the other side, and free from all manner of infirmity; [854]_et cui_

"Gratia, forma, valetudo contingat abunde
Et mundus victus, non deficiente crumena."

"And that he have grace, beauty, favour, health,
A cleanly diet, and abound in wealth."

Yet in the midst of his prosperity, let him remember that caveat of Moses,
[855]"Beware that he do not forget the Lord his God;" that he be not puffed
up, but acknowledge them to be his good gifts and benefits, and [856]"the
more he hath, to be more thankful," (as Agapetianus adviseth) and use them
aright.

_Instrumental Causes of our Infirmities_.] Now the instrumental causes of
these our infirmities, are as diverse as the infirmities themselves; stars,
heavens, elements, &c. And all those creatures which God hath made, are
armed against sinners. They were indeed once good in themselves, and that
they are now many of them pernicious unto us, is not in their nature, but
our corruption, which hath caused it. For from the fall of our first parent
Adam, they have been changed, the earth accursed, the influence of stars,
altered, the four elements, beasts, birds, plants, are now ready to offend
us. "The principal things for the use of man, are water, fire, iron, salt,
meal, wheat, honey, milk, oil, wine, clothing, good to the godly, to the
sinners turned to evil," Ecclus. xxxix. 26. "Fire, and hail, and famine,
and dearth, all these are created for vengeance," Ecclus. xxxix. 29. The
heavens threaten us with their comets, stars, planets, with their great
conjunctions, eclipses, oppositions, quartiles, and such unfriendly
aspects. The air with his meteors, thunder and lightning, intemperate heat
and cold, mighty winds, tempests, unseasonable weather; from which proceed
dearth, famine, plague, and all sorts of epidemical diseases, consuming
infinite myriads of men. At Cairo in Egypt, every third year, (as it is
related by [857]Boterus, and others) 300,000 die of the plague; and
200,000, in Constantinople, every fifth or seventh at the utmost. How doth
the earth terrify and oppress us with terrible earthquakes, which are most
frequent in [858]China, Japan, and those eastern climes, swallowing up
sometimes six cities at once? How doth the water rage with his inundations,
irruptions, flinging down towns, cities, villages, bridges, &c. besides
shipwrecks; whole islands are sometimes suddenly overwhelmed with all their
inhabitants in [859]Zealand, Holland, an