Three treatises of the vanity of the creature. The sinfulness of sin. The life…Three treatises of the vanity of the creature. The sinfulnesse of sinne. The life…

But yet further in a third place there is a particular ground of this mortality to many men, namely the Particular curse upon that place or creature which men enjoy. For as a piece of oak besides the natural corruptibleness of it, as it is a body compounded of contrary principles, whereby it would of it self at last return to its dust again, may further have a worm like Jonah his Gourd eating out the heart of it, & by that means hastening its corruption; and yet further besides that may be presently put into the fire, which will make a more speedy riddance then either of the former: Or as in the body of a man, besides the general consumption, which lingeringly feedeth upon the whole, each particular member may have a particular disease, which may serve to hasten that corruption to it self, which the other threatens to the whole: so may it be, and often is in the Creatures of God. Besides¹ their natural finiteness, and their general bondage of corruption, which by a hidden & insensible insinuation doth emasculate the vigour and strength of the Creatures, there may be a Particular Curse, which may serve speedily to hasten that decay, which, without any such concurrence, would have made hast enough to leave the possessors of them in everlasting penury. I will be unto Ephraim as a moth and to the house of Judah as rottenness, saith the Lord. That is Gods first Instrument of mortality whereby he will certainly though indeed lingeringly consume a ⟨p. 43⟩thing. But now if for all this when the Moth secretly consumes him, so that he seeth his sickness and feeleth his wound, he will yet trust in his own counsels and confederacies, sacrifice to his own net, go to Assyria or King Jareb for succour, I will then be unto Ephraim as a Lyon, in a more sudden and swift destruction. As he dealeth thus with men, so with the things about them too, first he puts a Moth into them, rust in our gold, canker in our silver, heartlessness in our earth, faintness in the influences of heaven; and if notwithstanding all this men will still trust in the Cistern, God will put holes into it too, which shall make it run out as fast as they fill it; he² will give wings to their money, increase the occasions of expense: and if they clip their wings, that they fly not away, he will make holes in the bottom of their bags³