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…

Solomon here expresseth it in Two words, Vanity and Vexation. From the first of these we may observe a threefold disproportion between the Soul and the ⟨p. 9⟩Creatures. First in regard of their nature and worth, they are base in comparison of the Soul of man: When David would show the infinite distance between God and man in power and strength, he expresseth the baseness of man by his vanity, To be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter then vanity. Psal. 62. 9. And surely if we weigh the Soul of man and all the Creatures under the Sun together, we shall find them lighter then Vanity it self. All the Goodness and honour of the Creature ariseth from one of these Two grounds: Either from mans coining or from Gods, either from Opinion imposed upon them by men, or from some Real qualities, which they have in their nature. Many things there are which▪ have all that worth and estimation which they carry amongst men, not from their own qualities, but from humane institution, or from some difficulties that attend them, or from some other outward Imposition. When a man gives money for meat, we must not think there is any natural proportion of worth between a piece of silver and a piece of flesh; for that worth which is in the meat is its own, whereas that which is in the money is by humane appointment. The like we may say for great titles of honour and secular degrees, though they bring authority, distance, reverence with them from other men, yet notwithstanding they do not of themselves, by any proper virtue of their own, put any solid and fundamental merit into the man himself. Honour is but the raising of the rate and value of a man, it carry, nothing of substance necessarily along with it: as in raising the valuations of gold from twenty shillings, to twenty two, the matter is the same, only the estimation different. It is in the Power of the king to raise a man out of the prison like Joseph, and give him the ••xt place unto himself. Now this then is a plain argument of the great baseness of any of these things in comparison of the Soul of man, and by consequence of their great disability to satisfy ⟨p. 10⟩the same: for can a man make any thing equal to himself? can a man advance a piece of gold or silver into a reasonable, a spiritual, an eternal substance?