1. The curse of God was denounced against the creatures, immediately after man’s apostasy from him: This is, in part, contained in the threatning, _Cursed be the ground for thy sake. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; by the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return to the ground_, Gen. iii. 17-19. and it is very elegantly described by the apostle, who speaks of[83] _the creature as subject to vanity, not willingly but by reason of him, who hath subjected the same in hope_;[84] and of _the whole creation’s groaning and travelling in pain together until now_, Rom. viii. 20-22. the general scope and design whereof seems to be this, that it retains the visible marks of the curse of God, which followed upon man’s sin. This I rather think to be the sense thereof, than to suppose, as some do, that _the creature_, here spoken of, is the Gentile world, and _the vanity_, which they were subject to, that idolatry which they were universally addicted to; for that does not seem to agree with what the apostle says, when he supposes that their subjection to this vanity was not _willingly_, neither can it well be called _the bondage of corruption_. But if, on the other hand, we take it for that part of the creation, which was more immediately designed for the use of man, being abused, and so subject to that vanity, which is the consequence of his fall, this agrees very well with its being _not willingly_; for he is speaking here of creatures not endowed with understanding and will, yet abused by those that are, and therefore their subjection to man’s vanity, is not so much from themselves, as from man’s sin; and then he speaks of the liableness of all these things to corruption, as the world is decaying and growing toward a dissolution. How far this curse of God, on the creature, extended itself, whether only to this lower world, or to the heavenly bodies themselves, such as the sun, moon, and stars, I pretend not to determine; for I desire not to extend my conjectures beyond the line of scripture, which speaks of _the earth, as cursed for man’s sake_; and how far the other parts of nature, are liable to corruption, or inclined towards a dissolution, it is hard to say. All that I shall add, on this head, is, that, when this is called a punishment, which is consequent on man’s sin, it more especially respects man, who is the only subject of punishment in this world: inanimate creatures are the matter, in which he is punished, but he alone is the subject thereof. 2. There are other evils that befal us, in which we are more immediately concerned, and these are either personal or relative; and, accordingly,