secution than in the first. It is an 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 peradventure 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 distil 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 i:" 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 Austin's Confession 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 k Confes. 1.6. c. 8. m Confes. 1. 9. c. 8.

Aug. de Civ. Dei, 1. 14. c. 4.

m

table, that from sipping she grew to loving, and from thence to excessive drinking: which particulars are by him reported, to shew 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 modestest 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, that that is a "root;" and therefore we must expect, if ever it get footing 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 P;" so when men will needs heap up wealth and other earthly supplies beyond stint or measure, they do but store up worms to gnaw upon their consciences, that which will vex and annoy the owners. "They pant after the dust of the earth, on the head of the poor," saith the prophet of those cruel oppressors that "sold the righteous for shoes" it notes how the fierceness of a greedy and unsatiable 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 unto the dust, sucking out their very livelihood and substance, till they are fain to lie down in the dust. "Woe unto him," saith the prophet," that increaseth that which is not his, enlarging his desires as hell and death, that loadeth himself with thick clay;" that is, in other expressions, that "storeth up violence and robbery; that heapeth up treasures against the last day." The words shew 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

S

n Tacit. Hist. ii. 77. 9 Amos ii. 7.

t

r Habak. ii. 6.

o 1 Tim. vi. 10.
Amos iii. 10.

P Exod. xvi. 20.

t James v. 3.

will, at length, lie upon his conscience like a load and mountain of heavy earth.

X

Sect. 42.-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 maketh his sun to shine upon them, giveth them a lawful interest, possession, and use of them; but all this doth not reach to a fruition. For that imports a delightful, sweet, orderly use of them, which things belong unto the blessings and promises of the gospel. In which respect the apostle saith, "that God giveth unto us πάντα εἰς ἀπόλαυσιν, all things richly to enjoy." This is the main sting and vexation of the creature alone, without God's more especial sanctification and 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 him. 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, damps and surpriseth the soul with horrorand 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 unto a final judgment. "Res severa est verum gaudium;" true joy, saith the heathen man, is not a perfunctory, a floating thing; it is serious and massy, it sinks to the centre of the heart. As in nature, the heavens (we know) are alway 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 doth it keep itself from the corruptions and temptations of worldly things; the more quiet and composed is it in all

- Ο μὲν πόνος δῆλος, ἡ δὲ ἀπόλαυσις ἄδηλος· σοὶ μὲν τὰ dróλavoir wapéoxev érépois. Chry, ad Pop. Antioch. Hom. y Sencc. Ep.

ἁμαρτήματα, τὴν δὲ x 1 Tim. vi. 17.

estates: but in minds merely sensual, the hotter God's favours 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 overrunning of the water; so earthly things raise up such tumultuary and disquiet thoughts in the minds of men, as do, at last, quite extinguish all the heat and comfort, which was expected from them.

Sect. 43.-Give me leave to explain this vexation in some one or two of Solomon's particulars, and to enfold 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, v. 17; of both which he concludeth, 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, impedite 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 strait path of truth, should have had a distinct view of causes and effects in their immediate successions; but now sin hath mingled such confusion with things, that the mind is fain to take many crooked and vast compasses 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 Hea

Rom. i. 21.

a

then. Aristotle, the most rational heathen man that the world knows of, in his doctrine confesseth 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 writ 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.

Sect. 44.--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 exquisite 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 he knows not.

Sect. 45. Thirdly, " In much wisdom, is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge, increaseth 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; forceth him oftentimes upon unwelcome compliances, upon colours and inventions to palliate unjust counsels, and stop the clamours of a gainsaying conscience; fills him with fears of miscarriage and disgrace, with projects of honour and plausibility, with restless thoughts how to discover, prevent, conceal, accommodate the adversaries, or his own affairs; 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 travailof 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

• Ethic. lib. 7. cap. 3 & 4. Vide de Philosophis impudicis et veritatem corrumpentibus, Tert. Apolog. c. 46. Tacit. An. lib. 13. Dio. Tac. Annal. lib. 6. Arist. Polit, lib. 1. c. 10. Vid. Rosin. Ant. 1. 8. 8. cap. 20.