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…

TO have a self-sufficiency in being and operation, and to be unsubordinate to any further End above himself, as it is utterly repugnant to the Condition of a Creature, so amongst the rest to Man especially; who besides the limitedness of his nature, as he is a Creature, hath contracted much deficiency and deformity as he is a Sinner. God never made him to be an End unto himself, to be the Centre of his own motions, or to be happy only by reflection on his own excellencies. Something still there is without him, unto which he moves, and from whence God hath appointed that he should reap either preservation in, or advancement and perfection unto his nature. What that ⟨p. 2⟩is upon which the desires of man ought to fix as his Rest and End, is the main discovery that the Wise Man makes in this Book. And he doth it by an historical and penitential review of his former Enquiries; from whence he states the point in Two main Conclusions. The first the Creatures Insufficiency, in the beginning of the Book, Vanity of Vanities, All is vanity. The second Mans Duty to God, and Gods All-sufficiency unto man, in the End of the Book, Let us hear the Conclusion ¹of the whole matter, Fear God, and keep his Commandments, for this is Totum hominis, the whole Duty, the whole End, the whole Happiness of Man. The former of these two, namely the Insufficiency of the Creature to satiate the desires, and quiet the motions of the Soul of man, is the point I am now to speak of, out of these words.

TO have a selfe-sufficiencie in being and operation, and to bee unsubordinate to any further End above himselfe, as it is utterly repugnant to the Condition of a Creature, so amongst the rest to Man especially; who besides the limitednesse of his nature, as he is a Creature, hath contracted much deficiencie and deformitie as he is a Sinner. God never made him to be an End unto himselfe, to be the Center of his owne motions, or to be happy onely by reflection on his owne excellencies. Something still there is without him, unto which he moves, and from whence God hath appointed that he should reape either preservation in, or advancement and perfection unto his nature. What that ⟨p. 2⟩is upon which the desires of man ought to fixe as his Rest and End, is the maine discoverie that the Wise Man makes in this Booke. And he doth it by an historicall and penitentiall review of his former Enquiries; from whence he states the point in Two maine Conclusions. The first the Creatures Insufficiencie, in the beginning of the Booke, Vanitie of Vanities, All is vanity. The second Mans Duty to God, and Gods All-sufficiencie unto man, in the End of the Booke, Let us heare the Conclusion