with so short a course of time How like is that to Castles or imaginary Cities raised in the Sky by Chance-meeting Clouds Or to Gyants modelled for a sport of Snow which at the hoter looks of the Sun melt away and ly drowned in their own moisture Such an impetuous vicissitude towseth the estates of this World Is it knowledge But we have not yet attained to a perfect understanding of the smallest Flower and why the Grass should rather be green than red The Element of Fire is quite put out the Air is but water rarified the Earth moveth and is no more the Center of the Universe is turned into a Magnes Stars are not fixed but swim in the Ethereal spaces Comets are mounted above the Planets some affirm there is another World of Men and Creatures with Cities and Towers in the Moon the Sun is lost for it is but a cleft in the lower Heavens through which the light of the highest shines Thus Sciences by the diverse motions of this Globe of the brain of man are become Opinions What is all we know compared with what we know not We have not yet agreed about the chief good and felicity It is perhaps Artificial Cunning how many curiosities be framed by the least Creatures of Nature unto which the industry of the most curious Artizans doth not attain Is it Riches What are they but the casting out of Friends the Snares of Liberty Bands to such as have them possessing rather than possest metals which nature hath hid fore-seeing the great harm they should occasion and the only opinion of man hath brought in estimation Like Thorns which laid on an open hand may be blown away and on a closing and hard gripping wound it Prodigals mispend them wretches miskeep them when we have gathered the greatest abundance we our selves can enjoy no more thereof than so much as belongs to one man what great and rich men do by others the meaner sort do themselves Will some talk of our pleasures It is not though in the fables told out of purpose that pleasure in hast being called up to Heaven did here forget her apparel which Sorrow thereafter finding to deceive the World attired her self with And if we should say the truth of most of our Joys we must confess they are but disguised sorrows the drams of their Honey are sowred in pounds of Gall remorse ever ensueth them nay in some they have no effect at all if some weakning grief hath not preceded and forewent them Will some Ladies vaunt of their beauty That is but skin-deep of two senses only known short even of Marble Statues and Pictures not the same to all eyes dangerous to the Beholder and hurtful to the Possessor an enemy to Chastity a thing made to delight others more than those which have it a superficial lustre hiding bones and the brains things fearful to be looked upon growth in years doth blast it or sickness or sorrow preventing them Our strength matched with that of the unreasonable Creatures is but weakness all we can set our eyes on in these intricate mazes of life is but vain perspective and deceiving shadows appearing far otherwise afar off than when enjoyed and gazed upon in a near distance If death be good why should it be feared And if it be the work of nature how should it not be good For nature is an Ordinance and Rule which God hath established in the creating this Universe as is the Law of a King which cannot err Sith in him there is no impotency and weakness by the which he might bring forth what is unperfect no perverseness of will of which might proceed any vicious action no ignorance by the which he might go wrong in working being most powerful most good most wise nay all-wise all-good all-powerful He is the first Orderer and marshalleth every other Order the highest Essence giving essence to all other things of all causes the cause he worketh powerfully bounteously wisely and maketh his Artificial Organ nature do the same How is not death of Nature Sith what is naturally generate is subject to corruption and such an harmony which is life rising from the mixture of the four Elements which are the Ingredients of our Body cannot ever endure the contrariety of their qualities as a consuming Rust in the baser Metals being an inward cause of a necessary dissolution Again how is not death good Sith it is the thaw of all those vanities which the frost of Life bindeth together If there be a satiety in Life then must there be a sweetness in Death The Earth were not ample enough to contain her off-spring if none died in two or three Ages without death what an unpleasant and lamentable Spectacle were the most flourishing Cities For what should there be to be seen in them save bodies languishing and courbing again into the Earth pale disfigured faces Skeletons instead of men And what to be heard but the exclamations of the young complaints of the old with the pittiful cries of sick and pining Persons There is almost no infirmity worse than age If there be any evil in death it would appear to be that pain and torment which we apprehend to arise from the breaking of those strait bands which keep the Soul and Body together which sith not without great stuggling and motion seems to prove it self vehement and most extream The senses are the only cause of pain but before the last Trances of Death they are so brought under that they have no or very little strength and their strength lessening the strength of pain too must be lessened How should we doubt but