18 ¡ The Vanity of the Creature. N il h inde than there was before : but the life which we fetch fróm the Fountaine is a fixed, an _Abiding life, as S. John {-poles, or, as our Saviour cals it, a Life that 4 bounds ,l ike the pumping of water out of a fountaine, the more itis draw ne, the fafler it comes. We grant indeed that the Lord, being the Fountaine of life, doth allow the Creature in regard of life tempe- rall fomefuberdinate operation and concurrencie in the worke of prcferving life inus. But we mull alto remem- ber, That the Creatures arc but gods In.£frxments in that refpeeit : and that not as fcrvants are to their rnaflers, Li- ving Inflruments, able to work without concurrence of the fuperiour caufe ; but Dead Inflruments, and therefore mutt never bee feparated from the Princip4Il. Let God fubduát from them that coxcourfc of his owne which aauatcs and applies them to their feverall fervices, and all the Creatures in the world are no more able to pre - ferve the body or to comfort the minde, than an Axe and a Hammer, and thofe other dead in(lruments are able by themffelves alone to ere. q fome f}ately edifice. It is not the Corne or the Floure, but the flaffe of bread, which fupports the life, and that is not any thing that comes out of the Earth, but fomething which comes downe from heaven, even the bleffing which fan6lifies the Crea- ture : for man liveth not by bread alone, but by the ixord which procecdcth out of Gods mouth : The Creature cannot hold up it felfe, much lefle contribute to the fub- fiflence of other things, unleffe G o D continue the in- fluence of his blefling upon it. As foone as CHRIST had cuffed the Fig-tree, it prefently withered and dried up P .P..ï v lion the roots ; to (hew that it was not the root alone, but the blefling of CHRIST which did ftipport the Fig-tree. The Creatures of themfelves are indifferent to contrarie operations, according as they have beene by God i verally applied. Fire preterved the threeChildren in the Furnace, and the fame fire licked upthe inflruments of
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