particular inquired into was, How do we by prayer sanctify the creature to ourselves? This is done in these three courses. 1. In procuring them. We ought not to set about any of our lawful and just callings without a particular addressing ourselves to God in prayer. This was the practice of good Eleazar, Abraham's servant, when he was employed in finding out a wife for his master's son, O Lord God of my master Abraham I pray you send me good speed this day: and this also was the practice of good Nehemiah in the distresses of his people, I prayed to the God of heaven, and then I spoke to the king. And surely the very heathen themselves shall in this point rise up in judgment against many profane Christians, who look oftener upon their gold than upon their God, as Salvian speaks. We read often in their writings that in any general calamity they did jointly implore the peace and favor of their idolatrous gods; that in any matter of consequence they made their entry upon it by prayer, commending the success thereof to the power and providence of those deities which they believed. In so much that we read of Publius Scipio, a great Roman, that he ever went to the Capitol before to the Senate, and began all the businesses of the commonwealth with prayer. How much more, then, ought we to do it, who have not only the law and dictate of nature to guide us, who have not deaf and impotent idols to direct our prayers to, as their gods were; but have first the law of Christ requiring it: Pray always. Pray without ceasing. In every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. Who have secondly the example of Christ to enforce it, for not only morning and evening was it his custom to pray; but upon every other solemn occasion. Before his preaching, before his eating, before the election of his disciples, before his transfiguration in the mount, before and in his passion; Who have thirdly from Christ that legitimate, ordinary, fundamental prayer, as Tertullian calls it, the Lord's Prayer, as a rule and directory by him framed to instruct us how to pray, and to bound and confine our extravagant and vast desires; Who lastly have also the altar of Christ to receive, the incense of Christ to perfume, the name and intercession of Christ to present our prayers to God by, who have Christ sanctifying, and, as I may so speak, praying our prayers to his Father for us; as we read of the angel of the covenant, who had a golden censer and much incense, to offer up the prayers of the saints, which was nothing else but the mediation of Christ bearing the iniquity of our holy things, as Aaron was appointed to do; nothing but his intercession for us at the right hand of his Father. I say, how much more reason have we, than any Gentile could have, to consecrate all our enterprises with prayer to God? Humbly to acknowledge how justly he might blast all our businesses, and make us labor in the fire; that unless he keep the city the watchman watches but in vain; that unless he build the house their labor is in vain that build it; that unless he give the increase, the planting of Paul, and the watering of Apollo are but empty breath; that it is only his blessing on the diligent hand which makes rich without any sorrow; that unless he be pleased to favor our attempts, neither the plotting of our heads, nor the solicitousness of our hearts, nor the drudgery of our hands, nor the whole concurrence of our created strength, nor any accessory assistances which we can procure will be able to bring to pass the otherwise most obvious and feasible events: and therefore to implore his direction in all our counsels, his concurrence with all our actions, his blessing on all our undertakings, and his glory as the sole end of all that either we are or do. For by this means we do first acknowledge our dependency on God as the first cause, and give him the glory of his sovereign power and dominion over all second agents, in acknowledging that without him we can do nothing, and the power of God is the ground of prayer. Secondly, by this means we put God in mind of his promises, and so acknowledge not our dependence on his power only, but on his truth and goodness too: and the promises and truth of God are the foundation of all our prayers. That which encouraged Daniel to set his face to seek to God in prayer for the restitution of liberty out of Babylon was God's promise and truth revealed by Jeremiah the Prophet, that he would accomplish but seventy years in the desolation of Jerusalem. That which encouraged Jehoshaphat to seek to God against the multitude of Moabites which came up against him, was his promise that he would hear and help those that did pray towards his house in their affliction. That which encouraged David to pray to God for the stability of his house, was the covenant and truth of God, You have revealed to your servant, saying, I will build you a house, therefore has your servant found in his heart to pray this prayer to you. And now, O Lord, you are that God, that is, the same God in your fidelity and mercy, as then you were, and your words are true, and you have promised this goodness to your servant; therefore let it please you to bless the house of your servant, etc. Excellent to this purpose is that which Saint Augustine observes of his mother, who very often and earnestly prayed to God for her son when he was a heretic, Chirographa tua ingerebat tibi, Lord, says he, she urged you with your own handwriting, she challenged in a humble and fearful confidence the performance of your own obligations. Thirdly and lastly, by this means we hasten the performance of God's decreed mercies; we retardate, yea quite hinder his almost purposed and decreed judgments. The Lord had resolved to restore Israel to their usual peace and honor, yet for all these things will I be inquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them, says he in the Prophet. The Lord had threatened destruction against Israel for their idolatry, had not Moses stood before him in the breach to turn away his wrath, as the Psalmist speaks. And we read of the primitive Christians, that their prayers procured rain from heaven, when the armies of the emperors were even famished for want of water, and that their very persecutors have begged their prayers.

Secondly, as by prayer the creature is sanctified in the procurement (for no man has reason to believe that there is any blessing intended to him by God in any of the good things which do not come in to him by prayer) so in the next place the creature is by prayer sanctified in the fruition thereof; because, to enjoy the portion allotted us, and to rejoice in our labor, is the gift of God, as Solomon speaks. The creature of itself is not only dead, and therefore unable to minister life by itself alone, but, which is worse, by the means of man's sin, it is deadly too, and therefore apt to poison the receivers of it without the corrective of God's grace. Pleasure is a thing in itself lawful; but corruption of nature is apt to make a man a lover of pleasure, more than a lover of God, and then is that man's pleasure made to him the metropolis of mischief, as Clement [reconstructed: Alexandrinus] speaks. A good name is better than sweet ointment, and more to be desired than much riches; but corruption is apt to put a fly of vainglory and self-affection into this ointment, to make a man foolishly feed upon his own credit, and with the Pharisees to do all for applause, and prefer the praise of men before the glory of God; and then our sweet ointment is degenerated into a curse: Woe be to you, when all men shall speak well of you. Riches of themselves are the good gifts and blessings of God, as Solomon says, The blessing of the Lord makes rich, but corruption is apt to breed by this means covetousness, pride, self-dependency, forgetfulness of God, scorn of the Gospel, and the like; and then these earthly blessings are turned into the curse of the earth, into thorns and briers, as the Apostle speaks, They that will be rich pierce themselves through with many sorrows. Learning in itself is an honorable and a noble endowment; it is recorded for the glory of Moses, that he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians: but corruption is apt to turn learning into leaven, to infect the heart with pride, which being armed and seconded with wit breaks forth into perverse disputes, and corrupts the mind. Therefore Saint Paul advised the Christians of his time, to beware lest any man spoil them through philosophy and beguile them with enticing words. And the ancient Fathers counted the philosophers the seminaries of heresy. Proof whereof, to let pass the Antitrinitarians and Pelagians, and other ancient [reconstructed: Heretics], who out of the niceness of a quaint wit perverted God's truth to the patronage of their lies; and to pass by the Schoolmen and Jesuits of late ages, who have made the way to heaven a very labyrinth of crooked subtleties, and have wove divinity into cobwebs; we may have abundantly in those Libertines and Cyrenians, who disputed with Stephen, and those Stoics that wrangled with Saint Paul about the resurrection. And now learning being thus corrupted is not only turned into weariness, but into very notorious and damnable folly, for thinking themselves wise, says the Apostle, they became fools, and their folly shall be made known to all men. To get wealth in an honest and painful calling is a great blessing, for the diligent hand makes rich; but corruption is apt to persuade to fraud, lying, equivocation, false weights, engrossments, monopolies and other arts of cruelty and injustice, and by this means our lawful callings are turned into abominations, mysteries of iniquity, and a pursuit of death. Every creature of God is good in itself, and allowed both for necessity and delight; but corruption is apt to abuse the creatures to luxury and excess, to drunkenness, gluttony and inordinate lusts, and by this means a man's table is turned into a snare, as the Psalmist speaks. Now then since all the world is thus bespread with snares, it mainly concerns us always to pray, that we may use the world as not abusing it, that we may enjoy the creatures with such wisdom, temperance, sobriety, heavenly affections, as may make them so many ascents to raise us nearer to God, as so many glasses in which to contemplate the wisdom, providence, and care of God to men, as so many witnesses of his love, and of our duty. And thus does prayer sanctify the creature in the use of it.

Lastly, and in one word, prayer sanctifies the creatures in the review and recognition of them, and God's mercy in them, with thanksgiving and thoughts of praise, as Jacob (Genesis 32:9-10) and David (2 Samuel 7:18, 21) looked upon God in the blessings with which he had blessed them. And now since prayer does thus sanctify the creatures to us, we should make friends of the unrighteous Mammon, that we may by that means get the prayers of the poor saints upon us and our estate, that the eye which sees us may bless us, and the ear that hears us may give witness to us; that the loins and the mouths, the backs and the bellies of the poor and fatherless may be as so many real supplications to God for us.

The third and last direction which I shall give you to find life in the creature, shall be to look on it, and love it in its right order, with subordination to God and his promises; to love it after God, and for God, as the beam which conveys the influences of life from him; as his instrument, moved and moderated by him to those ends for which it serves; to love it as the cistern, not as the fountain of life; to make Christ the foundation, and all other things but as accessions to him. Otherwise if we love it either alone, or above Christ, however it may by God's providence keep our breath a while in our nostrils, and fatten us against the last day, yet impossible it is that it should ever minister the true and solid comforts of life to us, which consists not in the abundance of things which a man possesses, as our Saviour speaks. Life goes not upward but downward, the inferior derives it not on the superior; therefore by placing the creature in our estimation above Christ, we deny to it any influence of livelihood from him, whom yet in words we profess to be the fountain of life. But men will object and say, This is a needless caution not to prefer the creature before the Creator, as if any man were so impious and absurd. Surely Saint Paul tells us, that men without faith are impious and absurd men, who do in their affections and practices as undoubtedly undervalue Christ, as the Gadarenes that preferred their swine before him. What else did Esau, when for a mess of pottage he sold away his birthright, which was a privilege that led to Christ? What else did the people in the Wilderness, who despised the holy Land, which was the type of Christ's Kingdom, and in their hearts turned back to Egypt? What else did those wicked Israelites, who polluted the table of the Lord, and made his altar contemptible, which was a type of Christ? What else did Judas and the Jews, who sold and bought the Lord of glory for the price of a beast? What else do daily those men, who make religion serve turns, and godliness wait upon gain? Who creep into houses with a form of piety, to seduce unstable souls, and pluck off their feathers to make themselves a nest? The Apostle's rule is general, that sensual and earthly-minded men are all the enemies of the Cross of Christ (Philippians 3:18-19).

The third and last disproportion between the soul of man and the creature arising from the vanity thereof, is in regard of duration and continuance. Man is by nature a provident creature, apt to lay up for the time to come, and that disposition should reach beyond the forecast of the fool in the gospel for many years, even for immortality itself. For certainly there is no man who has but the general notions of corrupted reason alive within him, who has not his conscience quite vitiated, and his mind putrified with noisome lusts, who is not wrapped up in the mud of thick ignorance and palpable stupidity, but must of necessity have oftentimes the immediate representations of immortality before his eyes. Let him never so much smother and suppress the truth, let him with all the art he can divert his thoughts, and entangle his thoughts in secular cares, let him shut his eye-lids as close as his nail is to his flesh, yet the flashes of immortality are of so penetrative and searching a nature, that they will undoubtedly get through all the obstacles, which a mind not wholly over-daubed with worldliness and ignorance can put between. Therefore the Apostle uses that for a strong argument, why rich men should not trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, and should be rich in good works, that so, he says, they may lay up in store a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life (1 Timothy 6:17, 19). Wicked men indeed lay up in store, but it is not riches, but wrath, even violence and oppression against the last day (Amos 3:10; James 5:3). But by trusting God and doing good a man lays up durable riches, as the wise man speaks (Proverbs 8:18); in which respect he presently adds, that the fruit of wisdom is better than gold. For though gold be of all metals the most solid, and therefore least subject to decay, yet it is not immortal and durable riches; for the Apostle tells us, that silver and gold are corruptible things (1 Peter 1:18; James 5:2), and that there is a rust and canker which [reconstructed: eats] up the gold and silver of wicked men. I confess the hearts of many men are so glued to the world, especially when they find all things succeed prosperously with them, that they are apt enough to set up their rest, and to conceive a kind of steadfastness in the things they possess. Because they have no changes, says the Prophet David, therefore they fear not God (Psalm 55:19). But yet I say, where the Lord does not wholly give a man over to heap up treasures to the last day, to be eaten up with the canker of his own wealth, the soul must of necessity sometime or other happen upon such sad thoughts as these. What ails my foolish heart thus to eat up itself with care, and to rob my eyes of their beloved sleep for such things, as to which the time will come when I must bid an everlasting farewell? Am I not a poor mortal creature, brother to the worms, sister to the [reconstructed: dust]? Do I not carry about with me a soul full of corruptions, a skin full of diseases? Is not my breath in my nostrils, where there is room enough for it to go out, and possibility never to come in again? Is my flesh of brass, or my bones of iron, that I should think to hold out, and without interruption to enjoy these earthly things? Or if they were, yet are not the creatures themselves subject to period and mortality? Is there not a moth in my richest garments, a worm in my tallest cedars, a canker and rust in my finest gold to corrupt and eat it out? Or if not, will there not come a day, when the whole frame of nature shall be set on fire, and the elements themselves shall melt with heat, when that universal flame shall devour all the bags, and lands, and offices, and honors, and treasures, and storehouses of worldly men? When heaven and hell shall divide the world; heaven, into which nothing can be admitted which is capable of moth or rust to corrupt it, and hell, into which if any such things could come, they would undoubtedly in one instant be swallowed up in those violent and unextinguishable flames (2 Peter 3:4)? And shall I be so foolish as to [reconstructed: place] my felicity in that which will fail me, when I shall stand in greatest need, to heap up treasures into a broken bag, to work in the fire where all must perish? Certainly the soul of a mere worldly man, who cannot find God or Christ in the things he enjoys, must of necessity be so far from reaping solid or constant comfort from any of these perishable creatures, that it cannot but ache and tremble, but be wholly surprised with dismal passions, with horrid preapprehensions of its own woeful estate, upon the evidence of the creatures' mortality, and the unavoidable flashes and conviction of its own everlastingness.

Now if we consider the various roots of this corruption in the creature, it will then further appear to us, that they are not only mortal, but even momentary and vanishing:

First, by the law of their creation they were made subject to alterations, there was an enmity and reluctance in their most entire being.