the weakness of sense lesseneth pain sith we know that weakned and maimed parts that receive not nourishment are a great deal less sensible than the other parts of the body And see that old decrepit persons leave this World almost without pain as in a sleep If bodies of the most sound and wholsom constitution be these which most vehemently feel pain It must then follow that they of a distemperate and crasie constitution have least feeling of pain and by this reason all weak and sick bodies should not much feel pain for if they were not distempered and evil complexioned they would not be sick That the Sight Hearing Taste Smelling leave us without pain and unawares we are undoubtedly assured and why should we not think the same of the Feeling That which is capable of feeling are the vital Spirits which in a man in a perfect health are spread and extended through the whole body and hence is it that the whole Body is capable of pain but in dying bodies we see that by pauses and degrees the parts which are furthest removed from the heart become cold and being deprived of natural heat all the pain which they feel is that they do feel no pain Now even as before the sick are aware the vital spirits have withdrawn themselves from the whole extention of the body to
a Plague unto them It is an Error of State in a Prince for an opinion of Piety to condemn to death the adherers to new Doctrine For the constancy and patience of those who voluntarily suffer all temporal miseries and death it self for matters of Faith stir up and invite numbers who at first and before they had suffered were ignorant of their Faith and Doctrine not only to favour their Cause but to embrace their Opinions Pitty and commiseration opening the Gates Thus their belief spreadeth it self abroad and their Number daily encreaseth It is no less Error of State to banish them Banished men are so many Enemies abroad ready upon all occasions to invade their native Countrey to trouble the Peace and Tranquillity of your Kingdom To take Arms against Sectaries and Separatists will be a great Enterprize a matter hard and of many dangers Religion cannot be preached by Arms the first Christians detested that form of proceedings force and compulsion may bring forth Hypocrites not true Christians If there be any Heresie amongst your People this wound is in the Soul our Souls being Spiritual Substances upon which fire and iron cannot work They must be overcome by spiritual Arms Love the men and pitty their Errors Who can lay upon a man a necessity to believe that which he will not believe or what he will believe or doth believe not to believe No Prince hath such Power over the Souls and thoughts of men as he hath over their bodies Now to ruine and extirpate all those Sectaries what will it prove else than to cut off one of your Arms to the great prejudice of your Kingdom and weakning of the State they daily increasing in number and no man being so miserable and mean but he is a membor of the State The more easie manner and nobler way were to tolerate both Religions and grant a place to two Churches in the Kingdom till it shall please Almighty God to return the minds of your Subjects and turn them all of one will and opinion Be content to keep that which ye may Sir since ye cannot that which ye would It is a false and erroneous opinion That a Kingdom cannot subsist which tolerateth two Religions Diversity of Religion shutteth not up society nor barreth civil conversation among men a little time will make persons of different Religions contract such acquaintance custom familiarity together that they will be intermixt in one City Family yea Marriage-Bed State and Religion having nothing common Why I pray may not two Religions be suffered in a State till by some sweet and easie means they may be reduced to a right Government since in the Church which should be union it self and of which the Roman Church much vaunteth almost infinit Sects and kinds of Monks are suffered differing in their Laws Rules of government Fashions of living Dyet Apparel maintenance and opinions of perfection and who sequester themselves from our publick union The Roman Empire had its extension not by similitude and likeness of Religion Different Religions providing they enterprize nor practise nothing against the Politick Laws of the Kingdom may be tolerated in a State The Murthers Massacres Battels which arise and are belike daily to encrease amongst Christians all which are undertaken for Religion are a thousand times more execrable and be more open plain flat impiety than this Liberty of diversity of Religions with a quiet peace can be unjust Forasmuch as the greatest part of those who flesh themselves in blood and slaughter and overturn by Arms the peace of their Neighbours whom they should love as themselves spoiling and ravaging like famished Lyons sacrifice their souls to the infernal powers without further hopes or means of their ever recovering and coming back when those others are in some way of repentance In seeking liberty of Religion these men seek not to believe any thing that may come in their Brains but to use Religion according to the first Christian institutions serving God and obeying the Laws under which they were born That Maxim so often repeated amongst the Church-men of Rome That the Chase and following of Hereticks is more necessary than