Downame - Puritan-02038 v2

Ofthe vanitie of lands and lordA pi,gold andfilner. 363 hearts vpon them, that he would haue vs with contempt to Hieronym, ad tread them vnder our feet. Which alto feemeth to haue been Dcmetriadetn. pra&ifed by the Primitiue Church, who deliuered not the price of their pofleffïons into the Apof3les hands, but call them at their feet, to Phew how meanely they accounted of them. And as he hath placed them in this inferiour place, as fit to be contemned, fo an in the hidden cauernes of the earth, far remote from humane fight, out of which they are not gotten without infinit toile and labour; that he might hereby withdraw ourgreedy eye from looking after them, and our couetous hearts from deiring them ; or at leaft though we fhould couet them,yet we might be difcouraged with this intollerable pailles in the purfuite of thefe worth - lellè vanities : befide , he hath not there feated them in their beauty and perfe&íon, fined and purified, but in their oare, vnfighrly and bale to looke vpon,as hauing in it much more droffe then pure mettall ; from which it is notpurgcd and re- fined without endleffe moile, and labour ofthe workemen who beides all their pailles haue their health thereby fo im- paired, and their faces blemifhedwith fwartnes and dead palenes,that they feetne to haue taken vpon them the defor- mities ofthe mcttall,and to haue bin content to make them. felues vgly, that it may recciue beautie and brightnes. Not - withfiandingall which, vaineman doting vpon this worth- leffe pelfe, is not difcoaraged with all thefe labours, but is Contentro 1pend his life and Ilrength in fearching and Pee- king, digging & mining,purging and refining of this earthy droffe, not caring to lofe himfelfe that he may find it; and that which isworft ofall, when by the of his owne hands he hath brought it to his full beauty and perfe &ion, he doth not only make it his chiefe ornament, who is much more comely and graceful) in himfelfe, placing it aboue his head, which God had feated vnder his feer,but alto ere&eth it as his idoli in his heart,and as it were falleth downe before it to adore and worfhip ir, whilefl he loueth, trulleth and hopeth in it more then in God himfelfe. wherby it commeth to paffe that their foules are more deformed who poflèffe it, then their bodieswho in the mines digged for it ; and more indan-