Secondly, this has been exceedingly improved by the [reconstructed: sin] of man, whose evil, being the lord of all creatures, must needs redound to the misery and mortality of all his retinue. For it was in the greater world, as in the administration of a private family; the poverty of the master is felt in the bowels of all the rest, his stain and dishonor runs into all the members of that society. As it is in the natural body some parts may be distempered and ill affected alone, others not without contagion on the rest; a man may have a dim eye, or a withered arm, or a lame foot, or an impedite tongue without any danger to the parts adjoining; but a lethargy in the head, or an obstruction in the liver, or a dyspepsia and indisposition in the stomach diffuses universal malignity through the body, because these are sovereign and architectonical parts of man: so likewise is it in the great and vast body of the creation. However other creatures might have kept their evil, if any had been in them, within their own bounds, yet that evil which man, the lord and head of the whole brought into the world, was a spreading and infectious evil, which conveyed poison into the whole frame of nature, and planted the seed of that universal dissolution which shall one day deface with darkness and horror the beauty of that glorious frame which we now admire. It is said that when Korah, Dathan, and Abiram had provoked the Lord by their rebellion against his servants to inflict that fearful destruction upon them, the earth opened her mouth and swallowed not only them up, but all the houses, and men, and goods that appertained to them. Now in like manner the heaven and earth and all inferior creatures did at first appertain to Adam: the Lord gave him the free use of them, and dominion over them: when therefore man had committed that notorious rebellion against his maker, which was not only to aspire like Korah and his associates to the height and principality of some fellow creature, but even to the absoluteness, wisdom, power and independency of God himself, no marvel if the wrath of God did together with him seize upon his house, and all the goods that belonged to him, bringing in that confusion and disorder which we even now see does break asunder the bonds and ligaments of nature, does unjoint the [reconstructed: confederacies] and societies of the dumb creatures, and turns the armies of the Almighty into mutinies and commotion, which in one word has so fast manacled the world in the [reconstructed: bondage] of corruption, as that it does already groan and linger with pain under the sin of man and the curse of God, and will at last break forth into that universal flame which will melt the very elements of nature into their primitive confusion. Thus we see besides the created limitedness of the creature, by which it was utterly unsuitable to the immortal desires of the soul of man, the sin of man has implanted in them a secret worm and rottenness which does set forward their mortality, and by adding to them confusion, enmity, disproportion, sedition, inequality (all the seeds of corruption) has made them, not only as before they were mortal, but which adds one mortality to another, even momentary and vanishing too. When any creature loses any of its native and created vigor, it is a manifest sign that there is some secret sentence of death gnawing upon it. The excellency of the heavens we know is their light, their beauty, their influences upon the lower world, and even these has the sin of man defaced. We find when the Lord pleases to reveal his wrath against men for sin in any terrible manner, he does it from heaven; There shall be wonders in the heaven, blood and fire, and pillars of smoke, the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood; and the day of the Lord is called a day of darkness, and gloominess, and thick darkness. How often has God's heavy displeasure declared itself from heaven in the confusion of nature? in storms and horrible tempests? in thick clouds and dark waters? in arrows of lightning and coals of fire? in blackness and darkness? in brimstone on Sodom, in a flaming sword over Jerusalem, in that fearful star of fire to the Christian world of late years, which has kindled those woeful combustions, the flames whereof are still so great, as that we ourselves, if we look upon the merits and provocations of our sins, may have reason to fear, that not all the sea between us and our neighbors can be able to quench till it have scorched and singed us. We find likewise by plain experience how languid the seeds of life, how faint the vigor either of heavenly influences, or of sublunary and inferior agents are grown, when that life of men, which was used to reach to almost a thousand years, is esteemed even a miraculous age, if it be extended but to the tenth part of that duration. We need not examine the inferior creatures, which we find expressly cursed for the sin of man with thorns and briars (the usual expression of a curse in Scripture). If we but open our eyes and look about us, we shall see what pains husbandmen take to keep the earth from giving up the ghost, in opening the veins thereof, in applying their soil and marl as so many pills or salves, as so many cordials and preservatives to keep it alive, in laying it asleep, as it were, when it lies fallow every second or third year, that by any means they may preserve in it that life, which they see plainly approaching to its last gasp.

Thus you see how besides the original limitedness of the creature, there is in a second place a moth or canker by the infection of sin begotten in them, which hastens their mortality, God ordering the second causes so among themselves, that they exercising enmity one against another, may punish the sin of man in their contentions, as the Lord stirred up the Babylonians against the Egyptians to punish the sins of his own people. And therefore we find, that the times of the Gospel, when holiness was to be more universal, are expressed by such figures, as restore perfection and peace to the creatures. The earth shall be fat and plenteous, there shall be upon every high hill rivers and streams of water, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun, and the light of the Sun sevenfold, as the light of seven days. And again, the Wolf shall dwell with the Lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and a Calf, and a young Lion, and a fatling together, etc. Which places, though figuratively to be understood, have yet methinks thus much of the letter in them, to assure us that whatever blemish since the creation any of those glorious heavenly bodies are either in themselves, or by interposition of foggy vapors subject to, whatever enmities and destructive qualities enrage one beast against another, they are all of them the consequences of that sin which nothing can remove but the Gospel of Christ. And this is that universal contagion which runs through the whole frame of nature into the bowels of every creature.

But yet further in a third place there is a particular ground of this mortality to many men, namely the particular curse upon that place or creature which men enjoy. For as a piece of oak besides the natural corruptibleness of it, as it is a body compounded of contrary principles, whereby it would of itself at last return to its dust again, may further have a worm like Jonah his gourd eating out the heart of it, and by that means hastening its corruption; and yet further besides that may be presently put into the fire, which will make a more speedy riddance than either of the former: or as in the body of a man, besides the general consumption, which lingeringly feeds upon the whole, each particular member may have a particular disease, which may serve to hasten that corruption to itself, which the other threatens to the whole: so may it be, and often is in the creatures of God. Besides their natural finiteness, and their general bondage of corruption, which by a hidden and insensible insinuation does emasculate the vigor and strength of the creatures, there may be a particular curse, which may serve speedily to hasten that decay, which, without any such concurrence, would have made haste enough to leave the possessors of them in everlasting penury. I will be to Ephraim as a moth and to the house of Judah as rottenness, says the Lord. That is God's first instrument of mortality whereby he will certainly though indeed lingeringly consume a thing. But now if for all this when the moth secretly consumes him, so that he sees his sickness and feels his wound, he will yet trust in his own counsels and confederacies, sacrifice to his own net, go to Assyria or King Jareb for succor, I will then be to Ephraim as a lion, in a more sudden and swift destruction. As he deals thus with men, so with the things about them too, first he puts a moth into them, rust in our gold, canker in our silver, heartlessness in our earth, faintness in the influences of heaven; and if notwithstanding all this men will still trust in the cistern, God will put holes into it too, which shall make it run out as fast as they fill it; he will give wings to their money, increase the occasions of expense: and if they clip their wings, that they fly not away, he will make holes in the bottom of their bags that they shall drop away: he will not only send a moth and rust which shall in time eat them out, but he will send a thief upon them too, which shall suddenly break through and carry them away. So many steps and gradations are there in the mortality of the creature, when God pleases to add his curse to them for sin. As for Ephraim, says the Lord, their glory shall fly away like a bird, from the birth, and from the womb, and from the conception. Observe the gradations of mortality in the best blessings we enjoy, in our very glory, namely our children, which are called an inheritance and reward to take away shame from their parents. They shall fly away like a bird, that notes the swiftness of the judgment, and that first from the birth; as soon as they are born the murderer shall destroy them: yes from the womb; before they are born they shall perish, nothing of them shall be enjoyed but the hope, and if that be too much, here is a degree as low as can be, from the very conception they shall miscarry and prove abortive. I will smite the winter house and the summer house, the houses of ivory, and the great houses shall have an end. If the Lord undertakes to smite, if he sends abroad the fire of his wrath, it shall seize on those palaces and great houses which men thought should have endured to all generations. For that flying scroll, importing judgment decreed, and sudden, which was sent over the whole earth against the thief and the swearer, did not only smite the man, but his house, and like a leprosy consume the very timber and stones thereof. Therefore we read in the Levitical law of leprosies not in men only but in houses, and garments, intimating to us, that sin derives a contagion upon any thing that is about us, and like ivy in a wall, or that wild Caprificus, will get rooting in the very substance of the stone in the wall, and break it asunder. Whatever it is that men can find out under the sun to fasten their hearts upon for satisfaction and comfort, this leprosy will defile it, and eat it out. If silver and gold, besides their secret rust and proper corruption, the Lord can make the thief rise up suddenly, and bite the possessors, and so unlade them of their thick clay: if real substance and increase, the Lord casts away, says the wise man, the substance of the wicked, and the increase of his house, says Job, shall depart and flow away. If greatness and high places, the Lord can put ice under their feet, make their places slippery, and subject to a momentary desolation: if a great name and glory, the Lord cannot only suffer time and ignorance to draw out all the memory of a man, but can presently rot his name from under heaven: if corn and the fruits of the earth, the Lord can kill it in the blade by withholding rain three months before the harvest: he can send a thief, a caterpillar, a palmer worm to eat it up. If it hold out to come into the barn, even there he can blow upon it and consume it like chaff. However men think when they have their corn in their houses, and their wine in their cellars they are sure and have no more to do with God, yet he can take away the staff and life of it in our very houses. Yes, when it is in our mouths and bowels, he can send leanness and a curse after it. Awake, you drunkards, and howl you drinkers of wine, says the prophet, because of the new wine, for it is cut off from your mouths. The Lord could defer the punishment of these men till the last day, when undoubtedly there will be nothing for them to drink but that cup of the Lord's right hand as the prophet calls it: a cup of fury and trembling, a cup of sorrow, astonishment, and desolation; a cup which shall make all that drink thereof to be moved and mad, to be drunken and fall, and spew, and rise up no more, even that fierce and bitter indignation, in the pouring out of which the Lord shall put to his right hand, his strong arm, not only the terror of his presence, but the glory of his power: I say the Lord could let drunkards alone till at last they meet with this cup, (which undoubtedly they shall do, if there be either truth in God's word, or power in his right hand, if there be either justice in heaven, or fire in hell) till with Belshazzar they meet with dregs and trembling in the bottom of all their cups: but yet oftentimes the Lord smites them with a more sudden blow, snatches away the cup from their very mouths, and so makes one curse anticipate and prevent another. Though Haman and Ahithophel should have lived out the whole thread of their life, yet at last their honor must have lain down in the dust with them; though Judas could have lived a thousand years, and could have improved the reward of his Master's blood to the best advantage that ever a usurer did, yet the rust would at last have seized upon his bags, and his money must have perished with him: but now the Lord sets forward his curse, and that which the moth would have been long in doing, the gallows dispatches with a more swift destruction. Thus as the body of a man may have many summons and engagements to one death, may labor at once under many desperate diseases, all which by a malignant conjunction must needs hasten a man's end (as Caesar was stabbed with thirty wounds, each one whereof might have served to let out his soul) so the creatures of God laboring under a manifold corruption, do as it were by so many wings post away from the owners of them, and for that reason must needs be utterly disproportionate to the condition of an immortal soul.

Now to make some application of this particular before we leave it, this does first discover and shame the folly of wicked worldlings both in their opinions and affections to earthly things. Love is blind and will easily make men believe that of any thing which they could wish to be in it: and therefore, because wicked men wish with all their hearts, for the love they bear to the creatures, that they might continue together forever, the Devil does at last so deeply delude them as to think that they shall continue forever. Indeed in these and in the general, they must needs confess that one generation comes and another goes: but in their own particular they can never assume with any feeling and experimental assent the truth of that general to their own estates: And therefore whatever for shame of the world their outward professions may be, yet the Prophet David assures us, That their inward thoughts, their own retired contrivances and resolutions are, that their houses shall endure forever, and their dwelling places to all generations; and upon this immortality of stones and monuments they resolve to rest. But the psalmist concludes this to be but brutish and notorious folly, This their way is their folly, they like sheep are laid down in their graves, and death feeds upon them. And indeed what a folly is it for men to build upon the sand, to erect an imaginary fabric of I know not what immortality, which has not so much as a constant subsistence in the head that contrives it? What man will ever go about to build a house with much cost (and when he has done, to inhabit it himself) of such rotten and inconsistent materials, as will undoubtedly within a year or two after fall upon his head, and bury him in the ruins of his own folly? Now then suppose a man were lord of all the world, and had his life coextended with it, were furnished with wisdom to manage and strength to run through all the affairs incident to this vast frame, in as ample a measure as any one man for the governance of a private family: yet the Scripture would assure even such a man, that there will come a day in which the heavens shall pass away with a noise, and the elements shall melt with heat, and the earth with the works that are therein shall be burnt up, and that there is but one hour to come before all this shall be, Behold now is the last hour: And what man upon these terms would fix his heart and ground his hopes upon such a tottering bottom, as will within a little while crumble into dust, and leave the poor soul that rested upon it to sink into hell? But now when we consider that none of us labor for any such inheritance, that the extremity of any man's hopes can be but to purchase some little patch of earth, which to the whole world cannot bear so near a proportion, as the smallest molehill to this whole habitable earth; that all we toil for is but to have our load of a little thick clay, as the Prophet speaks, that when we have gotten it, neither we nor it shall continue till the universal dissolution, but in the midst of our dearest embracements we may suddenly be pulled asunder, and come to a fearful end, it must needs be more than brutish stupidity for a man to weave the spider's webs, to wrap himself up from the consumption determined against the whole earth in a covering, that is so infinitely too short and too narrow for him. We will conclude this particular with the doom given by the Prophet Jeremiah. As the partridge sits on eggs and hatches them not, (she is either caught by the fowler, or her eggs are broken) so he that gets riches and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and in the end shall be a fool.

Secondly, this serves to justify the wisdom and providence of God in his proceedings with men: The wicked here provoke God, and cry aloud for vengeance on their own head, and the Lord seems to stop his ears at the cry of sin, and still to load them with his blessings, he makes their way to prosper, they take root, and grow and bring forth fruit: they shine like a blazing comet, and threaten ruin to all that look upon them; they carry themselves like some tyrant in a tragedy, that scatters abroad death with the sparkles of his eyes, and darts out threats against the heaven above him; they are like Agag before Samuel, clothed very delicately, and presume that there is no bitterness to come. And now the impatience of man, that cannot resolve things into their proper issues, that cannot let iniquity ripen, nor reconcile one day and a thousand years together, begins to question God's proceedings, and is afraid lest the world be governed blindfold, and blessings and curses thrown confusedly abroad for men as it were to scramble and to scuffle for them. But our God who keeps times and seasons in his own power, who has given to every creature under the sun limits which it shall not exceed, has set bounds to sin likewise wherein to ripen. The stars, however they may be sometimes eclipsed, have yet a fixed and permanent subsistence in their orbs; but these comets though they rise with a greater train and stream of light, yet at last vanish into ashes, and are seen no more: the tyrant though in two or three acts or scenes he revels it, and disturbs the whole business, yet at last he will go out in blood and shame — even so, though wicked men flourish and oppress, and provoke God every day, and rage like the sea, yet the Lord has set their bounds which they shall not pass, they have an appointed time to take their fill of the creature, and then when they have glutted and cloyed themselves with excess, when their humors are grown to a full ripeness, the Lord will temper them a potion of his wrath, which shall make them turn all up again, and shameful spewing shall be on their glory. Thus says the Lord, For three transgressions and for four I will not turn away the punishment of Damascus and those other cities. So long as the wicked commit one or two iniquities, so long I forbear, and expect their repentance; but when they proceed to three, and then add a fourth, that is, when they are come to that measure of sin which my patience has prefixed, then I will hasten my revenge, and not any longer turn away the punishment thereof (Amos 1:2). In the fourth generation, says God to Abraham, your posterity shall come out of the land where they shall be strangers, and shall inherit this land, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full (Genesis 15:16). There is a time when sin grows ripe and full and then the sickle comes upon it. When the Prophet saw a basket of summer fruits, that were so ripe as that they were gathered off the tree, (which was a type of the sins of God's people, which are sooner ripe than the sins of heathen that knew him not, because they have the constant light and heat of his Word to hasten their maturity) then, says the Lord, The end is come upon my people, I will not pass by them any more, I will have no more patience toward them (Amos 8:1-2). Jeremiah, what do you see? I see the rod of an almond tree. You have well seen, says the Lord, for I will hasten my Word to perform it (Jeremiah 1:11-12). When men hasten the maturity of sin like the blossoms of an almond tree, (which come soonest out) then says the Lord will I hasten the judgments which I have pronounced. We read in the Prophet Zechariah of an ephah, a measure into which all the wickedness of that people, figured by a woman, shall be thrown together, and when this measure of sins is full to the brim, then there is a mass of lead importing the firmness, immutability, and heaviness of God's decree and counsel, which seals up the ephah, never more to have any sin put into it, and then come two women with wind in their wings, which are the executioners of God's swift and irreversible fury, and carry the ephah between heaven and earth, intimating the public declaration of the righteous judgments of God, into the land of Shinar, to build it there a house, denoting the constant and perpetual habitation of the wicked in that place of bondage where the wrath of God shall drive them (for building of houses argues an abiding) (Zechariah 5:6-11). Put in the sickle for the harvest is ripe; come get you down, for the press is full, the vats overflow, for the wickedness is great (Joel 3:13). The revenge of sin is here and elsewhere compared to reaping, and treading the winepress; and the greatness of sin is here called the ripeness of the harvest, and the overflowing of the vats, to show to us that there is a time and measure of sin, beyond which the Lord will not defer the execution of his vengeance. There are days of visitation and recompense for sin, which being come, Israel which would not know before shall know, that God keeps their sins in store sealed up among his treasures, and that therefore their foot shall slip in due time, namely in the day of their calamity, or in their month, as the Prophet speaks. As God's blessings have a punctual time, from the twenty-fourth of the ninth month, from this day I will bless you: so likewise have his judgments too (Haggai 2:18). The days of man shall be a hundred and twenty years, to the old world (Genesis 6:3): nor are years only, but even months determined with him, Now shall a month devour them with their portions, to idolatrous Israel (Hosea 5:7). Nor months only, but days and parts of days; In a morning shall the king of Israel be cut off, his destruction shall be as sudden as it is certain (Hosea 10:15). The wicked plots against the [illegible], and gnashes upon him with his teeth: but though he plot, he shall not prosper, though he gnash with his teeth, he shall not bite with his teeth, for the Lord shall laugh at him — because he sees that His Day is coming (Psalm 37:17). So much mischief as he can do within the compass of his chain, the Lord permits him to do; but when he is come to His Day, then all his thoughts and projects perish with him. Excellently has holy Job stated the point, with whom I mean to conclude, Their good, says he, is not in their hand (Job 21:16). Riot it indeed they do, and take their fill of pleasure for a time, as the fish of the bait, when he has some scope of line given him to play; but still their good, their time, their line is in God's hand, they are not the lords of their own lives and delights. God lays up his iniquity for his children, that is, the Lord keeps an exact account of his sins, which perhaps he will repay upon the heads of his children, however he himself shall have no more pleasure in his house after him, when once the number of his months is cut off in the midst; and in the meantime however he be full of strength, wholly at ease and quiet, yet says he, The wicked is reserved to the day of destruction; He is but like a prisoner, shackled perhaps in fetters of gold, but he shall be brought forth to the day of wrath, and though he could rise out of the grave before Christ's tribunal, as Agag appeared before Samuel delicately clothed, yet the sword should cut him in pieces, and bitterness should overtake him. Thus we see how infinitely unable the creature shall be to shelter a man from the tribunal of Christ, and how wise, just, and wonderful the Lord is in the administration of the world in bearing with patience the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, and suffering them to muster up his own blessings against himself.