that of Infidels is well applyed for the inlarging and increasing the Dominions Soveraignty and power of the Pope but not for the amplifying and extending of the Christian Religion and the Weal and Benefit of the Christian Common-Wealth Kingdoms and Soveraignties should not be governed by the Laws and Interests of Priests and Church-men but according to the exigency need and as the case requireth of the publick Weal which often is necessitated to pass and tolerate some defects and faults It is the duty of all Christian Princes to endeavour and take pains that their Subjects embrace the true faith as that semblably and in even parts they observe all Gods commandments and not more om commandment than another Notwithstanding when a vice cannot be extirpate and taken away without the ruine of the State it would appear to human judgments that it should be suffered Neither is there a greater obligation bond necessity of Law to punish Hereticks more than Fornicators which yet for the peace and tranquillity of the State are tolerated and past over Neither can a greater inconveniency and harm follow if we shall suffer men to live in our Common-wealth who believe not nor embrace not all our opinions In an Estate many things are for the time tolerated because they cannot without the total ruine of the State be suddenly Amended and Reformed These men are of that same nature and condition of which we are they worship as we do one God they believe those very same holy Records We both aim at Salvation We both fear to offend God We both set before us our happiness The difference between them and us hangeth upon this one point that they having found abuses in our Church require a Reformation Now shall it be said for that we run divers ways to one end understand not rightly others Language we shall pursue others with Fire and Sword and extirpate others from the face of the Earth God is not in the bitter division and alienation of affections nor the raging flames of sedition nor in the Tempests of the turbulent Whirl-winds of contradictions and disputations but in the calm and gentle breathings of Peace and Concord If any wander out of the High-way we bring him to it again If any be in darkness we shew him light and kill him not In Musical Instruments if a string jar and be out of tune we do not frettingly break it but leisurely veer it about to a Concord and shall we be so churlish cruel uncharitable so wedded to our own superstitious opinions that we will barbarously banish kill burn those whom by love and sweetness we might readily win and recal again Let us win and merit of these men by reason Let them be cited to a free Council it may be they shall not be proved Hereticks neither that they
write them And these men have done what in them lay to make that Paper publick and have recorded in the Annals of this Kingdom to all ages what should have been smothered in the darkest pits of Oblivion They have often assembled the Kings Majesties Subjects to the great charges and vain attendance of many Noblemen and Barons to see their passions put forward They have busied the Prince to condemn others by power a Minister of their attempts and not purge himself to posterity for such a Paper should have been answered by a Pen not by an Ax. There is no Prince living no nor dead but Subjects have and do both write and speak of after their fantasies Augustus in a Letter to Tiberius Noli in hac re indagare minium indignari queniquam esse qui de me loquatur male satis est enim fi hoc habemus ne quis malefacere possit And Tiberius in the beginning of his Reign though after he killed Cremutius Codrus for words was wont to say in Civitate libera linguam quoque liberam esse debere Wise Princes have never troubled themselves much about talkers weak spirits cannot suffer the liberty of Judgments nor the indiscretion of Tongues To strive to restrain them is the work of busie Bodies who would fain have somewhat to do but know not what nor how to help Domitian to kill gnats with his Dagger having won points and conclusions heretofore in the State beyond their hopes they begin to foster great and shameful hopes beyond the reach of all obtaining A Prince should be such towards his Subjects as he should have God eternal towards him who full of mercy spareth peopled Cities and darteth his Thunders amongst the vast and wild Mountains To ARABELLA Countess of Lothian Madam AS those Ancients who when they had given over with credit any faculty wherein they excelled were wont to offer the Tools and Instruments of their Art to the Shrine of some Deity My Musical recreations giving place to more laborious serious my Lute these many days like my mind lying out of tune keeping no harmony in perfect discord I offer these airs and tabulature to your Ladiships harmonious Virtues and to whom could they more deservedly appertain than unto her whose goodness of nature and eminent known virtues of mind may justly intitle the only Grace and Muse of our Northern Climate Though the Gift be not much worth I hope your Ladiship will daign to accept it as if it were a greater and more precious from a Giver brought already in admiration of your Ladiships worth and who desireth nothing more than to remain Your Ladiships to Command W. DRUMMOND To ISABELLA Countess of Perth Madam YOur Courtesie hath prevented me it being mine to offer you thanks both