excellent player on the Lute to abide but a few months the want of one how much more the being without such noble Tools and Engines be plaintful to the Soul And if two Pilgrims which have wandred some few miles together have a hearts-grief when they are near to part what must the sorrow be at the parting of two so loving Friends and never-loathing Lovers as are the Body and Soul Death is the violent estranger of acquaintance the eternal Divorcer of Marriage the Ravisher of the Children from the Parents the Stealer of Parents from their Children the interrer of Fame the sole cause of forgetfulness by which the living talk of those gone away as of so many Shadows or age-worn Stories all strength by it is enfeebled Beauty turned into deformity and rottenness honour in contempt Glory into baseness It is the reasonless breaker off of all Actions by which we enjoy no more the sweet pleasures of Earth nor gaze upon the stately revolutions of the Heavens Sun perpetually setteth Stars never rise unto us It in one moment robbeth us of what with so great toil and care in many years we have heaped together By this are Successions of Linages cut short Kingdoms left Heirless and greatest States orphaned it is not overcome by Pride smothered by Flattery diverted by time Wisdom save this can prevent and help every thing By death we are exiled from this fair City of the World it is no more a World unto us nor we no more a People unto it The ruines of Phanes Palaces and other magnificent Frames yield a sad prospect to the soul and how should it without horrour view the wrack of such a wonderful Master-piece as is the body That death naturally is terrible and to be abhorred it can not well and altogether be denied it being a privation of life and a not-being and every privation being abhorred of nature and evil in it self the fear of it too being ingenerate universally in all Creatures yet I have often thought that even naturally to a mind by only nature resolved and prepared it is more terrible in conceit than in verity and at the first Glance than when well pried into and that rather by the weakness of our fantasie than by what is in it and that the marble colours of Obsequies Weeping and funeral pomp which we our selves cast over did add much more ghastliness unto it than otherways it hath To aver which conclusion when I had gathered my wandring thoughts I began thus with my self If on the great Theatre of this Earth amongst the numberless number of men To dye were only proper to thee and thine then undoubtedly thou hadst reason to repine at so severe and partial a Law But since it is necessity from the which never an age by-past hath been exempted and unto which they which be and so many as are to come are thralled no consequent of life being more common and familiar why shouldst thou with unprofitable and nought availing stubbornness oppose to so unevitable and necessary a Condition This is the high-way of Mortality our general home behold what millions have trod it before thee what multitudes shall after thee with them which at that same instant run In so universal a calamity if death be one private complaints cannot be heard with so many Royal Palaces it is no loss to see thy poor Cabin burn Shall the heavens stay their ever-rolling wheels for what is the motion of them but the motion of a swift and ever whirling wheel which twineth forth and again uprolleth our life and hold still time to prolong thy miserable days as if the highest of their working were to do homage unto thee Thy death is a piece of the Order of this All a part of the Life of this World for while the World is the World some Creatures must dye and others take life Eternal things are raised far above this Sphere of a Generation and Corruption where the first Matter like an ever-flowing and ebbing Sea with divers Waves but the same Water keepeth a restless and never tyring Current what is below in the universality of the kind not in it self doth abide Man a long line of years hath continued This Man every hundred is swept away This Globe environed with air is the sole Region of death the Grave where every thing that taketh life must rot the Stage of Fortune and Change only glorious in the unconstancy and varying alterations of it which though many seem yet to abide one and being a certain entire one are ever many The never agreeing bodies of the Elemental Brethren turn one in another the Earth changeth her countenance with the seasons sometimes looking cold and naked other times hot and flowry Nay I cannot tell how but even the lowest of those Celestial bodies that mother of months and Empress of Seas and moisture as if she were a Mirrour of of our constant mutability appeareth by her too great nearness unto us to participate of our changes never seeing us twice with that same face now looking black then pale and wan sometimes again in the perfection and fulness of her beauty shining over us Death no less than life doth here act a part the taking away of what is old being the making a way for what is young They which forewent us