[ 1412] Man to be thankfull unto God upon consideration of the Creatures.
IT was a divine saying of Epictetus that Heathenish Philosopher,* 1.1 admiring the singing of birds, Si luscinia essem, &c. If I had been made a Nightingale, I should have sung like a Nightingale, now that I am made a Man, a reasona∣ble Creature, shall I not serve God, and praise him in that station wherein he hath set me? Thus he an Heathen,* 1.2 and thus we Christians are to consider the Creatures leading the way unto the duty of thankfulnesse. First, what they are mutually to each other, and then what they are to us, and lastly what they are to God, in their kind ever thankfull; so that it is conceived, that one of the foulest and shamefullest things, that the Creatures shall lay to mans charge at the day of Judgment,* 1.3 is, that all other Creatures from the Creation have been obedient to God without the least digression, onely Man (for whom and for whose service all else were made) hath failed in his service and proved rebelli∣ous and unthankfull.