for esteeming me worthy so honourable a Task and for measuring those lines according to affection and not their worth for if they had any it was all as the Moon hath her light borrowed from the Rays of your Ladiships own invention But this quality becometh well your sweet disposition and the generosity of that Noble Stem of which you have your Birth as doth the erecting of that notable Monument to your all-worthy Lord by the which ye have not only obliged all his Kindred now living but in ages to come the unborn posterity to render you immortal Thanks Your Desert and good opinion of me have by a gracious violence if I can be so happy as to do you service won me to remain your Ladiships Ever to Command W. DRUMMOND To the Right Honourable JOHN Earl of Perth My Noble Lord THough as Glaucus says to Diomed in Homer Like the Race of Leaves the Race of Man is That deserves no Question nor receives his being any other breath the Wind in Autumn strows the Earth with old Leaves then the Spring the Woods with new indews yet I have ever thought the knowledge of Kindred and the Genealogies of the ancient Families of a Countrey a matter so far from contempt that it deserveth highest praise Herein consisteth a part of the knowledge of a mans own self It is a great spur to virtue to look back on the worth of our Line In this is the memory of the dead preserved with the living being more firm and honourable than any Epitaph The living know that band which tieth them to others By this man is distinguished from the reasonless and the noble of Men from the baser sort For it often falleth out though we cannot tell how for the most part that generosity followeth good Birth and Parentage This moved me to essay this Table of your Lordships House which is not inferior to the best in this Isle and greatest It is but roughly I confess hewen nakedly limmed and after better informations to be amended In Pieces of this kind who doth according to such light as he receiveth is beyond reprehension Your Lordships humble Servant and Kinsman W. DRUMMOND To the Right Honourable J. Earl of T. My Lord THe Ocean though great Rivers with many Currents pay him Tribute disdains not to receive also the lesser loyal though ignoble Brooks which by one only Urn powre themselves into his bosom no more will your Lordship after the many congratulations of your Countrey of the State of your great Friends reject the applause of the Muses fair though contemned Mistress who by me offer this Posie of Flowers to your Lordship who is the flower of Nobleness in acknowledgment of your Lordships constant zeal towards them and their many obligations towards you congratulating your prosperous Fortunes which they wish to encrease and praying the heavens at last may turn so propitious to virtue and true worth that though they do not reward them upon Earth yet the World may see that they do not suffer them ever to lie oppressed They have fair hopes that the advancement of your Lordship is the advancement of them for the body preceding the shadow must follow Your Lordship being near the Helm of the State they expect a new Saturnian World Knowledge must flourish ignorance decay as Mists before the Sun Innocency live guarded oppression trampled and they shall no longer hereafter have occasion to wish ask or complain Your Lordships Servant W. DRUMMOND To the truely Noble S. R. C. Gentleman of the Kings Majesties Bed-Chamber SIR HOw joyful were all here who either love worth in others or are conscious of any part of it in themselves to hear the happy event of your late danger but yet the apprehension of what might have fallen forth if Providence had not otherwise disposed doth still with a pensive fear possess their minds It was too much hazarded in a point of Honour why should true Valour have answered fierce Barbarity Nobleness Arrogancy Religion Impiety Innocency Malice The disparagement being so vast Was it for knowing this when ye left us that ye graved with your Diamond in a Window Frail Glass thou bearest this name as well as I And none
in thy self nor with all in the wide Universe until thou raise thy self to the contemplation of that first illuminating Intelligence far above time and even reaching Eternity it self into which thou art transformed for by receiving thou beyond all other things art made that which thou receivest The more thou knowest the more apt thou art to know not being amated with any object that excelleth in predominance as sense by objects sensible Thy Will is uncompellable resisting force daunting Necessity despising Danger triumphing over affliction unmoved by pitty and not constrained by all the toyls and disasters of life What the Arts-master of this Universe is in governing this Universe thou art in the body and as he is wholly in every part of it so art thou wholly in every part of the body By thee man is that Hymen of eternal and mortal things that chain together binding unbodied and bodily substances without which the goodly Fabrick of this World were unperfect Thou hast not thy beginning from the fecundity power nor action of the elemental qualities being an immediate master piece of that great Maker Hence hast thou the forms and figures of all things imprinted in thee from thy first Original Thou onley at once art capable of contraries of the three parts of time thou makest but one Thou knowest thy self so