Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	great_a	scripture_n	write_v	2,669	5	5.3981	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44443	The vanity of the vvorld by Ezekiel Hopkins.	Hopkins, Ezekiel, 1634-1690.	1668 (1668)	Wing H2741; ESTC R14252	37,261	152

Eternal Power and Godhead God hath composed two Books by the diligent study of which we may attain to the knowledg of Himself the Book of the Creatures and the Book of the Scriptures The Book of the Creatures is written in those great letters of Heaven and Earth the Air and Sea and by these we may spell out somewhat of God He made them for our instruction as well as for our service the least and vilest of them read us lectures of his glorious Attributes nor is it any absurdity to say that as they are all the Works of his Mouth so they are all the Words of his Hand Indeed this knowledg that the creatures give us of the Creator cannot suffice to make us happy though it may be sufficient to make us a Rom. 1.20 21. inexcusable We could never have collected from them those mysterious discoveries of God which the Scriptures exhibit and which are so necessary to our eternal bliss For what signature is there stamp't upon any of the Creatures of a Trinity in Unity of the eternal Generation or temporal Incarnation of the Son of God What Creature could have informed us of our first fall and guilt contracted by it Or where can we find the Copy of the Covenant of Works or of Grace printed upon any of the Creatures All the great sages of the world though they were Natures Secretaries and ransackt its abstrusest secrets yet all their learning and knowledg could never discover that sacred mystery of a crucified Saviour These are truths which Nature and Reason are so far from finding out that they can scare b 1 Cor. 1.14 receive them when discovered And therefore God hath manifested them to us by the Light and Revelation of the Holy Scriptures But yet so much of God as belongs to those two great Titles of Creator and Governor of the World our reason may collect from created and visible things running up their consequences till they are all resolved into the first cause and Origine of all Thirdly Therefore All the Vanity that is in worldly things is onely in respect of the sin and folly of man For those things are said to be Vain which neither do nor can perform what we expect from them Our great expectation is Happiness and our great folly is that we think to obtain it by the enjoyments of this world This makes men pursue pleasures hoard up riches court honours and preferments because they look with an overweening conceit on these things as such as can make them truly happy Whereas to seek for happiness among these worldly things is but to seek the living among the dead yea it is but to search for happiness among those things which are the very root and occasion of all our misery c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epic. apud Laert. in vitâ Epicuri They are all of them leaky and broken Cisterns and cannot hold this living water This is it which makes them charged with Vanity because in our perverted phancy we look upon them as stable permanent and satisfactory fix them as our journeys end which ought onely to be used by us in our passage and expect much more from them than they can yield And so indeed the Vanity is not so much theirs as ours There are some things as d Aug. doct Christ l. 1. c. 3 S. Austin and the e Lomb. l. 1. d. 1 Aquia 1 12. q 11. 16 Du●and l. 1 d 1 q 4 ●rim d. 1. 4 3. ●rt 2. Altiss l 3 tract 10 Schools from him do well distinguish which must be onely enjoyed other things what must be onely used To f Frui est amore alicui rei inhaetere propter scipsam Aug. doct Christ l. 1. c. 4. enjoy is to cleave to an object by love for its own sake And this belongs onely to God What we g Uti autem quod in usum venerit ad id quod ●m●s obti●eadum referre Id. ibid. use we refer to the obtaining of what we desire to enjoy And this belongs to the Creatures So that we ought to h Utendum est hoc mu●do non fru●adum ut invisibilia Dei per ea quae sact● sunt intellg●n●ue hoc est ut de temporal h●●ae 〈◊〉 capi●●tur A●g b l. use the creatures that we may arrive at the Creator We may serve our selves of them but we must alone enjoy him Now that which makes the whole world become Vanity is when we break this order of use and fruition when we set up any particular created good as our end and happiness which ought onely to be used as a means to attain it All things in the world are in themselves good but when we propound them as the greatest and highest good that we expect satisfaction from this turns them all into Vanity and so every thing besides God becomes nothing And thus we have a brief account whence proceeds this Vanity of the World not from the nature of things but from those vain hopes and expectations we build upon them for that happiness which they cannot afford It remains therefore to display before you this Vanity of the World in some more remarkable particulars Whereof I have collected these following First The Vanity of the World appears in this that all its glory and splendor depends merely upon opinion and phancy It is not so much what things are as what we account them that makes them good or evil And what can be vainer than that which borrows its worth from so vain and fickle a thing as our estimation And therefore we find the things of the world rated diversly Quantum apud nos indicis marg●ritis pretium est tantum apud Indos in curalia Namque ista persuasione gentium constant Plia lib. 32. de Gen. Benzoai del mundo nuovo lib. 1. according to the esteem that men have of them What were Gold and Silver had not mens phancy stampt upon them an excellency far beyond their natural usefulness This great Idol of the world was of no value among those barbarous Nations where abundance made it vile They preferred Glass and Beads before it and made that their treasure which we make our scorn They despise our riches and we theirs and true reason will tell us that both the one and the other are in themselves alike despicable and it is onely phancy that puts such an immodest and extravagant price upon them far above their natural worth Should the whole world conspire together to depose Gold and Silver from that soveraignty they have usurped over us they might for ever lie hid in the bowels of the Earth ere their true usefulness would entice any to the pains and hazard of digging them out into the light Indeed the whole use of what we so much dote upon is meerly phantastical and to make our selves needy we have invented an artificial kind of riches which are no more necessary to the service of sober