The plain man's pathway to Heaven, wherein every man may clearly ...

62: COVETOTJSNESS.
heart were according. For, all
things considered,
there is no cause why men should be so
given to this world; for they must leave it, when
they have done all that they can. As we say,
"To-day a man, to-morrow none." And as the
apostle saith, " We brought nothing into this
world, and, it is certain, we can carry nothing
out," 1 Tim. vi. 7. We must all die, we know
not how soon: why therefore should men set
their hearts upon such uncertain and deceivable
things ? for all things in this world are more
light than a feather, more brittle than glass,
more fleeting than a shadow, more vanishing
than smoke, more inconsistent than the wind.
"Doubtless," saith the prophet David, "man
walketh in a shadow, and disquieteth himself
in vain: he heapeth up riches, and cannot tell
who shall gather them," Ps. xxxix. 6. I wonder,
therefore, that these moles and muckworms
of this earth, should so mind these shadowy
things, and so dote on them as they do. If they
were not altogether hardened and blinded by the
devil, they would not be so nearly knit to the
clod and the penny as they are: thinking, and
always imagining, that there is no happiness but
in these things, which are but dung and dross:
and at last they will give us the slip, when we
think ourselves most sure of them. The wise
king, who had the greatest experience of these
things that ever man had, for he enjoyed whatsoever
this world could afford, upward and downward,
backward and forward, yet could find nothing
in them but vanity and vexation of spirit.
Moreover, he flatly avoucheth, that all these
things, riches, wealth, honour, pleasures, and
treasures, will most notably deceive us in the