separate absolute and diverse an essence from thy body that thou dispossessed of it as it pleaseth thee for in the there is no passion so weak which mastereth not the fear of leaving it Thou shouldst be so far from repining at this separation that it should be the chief of thy desires sith it is the passage and means to attain thy perfection and happiness Thou art here but as an infected and leprous Inn plunged in a floud of humours oppressed with cares suppressed with ignorance defiled and distained with vice retrograde in the course of virtue small things seem here great unto thee and great things small folly appeareth wisedom and wisedom folly Freed of thy fleshly care thou shalt rightly discern the beauty of thy self and have perfect fruition of that all-sufficient and all-sufficing Happiness which is GOD himself to whom thou owest thy being to him thou owest thy well being he and happiness are the same For if GOD had not happiness he were not GOD because Happiness is the highest and greatest good If then GOD have happiness it cannot be a thing differing from him for if there were any thing in Him deffering from him he should be an essence composed and not simple more what is differing in any thing is either an accident or a part of it self In GOD Happiness can not be an accident because he is not subject to any accidents if it were a part of Him since the part is before the whole we should be forced to grant that some thing was before God Bedded and bathed in these earthly ordures thou canst not come near this Soveraign Good nor have any glimpse of the afar-off dawning of his uncessable brightness no not so much as the eyes of the Birds of the Night hath of the Sun Think then by death that thy shell is broken and thou then but even hatched that thou art a Pearl raised from thy Mother to be enchaced in Gold and that the death day of thy body is thy birth day to Eternity Why shouldst thou be fear-stroken and discomforted for thy parting from this mortal Bride thy body sith it is but for a time and such a time as she shall not care for nor feel any thing in nor thou have much need of her Nay sith thou shalt receive her again more goodly and beautiful than when in her fullest perfection thou enjoyed her being by her absence made like unto that Indian Chrystal which after some rovolutions of ages is turned into purest Diamond If the Soul be the Form of the Body and the form separated from the Matter of it cannot ever so continue but is inclined and disposed to be reunited thereinto What can let and hinder this desire but that some time it be accomplished and obtaining the expected end rejoin it self again unto the Body The Soul separate hath a desire because it hath a will and knows it shall by this re-union receive perfection too as the matter is disposed and inclineth to its form when it is without it so would it seem that the Form should be towards its matter in the absence of it How is not the Soul the form of the body sith by it it is and is the beginning and cause of all the actions and functions of it For though in excellency it pass every other form yet doth not that excellency take from it the nature of a form If the abiding of the Soul from the body be violent then can it not be everlasting but have a regress How is not such an estate of being and abiding not violent to the Soul if it be natural to it to be in matter and separate after a strange manner many of the powers and faculties of it which never leave it are not duly exercised This Union seemeth not above the Horizon of natural Reason far less impossible to be done by God and though Reason cannot evidently here demonstrate yet hath she a misty and groping notice If the body shall not arise how can the onely and Soveraign Good be perfectly and infinitely good For how shall he be just nay have so much justice as Man if he suffer the evil and vicious to have a more prosperous and happy life than the followers of Religion and Virtue which ordinarily useth to fall forth in this life For the most wicked are Lords and Gods of this Earth sleeping in the lee port of honour as if the spacious habitation of the World had been made onely for them and the virtuous and good are but forlorn cast-awaies floting in the surges of distress seeming here either of the eye of providence not pittied or not regarded being subject to all dishonors wrongs wracks in their best estate passing away their daies like the Dazies in the field in silence and contempt Sith then he is most good most just of necessity there must be appointed by him another time and place of retribution in the which there shall be a reward for living well and a punishment for doing evil with a life whereinto both shall receive their due and not onely in their Soules divested for sith both the parts or man did act a part in the right or wrong it carrieth great reason with it that they both be arraigned before that high Justice to receive their own Man is not a Soul only but a Soul and body to which either guerdon or punishment is due This seemeth to be the voice of Nature in almost all the Religions of the world this is that general testimony charactered in the minds of the most barbarous and savage people all have had some roving guesses at ages to come and a
