An exposition of Solomons book called Ecclesiastes or the preacher. Seen and allowedAn exposition of Salomons booke called Ecclesiastes or the preacher. Seene and allowed

And I thought in mine hart to abstain from wine,¹ and to govern my hart wisely, and to comprehend foolishness, until I might perceive what was good for the children of men, to do under heaven as long as they lived.

And I thought in myne hart to absteine from wyne,¹ and to gouerne my hart wisely, and to comprehēd foolishnes, vntill I might perceaue what was good for the children of men, to doe vnder heauen as long as they lyued.

1. 1Against Monkish life.Agaynst Monkish lyfe.

Here now the third time, he deviseth an other way, minding to prove, if haply this way would succeed. Forasmuch as in this life, which I lead in the ⟨image 33⟩world amongest men, neither the cares wherewith I breaking my self, to profit others, nor yet pleasures succeed, but are all in vain: I will take to me an unpleasant, and austere life, utterly to live in abstinence and hardly &c. I marvel that these false contemners of the world and the Creatures therein, have not marked this place of Solomon, where he calleth this austere and severe kind of life a vanity. Here therefore he condemneth those straight rules of the Monks, specially of the Charterhouse men, which yet the world wondereth at, and holdeth for godliness and holiness. The sentence is as it were a thunderbolt against all rules, and Monkish religions, whereby they make those things in subjection to them and their devises, which are not theirs. Not that abstinence is an evil thing, but to seek it of our own devises, and to bind our selves to them as unto things necessary. For time, creature, place &c. are the gifts of God, which yet these men will captivate with their rules and prescriptions. Howbeit they get nothing thereby, but sorrow & misery while they afflict their body, & vex themselves