Lastly, this must serve for a needful caution to us, to take heed of deifying the creatures and attributing that immortality to them which they are not capable of. But inasmuch as they are only for present refreshment in this vale of misery, and have no matter of real and abiding happiness in them, not to look on them with an admiring or adoring eye, but to use them with such due correctives as become such mortal and mean things.

First in using the creature, be sure you keep your intellectuals untainted; for earthly things are apt to cast a film over men's eyes, and to misguide them into corrupt apprehensions and presumptions of them. We find nothing more frequent in the Prophets than to upbraid the people with their strange confidences which they were wont to rest upon against all the judgments which were denounced against them, by objecting their wealth, greatness, strong confederacies, inexpugnable munitions, their nests in the clouds, and their houses among the stars: they could never be brought to repent for sin, or to tremble at God's voice, till they were driven off from these holds. A man can never be brought to God till he forsake the creature, a man will never forsake the creature till he see vanity in the creature. Turn away my eyes from beholding vanity. David intimates that a man can never heartily pray against fixing his affections on earthly things, till he be really and experimentally convinced of the vanity of them. This rule Solomon observes to withdraw the desires of young men, who have strongest affections and smallest experience of the deceit of worldly things, Though you rejoice and cheer up yourself, and walk in the ways of your heart, and in the sight of your eyes, yet know that for all these things God will bring you to judgment (Ecclesiastes 11:9), a time will come when you shall be stripped of all these, when they shall play the fugitives, and the years of darkness shall draw near, when you shall say, I have no pleasure in them: and then the Lord will revenge your great ingratitude in forgetting and despising him amid all his blessings, in [reconstructed: idolizing] his gifts, and bestowing the attributions of his glory, and the affections due to him upon a corruptible creature. In the Roman Triumphs the General or Emperor, that rode in honor through the city with the principal of his enemies bound in chains behind his chariot, had always a servant running along by him with this corrective of his glory, [reconstructed: Respice] post te, hominem memento te. Look behind you, and in the persons of your enemies learn that you yourself are a man subject to the same casualties and dishonors with others. Surely, if men who had nothing but the creatures to trust to, being aliens from the Covenant of promise, and without God in the world, had yet so much care to keep their judgments sound touching the vanity of their greatest honors, how much more ought Christians, who profess themselves heirs of better and more abiding promises. But especially arm yourself against those vanities which most easily beset and beguile you; apply the authority of the Word to your own particular sickness and disease, treasure up all the experiences that meet you in your own course, or are remarkable in the lives of others, remember how a moment swallowed up such a pleasure, which will never return again, how an indirect purchase embittered such a preferment, and you never did feel that comfort in it, which your hopes and ambitions promised you, how a frown and disgrace at another time dashed all your contrivances for further advancement, how death seized upon such a friend, in whom you had laid up much of your dependence and assurances, how time has not only robbed you of the things, but even turned the edge of your desires and made you loathe your accustomed idols, and look upon your old delights as Amnon upon Tamar with exceeding hatred. But above all address yourself to the throne of Grace, and beseech the Lord so to sanctify his creatures to you, as that they may not be either thieves against him to steal away his honor, or snares to you to entangle your soul. We will conclude this first direction with the words of the Apostle: The time is short: It remains that both they that have wives be as though they had none, and they that weep as though they wept not, and they that rejoice as though they rejoiced not, and they that buy as though they possessed not, and they that use this world as not abusing it, that is, as not to be drowned and smothered in the businesses of this life, as if there were any fundamental and solid utility in them; for says he, The fashion of this world passes away (1 Corinthians 7:29). The Apostle's exhortation is beset at both ends with the same enforcement from where I have raised mine. First, The time is short; the Apostle, as the learned conceive, uses a metaphor from sails or curtains, or shepherd's tents (as Hezekiah makes the comparison, Isaiah 38:12) such things as may be gathered up together into a narrow room. Time is short, that is, that time which the Lord has spread over all things like a sail, has now these five thousand years been rolling up, and the end is now at hand, as Saint Peter speaks; the day is approaching when time shall be no more. And so the words in the original will well bear it, [illegible], The remainder of time is short, or time is short for so much as yet remains of it to be folded up, and therefore we ought so to behave ourselves as men that have more serious things to consider of, as men that are very near to that everlasting haven, where there shall be no use of such sails any more. And in the Apostle's close the same reason is further yet enforced: For the fashion of this world passes away. [illegible] The figure, intimating that there is nothing of any firmness or solid consistency in the creature; it is but a surface, an outside, an empty promise, all the beauty of it is but skin-deep; and then that little which is desirable and precious in the eyes of men (which the Apostle calls, The lust of the world, 1 John 2:17) [illegible], it passes away, and is quickly gone. The word, as the learned differently render it, has three several arguments in it to express the Apostle's exhortation.

1. It deceives or cheats, and therefore use it as if you used it not; use it as a man in a serious business would use a false friend that proffers his assistance, though his protestations be never so fair, yet so employ him as that the business may be done though he should fail you.

2. Transversum agit, It carries a man headlong, the lusts of the world are so strong and impetuous, that they are apt to inflame the desires, and even violently to carry away the heart of a man; and for this cause likewise use it as if you used it not, engage yourself as little upon it as you can, do as mariners in a mighty wind, [reconstructed: hoist] up as few sails, expose as few of your affections to the rage of worldly lust as may be; beware of being carried where two seas meet, as the ship wherein Paul suffered shipwreck, I mean, of plunging yourself in a confluence of many boisterous and conflicting businesses, lest for your inordinate prosecution of worldly things, the Lord either give your soul over to suffer shipwreck in them, or strip you of all your lading and tackling, break your estate all to pieces, and make you glad to get to Heaven upon a broken plank.

3. The fashion of this world passes over, it does but go along by you and salute you, and therefore use it as if you used it not; do to it as you would do to a stranger whom you meet in the way, he goes one way and you another; salute him, stay so long in his company till from him you have received better instructions touching the turnings and difficulties of your own way, but take heed you turn not into the way of the creature, lest you lose your own home.

Secondly, get an eye of faith, to look through and above the creature. A man shall never get to look off from the world, till he can look beyond it. For the soul will have hold-fast of something, and the reason why men cling so much to the earth is, because they have no assurance if they let go that hold of having any subsistence elsewhere. Labor therefore to get an interest in Christ, to find an everlasting footing in the steadfastness of God's promises in him, and that will make you willing to suffer the loss of all things, it will implant a kind of hatred and disestimation of all the most precious endearments which your soul did feed upon before. Saint Peter says of wicked men, that they are purblind, they cannot see far off; they can see nothing but that which is next them, and therefore no marvel if their thoughts cannot reach to the end of the creature. There is in a dim eye the same constant and habitual indisposition which sometimes happens to a sound eye by reason of a thick mist, though a man be walking in a very short lane, yet he sees no end of it; and so a natural man cannot reach to the period of earthly things, death and danger are still a great way out of his sight, whereas the eye of faith can look upon them as already expiring, and through them look upon him who therefore gives the creatures to us, that in them we might see his power and taste his goodness. And nature itself, I think, may seem to have intended some such thing as this in the very order of the creatures. Downward a man's eye has something immediately to fix on; all is shut up in darkness save the very surface, to note that we should have our desires shut up too from these earthly things which are put under our feet, and hid from our eyes, and buried in their own deformity. All the beauty, and all the fruit of the earth is placed on the very outside of it, to show how short and narrow our affections should be towards it. But upward the eye finds scarce anything to bound it, all is transparent and [reconstructed: diaphanous], to note how vast our affections should be towards God, how endless our thoughts and desires of his kingdom, how present to our faith the heavenly things should be even at the greatest distance. The Apostle says, that faith is the substance of things hoped for, that it gives being and present subsistency to things far distant from us, makes those things which in regard of natural causes are very remote, in regard of God's promises to seem hard at hand. And therefore though there were many hundred years to come in the Apostle's time, and, for anything we know, may yet be to the dissolution of the world, yet the Apostle tells us that even then it was the last hour, because faith being able distinctly to see the truth and promises of God, and the endlessness of that life which is then presently to be revealed, the infinite excess of vastness in that made that which was otherwise a great space seem even as nothing, no more in comparison than the length of a cane or trunk, through which a man looks on the heavens, or some vast country. And ever the greater magnitude and light there is in a body, the smaller will the medium or distance seem from it; the reason why a perspective glass draws remote objects close to the eye, is because it multiplies the species. We then by faith apprehending an infinite and everlasting glory, must needs conceive anything through which we look upon it to be but short and vanishing. And therefore though the promises were far off in regard of their own existence, yet the Patriarchs did not only see, but embrace them; their faith seemed to nullify and swallow up all the distance. Abraham saw Christ's day and was glad, he looked upon those many ages which were between him and his promised seed as upon small [reconstructed: and] inconsiderable distances in comparison of that endless glory into which they ran, they were but as a curtain or piece of hangings, which divide one room in a house from another. Labor therefore to get a distinct view of the height, and length, and breadth, and depth, and the unsearchable love of God in Christ, to find in your own soul the truth of God in his promises, and that his word abides forever, and that will make all the glory of other things to seem but as grass.

Lastly, though the creature be mortal in itself, yet in regard of man, as it is an instrument serviceable to his purposes, and subordinate to the graces of God in him, it may be made of use even for immortality. To which purpose excellent is that speech of Holy Austin, If you have not these earthly goods, says he, take heed how you get them by evil works here, and if you have them, labor by good works to hold them even when you are gone to heaven. Make you friends, says our Savior, of the unrighteous, that when you fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations; a religious and merciful use of earthly things makes way to immortality and blessedness. Cast your bread upon the waters, and after many days you shall find it. It is an allusion to husbandmen. They do not eat up and sell away all their corn, for then the world would quickly be destitute, but the way they take to perpetuate the fruits of the earth, is to cast some of it back again into a fruitful soil where the waters come, and then in due time they receive it with increase: so should we do with these worldly blessings, sow them in the bowels and backs of the poor members of Christ, and in the day of harvest we shall find a great increase. If then you draw out your soul to the righteous, and satisfy the afflicted soul, then shall your light rise in obscurity, and your darkness be as the noon day, then your waters shall not lie to you; that happiness which it falsely promises to other men, it shall perform to you. And so much be spoken touching the great disproportion between the soul of man and the creature, in regard of the vanity of it.

The next disproportion is in their operation: they are vexing and molesting things. Rest is the satisfaction of every creature; all the rovings and agitations of the soul are but to find out something on which to rest; and therefore where there is vexation, there can be no proportion to the soul of man; and Solomon tells us, that all things under the sun are full of labor, more than a man can utter. He was not used as an instrument of the Holy Ghost to speak it only, but to try it too; the Lord was pleased for that very purpose to confer on him a confluence of all outward happiness, and inward abilities which his very heart could desire, that he at last might discover the utter insufficiency of all created excellencies to quiet the soul of man. But if we will not believe the experience of Solomon, let us believe the authority of him that was greater than Solomon; who has plainly compared the things and the cares of the earth to thorns, which as the Apostle speaks, pierce or bore a man through with many sorrows.

First, they are wounding thorns; for that which is but a prick in the flesh is a wound in the spirit: because the spirit is most tender of smart: and the wise man calls them vexation of spirit. The Apostle tells us they beget many sorrows, and those sorrows bring death with them. If it were possible for a man to see in one view those oceans of blood which have been let out of men's veins by this one thorn; to hear in one noise all the groans of those poor men, whose lives from the beginning of the world to these days of blood wherein we live have been set at sale, and sacrificed to the insatiable ambition of their bloody rulers; to see and hear the endless remorse and bitter yellings of so many rich and mighty men as are now in hell, everlastingly cursing the deceit and murder of these earthly creatures, it would easily make every man with pity and amazement to believe, that the creatures of themselves without Christ to qualify their venom and to blunt their edge, are in good earnest wounding thorns.

Secondly they are choking thorns; they stifle and keep down all the gracious seeds of the word, indeed the very natural sproutings of nobleness, ingenuity, morality in the dispositions of men. Seed requires emptiness in the ground that there may be a free admission of the rain and influences of the heavens to cherish it: and so the Gospel requires nakedness and poverty of mind, a sense of our own utter insufficiency to ourselves for happiness, in which sense it is said that the poor receive the Gospel. But now earthly things meeting with corruption in the heart are very apt, first, to fill it, and secondly, to swell it, both which are conditions contrary to the preparations of the Gospel.

They fill the heart. First, with business — yokes of oxen, and farms, and wives, and the like contentments take up the studies and delights of men, that they cannot find any leisure to come to Christ.

Secondly, they fill the heart with love, and the love of the world shuts out the love of the Father, as the Apostle speaks. When the heart goes after covetousness, the power and obedience of the word is shut quite out. They will not do your words, says the Lord to the prophet, for their heart goes after their covetousness. A dear and superlative love, such as the Gospel ever requires (for a man must love Christ upon such terms as to be ready without consultation or delay, not to forsake only, but to hate father and mother, and wife, and any the choicest worldly endearments for his Gospel's sake) — I say such a love admits of no rivalry or competition. And therefore the love of the world must needs extinguish the love of the word.

Lastly, they fill the heart with fear of forgoing them; and fear takes off the heart from any thoughts save those which look upon the matter of our fear: when men who make gold their confidence hear that they must forsake all for Christ, and are sometimes perhaps put upon a trial, they start aside, choose rather securely to enjoy what they have present hold of, than venture the interruption of their carnal contentments for such things, the beauty whereof the Prince of this world has blinded their eyes that they should not see. For certainly until the mind be settled to believe that in God there is an ample recompense for anything which we may otherwise forgo for him, it is impossible that a man should soundly embrace the love of the truth, or renounce the love of the world.

