Three treatises of the vanity of the creature. The sinfulness of sin. The life…Three treatises of the vanity of the creature. The sinfulnesse of sinne. The life…

The third Degree of vexation is from the enjoyment, or rather from the use of earthly things. For though a¹ 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 [Greek or Hebrew],² All things richly to enjoy. This is the main sting and vexation of the Creature alone without Gods 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 damps and surpriseth 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 rhe faster unto a final Judgement, Ressevera ³est verum gaudium: True joy, saith the Heathen Man, is not a perfunctory, a floating thing, it is serious and massy, ⟨p. 68⟩it sinks to the Centre 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 doth it keep it self 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 Gods 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.