body with impressions and affections to the objects and pleasures of this life, it continually lingereth after them; and as Virgil (learnedly, as well as wittily) saith,

"Quæ gratia currum,

Armorumque fuit vivis, quæ cura nitentes,

Pascere equos, eadem sequitur tellure repostos."

even

But that being a state wherein those objects neither are nor can be enjoyed, it must needs follow that such a soul must be in an exceeding anguish, sorrow, and affliction for being deprived of them; and for want of that it so much prizeth will neglect all other contentments it might have, as not having a relish or taste moulded and prepared to the savouring of them; but like feverish tongues, that when they are scorched with heat take no delight in the most pleasing liquors, but the sweetest drinks seem bitter to them, by reason of their overflowing gall; so they even hate whatsoever good is in their power, and thus pine away a long eternity; in which the sharpness and activity of their pain, anguish, and sad condition is to be measured by the sensibleness of their natures; which being then spiritual is in a manner infinitely more than any torment that in this life can be inflicted upon a dull, gross body. To this add the vexation it must be to them, to see how inestimable and infinite a good they have lost, and lost merely by their own fault and for momentary trifles and children's play; and that it was so easy for them to have gained it, had they remained but in their right senses, and governed themselves according unto reason. And then judge in what a tortured condition they must be of remorse, and execrating themselves for their most re-supine and senseless madness. But if, on the other side, a soul be released out of this prison of clay and flesh, with affections settled upon intellectual goods, as truth, knowledge, and the like; and that it be grown to an irksome dislike of the flat pleasures of this world, and look upon carnal and sen

sual objects with a disdainful eye, as discerning the contemptible inanity in them, that is set off only by their painted outside; and above all, that it hath a longing desire to be in the society of that supereminent Cause of causes, in which they know are heaped up the treasures of all beauty, knowledge, truth, delight, and good whatsoever; and therefore are impatient at the delay, and reckon all their absence from him as a tedious banishment; and in that regard hate their life and body as cause of this divorce. Such a soul, I say, must necessarily, by reason of the temper it is wrought into, enjoy immediately at the instant of the body's dissolution, and its liberty, more contentment, more joy, more true happiness than it is possible for a heart of flesh to have scarce any scantling of, much less to comprehend.

For immense knowledge is natural to it, as I have touched before. Truth, which is the adequated and satisfying object of the understanding, is there displayed in her own colours, or rather without any.

And that which is the crown of all, and in respect of which all the rest is nothing; that Infinite Entity, which above all things this soul thirsteth to be united unto, cannot for his own goodness' sake, deny his embraces to so affectionate a creature, and to such an inflamed love. If he should, then were that soul, for being the best, and for loving him most, condemned to be the unhappiest. For what joy could she have in anything, were she barred from what she so infinitely loveth? But since the nature of superior and excellent things is to shower down their propitious influences, wheresoever there is a capacity of receiving them, and no obstacle to keep them out, like the sun that illuminateth the whole air, if no cloud, or solid opacous body intervene, it followeth clearly, that this infinite sun of justice, this immense ocean of goodness, cannot choose but environ with his beams, and replenish even beyond satiety with his delightsome waters, a soul so prepared and tempered to receive them.

Now, my lord, to make use of this discourse, and apply

it to what begot it, be pleased to determine which way will deliver us evenest and smoothest to this happy end of our journey; to be virtuous for hope of a reward, and through fear of punishment; or to be so out of a natural and inward affection to virtue, for virtue's and reason's sake? Surely one in this latter condition, not only doth those things which will bring him to beatitude; but he is so secured, in a manner, under an armour of proof, that he is almost invulnerable; he can scarce miscarry, he hath not so much as an inclination to work contrarily; the alluring baits of this world tempt him not; he disliketh, he hateth, even his necessary commerce with them whilst he liveth. On the other side, the hireling that steereth his course by his reward and punishment, doth well, I confess; but he doth it with reluctance; he carrieth the ark, God's image, his soul, safely home, it is true, but he loweth pitifully after his calves, that he leaveth behind him among the Philistines. In a word, he is virtuous; but if he might safely, he would do vicious things (and hence be the ground in nature, if so I might say, of our purgatory.) Methinks two such minds may not unfitly be compared to two maids, whereof one hath a little sprinkling of the green-sickness, and hath more mind to ashes, chalk or leather, than meats of solid and good nourishment, but forbeareth them, knowing the languishing condition of health it will bring her to. But the other having a ruddy, vigorous and perfect constitution, and enjoying a complete entire encrasie, delights in no food but of good nouriture, and loaths the other delights. Her health is discovered in her looks, and she is secure from any danger of that malady, whereas the other, for all her good diet, beareth in her complexion some sickly testimony of her depraved appetite; and if she be not very wary, she is in danger of a relapse.

