First, worldly love is inconsistent with true Christian gain upon many accounts. 1. It is vast and insatiable, like the horseleech which cries, G•ve give ▪ like fire, and the grave, which never says it is enough, Prov 30.15.16. Lust is infinite, there is no end of its labour, Eccles. 4.8. ⟨p. 16⟩It reacheth at all, therefore the Apostle calleth it not only love of the things of the world, but love of the world; Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world, 1 John. 2:15. A covetous heart grasps at the whole world;1 would fain be master of all, and dwell alone, like a Wen in the body, which draws all to it self; let it have never so much, it will still reach after more, adds house to house, and field to field, Isai. 5.8. keeps not at home, cannot be satisfied, enlargeth, gathereth, heapeth, increaseth, loadeth it self with thick clay, Habac. 2.5, 6. The very Heathen have complained of this endless, and unbounded reach of corrupt desires [Greek or Hebrew],2 ex libidine orta sine termino sunt. Lust hath no bound, no measure; like a bladder it swells wider and wider, the more of this empty world is put into it. Like a breach of the sea, which hath no internal bounds to contain it self in, sternit agros, sternit sata laeta boumque labores. The Countryman in the Fable would needs stay till the River was run all away,3 and then go over dry, but the River did run on still. Such are inordinate worldly desires, the deceitful heart promiseth to see them run over and gone, when they are attained unto such a measure; and then they are stronger and wider, more impotent and unruly then before, modus & modus non habet modum; for as natural, so sinful motions, the further they proceed, are usually the stronger. Now God, having so ordered the world, as that no man can have it all to him self, it is divided and bounded to several men and ⟨p. 17⟩nations Deut. 32.8. and man may not remove the landmarks which God hath set, nor affect a Monopoly where the Lord hath made a community, this insatiable desire of worldly gain can never be replenished, and so being unattainable, the labour which is spent about it must needs be ungainful, and disappoint the expectations which were built thereupon.
First, worldly love is inconsistent with true •hristian gain upon many accounts. 1. It is vast and insatiable, like the horseleech which cries, G•ve give ▪ like fire, and the grave, which never sayes it is enough, Prov 30.15.16. Lust is infinite, there is no end of its labour, Eccles. 4.8. ⟨p. 16⟩It reacheth at all, therefore the Apostle calleth it not onely love of the things of the world, but love of the world; Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world, 1 John. 2:15. A covetous heart grasps at the whole world;1 would fain be master of all, and dwell alone, like a Wen in the body, which draws all to it self; let it have never so much, it will still reach after more, adds house to house, and field to field, Isai. 5.8. keeps not at home, cannot be satisfied, inlargeth, gathereth, heapeth, increaseth, loadeth it self with thick clay, Habac. 2.5, 6. The very Heathen have complained of this endless, and unbounded reach of corupt desires 〈non-Latin alphabet〉,2 ex libidine orta sine termino sunt. Lust hath no bound, no measure; like a bladder it swells wider and wider, the more of this empty world is put into it. Like a breach of the sea, which hath no internal bounds to contain it self in, sternit agros, sternit sata laeta boumque labores. The Countryman in the Fable would needs stay till the River was run all away,3 and then go over dry, but the River did run on still. Such are inordinate worldly desires, the deceitful heart promiseth to see them run over and gone, when they are attained unto such a measure; and then they are stronger and wider, more impotent and unruly then before, modus & modus non habet modum; for as natural, so sinful motions, the further they proceed, are usually the stronger. Now God, having so odered the world, as that no man can have it all to him self, it is divided and bounded to several men and ⟨p. 17⟩
- 1Provinciarum nominibus agros colit, sub singulis villicis latiores habet fines quam quos consules fortiebantur. Sen. de ira. l. 1. c. ult.
- 2Aristot. Seneca.
- 3Rusticus expect at dum de fluat amnis, at ille labitur, & labetur.