Secondly, as they fill, so they swell the heart too, and by that means work in it a contempt and disestimation of the simplicity of the Gospel. We have both together in the Prophet, According to their pasture so were they filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted, therefore have they forgotten me. Now the immediate child of pride is self-dependence and a reflection on our own sufficiency, and from there the next issue is a contempt of the simplicity of that Gospel which would drive us out of ourselves. The Gentiles out of the pride of their own wisdom counted the Gospel of Christ foolishness, and mocked those that preached it to them: and the Pharisees, who were the learned doctors of Jerusalem, when they heard Christ preach against earthly affections, out of their pride and covetousness derided him as the Evangelist speaks. In fact further they stifle the seeds of all nobleness, ingenuity, or common virtues in the lives of men; from where come oppression, extortion, bribery, cruelty, rapine, fraud, injurious, treacherous, sordid, ignoble courses, a very dissolution of the laws of nature among men, but from the adoration of earthly things, from that idol of covetousness which is set up in the heart?

Thirdly, they are deceitful thorns, as our Saviour expresses it. Let a man in a tempest go to a thorn for shelter, and he shall light upon a thief instead of a fence, which will tear his flesh instead of succoring him, and do him more injury than the evil which he fled from; and such are the creatures of themselves, so far are they from protecting, that indeed they tempt, and betray us. The pride of your heart has deceived you, you that dwell in the clefts of the rocks, you that say in your heart, Who shall bring me down? I will bring you down, says the Lord to Edom.

Lastly, they are vanishing thorns. Nothing so apt, nothing so easy to catch fire, and be presently extinguished. They are quenched like a fire of thorns.

To consider yet more distinctly the vexation of the creature, we will observe first the degrees; secondly, the grounds of it; and thirdly, the uses which we should put it to.

Five degrees we shall observe of this vexation. First, the creatures are apt to molest the spirit in the procuring of them, even as thorns will certainly prick in their gathering. They make all a man's days sorrow, and his travail grief, they suffer not his heart to take rest in the night, as the wise man speaks. What pains will men take? What hazards will they run to procure their desires? Pains of body, plotting of brain, conflicts of passions, biting of conscience, disreputation among men, scourge of tongues, anything, everything will men venture, to obtain at last that which it may be is not a competent reward for the smallest of these vexations. How will men exchange their salvation, throw away their own mercy, make themselves perpetual drudges and servants to the times, fawn, flatter, comply, couple in with the instruments or authors of their hopes, hazard their own blood in desperate undertakings, and stain their consciences with the blood of others, to swim through all to their adored haven. [reconstructed: To adore the common people, to dispense kisses, and to do all things servilely for power.] The historian spoke it of Otho that Roman Absalom, he worshipped the people, dispensed frequently his courtesies and plausibilities, crouched and accommodated himself to the basest rabble, that thereby he might creep into a usurped honor, and get himself a hated memory in after ages. And that the like vexation is ordinary in the procurement of any earthly things will easily appear, if we but compare the disposition of the mind with the obstacles that meet us in the pursuit of them. Suppose we a man importunately set to travel to some place where the certainty of some great profit or preferment attends his coming, the way through which he must go is intricate, deep, impassable, the beast that carries him lame and tired, his acquaintance none, his instructions few, what a heavy vexation must this needs be to the soul of that man to be crossed with so many difficulties in so eager a desire? Just this is the case with natural men in the prosecution of earthly things. First, the desires of men are very violent (which the Scripture uses to express by making haste, greedy coveting, a purpose to be rich) — those that will be rich, cannot be quiet till their desires are accomplished: and therefore we find strong desires in the Scripture-phrase expressed by such things as give intimation of pain with them. The Apostle describes them by groaning and sighing; the Prophet David by panting and gasping; the Spouse in the Canticles by sickness, I am sick with love. Thus Amnon grew lean for the desire of his sister, and was vexed and sick; thus Ahab waxed heavy, and laid him down on his bed, and turned away his face, and would not eat because of Naboth's vineyard. So that very importunity of desires is full of vexation in itself. But besides, the means for fulfilling these desires are very difficult, the instruments very weak and impotent: perhaps a man's wits are not suitable to his desires, or his strength not to his wits, or his stock not to his strength, his friends few, his rivals many, his businesses tough and intricate, his counsels uncertain, his projects way-laid and prevented, his contrivances dashed and disappointed, such a circumstance unforeseen, such a casualty starting suddenly out, such an occurrence meeting the action has made it unfeasible, and shipwrecked the expectation. A man deals with the earth, he finds it weak and languid, every foot of that must often times lie fallow, when his desires do still plow; with men, he finds their hearts hard, and their hands close; with servants, he finds them slow and unfaithful; with trading he finds the times hard, the world at a stand, every man too thrifty to deal much, and too crafty to be deceived; so that now that vexation which was at first begun with vehemency of desire, is mightily improved with impatience of opposition, and lastly much increased with the fear of utter disappointment at last. For according as the desires are either more urgent, or more difficult, so will the fears of their miscarriage grow; and it is a miserable thing for the mind to be torn asunder between two such violent passions as desire and fear.

The second degree of vexation is in the multiplying of the creature, that men may have it to look upon with their eyes, and to worship it in their affections. And in this case the more the heap grows, the more the heart is enlarged to it; and impossible it is that that desire should be ever quieted, which grows by the fruition of the thing desired. A wolf that has once tasted blood is more fierce in the desire of it than he was before; experience puts an edge upon the appetite; and so it is in the desires of men, they grow more savage and raging in the second or third prosecution than in the first. It is a usual self-deceit of the heart to say and think, If I had such an accession to mine estate, such a dignity mingled with mine other preferments, could but leave such and such portions behind me, I should then rest satisfied and desire no more. This is a most notorious cheat of the fleshly heart of man; first thereby to beget a secret conceit, that since this being gotten I should sit quietly down, I may therefore set myself with might and main to procure it, and in the mean time neglect the state of my soul, and perhaps shipwreck my conscience upon indirect and unwarrantable means for fulfilling so warrantable and just a desire. And secondly thereby likewise to inure and habituate the affections to the love of the world, to plunge the soul in earthly delights, and to distill a secret poison of greediness into the heart. For it is with worldly love as with the sea, let it have at the first never so little a gap at which to creep in, and it will eat out a wider way, till at last it grow too strong for all the bulwarks and overrun the soul. Omne peccatum habet in se mendacium: there is something of the lie in every sin, but very much in this of worldliness, which gets upon a man with slender and modest pretences, till at last it gather impudence and violence by degrees; even as a man that runs down a steep hill is at last carried not barely by the impulsion of his own will, but because at first he engaged himself upon such a motion, as in the which it would prove impossible for him to stop at his pleasure. We read in Saint Augustine's Confessions of Alipius his companion, who being by much importunity overcome to accompany a friend of his to those bloody Roman games, wherein men killed one another to make sport for the people; and yet resolving though he went with his body, to leave his heart behind him, and for that purpose to keep his eyes shut, that he might not stain them with so ungodly a spectacle, yet at last upon a mighty shout at the fall of a man, he could not forbear to see the occasion, and upon that grew to couple with the rout, and to applaud the action as the rest did. In another place of the same book we read of Monica, the mother of that holy man, that she had so often used to sip the wine that came to her father's table, that from sipping she grew to loving, and from there to excessive drinking, which particulars are by him reported, to show the deceitfulness of sin in growing upon the conscience, if it can but win the heart to consult, to deliberate, to indulge a little to itself at first: for it is in the case of sin, as it is in treason, qui deliberant desciverunt, to entertain any the most modest terms of parley with God's enemy is downright to forsake him. And if it be so in any thing, then much more in the love of the world; for the Apostle tells us, [illegible] that is a root, and therefore we must expect, if ever it get [illegible] in us, partly by reason of its own fruitful quality, partly by reason of the fertile soil wherein it is, the corrupt heart of man, partly by reason of Satan's constant plying it with his husbandry and suggestions, that it will every day grow faster, settle deeper, and spread wider in our souls. By which means it must needs likewise create abundance of vexation to the spirits of men. For as manna in the Wilderness, when the people would not be content to have from God their daily bread, but would needs be hoarding and multiplying of it, bred worms and stank; so when men will needs heap up wealth and other earthly supplies beyond stint or measure, they do but store up worms to disquiet their minds, that which will rot and annoy the owners. They pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, says the prophet of those cruel oppressors that sold the righteous for shoes; it notes how the fierceness of a greedy and insatiable desire will wear out the strength of a man, make him spend all his wits, and even gasp out his spirits, in pursuing the poor to the dust, sucking out their very livelihood and substance, till they are forced to lie down in the dust. Woe to him, says the prophet, that increases that which is not his, enlarging his desires as hell and death, that loads himself with thick clay, that is in other expressions, that stores up violence and robbery, that heaps treasures against the last day; the words show us what the issue of vehement and indefatigable affections is, they do but create vexations to a man's own soul, and all his wealth will at length lie upon his conscience like a load and mountain of heavy earth.

The third degree of vexation is from the enjoyment, or rather from the use of earthly things. For though a wicked man may be said to use the creatures, yet in a strict sense he cannot be said to enjoy them. The Lord makes his sun to shine upon them, gives them a lawful interest, possession, and use of them; but all this does not reach to a fruition. For that imports a delightful sweet orderly use of them, which things belong to the blessings and promises of the Gospel. In which respect the Apostle says, that God gives to us [in non-Latin alphabet], all things richly to enjoy. This is the main sting and vexation of the creature alone without God's more especial blessing, that in it a man shall still taste a secret curse, which deprives him of that dearness and satisfaction which he looks for from it. False joy like the crackling of thorns he may find, but still there is some fly in the ointment, some death in the pot, some madness in the laughter, which in the midst of all dampens and surprises the soul with horror and sadness; there are still some secret suggestions and whisperings of a guilty conscience, that through all this Jordan of pleasure a man swims down apace into a dead sea, that all his delights do but carry him the faster to a final judgment. [reconstructed: Res severa est verum gaudium]: True joy, says the heathen man, is not a perfunctory, a floating thing, it is serious and substantial, it sinks to the center of the heart. As in nature, the heavens we know are always calm, serene, uniform, undisturbed; they are the clouds and lower regions that thunder and bluster. The sun and stars raise up no fogs so high, as that they may imprint any real blot upon the beauty of those purer bodies, or disquiet their constant and regular motions; but in the lower regions, by reason of their nearness to the earth, they frequently raise up such meteors as often break forth into thunders and tempests. So the more heavenly the mind is, the more untainted does it keep itself from the corruptions and temptations of worldly things, the more quiet and composed is it in all estates; but in minds merely sensual the hotter God's favors shine, and the faster his rain falls upon them, the more fogs are raised, the higher thorns grow up, the more darkness and distractions do shake the soul of such a man. As fire under water, the hotter it burns, the sooner it is extinguished by the over-running of the water: so earthly things raise up such tumultuous and disquiet thoughts in the minds of men, as does at last quite extinguish all the heat and comfort which was expected from them.

Give me leave to explain this vexation in some one or two of Solomon's particulars, and to unfold his enforcements thereof out of them. And first to begin with that with which he begins. The knowledge of things, either natural in this present text, or moral and civil, verse 17, of both which he concludes that they are vanity and vexation of spirit. The first argument he takes from the weakness of it either to restore or correct any thing that is amiss. That which is crooked cannot be made straight. We may understand it several ways. First, all our knowledge by reason of man's corruption is but a crooked, ragged, impeded knowledge, and for that reason a vexation to the mind: for rectitude is full of beauty, and crookedness of deformity. In man's creation his understanding should have walked in the straight path of truth, should have had a distinct view of causes and effects in their immediate successions; but now sin has mingled such confusion with things, that the mind is obliged to take many crooked and vast circuits for a little uncertain knowledge. Secondly, the weakness of all natural knowledge is seen in this that it cannot any way either prevent or correct the natural crookedness of the smallest things, much less make a man solidly and substantially happy. Thirdly, that which is crooked cannot be made straight. It is impossible for a man by the exactest knowledge of natural things to make the nature of a man, which by sin is departed from its primitive rectitude, straight again, to repair that image of God which is so much distorted. When they knew God, they glorified him not as God, they became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. It is the Apostle's speech of the wisest heathen. Aristotle, the most rational heathen man that the world knows of, in his doctrine confesses the disability of moral knowledge to rectify the intemperance of nature, and made it good in his practice; for he used a common strumpet to satisfy his lust. Seneca likewise the exactest Stoic which we meet with, than whom never any man wrote more divinely for the contempt of the world, was yet the richest usurer that ever we read of in ancient stories, though that were a sin discovered and condemned by the heathen themselves.

A second ground of vexation from knowledge is the defects and imperfections of it. That which is wanting cannot be numbered. There are many thousand conclusions in nature which the most inquisitive judgment is not able to pierce into, nor resolve into their just principles. Nay, still the more a man knows, the more discoveries he makes of things which he knows not.

Thirdly, in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increases knowledge increases sorrow. In civil wisdom, the more able a man is the more service is cast upon him, the more businesses run through him, the less can he enjoy his time or liberty. His eminence loads him with envy, jealousies, observation, suspicions, forces him oftentimes upon unwelcome compliancies, upon colors and inventions to palliate unjust counsels, and stop the clamors of a gainsaying conscience, fills him with fears of miscarriage and disgrace, with projects of honor and plausibility, with restless thoughts touching discoveries, preventions, concealments, accommodations, and the like, in one word is very apt to make him a stranger to God and his own soul. In other learning, let a man but consider, first, the confusion, uncertainty, involvedness, perplexities of causes and effects by man's sin; secondly, the pains of the body, the travail of the mind, the sweat of the brain, the tugging and plucking of the understanding, the very drudgery of the soul to break through that confusion, and her own difficulties; thirdly, the many invincible doubts and errors which will still blemish our brightest notions; fourthly, the great charges which the very instruments and furniture of learning will put men to; fifthly, the general disrespect which, when all is done, it finds in the world, great men scorning it as pedantry, ordinary men unable to take notice of it, and great scholars fain to make up a theater among themselves; sixthly, the insufficiency thereof to perfect that which is amiss in our nature, the malignant property thereof to put sin into armor, to contemn the simplicity and purity of God's Word; and lastly, the near approach thereof to its own period, the same death that attends us being ready also to bury all our learning in the grave with us: these and infinite like considerations must needs mingle much sorrow with the choicest learning.

Secondly, let us take a view of pleasure. There is nothing that so much disables in the survey of pleasure as the mixture either of folly or want. When a man has wisdom to apprehend the exquisiteness of his delights, and variety to keep out the [reconstructed: surfeit] of any one, he is then fittest to examine what compass of goodness or satisfaction is in them. First then Solomon kept his wisdom, he pursued such manly and noble delights as might not vitiate but rather improve his intellectuals (Ecclesiastes 2:1-3). Secondly, his wisdom was furnished with variety of subjects to inquire into, he had magnificence and provisions suitable to the greatness of his royal mind. Sumptuous and delicate diet under the name of wine (Ecclesiastes 2:3), stately edifices (Ecclesiastes 2:4), vineyards and orchards, yea very paradises, as large as woods (Ecclesiastes 2:5-6), fish-ponds, and great waters, multitudes of attendants and retinue of all sexes, mighty herds of cattle of all kinds (Ecclesiastes 2:7), great treasures of silver and gold, all kinds of music vocal and instrumental. Thirdly, Solomon exceeds in all these things all that ever went before him (Ecclesiastes 2:9). Fourthly, as he had that most abundant, so likewise the most free, undisturbed, unabated enjoyment of them all, he withheld not his heart from any joy; there was no mixture of sickness, war, or any intercurrent difficulties to corrupt their sweetness, or blunt the taste of them. Here are as great preparations as the heart of man can expect to make a universal survey of those delights which are in the creature: and yet at last upon an impartial inquiry into all his most magnificent works, the conclusion is, they were but vanity and vexation of spirit (Ecclesiastes 2:11). Which vexation he further explains: first, by the necessary divorce which was to come between him and them, he was to leave them all (Ecclesiastes 2:18); secondly, by his disability so to dispose of them as that after him they might remain in that manner as he had ordered them (Ecclesiastes 2:19). Thirdly, by the effects which these and the like considerations worked in him; they were so far from giving him real satisfaction, as that first, he hated all his works, for there is nothing makes one hate more eagerly than disappointment in the good which a man expected. When Ammon found what little satisfaction his exorbitant lust received in ravishing his sister Tamar, he as fiercely hated her after as he had desired her before. Secondly, he despaired of finding any good in them, because they beget nothing but travail, drudgery, and unquiet thoughts.

