in Paradise, to know God, to
praise and glorify him, to do his will, _Ut diis consimiles parturiat deos_
(as an old poet saith) to propagate the church.

_Man's Fall and Misery_.] But this most noble creature, _Heu tristis, et
lachrymosa commutatio_ ([827]one exclaims) O pitiful change! is fallen from
that he was, and forfeited his estate, become _miserabilis homuncio_, a
castaway, a caitiff, one of the most miserable creatures of the world, if
he be considered in his own nature, an unregenerate man, and so much
obscured by his fall that (some few relics excepted) he is inferior to a
beast, [828]"Man in honour that understandeth not, is like unto beasts that
perish," so David esteems him: a monster by stupend metamorphoses, [829]a
fox, a dog, a hog, what not? _Quantum mutatus ab illo_? How much altered
from that he was; before blessed and happy, now miserable and accursed;
[830]"He must eat his meat in sorrow," subject to death and all manner of
infirmities, all kind of calamities.

_A Description of Melancholy_.] [831]"Great travail is created for all men,
and an heavy yoke on the sons of Adam, from the day that they go out of
their mother's womb, unto that day they return to the mother of all things.
Namely, their thoughts, and fear of their hearts, and their imagination of
things they wait for, and the day of death. From him that sitteth in the
glorious throne, to him that sitteth beneath in the earth and ashes; from
him that is clothed in blue silk and weareth a crown, to him that is
clothed in simple linen. Wrath, envy, trouble, and unquietness, and fear of
death, and rigour, and strife, and such things come to both man and beast,
but sevenfold to the ungodly." All this befalls him in this life, and
peradventure eternal misery in the life to come.

_Impulsive Cause of Man's Misery and Infirmities_.] The impulsive cause of
these miseries in man, this privation or destruction of God's image, the
cause of death and diseases, of all temporal and eternal punishments, was
the sin of our first parent Adam, [832]in eating of the forbidden fruit, by
the devil's instigation and allurement. His disobedience, pride, ambition,
intemperance, incredulity, curiosity; from whence proceeded original sin,
and that general corruption of mankind, as from a fountain, flowed all bad
inclinations and actual transgressions which cause our several calamities
inflicted upon us for our sins. And this belike is that which our fabulous
poets