dim duskish light of another life all appealing to one general Judgment Throne To what else could serve so many expiations sacrifices prayers solemnities and mystical Ceremonies To what such sumptuous Temples and care of the Death To what all Religion If not to shew that they expected a more excellent manner of being after the navigation of this life did take an end And who doth deny it must deny that there is a Providence a God confess that his Worship and all study and reason of virtue are vain and not believe that there is a World are Creatures and that He himself is not what He is As those Images were Pourtraicted in my mind the morning Star now almost arising in the East I found my thoughts mild and quiet calm and not long after my senses one by one forgetting their uses began to give themselves over to rest leaving me in a still and peaceable sleep if sleep it may be called where the mind awaking is carried with free wings from out fleshly bondage For heavy lids had not long covered their lights when I thought nay sure I was where I might discern all in this great All the large compass of the rolling Circles the brightness and continual motion of those Rubies of the Night which by their distance here below cannot be perceived the silver countenance of the wandring Moon shining by anothers light the hanging of the Earth as environed with a girdle of Chrystal the Sun enthronized in the midst of the Planets eye of the Heavens Gem of this precious Ring the World But whilst with wonder and amazement I gazed on those Celestial splendors and the beaming Lamps of that glorious Temple there was presented to my sight a Man as in the Spring of his years with that self-same grace comely feature Majestick look which the late _____ was wont to have on whom I had no sooner set mine eyes when like one Planet-stroken I became amazed But he with a mild demeanour and voice surpassing all human sweetness appeared me thought to say What is it doth thus anguish and trouble thee Is it the remembrance of Death the last Period of Wretchedness and entry to these happy places the Lantern which lightneth men to see the mystery of the blessedness of Spirits and that glory which transcendeth the Courtain of things visible Is thy Fortune below on that dark Globe which scarce by the smalness of it appeareth here so great that thou art heart-broken and dejected to leave it What if thou wert to leave behind thee a _____ so glorious in the eye of the World yet but a Mote of Dust encircled with a Pond as that of mine so loving _____ such great hopes these had been apparent occasions of lamenting and but apparent Dost thou think thou leavest Life too soon Death is best young things fair and excellent are not of long endurance upon Earth Who liveth well liveth long Souls most beloved of their Maker are soonest relieved from the bleeding cares of Life and and most swiftly wasted through the Surges of Human miseries Opinion that Great Enchantress and poiser of things not as they are but as they seem hath not in any thing more than in the conceit of Death abused man Who must not measure himself and esteem his estate after his earthly being which is but as a dream For though he be born on the Earth he is not born for the Earth more than the Embryon for the Mothers Womb. It plaineth to be delivered of its bands and to come to the light of this World and Man waileth to be loosed from the Chains with which he is fettered in that vale of vanities It nothing knoweth whither it is to go nor ought of the beauty of the visible works of God neither doth man of the magnificence of the Intellectual World above unto which as by a Mid-wife he is directed by Death Fools which think that this fair and admirable Frame so variously disposed so rightly marshalled so strongly maintained enriched with so many excellencies not only for necessity but for ornament and delight was by that Supream wisdom brought forth that all things in a circulary course should be and not be arise and dissolve and thus continue as if they were so many Shadows cast out and caused by the encountring of these Superior Celestial bodies changing only their fashion and shape or Fantastical Imageries or prints of faces into Chrystal No no the Eternal Wisdom hath made man an excellent creature though he fain would unmake himself and return to nothing And though he seek his felicity among the reasonless Wights he hath fixed it above Look how some Prince or great King on the Earth when he hath raised any Stately City the work being atchieved is wont to set his Image in the midst of it to be admired and gazed upon No otherwise did the Soveraign of this All the Fabrick of it perfected place man a great Miracle formed to his own pattern in the midst of this spacious and admirable City God containeth all in him as the beginning of all man containeth all in him as the midst of all inferior things be in man more noble than they exist superior things more meanly Celestial things favour him earthly things are vassalled unto him he is the band of both neither is it possible but that both of them have peace with him who made the Covenant between them and him He was made that he might in the Glass of the World behold the infinite Goodness Power and glory of his Maker and beholding know and knowing Love and loving enjoy and to hold the Earth of him as of his Lord Parmount never ceasing to remember and praise Him It exceedeth the compass of conceit to think that that wisdom which made