did leave a Room for us and should we grieve to do the same to those which should come after us Who being suffered to see the exquisite rarities of an Antiquaries Cabinet is grieved that the curtain be drawn and to give place to new pilgrims And when the Lord of this Universe hath shewed us the amazing wonders of his various frame should we take it to heart when he thinketh time to dislodge This is his unalterable and unevitable Decree as we had no part of our will in our entrance into this life we should not presume of any in our leaving it but soberly learn to will that which he wills whose very will giveth being to all that it wills and reverencing the Orderer not repine at the Order and Laws which all-where and always are so perfectly established that who would essay to correct and amend any of them should either make them worse or desire things beyond the level of possibility If thou doest complain that there shall be a time in the which thou shalt not be why doest thou not too grieve that there was a time in the which thou wast not And so that thou art not as old as that enlifening Planet of time For not to have been a thousand years before this moment is as much to be deplored as not to live a thousand after it the effect of them both being one that will be after us which long long before we were was Our Childrens Children have that same reason to murmur that they were not young men in our days which we have to complain that we shall not be old in theirs The Violets have their time though
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
Fifth had been his Guest and after Royal entertainment was friendly dismissed He met with Francis the French King at Bullen which meeting seemed rather of Brothers come to countenance some marriage Pomp than contending Neighbours If King Henry had born any discontent against his Nephew he might long ere now have satisfied his ambition and at more easie rate when the King his Father with most of the Nobility and Gentry of Scotland receiv'd that fatal overthrow by the Hills of Flowden and Banks of Till the refusing of an interview might divide the King and his Uncle upon which might follow some unnatural War Upon the other part the Church-men set all their Power to hinder this interview persuading themselves it would give a terrible blow to their Estates or Religion The principal cause say they why the King of England is so passionately earnest to have this meeting is to persuade his Nephew to conform Church-matters in Scotland to those already begun in England to abolish the Popes Authority to drive Religious Persons from their Lands Rents Houses invest the Jewels and Ornaments of the Churches Which counsel and example if King James should follow he would hazard or lose the friendship he had with the Pope Emperour and French King his best Confederates abandoned of which he and his Kingdom would be left a Prey to the tyranny of his Uncle if Henry kept no faith to God Men had no reason to trust unto him That this Interview was to intrap his Person He being the man whom the Pope and Emperour had designed to set upon his Throne and revenge their quarrels That it was grosly to err to be carried away with a shadow and appearance and leave a Substance to trust at once his Crown Person and Liberty to an Enemy And sith examples move more than Precepts let him think upon the hazard of King James the First eighteen years Prisoner and after sold to his Subjects Malcolm and William Kings of Scotland He should remember if yet he were therein to be instructed that Princes serve themselves with occasions over their Neighbours that they have greater care to satisfie their ambition than fear of shame for doing of wrongs with the present times or posterity That their Oaths were no longer kept than they observed their advantages That after he falleth in his hands he ought to follow his manners Religion forsaking and giving over his own natural disposition manners and freedom have no other affections nor motions than his For who cometh under the roof of a Tyrant turneth slave though he was a free man ere he did enter That this meeting with the Body would endanger the Soul and infect it with his Errors corrupting it with false opinions grounded upon a liberty to live to sensuality and Epicurean pleasure If upon the slighting of this Interview King Henry should denounce War against King James and invade his Countrey they in his just defence should furnish Moneys to entertain an Army and overturn his proceedings For the present necessity they offer to pay to him fifty thousand Crowns yearly and in any hazard of the Estate voluntarily to contribute all their Rents and Revenues providing it would please his Majesty to suffer justice to proceed against those who scandalously had sequestred themselves from the holy Church and to the contempt of his Laws publickly made profession of the opinions of Luther That the Goods of all who should be convict of Heresie which they esteemed to no less than an hundred thousand Crowns of yearly Rent should be brought to the Exchequer