[ 1290] The things of this World, vain and uncertain.
IT is an observable note,* 1.1 that a learned Man hath upon the names of the two first Men that ever were born into the World, Cain and Abel; Whence, saith he, we may learn a very good lesson, and that from the very interpretation of their Names; Ca••n signifies, Possession; and Abel, Vanity; to shew that Adam and Eve, who had all the World before them, did see nothing but vanity in all their posses∣sions: And it were well, if the Sons and Daughters of Adam, that have a great ••eal lesse of the World then Adam had, would not set their hearts so much upon the vanities and uncertainties thereof,* 1.2 being such as perish with the using, such as are gone before we have almost any hold of them; like a flock of Birds, that no Man can say they are his own, though they sit in his yard; so vain, uncertain, flitting, ading are all the thinge, all the comforts of this world, be they whatsoever they are, whatsoever they can be.