Lastly let us take a view of riches, the ordinarily most adored idol of all the rest. The wise man says first in general, neither riches nor yet abundance of riches will satisfy the soul of man (Ecclesiastes 5:10). This he more particularly explains. First, from the sharers which the increase of them does naturally draw after it (verse 11), and between the owners and the sharers there is no difference but this, an empty speculation, one sees as his own, what the other enjoys to those real purposes for which they serve as well as he. Secondly, from the unquietness which naturally grows by the increase of them, which makes an ordinary drudge in that respect more happy (verse 12). Thirdly, from the hurt which usually, without some due corrective they bring (verse 13): either they hurt a man in himself, being strong temptations and materials too of pride, vainglory, covetousness, luxury, intemperance, forgetfulness of God, love of the world, and by these of disorder, dissoluteness, and diseases in the body; or else at least they expose him to the envy, accusations, violences of wicked men. Fourthly from their uncertainty of abode, they perish by an evil travail, either God's curse, or some particular humor, lust, or project overturns a great estate, and posterity is beggared. Fifthly from the certainty of an everlasting separation from them (verses 15-16), and this he says is a sore evil, which galls the heart of a worldly man, that has resolved upon no other heaven than his wealth, when sickness comes to snatch him away from this his idol, there is not only sorrow, but wrath and [reconstructed: fury] in him (verse 17). Sixthly, from the disability to use or enjoy them, when a man through inordinate love, or distrustful providence, or sordidness of spirit, or encumbrances of employments, will not while he lives enjoy his abundance, and when he dies has not, either by his own covetous prevention, or his successor's inhumanity, an honorable burial (Ecclesiastes 6:1-3). Seventhly, from the narrowness of any satisfaction which can be received from them (verse 7): all the wealth a man has can reach no higher than the filling of his mouth, than the outward services of the body, the desires of the soul remain empty still. A glutton may fill his belly, but he cannot fill his lust; a covetous man may have a house full of money, but he can never have a heart full of money; an ambitious man may have titles enough to overcharge his memory, but never to fill his pride; the agitations of the soul would not cease, the curiosity of the understanding would not stand at a stay, though a man could hold all the learning of the great library in his head at once; the sensuality of a lascivious man would never be satiated, it would be the more enraged, though he should [reconstructed: tire] out his strength and waste his spirits, and stupefy all his senses with an excessive intemperance. When men have done all they can with their wisdom and wealth they can fill no more but the mouth, and poverty and folly makes a shift to do so too (verse 8); the desires wander, the soul [reconstructed: moves] up and down as ever (verse 9). Eighthly, from their disability to protect or rescue a man from evil, to advance the strength of a man beyond what it was before (verse 10). Though a man could scrape all the wealth in the [reconstructed: world] together, he were but a man still, subject to the same dangers and infirmities as before, nothing can exalt him above, or exempt him from the common laws of humanity: neither shall he be ever able to contend with him that is mightier than he. All his wealth shall be never able to blind the eye, or bribe the justice, or restrain the power of Almighty God, if he be pleased to inflict the strokes of his vengeance upon his conscience.

The fourth degree of vexation is from the review of them. First, if a man consider the means of his getting them. His conscience will often tell him, that perhaps he has pursued indirect and unwarrantable ways of gain, has ventured to lie, flatter, swear, deceive, supplant, undermine, to corrupt and adulterate wares, to hoard up and dissemble them [illegible] until a dearer season, to trench upon God's day for his own purposes, that so he might not only receive, but even steal away blessings from him. Secondly, if a man consider the manner, the inordinate and over-eager way of procuring them. How much precious time have you spent which can never be recalled again, for one hour of which a tormented soul in hell would part with all the world if he had the disposal of it, to be but so small a space within the possibilities of salvation again — how much of this precious time have you spent for that which is no bread, and which satisfies not? How many golden opportunities of increasing the graces of your soul, of feeding your faith with more noble and heavenly contemplations on God's truth and promises, on his name and attributes, on his word and worship, of rousing up your soul from the sleep of sin, of stirring up and newly inflaming your spiritual gifts, of addressing yourself to a more serious, assiduous, durable communion with your God, of mourning for your own corruptions, of groaning and thirsting after heavenly promises, of renewing your vows and resolutions, of besieging and besetting heaven with your more urgent and retired prayers, of humbling yourself before your God, of bewailing the calamities, the stones, the dust of Zion, of deprecating and repelling approaching judgments, of glorifying God in all his ways — things of precious, spiritual and everlasting consequence — how many of these golden opportunities has your too much absurd love and attendance on the world stolen from you? And surely to a soul enlightened these must needs be matters of much vexation. Thirdly, if a man consider the use he has made of them: how they have stolen away his heart from trusting in God to rely on them; how they have diverted his thoughts from the life to come, and bewitched him to dote on present contentments; to love life, to fear death, to dispense with much unjust liberty, to gather rust and security in God's worship? How much excess and intemperance they have provoked, how little of them have been spent on God's glory and church, how small a portion we have repaid him in his ministers or in his members? How few naked backs they have clothed? How few empty bellies they have filled? How few languishing bowels they have refreshed? How few good works and services they have rewarded? These are considerations which to sensible consciences must sometime or other produce much vexation. Fourthly, if a man consider his own former experiences, or the examples of others that bring the vanity of these earthly things to mind. How some of his finest pleasures have now outlived him and are expired; how the Lord has snatched from his dearest embracements those idols which were set up against his glory; how many of his hopes have failed, of his expectations and presumptions proved abortive; how much money at one time a sickness, at another a suit, at a third a thief, at a fourth a shipwreck or miscarriage, at a fifth, indeed at a twentieth time a lust has consumed and eaten out. How many examples there are in the world of withered and blasted estates, of the curse of God not only like a moth insensibly consuming, but like a lion suddenly tearing asunder great possessions.

The last degree of vexation from the creature is from the disposing of them. All creatures, sinners especially, that have no hope or portion in another life, do naturally love a present earthly immortality: and therefore though they cannot have it in themselves, yet as the philosopher says of living creatures, the reason why they generate is, that that immortality which in their own particulars they cannot have, they may [illegible] so far as they are able procure in the species or kind which they thus preserve; so rich and worldly men, though they cannot be immortal on the earth themselves, yet they seek an immortality in their names and dwelling places (Psalm 49:11), and therefore they desire to transmit their substance to such successors as may have wisdom and nobility of mind to continue it. Now then if a man either has no heir, or one that is so active as to alter, or so careless and passive as to ruin all, either base to dishonor the house, or profuse to overthrow it, these and many other the like doubts must needs infinitely perplex the minds of men, greedy to perpetuate their names and places (Ecclesiastes 2:18-19).

The second thing which we proposed to consider in this argument was the grounds of this vexation. I shall name but three: God's curse; man's corruption; and the creature's deceitfulness.

I have at large before insisted on the curse considered alone, now I am to show in one word the issuing of vexation therefrom. The curse of the creature is as it were the poison and contagion of it; and let a man mix poison in the most delicate wine, it will but so much the easier, by the nimbleness of the spirits there, invade the parts of the body, and torment the bowels. Gold of itself is a precious thing, but to be shackled with fetters of gold, to have it turned into a use of bondage, adds mockery to the affliction; and far more precious to a particular man is a chain of iron which draws him out of a pit, than a chain of gold which clogs him in a prison; a key of iron which lets him out of a dungeon, than a bar of gold that shuts him in. If a man should have a great diamond curiously cut into sharp angles, worth many thousand pounds, in his bladder, no man would count him a rich, but a miserable and a dead man; this is just the case between a man and the creatures of themselves without Christ to sanctify them to us; though the things be excellent in their own being, yet mingled with our corruptions and lusts, they are turned into poison, into the gall of asps within a man, they will not suffer him to feel any quietness in his belly, in the fullness of his sufficiency he shall be in straights, and while he is eating, the fury of wrath shall rain down upon him. Let a man's meat be never so sweet in itself, yet if he should temper the sauce with dirt out of a sink, it would make it altogether loathsome; and a wicked man eats all his meat like swine wrapped up and overdaubed with dirt and curses. A little, says Solomon, which the righteous has is better than great riches of the ungodly: in itself it is not, but as to the man it is: for that little which a righteous man has is to him an experience of God's promise, a branch of his love, a means of thankful affections in him, a provision for heaven; whereas the wicked man's abundance turns into his greater curse, their table becomes their snare, and those things which should have been for their good prove to them an occasion of falling. God makes his sun to shine on the just and on the unjust, on a garden of spices and on a dunghill: but in the one it begets a sweet favor of praise and obedience, in the other it raises up noisome lusts, which prove a savor to death. And who had not rather be free in a cottage, than condemned in a palace? Saint Paul distinguishes of a reward and a dispensation. If I preach the gospel willingly I have a reward, if against my will a dispensation is committed to me. We may apply it to our purpose. Those good things which the faithful enjoy though but small are yet rewards and accessions to the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and so long they bring joy and peace with them; but to the wicked they are merely a dispensation, they have only the burden and business, not the reward nor benediction of the creature.

The second ground is the corruption of nature, which makes bitter and unclean every thing that touches it. It pollutes holy flesh, much more will it pollute ordinary things. We read of a roll which was sweet in the mouth, but bitterness in the belly: such are the creatures; in the bowels of men, their hearts and consciences (which are the seminaries of corruption) they turn into gall, however in the mouth they have some smack of honey in them. For this is a constant rule: then only does the creature satisfy a man when it is suitable to his occasions and necessities. The reason why the same proportion is insufficient for a prince, which is abundant for a private man, is because the occasions of the prince are more vast, massive, and numerous than the occasions of a private man. Now the desires and occasions of a man in Christ, that does not ransack the creature for happiness, are limited and shortened, whereas another man's are still at large: for he is in a way, his eye is upon an end, he uses the world but as an inn, and no man that travels homeward will multiply businesses unnecessarily upon himself in the way. In his house he can find sundry employments to busy himself about, the education of his children, the government of his family, the managing of his estate are able to fill up all his thoughts, whereas in the inn he cares for nothing but his refreshment and rest. So here, the faithful make their home their business, how to have their conversation in Heaven, how to have a free and comfortable use of the food of life, how to relish the mercies of God, how to govern their evil hearts, how to please God their father and Christ their husband, how to secure their interest in their expected inheritance, how to thrive in grace, to be rich in good works, to purchase to themselves a further degree of glory, how to entail their spiritual riches to their posterity in a pious education of their children — these are their employments: the things of this life are not matters of their home, but only comfortable refreshments in the way, which therefore they use not as their grand occasions to create businesses to them, but only as interims and necessary respites. So that hereby their occasions being few and narrow, those things which they here enjoy are to those occasions largely suitable, and by consequent very satisfactory to their desires. But worldly men are here at home, they have their portion in this life: hereupon their desires are vast, and their occasions springing out of those desires, infinite. A man in the right way finds at last an end to his journey, but he that is out of the way wanders infinitely without any success. Rest is that which the desires and wings of the soul do still carry men upon. Now the faithful being always in the way, do with comfort go on, though it be perhaps deep and heavy, because they are sure it will bring them home at last; but wicked men in a fairer way are never satisfied, because they have not before them that rest which their soul desires. For inordinate lusts are ever infinite. What made the heathen burn in lust one towards another, but because the way of nature is finite, but the way of sin infinite? What made Nero that wicked emperor have an officer about him, who was called Arbiter Neroniana libidinis, the inventor and contriver of new ways of uncleanness, but because lust is infinite? What made Messalina, that prodigy of women, whom I presume Saint Paul had a particular relation to (Romans 1:26), Profluere ad incognitas libidines, as the historian speaks, prostitute herself with greediness to unnatural and unknown abominations, but because lust is infinite? What makes the ambitious man never leave climbing, till he build a nest in the stars; the covetous man never leave scraping, till he fill bags, and chests, and houses, and yet can never fill the hell of his own desires; the epicure never cease swallowing, and spewing, and staggering, and inventing new arts of catches, and rounds, and healths, and caps, and measures, and damnation; the swearer find out new gods to invoke, and have change of oaths as it were of fashions; the superstitious traveler run from England to Reims, and from there to Rome, and from Rome to Loreto, and after that to Jerusalem to worship the milk of our Lady, or the [reconstructed: manger] and tomb of our Savior, or the nails of his Cross, or the print of his feet, and I know not what other fond delusions of silly men, who had rather find salvation anywhere than in the Scriptures; what is the reason of these and infinite the like absurdities, but because lust is infinite? And infinite lust will breed infinite occasions, and infinite occasions will require infinite wealth, and infinite wit, and infinite strength, and infinite instruments to bring them about: and this must needs beget much vexation of mind not to have our possessions in any measure proportionable to our occasions.

The third and last ground is the creature's deceitfulness; there is no one thing that will more disquiet the mind than to be defeated. Those things wherein men fear miscarriage, or expect disappointment, they prepare such a disposition of mind as may be fit to bear it: but when a man is surprised with evil, the novelty increases the vexation. And therefore the Scripture uses to express the greatness of a judgment by the unexpectedness of it: "When you did terrible things which we looked not for." The unexpectedness does add to the terror. A breach in an instant, a momentary, a sudden destruction, a swift damnation, a flying roll, a winged woman — such are the expressions of a severe judgment. And therefore it was a wise observation which Tacitus made of a great Roman: he was Ambiguarum rerum sciens, eoque intrepidus — he foresaw, and by consequence was not so much troubled with evil events, as those whom they did surprise. Now men are apt to promise themselves much [reconstructed: contentment] in the enjoyment of earthly things, like the fool in the parable, and to be herein disappointed is the ground of much vexation. When a man travels in a deep way and sees before him a large smooth plain, he presumes that will recompense the toil he was formerly put to; but when he comes to it, and finds it as rotten, as full of sloughs, and bogs and quagmires as his former way, his trouble is the more multiplied, because his hopes are deceived. The devil and the world beget in men's minds large hopes, and make profuse promises to those that will worship them; and a man at a distance sees abundance of pleasure and happiness in riches, honors, high place, eminent employments, and the like; but when he has his heart's desire, and perhaps has out-climbed the very modesty of his former wishes, has ventured to break through many a hedge, to make gaps through God's law and his own conscience, that he might by shorter passages hasten to the idol he so much worshipped, he finds at last that there was more trouble in the enjoyment than expectation at the distance. That all this is but like the Egyptian temples, where through a stately frontispiece and magnificent structure a man came with much preparation of reverence and worship but to the image of an ugly ape, the ridiculous idol of that people. A man comes to the world as to a lottery with a head full of hopes and projects to get a prize, and returns with a heart full of blanks, utterly deluded in his expectation. The world uses a man as ivy does an oak — the closer it gets to the heart, the more it clings and twists about the affections (though it seems to promise and flatter much) yet it does indeed but eat out his real substance and choke him in the embraces.

First then they deceive our judgments, make us think better of them than they deserve; they deal with us as the Philistines with Samson, they begin at our eyes. Thus the devil began to beguile Eve: when she saw that the tree was good, and pleasant to the eyes, then being thus first deceived, she became a transgressor. And thus Esau disputes himself out of his birthright: "I am at the point of death, the pottage will make me live, the birthright will not go into the grave with me; I will prefer my life before my privilege."

Secondly, they deceive our hopes and expectations. Achan promised himself much happiness in a wedge of gold and Babylonish garment; but they were devoted and cursed things, they did not only deceive him, but undo him. The wedge of gold (if I may so speak) served to no other purpose but to cleave asunder his soul from his body, and the Babylonish garment but for a shroud. Gehazi's presumptions were vast, and the bargain he thought very easy — to buy garments, and olive yards, and vineyards, and sheep and oxen, and manservants and maidservants at the price of an officious and mercenary lie. He thought he had provided well for his posterity by the reward of Naaman; but the event proves quite contrary — he provided nothing but a leprosy for himself and his seed forever.

