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
being by the English taken upon the Seas limited in credence of governing her Children by the insolency of a proud Nobility or reputation branded after a long languishing with inward discontentments turned as it were recluse and began to bid farewel to this world Her melancholy growing incurable amidst her last Trances when her Son had come to visit her she is said to have spoken to him almost to this sense That providence which brought me upon the Earth and set a Crown on my head doth now recal and remove me to a better Kingdom and my happiness is not in this a little that I leave this life without change of that Estate in which I peaceably lived Death now sheweth me as in a mirrour the frailty of all worldly Pomp and glory which before by the marble colours of false greatness was over-shadowed and covered from me My Griefs have been many few my contentments The most eminent of which was the hopes I conceived of you and my other children and now my greatest regret is that I leave you before I could see my wishes accomplished towards you My only care was to have you brought up in all vertue and goodness But Heaven shall bestow that charge to more prudent Governors Always take these motherly directions from me who can leave you no better Legacy Be earnest to observe these Commandments which are prescribed unto you by Religion for this supporteth the Scepters of Princes and a Religious King cannot but have obedient Subjects What an unreasonable thing is it that a King will have a People to acknowledge him for their Soveraign Prince upon Earth and will not acknowledge God for his Supream Lord in Heaven A King who rebelleth against God all subordinate Creatures will rebel against him Love my children and laying aside the Port and Stateliness of a King receive them with the affection of a Brother Endeavour to make your Subjects obey you more out of Love than Fear or make your self beloved and feared both together seeing love alone of it self is often cause of contempt and fear alone begets hatred Remember ye Govern not the soft effeminate People of the South but a fierce Warlike Nation of the North which oftner use to be entreated than commanded by their Princes Be sparing to lay Subsidies on them which maketh many Male-contents and live upon your own suffering others to enjoy what is theirs Beware of Flatterers and exalting undeserved persons above your ancient Nobility Suffer not your Prerogatives to come in Question but fore-seeing the danger rather give way to all that with reason is demanded of you Moderate your Passions He shall never Govern a Kingdom who cannot govern himself and bring his Affections within the Circle of Reason It fears me Envy and Malice arm themselves against you which to overcome endeavour to be Martial in your self for a Prince that is not Martial in himself shall never be freed of Rebellion amongst his Subjects a strong arm should hold the Ballance of Justice When dissention ariseth be not a Loyterer and Sluggard but with all celerity suppress it in the Infancy Rebellion is like Fire in a City which should be quenched though with the pulling down of the Neighbour Houses Others will instruct you in the art of Governing with greater curiosity and wisdom but not with the like love and affection I wish this counsel be ingraven in your heart and conscience after my death for a perpetual testimony of my sincerity in your education And if by the unjust counsel of others ye be brought to practise ought contrary to these instructions Remember ye cannot shun inevitable dangers both to your State and Person But now I am warned from above to deliver this grief-ful Body to the rest of a desired Grave After she had thus counselled and blessed her Son not living many days she was buried with all Solemnities and Funeral Rites at Edenburgh in the Colledge of the Trinity which she her self had Founded in the year One thousand four hundred sixty six 1466 The King as he encreased in years encreasing in strength and ability for exercises either of recreation or valour by the Regents is given to a Brother of the Lord Boyd to be bred in Knightly Prowess a man singular for his Education abroad and demeanor at home The Kennedies were now aged and become tyred to give such assiduous attendance at Court as they were wont and the times required The Lord Boyd by the weakness of his Co-partners governed the State alone as Sir Alexander his Brother did the young King To whose Natural inclination he did so comply and conform himself that he had the whole trust of his affairs and the King had no thoughts but his So soon as the King began to know himself he turned impatient of being subject to the Laws of Minority that he himself should be restrained by that Authority which did derive from him to loath the Superintendency and Government of others and to affect an unseasonable Priviledge to be at his own disposal and the governing himself Many things are done without the advice of the Governours and occasion is sought to be disburdened of their Authority The Lord Boyd and his Brother in a little time encreasing in greatness and having an intention to transfer the Power of the State and Glory of the Court to their Family fail not to find opportunity to free the King from the severity and rigour of the Governours Schooling and to frame him an escape Whilst the King remaining at Linlithgow the Lord Hayls Lord Somervail Sir Andrew Carre of Chesford Sir Alexander Boyd agree upon a match of Hunting and will have the King Umpire of the Game Early the morning following the Gentlemen who were upon the Plot failed not in their Attendance The King being a mile off the Town and holding the way towards Edenburgh the Lord Kennedy whose quarter then was to attend and who had leasurely followed suspecting this Hunting to be a Game of State the King continuing his Progress laying his hands upon the Reins of his Bridle requested him to turn again to Linlithgow for that he perceived the time was not convenient for him to go further neither was he at a convenient match in absence of his best deserving followers Sir Alexander Boyd impatient that the King should have been thus stayed after injurious words stroke the Reverend Governour with a Hunting-staff upon the head and took the King along with him to Edenburgh At a frequent meeting of the States the Kennedies urged to have the King continue under Minority the Boyds to take the Government in his own Person after long contestations wisdom being overcome by boldness the Authority of the better party was forced to give place and yield to the will of the greater Thus the Faction of the Boyds prevailed After this the Kennedies full of indignation and breathing Revenge leave the Court cares grief and age about this time brought James Kennedy Bishop
