Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

The changeableness of all Creatures is evident;

The changeablness of all Creatures is evident;

1. Of corporeal Creatures, it is evident to sense. All Plants and Animals, as they have their duration bounded in certain limits; so while they do exist, they proceed ⟨p. 221⟩from their rise to their fall; they pass through many sensible alterations, from one degree of growth to another, from buds to blossoms, from blossoms to flowers and fruits; they come to their pitch that Nature hath set them, and return back to the state from whence they sprung; there is not a day but they make some acquisition, or suffer some loss; they dye and spring up every day; nothing in them more certain than their inconstancy: The Creature is subject to vanity. ^*The heavenly Bodies are changing their place; the Sun every day is running his Race, and stays not in the same Point; and though they are not changed in their Essence, yet they are in their Place: Some indeed say there is a continual generation of Light in the Sun, as there is a loss of Light by the casting out its Beams, as in a Fountain there is a flowing out of the Streams, and a continual generation of supply: And though these heavenly Bodies have kept their standing and motion from the time of their Creation; yet both the Suns standing still in Joshua's time, and its going back in Hezekiah's time, show that they are changeable at the pleasure of God.

1. Of corporeal Creatures, it is evident to sense. All Plants and Animals, as they have their duration bounded in certain limits; so while they do exist, they proceed ⟨p. 221⟩from their rise to their fall; they pass through many sensible alterations, from one degree of growth to another, from buds to blossoms, from blossoms to flowers and fruits; they come to their pitch that Nature hath set them, and return back to the state from whence they sprung; there is not a day but they make some acquisition, or suffer some loss; they dye and spring up every day; nothing in them more certain than their inconstancy: The Creature is subject to vanity.