They deceive our hopes in respect of good; they promise long life, and yet the same night a man's soul is taken from him, and they the instruments of that calamity. How many men have perished by their honors? How many have been eaten up by their pleasures? How many has the greedy desire of wealth poured out into the grave? They promise peace and safety (as we see how Israel boasted in their mountains, confederacies, supplies from Egypt and Assyria, in their own counsels and inventions) and yet all these end in shame and disappointment. They promise liberty, and yet make men slaves to vile lusts. They promise fitness for God's service, and nothing is more apt to make men forget him or his worship. Thus all those fantastical felicities, which men build upon the creature, prove in the end to have been nothing else but the banquet of a dreaming man, nothing but lies and vanity in the conclusion.

Lastly, they deceive us likewise in respect of evil. No creatures, however they may promise immunity and deliverance, can do a man any good when the Lord will be pleased to send evil upon him. And yet it is not for nothing that a truth so universally confessed should yet be repeated in the Scripture, that silver, and gold, and corruptible things are not a fit price for the souls of men. Doubtless the holy men of God foresaw a time when false Christs, and false Prophets should come into the world, which should set salvation to sale, and make merchandise of the souls of men (as we see at this day in popish indulgences, and penance, and the like no less ridiculous than impious superstitions). Neither is it for nothing that Solomon tells us, that riches, indeed, whole treasures do not profit in the day of death: a speech repeated by two prophets after him. For surely those holy men knew how apt wealth and greatness is to bewitch a man with conceits of immortality, as has been shown. Who were they that made a covenant with death, and were at an agreement with hell to pass from them, but the scornful men, the rulers of the people, which had abundance of wealth and honor? Who were they that did put far away the evil day, and in despite of the Prophets' threatenings did flatter themselves in the conceit of their firm and inconcussible estate, but they who were at ease in Zion, who trusted upon the mountains of Samaria, who lay upon beds of ivory, and stretched themselves upon their couches. But we see all this was but deceit, they go captive with the first of those that go captive, and the banquet of them that stretched themselves is removed. All earthly supports without God are but like a stately house on the sand, without a foundation; a man shall be buried in his own pride. He that is strong shall be left wanting his strength, he that is mighty and should deliver others, shall be too weak for his own defense, he that is swift shall be amazed, and not dare to fly; if he be a bowman, at a great distance, if he be a rider and have a great advantage, he shall yet be overtaken, and he that is courageous, and adventures to stand out, shall be forced to fly away naked at the last. Whatever hopes or refuges any creature can afford a man in these troubles, they are nothing but froth and vanity, the Lord challenges and derides them all. And the Prophet Isaiah gives a sound reason of it all, the Egyptians are men and not God, and their horses are flesh and not spirit, when the Lord shall stretch out his hand, both he that helps shall fall, and he that is helped shall fall down, and they all shall fail together.

Before we proceed to the last thing proposed; here is a question to be answered. If the creatures be so full of vexation, it should seem that it is unprofitable and by consequence unlawful either to labor or to pray for them. Which yet is plainly contrary to Christ's direction, Give us our daily bread, and contrary to the practice of the Saints who use to call for the fatness of the earth and dew of heaven, peace of walls and prosperity of palaces upon those whom they bless.

To which I answer. That which is evil by accident does not prejudice that which is good in itself and by God's ordination. Now the vexation which has been spoken of is not an effect flowing naturally out of the condition of the creature, but arises merely by accident, upon the reason of its separation from God, who at first did appoint his own blessed communion to go along with his creatures. Now things which are good in themselves, but accidentally evil may justly be the object of our prayers and endeavors: and so on the other side, many things there are which in themselves alone are evil, yet by the providence and disposition of God they have a good issue, they work together for the best to them that love God. It was good for David that he had been afflicted: yet we may not lawfully pray for such evils on ourselves or others, upon presumption of God's goodness to turn them to the best. Who doubts that the calamities of the Church do at this time stir up the hearts of men to seek the Lord and his face, and to walk humbly and fearfully before him; yet that man should be a curse and prodigy in the eyes of God and men, who should still pray for the calamities of Zion, and to see the stones of Jerusalem still in the dust. Death is in itself an evil thing (for the Apostle calls it an enemy, 1 Corinthians 15) yet by the infinite power and mercy of God, who delights to bring good out of evil, and beauty out of ashes, it has not only the sting taken away, but is made an entrance into God's own presence, with reference to which benefit, the Apostle desires to be dissolved and to be with Christ (Philippians 1:23). Now notwithstanding this goodness which death by accident brings along with it, yet being in itself a destructive thing, we may lawfully in the desires of our soul shrink from it and decline it. Example of which we have in the death of Christ himself, which was of all as the most bitter, so the most precious: and yet by reason of that bitterness which was in it, he prays against it, presenting to his Father the desires of his soul for that life which he came to lay down: as his obedience to his Father, and love to his Church made him most willingly embrace death, so his love to the integrity of his human nature, and fear of so heavy pressures as he was to feel, made him as seriously decline it. And though the Apostle did most earnestly desire to be with Christ, yet he did in the same desire decline the common road there through the dark passages of death (2 Corinthians 5:4). Unlawful indeed it is for any man to pray universally against death, because that were to withstand the statutes of God (Hebrews 9:27) but against any particular danger we may; as Hezekiah did (1 Kings 20:1-2) reserving still a general submission to the will and decrees of God. For we are bound in such a case to use all good means, and to pray for God's blessing upon them, which amounts to a prayer against the danger itself. So then, by the rule of contraries, though the creatures be full of vanity and vexation, yet this must not swallow up the apprehension of that goodness which God has put into them, nor put off the desires of men from seeking them of God in those just prayers which he has prescribed, and in those lawful endeavors which he has commanded and allowed.

The third thing proposed was the consideration of that use which we should make of this vexation of the creature. And first the consideration thereof mingled with faith in the heart must needs work humiliation in the spirit of a man, upon the sight of those sins which have so much defaced the good creatures of God. Sin was the first thing that did pester the earth with thorns (Genesis 3:17-18), and has filled all the creation with vanity and bondage. Sin is the ulcer of the soul; touch a wound with the softest lawn, and there will smart arise; so though the creatures be never so harmless, yet as soon as they come to the heart of a man, there is so much sin and corruption there, as must needs beget pain to the soul. The palate, prepossessed with a bitter humor, finds its own distemper in the sweetest meat it tastes; so the soul, having the ground of bitterness in itself, finds the same affection in every thing that comes near it. Death itself, though it be none of God's works, but the shame and deformity of the creature, yet without sin it has no sting in it (1 Corinthians 15:55); how much less sting, think we, have those things which were made for the comforts of man's life, if sin were not the serpent that did lurk under them all? Do you then in your swiftest career of earthly delights, when you are posting in the ways of your heart, and in the sight of your eyes, feel a curb privately galling your conscience, a secret damp seizing upon your soul, and frightening it with dismal suspicions and trembling preoccupations of attending judgments, see a hand against the wall writing bitter things against you? Do you in all your lawful callings find much sweat of brow, much toil of brain, much plunging of thoughts, much care of heart in compassing your just and lawful intentions? Do not lose the opportunity of that good which all this may suggest to you, take advantage to fish in this troubled water. Certainly there is some Jonah that has raised this storm, there is some sin or other that has caused all this trouble to your soul. Do not repine at God's providence, nor quarrel with the dumb creatures, but let your indignation reflect upon your own heart; and as ever you hope to have the sweat of your brow abated, or the care of your heart remitted, or the curse of the creature removed, cast yourself down before God, throw out your sin, awake your Savior with the cry of your repentance, and all the storms will be suddenly calmed. Certainly the more power any man has over the corruption of his nature, the less power has the sting of any creature over his heart. Though you have but a dinner of herbs with a quiet conscience, reconciled to God, you do therein find more sweetness than in a fatted ox with the contentions of a troubled heart. Whenever therefore we find this thorn in the creature, we should throw ourselves down before God, and in some such manner as this bewail the sin of our heart, which is the root of that thorn. Lord, you are a God of peace and beauty, and whatever comes from you must needs originally have peace and beauty in it. The earth was a paradise when you did first bestow it upon me, but my sin has turned it into a desert, and cursed all the increase thereof with thorns. The honor which you gave me was a glorious attribute, a sparkle of your own fire, a beam of your own light, an impress of your own image, a character of your own power; but my sin has put a thorn into my honor, my greediness when I look upward to get higher, and my giddiness when I look downward for fear of falling, never leaves my heart without anguish and vexation. The pleasure which you allow me to enjoy is full of sweet refreshment, but my sin has put a thorn into this likewise; my excess and sensuality has so choked your Word, so stifled all seeds of nobleness in my mind, so like a canker overgrown all my precious time, stolen away all opportunities of grace, melted and wasted all my strength, that now my refreshments are become my diseases. The riches which you gave me, as they come from you, are sovereign blessings, wherewith I might abundantly have glorified your name, and served your church, and supplied your saints, and made the eyes that saw me to bless me, and the [reconstructed: ears] that heard me, to bear witness to me, wherewith I might have covered the naked back, and cured the bleeding wounds, and filled the hungry bowels, and satisfied the fainting desires of my own Savior in his distressed members; but my sin has put in so many thorns of pride, hardness of heart, uncompassionateness, endless cares, security and resolutions of sin, and the like, as are ready to pierce me through with many sorrows. The calling wherein you have placed me is honest and profitable to men, wherein I might spend my time in glorifying your name, in obedience to your will, in attendance on your blessings; but my sin has brought so much ignorance and inapprehension upon my understanding, so much weakness upon my body, so much intricateness upon my employments, so much rust and sluggishness upon my faculties, so much earthly-mindedness upon my heart, as that I am not able without much discomfort to go on in my calling. All your creatures are of themselves full of honor and beauty, the beams and glimpses of your own glory; but our sin has stained the beauty of your own handiwork, so that now your wrath is as well revealed from heaven as your glory, we now see in them the prints as well of your terrors as of your goodness. And now, Lord, I do in humbleness of heart truly abhor myself, and abominate those cursed sins, which have not only defiled my own nature and person, but have spread deformity and confusion upon all those creatures, in which your own wisdom and power had planted so great a beauty, and so sweet an order. After some such manner as this ought the consideration of the thorniness of the creature humble us in the sight of those sins which are the roots thereof.

Secondly, the consideration hereof should make us wise to prevent those cares which the creatures are so apt to beget in the heart: those I mean which are branches of the vexation of the creature. There is a twofold care, regular and irregular. Care is then regular, first, when it has a right end, such as is both suitable with and subordinate to our main end, the kingdom of God, and his righteousness. Secondly, when the means of procuring that end are right; for we may not do evil to effect good. Recovery was a lawful end which Ahaziah did propose, but to inquire of Baalzebub was a means which did poison the whole business: in fact Saint Austin is resolute, that if it were possible by an officious lie to compass the redemption of the whole world, yet so weighty and universal a good must rather be let fall, than brought about by the smallest evil. Thirdly, when the manner of it is good, and that is, first, when the care is moderate (Philippians 4:5-6). Secondly, when it is with submission to the will and wisdom of God, when we can with comfort of heart, and with much confidence of a happy issue recommend every thing that concerns us to his providence and disposal, can be content to have our humors mastered, and conceits captivated to his obedience, when we can with David resolve not to torment our hearts with needless and endless projects, but to roll ourselves upon God's protection. If I shall find favor in his eyes, he will bring me again, and show me both the Ark and his habitation; but if he says to me, I have no delight in you, let him do to me as seems good to him. Such was the resolution of Eli, It is the Lord, let him do what seems good to him. Such the submission of the disciples of Caesarea, when they could not persuade Paul to stay from Jerusalem, The will of the Lord be [reconstructed: done]. Completely contrary to that wicked resolution of the King of Israel in the famine, This evil is of the Lord, why should I wait for the Lord any longer. Now in this respect care is not a vexation but a duty; he is worse than an infidel that provides not for his own. Our Savior himself had a bag in his family, and Solomon sends foolish and improvident men to the smallest creatures to learn this care (Proverbs 6:8).

That care then which is a branch of this vexation is not [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] but [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], a cutting, dividing, distracting care, against which we ought the rather to strive, not only because it is so apt to arise from the creature coupling in with the corruption of man's heart, but also because of its own evil quality, it being both superfluous and sinful. First, irregular cares are superfluous, and improper to the ends which we direct them upon, and that not to our main end only, happiness, which men toiling to discover in the creature where it is not, do instead thereof find nothing but trouble and vexation; but even to those lower ends which the creatures are proper and suitable to. For to us properly belongs the industry, but to God the care, to us the labor and use of means, but to God the blessing and success of all. Though Paul plant and Apollo waters, it is God only that can give the increase, he must be trusted with the events of all our industry. Peter never began to sink till he began to doubt, that was the fruit of his anxiety and unbelief. Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature, says Christ, our cares can never bring to pass our smallest desires; because I say the care of events was ever God's prerogative and belonged wholly to his providence. Upon him we must cast our care, upon him we must unload our burdens, and he will sustain us. We are all of one family, of the household of God and of faith, now we know children are not to lay up for parents, but parents for children. If we should see a child fret and toil for his living, we should presently conclude that he was left to the wide world, and had no father to provide for him; and that is our Savior's argument, take no thought, for your heavenly Father knows you have need of these things. Let us therefore learn to cast ourselves upon God. First, in faith depending on the truth of his promises, He has said I will not fail you nor forsake you, and upon the all-sufficiency of his power, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us. This was that which comforted David in that bitter distress, when Ziklag was burnt by the Amalekites, his wives taken captive, and himself ready to be stoned by the people, he encouraged himself in the Lord his God. This was that which delivered Asa from the huge host of the Lubims and Ethiopians, because he rested on God; and all which afterwards he got by his diffidence and carnal projects, was to purchase to himself perpetual wars. That which grieved the Lord with his people in the Wilderness was their distrust of his power and protection, Can he spread a table in the Wilderness? Can he give bread also and flesh for his people? And indeed as Cain's despair, so in some proportion, any fainting under temptation, any discontent with our estate, proceed from this, that we measure God by ourselves, that we conceive of his power only by those issues and ways of escape which we are by our own wisdoms able to forecast, and when we are so constrained that we can see no way to turn, there we give over trusting God, as if our sins were greater than could be forgiven, or our afflictions than could be removed. It is therefore a notable means of establishing the heart in all estates, to have the eye of faith fixed upon the power of God, to consider that his thoughts and contrivances are as much above ours, as Heaven is above the earth; and therefore to resolve with Jeroboam, that when we know not what to do, yet we will have our eyes upon him still. Son of Man, says the Lord to Ezekiel, can these dead bones live; and he answered, O Lord God you know. Your thoughts are above our thoughts; and where things are to us impossible, they are easy to you. Secondly, by prayer. This is a main remedy against careful thoughts. When the Apostle had exhorted the Philippians, that their moderation, that is, their equanimity and calmness of mind in regard of outward things, should be known to all men, he presses it with this excellent reason, The Lord is at hand, he is ever at home in his own family, he is near to see the wants, and to hear the cries of all that come to him; therefore says he, Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving (thanksgiving for what you have, and prayer for what you want) let your requests be made known to God, and he shall furnish you with peace in all estates. A notable example of which promise we have in Anna the mother of Samuel; in the bitterness of her soul she wept, and did not eat (namely of the sacrifices, which were to be eaten with rejoicing) then she prayed, and vowed a vow to the Lord, and having cast her cares upon him, she then went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad. Hezekiah in his sickness chattered like a swallow, and mourned as a dove; but after his prayer he sung songs of deliverance to the stringed instruments. Habakkuk before his prayer trembled, but after his prayer he triumphed in the midst of death. David full of heaviness and of groanings in his prayer, but after as full of comfort against all his enemies.

Secondly, as irregular cares are needless and superfluous, so they are sinful too. First, in regard of their object, they are worldly cares, the cares of the men of this world: therein we declare ourselves to walk in conformity to the Gentiles, as if we had no better foundation of quietness and contentment than the heathen which know not God. And this is Christ's argument, after all these things do the Gentiles seek. We are taken out of the world, we have not received the spirit of the world, and therefore we must not be conformable to the world, nor bring forth the fruits of a worldly spirit, but walk as men that are set apart, as a peculiar people, and that have heavenly promises, and the grace of God to establish our hearts. Illi terrena sapiant qui promissa coelestia non habent, it is seemly for those alone who have no other portion but in this life, to fix their thoughts and cares here. Secondly, they are sinful in regard of their causes, and they are principally two. First, inordinate lust or coveting, the running of the heart after covetousness; secondly, distrust of God's providence, for those desires which spring from lust can never have faith to secure the heart in the expectation of them. Lastly, they are sinful in their effects. First, they are murdering cares, they work sadness, suspicions, uncomfortableness, and at last death. Secondly, they are choking cares, they take the heart from the word, and thereby make it unfruitful. Thirdly, they are adulterous cares, they steal away the heart from God, and set a man at enmity against him. In all which respects we ought to arm ourselves against them.