and their Lands annext to the Crown To this effect they intreat his Majesty to give them sufficient Judges truly Catholick and full of zeal and severity After long reasoning upon both sides it was agreed the King should not altogether refuse to meet his Uncle but adhere to the first offer propounded to his Embassadour concerning this Interview The meeting to be at Newcastle one thousand at the most in train with either King the time to be the Feast of St. Michael the Arch-Angel These Conditions not being embraced by King Henry would if not abolish totally at the least prolong the time of this meeting the King of England thinketh his Nephew too imperious to assume the Injunction of the whole circumstances of their meeting but rather than his suit should take no effect accepteth both of the Place and number of the Train and that he might have some point yielded unto him requireth the time may be the first of August These Conditions being almost agreed upon three or four hundreth Riddesdale and Tinedale men with other Borderers break upon Liddesdale and there with large incursions kill and forrage This during the Treaty falling miserably forth so much irritated King James that accepting the offers of his Clergy he gave over inwardly all intentions of any interview By prolonging time labouring to winde himself out of the Maze Hereupon he sendeth Letters full of excuses for his stay representing his many grievances and wrongs suffer'd and the seeds of discord began now to be sown amongst them To lighten and recreate his cloudy thoughts the Queen is delivered at Sterlin of another Son who with great solemnity is Baptized in the Chappel of the Castle and named Arthur The Prelates after mature deliberation present Sir James Hamiltoun natural Son to the Earl of Arran to be Supream Judge of the Inquisition against all suspect of Heresie and new Opinions differing from the Faith of the Roman Church The King approving their judgments in their choice admitteth him Sir James chearfully accepteth this new honour For now his ambition will find many guilty and miserable supplicants Yet was this change his ruine For whilst he persecuteth all who were informed against to be suspected of the Reform'd Religion having many in Jayls and numbers in his Scrolls to bring within the Labyrinth of a Process the supream Providence arresteth himself James Hamiltoun Sheriff of Linlithgow Brother to Mr. Patrick Hamiltoun Abbot of Ferm who had suffered for Religion and was Cousen to Sir James Hamiltoun of Fennard Lord Inquisitor for embracing his Brothers Opinions had been persued so by the Church-men that he was constrain'd to forsake his own Countrey and some years wander as a banisht man abroad But by his Friends at Court having purchased a Licence or Protection for some months to see his desolate Family and put his private Affairs in order cometh home Where finding the censorian Power to be in his Cousens hands for where should he have Sanctuary if he were challenged by so near a Kinsman for matters of Religion imagining to himself an over-sight and preterition out-dateth by his stay his Protection Sir James to curry the favour of the Church-men and testifie how dearly the cause of the Catholick Faith touched him resolveth to begin with his Cousen For if he were so burnt up with zeal that he spar'd not his own blood in the quarrel of the Roman Faith
the Pope the Kings of Spain or France after some revolutions of years seeking to trouble the state and peace of this Isle should entertain and maintain one of the Heirs of the Earls of Strathern as Queen Elizabeth did Don Antonio the Prior of Crato who claimed the Crown of Portugal to reclaim whose Kingdom She sent the Earl of Essex _____ and Drake or should marry one of them to their neerest Kinswomen and send him armed with power to claim his Title to the Crown of Scotland as King James the fourth of Scotland practised upon Perkin Warbeck naming himself Richard Duke of York to whom he gave in marriage Lady Katharine Gordoun Daughter to the Earl of Huntley and thereafter with all his forces to estable his said Ally in his Title invaded England It would be considered whether they had a fair bridge to come over to this Isle It would likewise be considered if the Earl of Strathern though a mean Subject these two hundred years having been debarred from all title to the Crown and now by the indulgency and exceeding favour of the Prince being restored to his descent in blood and served Heir to his great Progenitors and indirectly as by appendices to the Crown if either out of displeasure or for want of means to maintain their estates he or his should sell and dispose their Rights and Titles of the Kingdom of Scotland to some mighty and Foreign Prince such as is perhaps this day the King of Sweden who wanteth nothing but a title to invade a Kingdom not knowing whither to discharge his victorious forces It would be considered if that title disposed to that Prince were sufficient to make him King of Scotland Or if establishing his right upon fair conditions such as is liberty