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

¹This text the Sophisters have corrupted, while they think the study of Philosophy is here reprehended, whereby men search out the nature & causes of things, as though this were an evil thing, not able to be declared. But it is not evil to search out the nature and properties of things. Moreover the causes of all things are most manifest, so far of is it, that they be hard and difficult. This therefore he meaneth, that he will speak of the vanity of man, but that the same is so much and so great, that he thinketh he can not sufficiently express the same.² It can not be uttered he saith how great the vanity of man is, which thing Persius the Poet declareth: saying, O what great vanity is in the world. And an other writer saith: No man liveth content with his estate. And every man ought to live within his bounds and compass: vanity stretcheth ⟨p. 17⟩farther, than can be reckoned in all mens affairs. Therefore it is but little that I can say of vanity, if a man consider the greatness thereof, It is to gross and to much. For so great is this worlds vanity, that I can not with any words express it. The thing is greater, then either men can conceive, or I am able to utter. It is an hard matter to declare the variety of mens devises and desires, what it is that Julius coveteth, what Alexander, what Solomon, what Cato, what Scipio, what Pompey. The affections of men are always more, then the tongue of man can express. And now he proveth that he said by an example.