The divine life in three treatises

3. If you suppose a Philosopher to be Delighted in studying Mathematics, or any of the works of God, either he hath herein an End, or no End beyond the Knowledge of the Creature: Either he terminateth his desires and delights in the Creature, or else useth it as a means to raise him to the Creator. If he study and delight in the Creature ultimately, this is indeed the Act of a rational Creature, and an act of Reason, as to the faculty it proceeds from (and so is a Rational Contrivance for sensual ends and pleasures:) But it is but the error of Reason, and is no more agreeable to the Rational Nature, than the deceit of the senses is to the sensitive. Nor is it finally to be numbered with the operations felicitating humane nature, any more than an erroneous dream of pleasure, or than that man is to be numbered with the lovers of learning, who taketh pleasure in the binding, leaves or letters of the book, while he understandeth nothing of the sense. But if this Philosopher seek to know the Creator in and by the Creatures, and take delight in the Makers Power, Wisdom and Goodness, which appeareth in them, then this is truly a Rational Delight, in it self considered, and beseeming a man. And if he reach so far in it, as to make God his Highest desire and delight, overpowering the desires and delights of sensuality, he shall be happy, as being led by the Son unto the Father: But if he make but some little approaches towards it, and drown all such desires in the sensual desires and delights, he ⟨p. 241⟩is then but an unhappy sensualist, and liveth brutishly in the tenor of his life, though in some acts in part he operate rationally as a man.

3. If you suppose a Philosopher to be Delighted in studying Mathematicks, or any of the works of God, either he hath herein an End, or no End beyond the Knowledge of the Creature: Either he terminateth his desires and delights in the Creature, or else useth it as a means to raise him to the Creatour. If he study and delight in the Creature ultimately, this is indeed the Act of a rational Creature, and an act of Reason, as to the faculty it proceeds from (and so is a Rational Contrivance for sensual ends and pleasures:) But it is but the errour of Reason, and is no more agreeable to the Rational Nature, than the deceit of the senses is to the sensitive. Nor is it finally to be numbred with the operations felicitating humane nature, any more than an erroneous dream of pleasure, or than that man is to be numbred with the lovers of learning, who taketh pleasure in the binding, leaves or letters of the book, while he understandeth nothing of the sense. But if this Philosopher seek to know the Creatour in and by the Creatures, and take delight in the Makers Power, Wisdome and Goodness, which appeareth in them, then this is truly a Rational Delight, in it self considered, and beseeming a man. And if he reach so far in it, as to make God his Highest desire and delight, overpowring the desires and delights of sensuality, he shall be happy, as being led by the Son unto the Father: But if he make but some little approaches towards it, and drown all such desires in the sensual desires and delights, he