middle Ward which the King led with which now the Earl of Bothwel with the power of Lothian was joyned fought it out couragiously body against body and Sword to Sword Numbers upon either side falling till darkness and the black shadows of the Night forced as it were by consent of both a Retreat Neither of them understanding the fortune of the day and unto whom Victory appertained Many brave Scots did here fall esteemed to above Five thousand of the noblest and worthiest Families of the Kingdom who choosed rather to die than out-live their friends and Compatriots The King 's Natural Son Alexander Arch-Bishop of St. Andrews the Bishop of the Isles the Abbots of Inchjefray and Kill-winny the Earls of Crawford Mortoun Arguyl Lennox Arrel Cathness Bothwel Athol the Lords Elphinstoun Areskin Forbess Ross Lovet Saintclare Maxwell with his three Brothers Simple Borthwick Numbers of Gentlemen Balgowny Blacka-Towre Borchard Sir Alexander Seatoun Mackenny with Macklean George Master of Anguss and Sir William Dowglass of Glenbervy with some Two hundred Gentlemen of their name and Vassals were here slain The English left few less upon the place but most part of them being of the common sort of Souldiers and men of no great mark compared with so many Nobles killed and a King lost the number was not esteemed nor the loss thought any thing of The Companies of the Lord Hume had reserved themselves all the time of the Fight keeping their first Order and when by the Earl of Huntley he was required to relieve the Battalions where the King fought he is said to have answered That that man did well that day who stood and saved himself After the retreat his Followers gathered a great booty of the spoils of the slaughtered This Fight began September the Ninth about four of the clock after Noon and continued three hours the year One thousand five hundred and thirteen About the dawning of the next Morning the Lord Dacres with his Horse-Troops taking a view of the Field and seeing the brazen Ordnance of the Scots not transported with most part of the faln Bodies not rifled sendeth speedy advertisement to the Howards and the pensive Army inviting all to the setting up of Trophies Spoil and transporting of their great Ordnance to Berwick amongst which were seven Culverins of like size and making called the Seven Sisters Divers diversly report of the Fortune of the King We without affirming any thing for certain shall only set down what Fame hath published a false Witness often of Human Accidents and which many times by malignant brains is forged and by more malignant Ears received and believed The English hold that he was killed in this Battle the Scots that many in like Arms with the like Guards were killed every one of which was held for the King Amongst others Alexander Lord Elphinstoun his Favourite who had married Elizabeth Barley one of the Dames of Honour of Queen Margarite He was a man not unlike to the King in face and stature and representing him in Arms in the Field with the valiantest and most couragious of the Army fought it out and acting Heroically his part as a King was killed heaps of slaughtered bodies environing his In the search where the Fight was the number taleness furniture of the dead bodies being observed their Faces and Wounds viewed his body as if it breathed yet Majesty was amidst the others selected acknowledged for his Masters brought to Berwick and embalmed That it was not the body of the King the girdle of Iron which he ever wore and then was not found about him gave some though not certain testimony Some have Recorded that the fortune of the day inclining to the English four tall men mounted upon lusty Horses wearing upon the points of their Launces for cognoscances Streamers of Straw mounting the King on a Sorrel Hackney convoyed him far from the place of fight and that he was seen beyond the Tweed between Kelso and Dunce After which what became of him was uncertain Many hold he was killed in the Castle of Hume either by the intelligence between the English and the Lord Humes kindred or out of fear for they were at the slaughter of the Kings Father and the most violent in that Fight or of hopes of great fortunes which would follow innovations and the confusion of the State being men who liv'd best in a troubl'd Commonwealth and upon the Borders One Carr a follower of the Lord Humes that same night the Battle was fought thrust the Abbot of Kelso out of his Abbacy which he never durst attempt the King being alive Another David Carbreth in the time of John the Governour vaunted that however John wronged the Humes he was one of six who had abated the insolency of King James and brought him to know he was a Mortal To these is added that the Governour John not long hereafter cut of the Heads of the Lord Hume and his Brother without any known great cause The Common people ever more addicted to Superstition than Verity believed he was living and had passed over the Seas and according to his promise visited the Holy Sepulchre in Palestine There for his other offences and the bearing of Arms against his Father in Prayers and Pennance he spent the remainder of his tedious days That he would return again when he found opportunity and the necessity of Europe requir'd him This report was of as great truth as that which the Burgundians have of the Return of their Duke Charles after the Battle of Nancy most of them believing he escaped from the conflict He was lost the twenty and five year of his Reign the thirty and ninth of his Age the Ninth of September One thousand five hundred and thirteen This King was of a vigorous body his stature being neither too tall nor too low of a pleasant countenance of a pregnant wit but by the faults of the times in which he lived not polished with Letters He excelled in Horse-manship Fencing and Shooting By much watching slender diet and use he was enabled to endure all extremities of Weather Scarcity or want of rest with good health of body He was just in giving judgment in punishing Malefactors severe yet tractable and moderate With the peril of some few he restrained vices and rather shook the Sword than struck with it He knew there were some things though Princes might yet they ought not to do He was easie of access most courteous in speech and meek in answering every man He was so far from being overtaken with anger or other violent perturbations that he was never observed to have given an evil or disobliging word to any or that the colour of his face changed by any offence offered him or informations given him relying without passion upon his own magnanimity He was of a free and liberal disposition far from any ostentation As he understood well the Art of giving so to acquire and purchase he was not sufficient of
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
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