Man ashiv le-Yahoweh, or, A serious enquiry for a suitable return for continued life,…

Consider these (1.) are short pleasures, they are but for a little while; they are passing away while you are at them: But, these short pleasures may bring you to eternal torments and endless woe, Heb. 11.25. Choosing rather to suffer afflictions with the People of God, then to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. (2.) By giving up your selves unto these Pleasures, you deprive your selves of the Pleasures of Gods House in his Ordinances, which others drink of, Psal. 36.8. (3.) You deprive your self of the Pleasures of Gods House above in Heaven; of the Rivers of Pleasures which are at Gods right hand for evermore, Psal. 16.11. (4.) These pleasures are more brutish pleasures, and do but delight the more brutish, i. e. sensitive part in Man: The rational Soul, as such, is not delighted in the pleasures of the Flesh, in eating and drinking, a Horse doth find pleasure in this as much as you; and some unreasonable Creatures herein do excel you. (5.) They are empty, and unsatisfying pleasures: they do not fill, content, nor satiate them ⟨p. 246⟩that give themselves most to follow after them.

IV. ¹Should not you be dead to, and take heed of resting in the wisdom of the World; in the attainment only of Humane Learning; after you have seen the Learned die as the Ignorant; and the Wise Man as the Fool: Humane Learning is more desirable than Riches and Honours, and the Pleasures of this World; but, yet it is not to be acquiesced in, without the knowledge of God in Christ. Notions in Learning will never deliver from the Torments of Hell: many learned sinners have gone to eternal Misery, and their torments there are greater than the torments of the Ignorant, and unlearned: the vanity of the wisdom of this World, compared with the knowledge of Christ, appears, in that