Page:A Discourse of Constancy in Two Books Chiefly containing Consolations Against Publick Evils.pdf/107

86 twist it self with publick Evils; I shall evince two wayes, from things themselves; and from Fate. From things themselves, because it is the Nature of all created beings, to hasten unto their change and fall, from a certain inward proneness, which they have thereunto. As there is a kind of fretting rust, which doth naturally cleave to Iron, and a consuming scurffe or Worme that followes Wood: In like manner both Creatures, Cities, and Kingdomes, have their internal and proper causes whereby they perish. Look upon things above or below, great or small, the workes of the Hand or Mind; they have perished from the first Ages; and shall persist so to do unto the last. And as all Rivers journey towards the Ocean with a prone and hasty current: So all humane things slide along by this Channel (as I may call it) of miseries, unto their utmost periods. Rh