The preachers proclamation Discoursing the vanity of all earthly things, and proving that there…The preachers proclamacion Discoursing the vanity of all earthly things, and proouing that there…

This is the scope which Solomon aims at, as though we did seek happiness, but we go a wrong way unto it, therefore he sounds a retire, showing that if we go on as we have begun, we shall not find happiness but misery, because we go by vanities: therefore to fright us out of this way, he breaks forth into an exclamation Vanity of vanities &c. Now, Solomon full of wisdom & schooled with experience,¹ is licensed to give his sentence of the whole world. For the spiritual man judgeth all things, his judgment is so certain, that it runs before the evidence, and condemns all for vanity, before he convince them to be ⟨image 7⟩vain. Never any Judge did condemn so many together. Solomon resolved all the doubts of the Queen of Sheba, yet Solomon never answered so many questions at once, as now: for what can ye inquire, but here you have an answer? ask him as the soldiers or harlots, or Publicans asked John, Master what is sin? vanity saith Solomon. what is pleasure? vanity too. what is beauty? vanity too. what is riches? vanity too. what is honour? vanity too. what is long life? vanity too. This is the state of things after the fall, all turned to vanity. This is no reproach to the things, but a shame to him, which so abused them, that all things should be called vain for him. What a testimony is this of him which should be the only servant of God upon earth, whom he created in holiness and righteousness, whom he framed to his own image, whom he placed in Paradise, & would have raised to heaven, to hear that he hath so polluted him self with every sin, that now ⟨image 7⟩he is nothing but vanity? this is a lamentable song, that will make him weep that tunes it, if he think what he saith, how his state is changed since Adam his Father dyed. Once God said that all was good,² & now he saith that all is naught and vain, as though he forbade man that which he created for man: that is not Solomons meaning, to debar men from the use of creatures, although all things changed with man & became worse then they were,³ yet he doth rather show that man reaps nothing but vanity out of these things by reason of his corruption, then that the things them selves are vain, if they were well used: for even since the creation, Paul saith,