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…

Secondly, let us take a view of pleasure. There is nothing ⟨p. 71⟩doth so much disable in the survey of pleasure as the mixture either of folly or want. When a man hath wisdom to apprehend the exquisiteness of his delights, and variety to keep out the 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. Chap. 2. vers. 1. 2. 3. Secondly, his wisdom was furnished with variety of subjects to enquire into, he had magnificence and provisions suitable to the greatness of his royal mind. Sumptuous and delicate diet under the name of wine. vers. 3. stately Edifices. vers. 4. Vineyards and Orchards, yea very Paradises, as large as Woods. vers. 5. 6. Fish-ponds, and¹ great Waters, multitudes of attendants and retinue of all sexes. Mighty herds of Cattle of all kinds. vers. 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. vers. 9. Fourthly, As he had that most abundant, so likewise the most free, undisturbed, unabated enjoyment of them all, He with-held 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 an universal survey of those delights which are in the Creature: and yet at last upon an impartial enquiry into all his most magnificent works, the conclusion is, they were but vanity and vexation of spirit, vers. 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. vers. 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. vers. 19. Thirdly, by the effects which these and the like considerations wrought in him; they were so far ⟨p. 72⟩from giving him real satisfaction, as that First, he Hated all his works, for there is nothing makes one Hate more eagerly then disappointment in the good which a man expected.

Secondly, let us take a view of pleasure. There is nothing