Which that we may the better do, we will in the last place propose two sorts of directions. First, how to make the creature no vexing creature. Secondly, how to use it as a vexing creature: for the former. First, pray for convenience, for that which is suitable to your mind, I mean not to the lusts, but to the abilities of your mind. Labor ever to suit your occasions to your parts, and your supplies to your occasions. If a ship out of greediness be overloaded with gold, it will be in danger of sinking, notwithstanding the capacity of the sides be not a quarter filled; on the other side fill it to the brim with feathers, and it will still toss up and down for want of due ballasting: so is it in the lives of men, some have such greedy desires, that they think they can run through all sorts of business and so never leave loading themselves, till their hearts sink and be swallowed up with worldly sorrow and security in sin: others set their affections on such trivial things, that though they should have the fill of all their desires, their minds would still be as floating and unsettled as before. Resolve therefore to do with yourself as men with their ships. There may a tempest arise, when you must be constrained to throw out all your wares into the sea; such were the times of the Apostles and after bloody persecutions, when men were put to forsake father, mother, wife, children, nay to have the ship itself broken to pieces, that the mariner within might escape upon the ruins. But besides this, in the calmest and securest times of the Church these two things you must ever look to, if you tender your own tranquility. First, fill not yourself only with light things. Such are all the things of this world in themselves, besides the room and cumbersomeness of them (as light things take up ever the most room) they still leave the soul floating and unsettled. Do therefore as wise mariners, have strong and substantial ballasting in the bottom, faith in God's promises, love and fear of his name, a foundation of good works, and then whatever becomes of your other loading, your ship itself shall be safe at last, you shall be sure in the greatest tempest to have your life for a prey. Secondly, consider the burden of your vessel; all ships are not of an equal capacity, and they must be freighted, and manned, and victualed with proportion to their burden. All men have not the same abilities, some have such a measure of grace as enables them with much wisdom and improvement to manage such an estate as would puff up another with pride, sensuality, superciliousness, and forgetfulness of God. Again some men are fitted to some kind of employments, not to others, as some ships are for merchandise, others for war; and in these varieties of states every man should pray for that which is most suitable to his disposition and abilities, which may expose him to fewest temptations, or at least by which he may be most serviceable in the body of Christ, and bring most glory to his Master. This was the good prayer of Agur, give me neither poverty nor riches, feed me with food convenient for me: this is that we all pray, give us our daily bread, that which is most proportioned to our condition, that which is fittest for us to have, and most advantageous to the ends of that Lord whom we serve.

Secondly, labor ever to get Christ into your ship, he will check every tempest, and calm every vexation that grows upon you. When you shall consider that his truth, and person, and honor is embarked in the same vessel with you, you may safely resolve on one of these, either he will be my pilot in the ship, or my plank in the sea to carry me safe to land; if I suffer in his company, and as his member, he suffers with me, and then I may triumph to be made any way conformable to Christ my head. If I have Christ with me, there can no estate come which can be cumbersome to me. Have I a load of misery and infirmity inward, outward, in mind, body, name or estate, this takes away the vexation of all, when I consider it all comes from Christ, and it all runs into Christ. It all comes from him as the wise disposer of his own body, and it all runs into him as the compassionate sharer with his own body: It all comes from him who is the distributer of his Father's gifts, and it all runs into him who is the partaker of his members' sorrows. If I am weak in body, Christ my head was wounded, if weak in mind, Christ my head was heavy to death. If I suffer in my estate, Christ my head became poor, as poor as a servant, if in my name Christ, my head was esteemed vile, as vile as Beelzebub. Paul was comforted in the greatest tempest with the presence of an angel, how much more with the grace of Christ; when the thorn was in his flesh, and the buffets of Satan about his soul, yet then was his presence a plentiful protection, my grace is sufficient for you, and he confesses it elsewhere, I am able to do all things through Christ that strengthens me. Christ's head has sanctified any thorns, his back any furrows, his hands any nails, his side any spear, his heart any sorrow that can come to mine. Again, have I a great estate, am I laden with abundance of earthly things, this takes away all the vexation that I have Christ with me; his promise to sanctify it, his wisdom to manage it, his glory to be by it advanced, his word to be by it maintained, his anointed ones to be by it supplied, his church to be by it repaired, in one word his poverty to be by it relieved. For as Christ has strength and compassion to take of the burden of our afflictions, so has he poverty too, to ease that vexation which may grow from our abundance. If you had a whole wardrobe of cast apparel, Christ has more nakedness than all that can cover; if whole barns full of corn, and cellars of wine, Christ has more empty bowels than all that can fill; if all the precious drugs in a country, Christ has more sickness than all that can cure; if the power of a mighty prince, Christ has more imprisonment than all that can enlarge; if a whole house full of silver and gold, Christ has more distressed members to be comforted, more breaches in his church to be repaired, more enemies of his gospel to be opposed, more defenders of his faith to be supplied, more urgencies of his kingdom to be attended, than all that will serve for. Christ professes himself to be still hungry, naked, sick, and in prison, and to stand in need of our visits and supplies. As all the good which Christ has done is ours, by reason of our communion with him, so all the [reconstructed: evil] we suffer is Christ's, by reason of his compassion with us. The Apostle says that we sit together with Christ in heavenly places, and the same Apostle says, that the sufferings of Christ are made up in his members. Nos ibi sedemus, et ille hic laborat. We are glorified in him, and he pained in us, in all his honor we are honored, and in all our affliction he is afflicted.

Thirdly, cast out your Jonah, every sleeping and secure sin that brings a tempest upon your ship, vexation to your spirit. It may be you have an execrable thing, a wedge of gold, a Babylonian garment, a bag full of unjust gain, gotten by sacrilege, disobedience, mercilessness, oppression, by detaining God's, or your neighbor's rights; it may be you have a [reconstructed: Delilah], a strange woman in your bosom, that brings a rot upon your estate, and turns it all into the wages of a whore; whatever your sickness, whatever your plague be, as you value the tranquility of your estate rouse it up from its sleep by a faithful, serious and impartial examination of your own heart, and though it be as dear to you as your right eye, or your right hand, your choicest pleasure or your chiefest profit, yet [reconstructed: cast it out] in a humble confession to God, in a hearty and willing restitution to men, in opening your close and contracted bowels to those that never yet enjoyed comforts from them; then shall quietness arise to your soul, and that very gain which you throw away is but cast upon the waters, the Lord will provide a whale to keep it for you, and will at last restore it to you whole again.

The last direction which I shall give to remove the vexation of the creature is out of the text, and that is, to keep it from your spirit, not to suffer it to take up your thoughts and inner man. They are not negotia but viatica only, and a man's heart ought to be upon his business and not upon accessories. If in a tempest men should not address themselves to their offices, to loosen the tackle, to draw the pump, to strike sails, and lighten the vessel, but should make it their sole work to gaze upon their commodities, who could expect that a calm should drop into such men's laps. Beloved, when the creatures have raised a tempest of vexation, think upon your offices, to the pump, to pour out your corruptions, to the sails and tackle, abate your lusts and the provisions of them, to your faith, to live above hope, to your patience, It is the Lord, let him do as seems good to him, to your thankfulness, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, Blessed be the name of the Lord. If Job should have gazed on his children or substance, he might have been swallowed up in the storm; but God was in his heart, and so the vessel was still safe. But what is it to keep the creature from the spirit? It is in the phrase of Scripture, [reconstructed: Not] to set the heart upon riches. Apponere cor, to carry a man's heart to the creature, the Prophet gives a fit expression of it when he says, that the heart does [reconstructed: go] after covetousness; when a man makes all the motions of his soul wait upon his lusts, and drudges for them, and brings his heart to the edge of the creature: for the world does not wound the heart, but the heart wounds itself upon the world. And it is not the rock alone that dashes the ship, without its own motion being first tossed by the wind and waves upon the rock; so it is a man's own lust which vexes his spirit, and not the things alone which he possesses.

To set the heart on the creature denotes three things. First, to pitch a man's thoughts and studies, to direct all the restless inquiries of his soul upon them, and the good he expects from them. This in the Scripture is expressed by devising, consulting, thinking within one's self, being tossed like a meteor with doubtfulness of mind and careful suspense, joining one's self, making provision for lusts, etc. Secondly, to care for, to employ a man's affections of love, delight, desire upon them, to set a high price on them, and over-rate them above other things. For this cause covetous men are called idolaters, because they prefer money, as a man does his God, before all other things. When the women would have comforted the wife of Phineas with the birth of a son, after the captivity of the Ark, it is said she regarded it not, the text is, she did not put her heart upon it: though a woman rejoice when a male child is born, yet in comparison of the Ark she no more regarded the joy of a son, than a man would do if the sun should be blotted out of heaven, and a little star put in the room; and therefore, though children be the glory of their parents, yet she professes that there was no glory in this to have a son, and lose an Ark, a star without light, a son without service, a Levite born and no Ark to wait upon; and therefore she did not set her heart upon it. They will not at all regard us, say the people to David, for you are worth ten thousand of us; that is, they will not at all regard us in comparison of you: so then a man's heart is set on the creature, when he prizes it above other things, and declares this estimation of his heart by those eager endeavors with which he pursues them as his God and idol. Thirdly, to rely upon, to put trust and confidence in the creature: and this is imported in the word by which the Prophet expresses riches, which signifies strength of all sorts, vires, and propugnaculum, the inward strength of a man and the outward strength of munition and fortification: therefore, says Solomon, the rich man's wealth is his strong city, and rich men are said to trust and glory in their riches, examples of which the Scripture abundantly gives in Tyre, Babylon, Nineveh, Edom, Israel, etc.

Now a man ought not thus to set his heart on the creature; first, because of the tenderness and delicacy of the spirit, which will quickly be bruised with anything that lies close upon it and presses it. As men wear the softest garments next their skin, that they be not disquieted, so should we apply the tenderest things, the mercies and the worth of the blood of Christ, the promises of grace and glory, the precepts and invitations of the Spirit to our spirits. And now as subterranean wind or air being pressed in by the earth, does often beget concussions and earthquakes; so the spirit of a man being swallowed up and quite closed in earthly things must needs beget tremblings and distractions at last to the soul. The word here which we translate vexation is rendered likewise by Contritio, a pressing, grinding, wearing away of a thing, and by Depastio, a feeding on a thing, which makes some render the words thus, All is vanity and a feeding upon wind. That as windy meats, though they fill and swell a man up, they nourish little, but turn into crudities and diseases; so the feeding upon the creature may puff up the heart, but it can bring no real satisfaction, no solid nutriment to the soul of man. The creature upon the spirit is like a worm in wood, or a moth in a garment, it begets a rottenness of heart, it bites asunder the threads and sinews of the soul, and by that means works an inaptitude and undisposedness to any worthy service, and brings a decay upon the whole man; for cares will prevent age, and change the color of the hair before the time, and make a man like a silly dove, without any heart, as the Prophet speaks.

Secondly, because the strength of every man is his spirit; Mens cujusque is est quisque. Now if the creature seize on a man's strength, it serves him as Delilah did Samson, it will quickly let in the Philistines to vex him. Strength has two parts or offices, passive in undergoing and withstanding evil, and active in doing that which belongs to a man to do. Now when the heart and spirit of a man is set upon any creature, it is weakened in both these respects.

First, it is disabled from bearing or withstanding evil. We will consider it, first in temptations; secondly in afflictions. First, a man who has set his heart inordinately upon any creature is altogether unfit to withstand any temptation. In the law when a man had newly married a wife, he was not to go to war that year, but to rejoice with his wife. One reason of which I suppose was this, because when the mind is strongly set upon any one object, till the strength of that desire be abated, a man will be utterly unfit to deal with an enemy: so is it with any lust to which a man weds himself, it altogether disables him to resist any enemy: after Hannibal's army had melted themselves at Capua with sensuality and luxury, they were quite strangers to hard service and rigid discipline, when they were again reduced to it.

The reason of this is, first, the subtlety of Satan, who will be sure to proportion his temptations to the heart, and those lusts which do there predominate, setting upon men with those persuasions with which he is most likely to seduce them; as the Greeks got in upon the Trojans with a gift, something which they presumed would find acceptance. The devil deals as men in a siege, casts his projects, and applies his batteries to the weakest and most vulnerable place. Therefore the Apostle says, that a man is tempted, when he is led away of his own lust and enticed; the devil will be sure to hold intelligence with a man's own lusts, to advise and sit in counsel with his own heart, to follow the tide and stream of a man's own affections in the tempting of him. Adam tempted in knowledge, Pharaoh by lying wonders, the prophet by pretense of an angel's speech, Ahab by the consent of false prophets, the Jews by the temple of the Lord and carnal privileges, the heathen by pretense of universality, and antiquity. When David's heart after his adultery was set upon his own glory more than God's, how to save his own name from reproach, we see as long as that affection prevailed against him, as long as his heart was not so thoroughly humbled as to take the shame of his sin to himself, to bear the indignation of the Lord, and accept of the reproach of his iniquity, he was overcome with many desperate temptations: he yields to be himself a tempter of his neighbor to unseasonable pleasures, to drunkenness and shame, to be a murderer of his faithful servant, to multiply the guilt, that he may shift off the shame of his sin, and provide for his own credit. Peter's heart was set upon his own life and safety more than the truth of Christ or his own protestations, and Satan fitting his assault to this weakness prevails against a rock with the breath of a woman. They that will be rich, says the apostle, who set their hearts upon their riches, whose hearts run after their covetousness, fall into temptation and a snare, into many foolish and hurtful lusts. Such a heart is fit for any temptation. Tempt [reconstructed: Achan's] covetous heart to sacrilege, and he will reach forth his hand to the accursed thing; tempt Judas's covetous heart to treason, and he will betray the precious blood of the Son of God which is infinitely beyond any rate of silver or gold for a few pieces of silver, the price of a little field; tempt Gehazi's covetous heart to multiply lie upon lie, and he will do it with ease and greediness for a few pieces of money, and change of raiment; tempt Saul's covetous heart with the fattest of the cattle, and he will venture on disobedience, a sin worse than witchcraft, which he himself had rooted out; tempt the covetous heart of a judge in Israel to do injustice, and a pair of shoes shall spurn righteousness out of doors, and pervert judgment; tempt the covetous heart of a great oppressor to blood and violence, and he will lie in wait for the life of his neighbor; tempt the covetous heart of a proud Pharisee or secure people to scorn the word out of the mouth of Christ or his prophet, and they will easily yield to any infidelity. The like may be said of any other lust in its kind. If the heart be set on beauty; tempt the sons of God to forsake their covenant of marrying in the Lord, the Israelites to the idolatry of Baal Peor, Samson to forsake his vow and calling, easily will all this be done, if the heart has the beauty of any creature as a treacher in it, to let in the temptations, and to let out the lusts. How many desperate temptations does beauty cast many men upon? Bribery to lay down the price of a whore, gluttony and drunkenness to inflame and engender new lusts, contempt of the word and judgments of God to smother the checks of conscience, frequenting of Satan's palaces, plays and stews, the chapels of Hell and nurseries of uncleanness, challenges, stabs, combats, blood, to vindicate the credit and comparisons of a strumpet's beauty, to revenge the competition of unclean co-rivals. Thus will men venture as deep as Hell to fetch fire to pour into their veins, to make their spirits fry, and their blood boil in abhorred lust. If the heart be set on wit and pride of its own conceits, tempt the Libertines and Cyrenaics to dispute against the truth, the Greeks to despise the Gospel, the wise men of the world to esteem the ordinance of God foolishness of preaching, the false teachers to foist their straw and stubble upon the foundation, Ahithophel to comply with treason, Lucian to revile Christ, and deride religion, easily will these and a world the like temptations be let into the heart, if pride of wit stand at the door and turn the lock.

