The Vanity of the Creature. 7 about to build an houfe with much cofl(and when he hath done,to inhabit it hirnfelfe)offuch rotten and inconfifient materials , as will undoubtedly within a yeare or two af- ter fall upon his head, and bury him in the ruines of his owne folly ? Now then, fuppofe a man were lord of all the World,and had his life co-extended with it, werefiu. niched with wifdome to manage, and tlrength to runnc thorow all the affaires incident to this vaLl frame, in as ample a meafure as any one man for the government of a private family : yet the Scripture would affure even fuch a man, that there will come a day in which the hea- vens íli all paffe away with a noire, and the elements fhall z Per,3.7.10. melt with heat, and the earth with the workes that are therein (hall be burnt up, and that there is but o houre to come before all this (hall be, Ifehold, nov this eTaft r Ian. 2.18. houre : And what man upon there termes would fix his heart, and ground his hopes upon fuch a tottering bot torne, as will withifr a little while crumble into-duff, and leave the poore foule, that relied upon it, to lnke into hell? But now when we confider that none of us labour for any fuch inheritance, that the extremitie of any mans hopes can be but to purchafe forne little patch of earth, which to the whole World cannot beare fo neare a pro- portion, as the fnallef} mole -hill to this whole habitable earth ; that all wee toyle for is but to have our load of a little thick clay, as the Prophet fpeakes, that when wee have gotten it, neither wee nor it (hall continue till the univerfall diffolution, but in the midi} of our dearth em- bracements we may fuddenly be pulled afunder,and come k to a fearfull end, it muff needs bee more than brutilh Eray 59.Ç. piditie for a man to weave the Spiders webs, to wrap himfelfe up from the confirmption determined againfl the whole earth, in a covering that is fo infinitely too Efay fhort and too narrow, for him. Wee livill,concludethiq particular with the dooinegivenby theProph+et eremke es: he Pgrrridgi, j tteth, oir rgges and h t hetQr err1 cot ter 17.1r.
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