every thing so orderly in the parts should make a confusion in the whole and the chief Master-piece how bringing forth so many excellencies for man it should bring forth man for baseness and misery And no less strange were it that so long life should be given to Trees Beasts and the Birds of the Air Creatures inferior to Man which have less use of it and which cannot judge of this goodly Fabrick and that it should not be denied to Man unless there were another manner of living prepared for him in a place more noble and excellent But alas said I had it not been better that for the good of his native Countrey a _____ endued with so many peerless gifts had yet lived How long will ye replyed he like the Ants think there are no fairer Palaces than their Hills or like to purblind Moles no greater light than that little which they shun As if the Master of a Camp knew when to remove a Sentinel and he who placeth Man on the Earth knew not how long he had need of him Every one cometh there to act his part of this Tragi-Comedy called life which done the Courtain is drawn and he removing is said to dye
That Providence which prescribeth Causes to every event hath not only determined a definite and certain number of days but of actions to all men which they cannot go beyond Most _____ then answered I Death is not such an evil and pain as it is of the Vulgar esteemed Death said he nor painful is nor evil except in contemplation of the cause being of it self as indifferent as birth yet can it not be denied and amidst those dreams of earthly pleasures the uncouthness of it with the wrong apprehension of what is unknown in it are noysom But the Soul sustained by its Maker resolved and calmly retired in it self doth find that death sith it is in a moment of Time is but a short nay sweet sigh and is not worthy the remembrance compared with the smallest dram of the infinite Felicity of this Place Here is the Palace Royal of the Almighty King in which the uncomprehensible comprehensibly manifesteth Himself in place highest in substance not subject to any corruption or change for it is above all motion and solid turneth not in quantity greatest for if one Star one Sphere be so vast how large how huge in exceeding demensions must those bounds be which do them all contain In quality most pure and orient Heaven here is all but a Sun or the Sun all but a Heaven If to Earthlings the Foot-stool of God and that Stage which he raised for a small course of Time seemeth so glorious and magnificent What estimation would they make if they could see of his eternal Habitation and Throne And if these be so wonderful what is the sight of him for whom and by whom all was created of whose Glory to behold the thousand thousand part the most pure Intelligences are fully satiate and with wonder and delight rest amazed for the beauty of his light and the light of his beauty are uncomprehensible Here doth that earnest appetite of the understanding content it self not seeking to know any more For it seeth before it in the vision of the Divine essence a Mirrour in the which not Images or Shadows but the true and perfect essence of every thing created is more cleaâ— and conspicuous than in it self all that may be known or understood Here doth the Will pause it self as in the center of its eternal rest glowing with with a fiery affection of that infinite and al-sufficient good which being fully known cannot for the infinite motives and causes of love which are in him but be fully and perfectly loved As he is only the true and essential Bounty so is he the only essential and true beauty deserving alone all Love and Admiration by which the Creatures are only in so much fair and excellent as they participate of his Beauty and excelling Excellencies Here is a blessed Company every one joying as much in anothers Felicity as in that which is proper because each seeth another equally loved of God thus their distinct joyes are no fewer than the copartners of the Joy And as the Assembly is in number answerable to the large capacity of the place so are the joyes answerable to the numberless number of the Assembly No poor and pittiful mortal confined on the Globe of Earth who have never seen but sorrow or interchangeably some painted superficial pleasures can rightly think on or be sufficient to conceive the termless delights of this place So many Feathers move not on Birds so many Birds dint not the Air so many leaves tremble not on Trees so many Trees grow not in the solitary Forests so many waves turn not in the Ocean and so many grains of Sand limit not those Waves as this triumphant Court hath variety of delights and Joyes exempted from all comparison Happiness at once here is fully known and fully enjoyed and as infinite in continuance as extent Here is flourishing and never fading youth without Age Strength without Weakness Beauty never blasting Knowledge â—â—thout Learning Abundance without Loathing Peace without Disturbance Participation without Envy Rest without Labour Light without rising or seeting Sun Perpetuity without moments for Time which is the measure of Endurance did never enter in this shining Eternity Ambition Disdain Malice Difference of Opinions cannot approach this place and resembling those foggy Mists which cover those Lists of Sublunary things All pleasure paragon'd with what is here is pain all Mirth mourning