Decayingly

Contrariwiſe, when the Spirit of God, with-draweth his beames from the circumference of Generation and Compoſition unto the center of ſimplicity, he leaveth to viſite the Spirit of the creature, and ſo it muſt fade, ad^([sic]) decayingly return unto the principle from whence it came; and from thence again, if the ſame ſpirit is pleaſed to ſhine forth, a new Generation beginneth, where the Corruption or Reſolution ended.

And yet, though the happiness may be unenduring, what heart, though seared by time and worldly care, can fail to sympathise with those emotions of early life? In after years there are none such. They are the high noon of earthly joy. After them, life goes on decayingly and solemnly to its shadowy sunset.

Ordinary bodies, living vulnerably and decayingly in time, are poised unstably between these two conditions: the atomised and the flattened.