It falleth fit in this place to examine our author's apprehension of the end of such honest worthies and philosophers (as he calleth them) that died before Christ's

incarnation, whether any of them could be saved, or no? Truly, my lord, I make no doubt at all but if any followed in the whole tenor of their lives, the dictamens of right reason, but that their journey was secure to heaven. Out of the former discourse appeareth what temper of mind is necessary to get thither. And, that reason would dictate such a temper to a perfectly judicious man, (though but in the state of nature,) as the best and most rational for him, I make no doubt at all. But it is most true, they are exceeding few, if any, in whom reason worketh clearly, and is not overswayed by passion and terrene affections; they are few that can discern what is reasonable to be done in every circumstance.

"Pauci, quos æquus amavit

Jupiter, aut ardens evixit ad æthera virtus,
Diis geniti, potuere.".

And fewer, that knowing what is best, can win of themselves to do accordingly; (video meliora proboque deteriora sequor, being most men's cases ;) so that after all that can be expected at the hands of nature and reason in their best habit, since the lapse of them, we may conclude it would have been a most difficult thing for any man, and a most impossible one for mankind, to attain unto beatitude, if Christ had not come to teach, and by his example to show us the way.

And this was the reason of his incarnation, teaching life and death. For being God, we could not doubt his veracity, when he told us news of the other world; having all things in his power, and yet enjoying none of the delights of this life, no man should stick at foregoing them, since his example showeth all men, that such a course is best, whereas few are capable of the reason of it: and for his last act, dying in such an afflicted manner; he taught us how the securest way to step immediately into perfect happiness, is to be crucified to all the desires, delights and contentments of this world.

But to come back to our physician. Truly, my lord, I must needs pay him, as a due, the acknowledging his pious discourses to be excellent and pathetical ones, containing worthy motives to incite one to virtue, and to deter one from vice; thereby to gain heaven, and to avoid hell. Assuredly he is owner of a solid head, and of a strong generous heart. Where he employeth his thoughts upon such things as resort to no higher, or more abstruse principles, than such as occur in ordinary conversation with the world, or in the common track of study and learning, I know no man would say better. But when he meeteth with such difficulties as his next, concerning the resurrection of the body, wherein, after deep meditation upon the most abstracted principles and speculations of the metaphysics, one hath much ado to solve the appearing contradictions, in nature, there I do not at all wonder he should tread a little awry, and go astray in the dark for I conceive his course of life hath not permitted him to allow much time unto the unwinding of such entangled and abstracted subtleties. But if it had, I believe his natural parts are such, as he might have kept the chair from most men I know: for even where he roveth widest, it is with so much wit and sharpness, as putteth me in mind of a great man's censure upon Joseph Scaliger's Cyclometrica, a matter he was not well versed in; that he had rather err so ingeniously as he did, than hit upon truth in that heavy manner, as the Jesuit, his antagonist, stuffeth his books. Most assuredly his wit and smartness in this discourse is of the finest standard, and his insight into severer learning, will appear as piercing unto such as use not strictly the touchstone and the test to examine every piece of glittering coin he payeth his reader with. But to come to the resurrection. Methinks it is but a gross conception, to think that every atom of the present individual matter of a body, every grain of ashes of a burned cadaver, scattered by the wind throughout the world, and, after numerous variations, changed peradven