all Beauty deformity Here one daies abiding is above the continuing in the most fortunate estate on the Earth many years and sufficient to countervail the extreamest torments of Life But although this Bliss of Souls be great and their joyes many yet shal they admit Addition and be more full and perfect at that long wished and general meeting with their bodies Amongst all the wonders of the great Creator not one appeareth to be more wounderful replied I than that our Bodies should arise having suffered so many changes and nature denying a return from privation to a Habit. Such power said he being above all that the Understanding of Man can conceive may well work such wonders For if Mans Understanding could comprehend all the secrets and councels of than Eternal Majesty it must of necessity be equal unto it The Author of Nature is not thralled to the Laws of Nature but worketh with them or contrary to them as it pleaseth him What he hath a will to do he hath a power to perform To that power which brought all this All from nought to bring again in one instant any substance which ever was into it unto what it was once should not be thought impossible for who can do more can do less and his power is no less after that which was by him brought forth is decayed and vanished than it was before it was produced being neither restrained to certain limits or instruments or to any determinate and definite manner of working where the power is without restraint the work admitteth no other limits than the Workers will This world is as a Cabinet to God in which the small things however to us hid and secret are nothing less kept than the great For as he was wise and powerful to create so doth his knowledge comprehend his own Creation yea every change and variety in it of which it is the very Source Not any Atom of the scatter'd Dust of mankind though daily flowing under new forms is to him unknown and his knowledge doth distinguish and discern what once his power shall waken and rise up Why may not the Arts-Master of the world like a Molder what he hath framed in divers shapes confound in one mass and then severally fashion them out of the same Can the Spargirick by his Art restore for a space to the dry and withered Rose the natural purple and blush and cannot the Almighty raise and refine the body of man after never so many alterations on the Earth Reason her self finds it more possible for infinit power to cast out ftom it self a finit world and restore any thing in it though decaied and dissolved to what it was first than for man a finit piece of reasonable misery to change the form of matter made to his hand the power of God never brought forth all that it can for then were it bounded and no more infinite That time doth approach O hast ye times away in which the dead shall live and the living be changed and of all actions the Guerdon is at hand then shall there be an end without an end time shall finish and place shall be altered motion yielding unto rest â—nd another world of an age eternal and unchangeable shall arise which when he had said me thought he vanished and I all astonished did awake To the Memory of the most Excellent Lady JANE Countess of Perth THis Beauty which Pale death in dust did turn And clos'd so soon within a Coffin sad Did pass like lightning like to thunder burn So little Life so much of Worth it had Heavens but to shew their Might here made it shine And when admir'd then in the Worlds disdain O Tears O Grief did call it back again Lest Earth should vaunt she kept what was Divine What can we hope for more What more enjoy Sith fairest Things thus soonest have their End And as on Bodies Shadows do attend Sith all our bliss is follow'd with Annoy Yet She 's not dead She lives where She did love Her Memory on Earth Her soul above To S. W. A. THough I have twice been at the doors of Death And twice found shut those gates which ever mourn This but a lightning is Truce tane to Breath For late-born Sorrows augurre fleet return Amidst thy sacred Cares and Courtly Toils Alexis when thou shalt hear wandring Fame Tell Death hath triumph'd o're my mortal spoils And that on Earth I am but a sad Name If thou e're held me dear by all our Love By all that Bliss those Joys Heaven here us gave I conjure thee and by the Maids of Jove To grave this short Remembrance on my Grave Here Damon lies whose Songs did sometime grace The murmuring Esk may Roses shade the place On the Report of the Death of the Author IF that were true which whispered is by Fame That Damons light no more on Earth doth burn His Patron Phoebus Physick would disclaim And cloth'd in clouds as erst for Phaeton mourn Yea Fame by this had got so deep a wound That scarce She could have Power to tell his death Her Wings cut short who could her Trumpet sound Whose blaze of late was nurs'd but by his Breath That Spirit of his which most with mine was free By mutual traffick enterchanging store If chac'd from him it would have come to me Where it so oft familiar was before Some secret Grief distempring first my Mind Had though not knowing made me feel this loss A Sympathy had so our Souls combind That such a parting both at once would toss Though such Reports to others terrour give Thy Heavenly Virtues who did never spy I know thou that canst make the dead to live Immortal art and needs not fear to dye Sir WILL. ALEXANDER FINIS