Rules How to Use the World, Title page – To the reader
Some RULES How to Use the WORLD, So as not to Abuse either That, or our Selves.
By Francis Fuller, M. A.
LONDON, Printed by John Richardson, for Thomas Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside, near Mercers Chappel, 1688.
Licensed,
April 10, 1688.
To the Right Honourable JOHN Earl of Exeter.
My Lord,
THE great and high Possessor of Heaven and Earth has Crown'd you with Riches & Honour, rankt you among the great Ones of the World, the highest part of the dust of the Earth (as the Wise man calls the Mountains) put you into a terrestrial Paradise, encircled with every thing for Ornament and Delight, enrich'd you with those endowments of Mind, and that sweetness of Nature, that may entitle you to the character of those Great Men, Socrates and Titus, the delight of Mankind, and belov'd of all that know you; but yet, my Lord, upon all this Glory you may write Vanity.
It is said that some of the more devout Turks when they have seen Mahomet's Tomb, put out their Eyes, as thinking nothing ever after worth their beholding; and they that have lookt within the Vail, seen by Faith what is invisible to Sense, see nothing but vanity here below, but they that do not, the God of this world has blinded their eyes that they cannot see afar off.
My Lord,
Your great experience at home and abroad, may have sufficiently Instructed you in this Truth, and thereby render'd any thing of that nature in this Treatise needless, yet with a sincere desire that as you possess the Riches and Honour of this World, you may inherit the durable Riches that Wisdom gives, and the Honour that comes from God only, it is presented to your Lordship, as a debt due to your Great Name, but greater Worth, from
Your Lordships most humble Servant, F. Fuller.
To the READER.
DAvid sayes all men are Vanity, and Solomon (David's Son) sayes all things are so (not onelyonly vain in the Concrete, but Vanity in the Abstract). They, in their best State; These, in their greatest Perfection: They, altogether so, (whole Vanity); these, universally so, (Vanity of Vanities) both as to Parts and Degrees. David ratifies and seals his Assertion with a Verily and a Selah, Solomon doubles his and repeats it again to confirm the certainty of it; yea, writes a whole Book to prove his Verdict, brought in (upon his critical Enquiry, curious and narrow Search) to be just and true. Aristotle sayes there is no Vacuity in the Nature of things, Solomon sayes there is nothing but Emptiness in the things of Nature, not as created, but as sin made them. Vanity is less then nothing, Sin is worse than nothing; that, deserves but little of our Love, and this, none; that, as Ʋnsatisfying, and this, as destructive. Our highest Wisdom then will be (as Solomon directs) to forsake the one, and (as David) to turn away our eyes from beholding the other, lest that which is but Vanity in it self prove Vexation to us.
F. F. Bath, May 23, 1688.