From where is it that men spend their precious abilities in frothy studies, in compliments, forms and garbs of salute, satires, libels, abuses, profanation of God's Word, scorn of the simplicity and power of godliness, with infinite the like vanities, but because their hearts are taken up with a foolish creature, and not with God and his fear? If the heart be set on ambition, tempt Korah to desperate rebellion, Absalom to unnatural treason, Balaam to curse the church, Diotrephes to contemn the Apostles and their doctrine, Julian to apostasy, Arius to heresy, the Apostles themselves to emulation and strife, easily will one lust let in these, and a thousand more. What else is it that makes men to flatter profaneness, to adore golden beasts, to admire glittering abominations, to betray the truth of the Gospel, to smother and dissemble the strictness and purity of the ways of God, to strike at the sins of men with the scabbard and not with the sword, to deal with the fancies of men more than with their consciences, to palliate vice, to daub with untempered mortar, to walk in a neutrality and indifferentism between God and Baal, to make the souls of men and the glory of God subordinate to their lusts and risings, but the vast and unbounded gulf of ambition and vain glory? The like may be said of several other lusts. But I proceed.

Second, a heart set on any lust is unfit to withstand temptation, because temptations are commonly edged with promises or threats. Now if a man's heart be set on God, there can be no promises made of any such good as the heart cares for, or which might be likely to outweigh and sway to the temptation, which the heart has not already; spiritual promises the Devil will make few, or if he does, such a heart knows that evil is not the way to good; if he make promises of earthly things, such promises the heart has already from one who can better make them (1 Timothy 4:8), neither can he promise any thing which was not more mine before than his; for either that which he promises is convenient for me, and so is Manna, food for my nature, or else inconvenient, and then it is Quails, food for my lust. If the former, God has taught me to call it my own already, give us our bread, and not to go to the Devil's shambles to fetch it; if the other, though God should suffer the Devil to give it, yet he sends a curse into our mouths along with it. And as such a heart neglects any promises the Devil can make, so is it as heedless of any of his threats, because if God be on our side, neither principalities, or powers, nor things present, nor things to come, can ever separate from him; stronger is he that is with us than he that is with the world, it is the business of our calling to fight against spiritual wickedness, and to resist the Devil. But when the heart is set on any creature, and has not God to rest upon, when a man attributes his wine and oil to his lovers and not to God, his credit, wealth, subsistence to the favors of men and not to the all-sufficiency of God, then has the Devil an easy way to win a man to any sin, or withdraw him from any good, by pointing his temptations with promises or threats fitted to the things which the heart is set on.

Let the Devil promise Balaam honor and preferment, on which his ambitious heart was set, and he will rise early, run and ride, and change natures with his donkey, and be more senseless of God's fury than the dumb creature, that he may curse God's own people. Let the Devil promise thirty pieces of silver to Judas, whose heart ran upon covetousness, and there is no more scruple, the bargain of treason is presently concluded. Let the Devil tempt Micah's Levite with a little better reward than the beggarly stipend which he had before, theft and idolatry are swallowed down both together, and the man is easily won to be a snare and seminary of spiritual uncleanness to a whole tribe. On the other side, let Satan threaten Jeroboam with the loss of his kingdom, if he go up to Jerusalem, and serve God in the way of his own worship, and that is argument enough to draw him and all his successors to notorious and Egyptian idolatry; and the reason was because their hearts were more set upon their own counsels, than upon the worship or truth of God. Let the Devil by the edicts and ministers of Jeroboam lay snares in Mizpah, and spread nets upon Tabor, that is, use laws, menaces, subtleties to keep the people from the city of God, and to confine them to regal and state-idolatry, presently the people tremble at the injunction of the king, and walk willingly after the Commandment. Let [reconstructed: Nebuchadnezzar] erect his prodigious [reconstructed: idol], and upon pain of a [reconstructed: fiery] furnace require all to worship it, and all people, nations, and languages are presently upon their faces. Let the Devil threaten Demas with persecution, and presently he forsakes the fellowship of the Apostles, and embraces this present world. And as it was heretofore so is it still.

If a man's heart is not set on God, and taught to rest upon his providence, to answer all Satan's promises with his all-sufficiency to reward us, and all his threatenings, with his all-sufficiency to protect us, how easily will promises beguile, and threatenings deter unstable and earthly minds? Let the Devil tell one man, "All this will I give you, if you will speak in a cause to pervert judgment," how quickly will men create subtleties, and coin evasions to rob a man and his house, even a man and his inheritance? Let him say to another, "I will do whatever you say to me, if you will dissemble your conscience, divide your heart, comply with both sides, keep down the power of godliness, persecute zeal, set up will-worship and superstitions," how quickly shall such a man's religion be disguised, and sincerity, if it were possible, put to shame? If to another, "You shall by such a time purchase such a lordship, oust such a neighbor, swallow up such a prodigal, if you enhance your rents, enlarge your fines, set unreasonable rates upon your farms," how quickly will men grind the faces of the poor, and purchase ungodly possessions with the blood of their tenants? If to another, "Beware of laying open your conscience, of being too faithful in your calling, too scrupulous in your office, lest you purchase the disfavor of the world, lest the times cloud over you, and frown upon you, lest you be scourged with persecuted names, and make yourself obnoxious to spies and censures," how will men be ready to start back, to shrink from their wonted forwardness, to abate their former zeal, to couple in with, and connive at the corruptions of the age, in one word to tremble when Ephraim speaks, and not to tremble when God speaks? So hard is it when the heart is wedded to earthly things, and they are gotten into a man's bosom, to bear the assaults of any temptation.

Lastly, this comes from the just and secret wrath of God, giving men over to the deceitfulness of sin, and to the hardness of their own hearts, to believe the lies and allurements of Satan, because they rejected the counsel of God, and the love of his truth before. In the influences of the Sun we may observe, that the deeper they work the stronger they work; the beams nearer the center meeting in a sharper point do consolidate and harden the very element; so the creatures by the justice of God, when they meet in a man's center, reach as far as his heart, do there mightily work to the deceiving and hardening of it: the eye, nor any other outward sense, can find no more in the creature, than is really there; it is the heart which misconceives things, and attributes that deity and worth to them, which the senses could not discover. If men then could keep these things from their spirits, they should ever conceive of them according to their own narrow being, and so keep their hearts from that hardness which the creatures, destitute of God's blessing, do there beget, and so work in the soul a disposition suitable to Satan's temptations.

Secondly, a heart set upon any lust is unfit likewise to bear any affliction. The young man whose heart was upon his riches, could not endure to hear of selling all, and entering upon a poor and persecuted profession. First, lusts are choice and dainty, they make the heart very delicate, and nice of any assaults. Secondly, they are very willful, and set upon their own ends, therefore they are expressed by the name of concupiscence, and [in non-Latin alphabet], the wills of the flesh, and willfulness is the ground of impatience. Thirdly, they are natural, and move strongly to their own point; they are a body, and our very members; no marvel then if they be sensible of pain from afflictions, which are contrary to nature. The stronger the water runs, the more will it roar and foam upon any opposition: lust is like a furious beast enraged with the affliction, the chain that binds it. Fourthly, lusts are very wise after a fleshly and sensual manner, and worldly wisdom is impatient of any stoppage or prevention of any affliction that crushes and disappoints it. Therefore the Apostle does herein principally note the opposition between heavenly and carnal wisdom, that the one is meek, peaceable, and gentle, the other devilish and full of strife. Fifthly, lusts are proud, especially those that arise from abundance of the creature, and pride being set upon by any affliction makes the heart break forth into impatience, debates, and stoutness against God; a proud heart grows harder by afflictions, as metals or clay after they have passed through the furnace. It is said of Pharaoh, that he did not set his heart to the judgments of God, but exalted himself against his people; pride grew stronger by affliction. Besides, pride in earthly things swallows up the very expectation of afflictions, and therefore must needs leave the heart unprepared against them. Sixthly, lusts are rooted in self-love, and therefore when Christ will have a man forsake his lusts, he directs him to deny himself. Now the very essence of afflictions are to be grievous and adverse to a man's self. Seventhly, lusts are contentious, armed things, and their enmity is against God, and therefore utterly unfit to accept of the punishment of sin, and to bear the indignation of the Lord, or to submit to any afflictions. Eighthly, lusts resist the truth, set up themselves against the Word, and thereby utterly disable men to bear afflictions, for the Word sanctifies, and lightens all affliction, the Word shows God's moderation and intention in them, an issue out of them, the benefits which will come from them, the supplies of strength and abilities to bear them, the promises of a more abundant and exceeding weight of glory, in comparison of which they are as nothing. Lastly, if we could conceive some afflictions not contrary to lust, yet afflictions are ever contrary to the provisions of lust, to the materials, and instruments of lusts, such as are health, pleasure, riches, honors, etc. And in all these respects a heart set upon lust is weakened and disabled to bear afflictions.

Secondly, when the heart is set upon the creature, it is utterly disabled, in regard of its active strength, made unfit to do any duty with that strength as God requires. First, because Bonum fit ex causâ integrâ, a good duty must proceed from an entire cause, from the whole heart. Now lust divides the heart, and makes it unsteadfast, and unfaithful to God. There is a twofold unsteadfastness, one in degrees, another in objects, the former proceeds from the remainders of corruption, and therefore is found in some measure in the best of us, the other from the predominancy of lust which oversways the heart to evil. Good motions and resolutions in evil hearts are like violent impressions upon a stone, though it move upwards for a while, yet nature will at last prevail, and make it return to its own motion. Secondly, a heart set on lusts moves to [illegible] ends but [reconstructed: its own], and self-ends defile an action though otherwise never so specious; turns zeal itself and obedience into murder, hinders all faith in us, and acceptance with God, nullifies all other ends, swallows up God's glory and the good of others, as the lean cows did the fat; as a wen in the body robs and consumes the part adjoining, so do self-ends the right end. Thirdly, the heart is a fountain and principle, and principles are ever one and uniform, out of the same fountain cannot come bitter water and sweet, and therefore the Apostle speaks of some, that they are double-minded men, that have a heart and a heart, yet the truth is, that is but with reference to their pretenses; for the heart really and totally looks but one way. Every man is spiritually a married person, and he can be joined but to one; Christ and an idol (as every [reconstructed: lust] is) cannot consist, he will have a chaste spouse, he will have all our desires and affections subject to him; if the heart cannot count him altogether lovely, and all things else but dung in comparison of him, he will refuse the match, and withhold his consent.

Let us see in some few particulars what impotency to any good the creatures bring upon the hearts of men. To pray requires a hungry spirit, a heart convinced of its own emptiness, a desire of intimate communion with God; but now the creature draws the heart, and all the desires thereof to itself, as an ill spleen does the nourishment in a body. Lust makes men pray amiss, fixes the desires only on its own provisions, makes a man unwilling to be carried any way towards heaven but his own. The young man prayed to Christ to show him the way to eternal life; but when Christ told him that his riches, his covetousness, his bosom lust stood between him and salvation, his prayer was turned into sorrow, repentance and apostasy.

Meditation requires a sequestration of the thoughts, a mind unmixed with other cares, a sincere and uncorrupted relish of the Word; now when the heart is prepossessed with lust, and taken up with another treasure, it is as impossible to be weaned from it, as for a hungry eagle (a creature of the sharpest sight to fix upon, and of the sharpest appetite to desire its object) to forbear the body on which it would prey; as unable to conceive aright of the preciousness and power of the Word, as a feverish palate to taste the proper sweetness of the meat it eats.

In hearing the Word, the heart can never accept God's commands, till it be first empty — a man cannot receive the richest gift that is, with a hand that was full before. Now thorns, which are the cares of the world, filling the heart, must needs choke the seed of the Word. The Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, because their pride would not let them yield to such a baptism, or to such a doctrine as requires emptiness, confession of sins, justifying of God, and condemning of themselves (for these were the purposes of John's Baptism, and of the preaching of repentance). That man comes but to be rejected who makes love to one who has fixed her heart and affection already. A man must come to God's Word as to a physician, a mere patient without reservations or exceptions — he must set his corruptions as an open mark for the word to shoot at, he must not come with capitulations and provisos, but lay down the body of sin before God to have every earthly member hewn off. Till a man come with such a resolution as to be willing to part from all naughtiness, he will never receive the ingrafted Word with meekness, and an honest heart; a man will never follow Christ in the ways of his Word, till first he have learned to deny himself, and his own lusts. Indeed, if a man should bind his devotion to his heart with [reconstructed: vows], yet a Delilah in his bosom, a lust in his spirit, would easily nullify the strongest vows. The Jews made a serious and solemn protestation to Jeremiah that they would obey the voice of the Lord in that which they desired him to inquire of God about, whether it were good or evil; and yet when they found the message cross their own lusts and reservations, their resolutions are turned into rebellions, their pride quickly breaks asunder their vow, and they tell the prophet to his face that he dealt falsely between God and them — a refuge which they were well acquainted with before. Some, when their conscience awakens and begins to disquiet them, make vows to bind themselves to better obedience, and forms of godliness; but as Samson was bound in vain with any cords so long as his hair grew to its length, so in vain does any man bind himself with vows, so long as he nourishes his lusts within — a vow in the hand of a fleshly lust will be but like the chains and fetters of that fierce [reconstructed: lunatic], very easily broken asunder. This is not the right way. First, labor with your heart, cleanse out your corruptions, purge your life as the prophet did the waters, with seasoning and rectifying the fountain — it is one thing to give [reconstructed: ease] from a present pain, another thing to root out the disease itself. If the chinks in a ship be unstopped, it is in vain to labor at the pump; so long as there is a constant inlet, the water can never be exhausted; so is it in these formal resolutions and vows — they may ease the present pain, let out a little water, restrain from some particular acts, but so long as the heart is unpurged, lust will return and predominate. In a word, whereas in the service of God there are two main things required — faith to begin, and courage or patience to go through — lust hinders both these. How can you believe since you seek for glory one from another? (John 5:44). When persecution arose because of the word, the temporary was presently offended (Matthew 13:21).

Thirdly and lastly, in one word: a man ought not to set his heart on the creature because of the nobleness of the heart. To set the heart on the creature is to set a diamond in lead — none are so mad as to keep their jewels in a cellar, and their coals in a closet; and yet such is the profaneness of wicked men to keep God in their lips only, and Mammon in their hearts, to make the earth their treasure, and heaven but as an accessory and appendix to that. And now as Samuel spoke to Saul, set not your heart upon your asses, for the desire of Israel is upon you (1 Samuel 9:20); why should a king's heart be set upon asses? So may I say, why should Christians' hearts be set upon earthly things, since they have the desires of all flesh to fix upon?

I will conclude with one word upon the last particular: how to use the creatures as thorns, or as vexing things. First, let not the bramble be king — let not earthly things bear rule over your affections; fire will rise out of them, which will consume your cedars, and emasculate all the powers of your soul. Let grace sit in the throne, and earthly things be subordinate to the wisdom and rule of God's Spirit in your heart. They are excellent servants, but pernicious masters. Secondly, be armed when you touch or meddle with them — armed against the lusts and against the temptations that arise from them. Get faith to place your heart upon better promises; enter not upon them without prayer to God, that since you are going among snares, he would carry you through with wisdom and faithfulness, and teach you how to use them as his blessings and as instruments of his glory. Make a covenant with your heart, as Job did with his eyes — have a jealousy and suspicion of your evil heart, lest it be surprised and bewitched with sinful affections. Thirdly, touch them gently — do not hug, love, or dote upon the creature, nor grasp it with adulterous embraces; the love of money is a root of mischief, and is enmity against God. Fourthly, use them for hedges and fences — to relieve the saints, to make friends of unrighteous Mammon, to defend the church of Christ — but by no means have them in your field, but only about it; mingle it not with your corn lest it choke and stifle all. And lastly, use them as Gideon did, for weapons of just revenge against the enemies of God's church, to vindicate his truth and glory, and then by being wise and faithful in a little, you shall at last be made ruler over much, and enter into your master's joy.

FINIS.