Objection 4. XI. I know, that some are ready further to object: Hath God given us these enjoyments on purpose to condemn us, if we use them? Answer: But to such miserable, poor, silly souls, who would rather charge the most high and holy God with the invention or creation of their dirty vanities, than want a plea to justify their own practice, not knowing how, for shame, or fear, or love to throw them off; I answer, that what God made for man's use, was good, and what the blessed Lord Jesus Christ allowed or enjoined, or gave us in his most heavenly example, is to be observed, believed, and practised. (Luke, viii. 14; xii. 28-31.) But in the whole catalogue the Scriptures give of both, I never found the attires, recreations, and way of living, so much in request with the generality of the Christians of these times: no certainly, God created man a holy, wise, sober, grave, and reasonable creature, fit to govern himself and the world: but divinity was then the great object of his reason and pleasure; all external enjoyments of God's giving being for necessity, convenience, and lawful delight, with this proviso too, that the Almighty was to be seen, and sensibly enjoyed and reverenced in every one of them. But how very wide the Christians of these times are from this primitive institution is not difficult to determine, although they make such loud pretensions to that most holy Jesus, who not only gave the world a certain evidence of a happy restoration, by his own coming, but promised his assistance to all that would follow Him in the self-denial and way of his holy cross; (John, viii. 12; xv. 7, 8; xvii. 20;) and therefore hath so severely enjoined no less on all, as they would be everlastingly saved. But whether the minds of men and women are not as profoundly involved in all excess and vanity, as those who know Him not any further than by hearsay; and whether being thus banished the presence of the Lord, by their greedy seeking the things that are below, and thereby having lost the taste of divine pleasure, they have not feigned to themselves an imaginary pleasure, to quiet or smother conscience, and pass their time without that anguish and trouble which are the consequences of sin, that so they might be at ease and security while in the world, let their own consciences declare. (Rom. ii. 8, 9.) Adam's temptation is represented by the fruit of a tree, (Gen. iii. 6,) thereby intimating the great influence external objects, as they exceed in beauty, carry with them upon our senses: so that unless the mind keep upon its constant watch, so prevalent are visible things, that hard it is for one to escape being insnared in them; (Mark, xiii. 33-37;) and he shall need to be only sometimes entrapped, to cast so thick a veil of darkness over the mind, that not only it shall with pleasure continue in its fetters to lust and vanity, but proudly censure such as refuse to wear them, strongly pleading for them, as serviceable