of conscience absolution and freedom from all taxes and subsidies the transferring of Ward lands into fewd the people of Scotland might give him their Oath of Allegiance or if he might redact the King of Scotland to give him satisfaction and compound for his right of the Crown of Scotland It would to these be considered If times should turn away the minds of Subjects from their Prince by superstition sedition and absolute Rebellion as what may not befall an inconstant ever wavering Nation to an Aristocratie Oligarchy Democratie or absolute Anarchy If the Rebellious subjects and abused Populace might not make advantage of such Men who draw their titles from Evanders mother to trouble the present times That nothing could be more dangerous to the Nobleman himself than this service may be understood by the like examples Clouis King of France having understood that a Nobleman of Artois named Canacare blown up by Powder had vaunted that he was come and lineally descended from Clodion le Chevelu and by that same Succession was heir of the Crown of France closed not his ears to it saies the History but caused extirpate that Sower of impostures and all his Race Henry the fourth King of England after the deposure of King Richard the second kept Edmond Mortimer Earl of March who had a just title to the Crown under such Keepers that he could never do nor attempt any thing till he dyed But Henry the seventh King of England took away Edward Plantaginet Duke of Warwick Heir to George Duke of Clarence by reason of his jealousie of Succession to his Uncle Edward the fourth Margaret Plantaginet his sole Daughter married to Sir Richard Pole knight by Henry the eight restored to the Earldom of Salisbury was attained threescore and two years after her Father had suffered and was in the Tower of London beheaded in whose person dyed the surname of Plantaginet Ann Plantaginet Daughter to Edward the fourth being marryed to Thomas Howard Earl of Surrey and Duke of Norfolk was the ground and chief cause wherefore King Henry the eight cut off the head of Henry Earl of Surrey though the pretended cause whereon he was arraigned was the bearing certain arms of the house of York which only belonged to the King Mary Queen of England cut off the head of Lady Jane Gray and the Lord Guilford her Husband for their title to the Crown and that same reason was the overthrow and finall destruction of Mary Queen of Scotland by Queen Elizabeth The Duke of Guise by a Genealogy deduced from Charles the Great in the reign of Henry the third the French King was thought to aspire to the Crown of France and suffered at last for this and his other presumptions It is notoriously known that these two hundred years the Race of Euphane Ross in her children David Earl of Strathern and Walter Earl of Athol and all their Succession by all the Kings of Scotland sithence have been ever suppressed and kept under and for reason of State should still be kept low and under unless a Prince would for greater reason of State advance them to give them a more horrible blow and by suborning mercenary men make them aim above their reach to their last extirpation Dum nesciunt distinguere inter summa precipitia Princeps quem persequitur honorâ—… extollit in alium An intended Speech at the West Gate of Edenburgh to King JAMES SIR IF Nature could suffer Rocks to move and abandon their natural places this Town founded on the strength of Rocks now by the chearing Rays of your Majesties presence taking not only motion but life had with her Castle Temples and Houses moved towards you and besought you to acknowledge her yours and her indwellers your most humble and affectionate Subjects And to believe how many souls are within her Circuits so many lives are devoted to your sacred Person and Crown And here Sir She offers by me to the Altar of your glory whole Hecatombs of most happy desires praying all things may prove prosperous unto you that every Virtue and Heroick Grace which make a Prince eminent may with a long and blessed Government attend you Your Kingdoms flourishing abroad with Bays at home with Olives presenting you Sir who art the strong Key of this little World of Great-Britain with those keys which cast up the Gates of her affection and design you power to open all the springs of the hearts of those her most Loyal Citizens Yet this almost not necessary For as the Rose at the fair appearing of the morning Sun displayeth and spreadeth her purples So at the very noise of your happy return to this your native Countrey their hearts if they could have shined through their breasts were with joy and fair hopes made spatious Nor did they ever in all parts feel a more comfortable heat than the glory of your presence at this time darteth upon them The old forget their age and look fresh and young at the appearance of so gracious a Prince the young bear a part in your Welcom desiring many years of life that they may serve you long all have more Joys than Tongues For as the words of other Nations far go beyond
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