Correction, instruction or, a treatise of afflictions

Oh how rarely do we entertain such discourses with our own hearts, but pass by mercies as common things, scarce worth the owning? whereas in the house of bondage, in a Land of Captivity, the lees and dregs of those mercies will be precious, which while the Vessel ran full and fresh we could hardly relish: In famine the very gleanings of our comforts are better then the whole Vintage in the years of plenty.¹

1. 12. Not to surfeit on them.

And then secondly, As God teacheth us to prize our mercies, so by affliction also he doth teach us moderation in the use of them, while we value not to surfeit. And indeed it is the inordinate use of outward comforts which renders us unfit to prize them; we lose our esteem of mercies in excess: ¹Surfeits do usually render those things nauseous, which formerly have been our delicacies: By our excesses in Creature enjoyments, Reason is drowned in sense, Judgment extinguished in appetite, ⟨p. 18⟩and the affections being blunted by commonness of exercise, even pleasures themselves become a burden. Surely the excessive letting out of our selves to sensual fruitions, is both a sin and a punishment, while thereby we lose both the creature, and God, and our selves at once.

And then secondly, As God teacheth us to prize our mercies, so by affliction also he doth teach us moderation in the use of them, while we value not to surfeit. And indeed it is the inordinate use of outward comforts which renders us unfit to prize them; we lose our esteem of mercies in excess: ¹Surfeits do usually render those things nauseous, which formerly have been our delicacies: By our excesses in Creature enjoyments, Reason is drown'd in sense, Judgment extinguisht in appetite,