most subtle their spirits more agile 4. The eye can best discern without a Perspective the Effigies of God in his own person and all other his mighty works for the service of man The ear quickest hear the sweet sounding musick of his word The hands have a greater dexterity to perfume God's Altars with the Odours of Alms-deeds and charitable actions The feet strongest and best able to support us to the hallowed Temple Thus imploying our vigorous and active abilities is a seeking the Lord while he is near to us The nature of Quick-silver is to tremble and be restless till it find something with which it may commix So these Mercurial parts if not set on work in God's service will be sure though to their own cost take imployment elsewhere Youth knows no Medium its lively Embers will be either blown into a flame of Devotion or Concupiscence Let us therefore tread that path figur'd out to us take that Clue in hand to lead us through the intricate Labyrinths of a perplexed life And for our better direction there are erected in holy Scripture Pyramids and Columns such store of lights as so many Pharo's that we may sail on with a prosperous gale to our haven of felicity 5. If the glorious Mansions of the Heaven with all its splendid Equipage be worth the purchasing Let us Remember our Creatour If at any time we Remember our Creatour let it be Juvenili aetate In our rosie-morn In the days of our Youth If we will bate our selves so much of our present enjoyments as to pay him Primitias the service of our Youth Let it not then be a lame or disjoynted one lest we be put by as those maimed persons in the Old Law from serving at the Sanctuary but such vivid such Heroick services as will not shame the giver nor cause God to withdraw his hands from deigning them a favourable acceptance 6. This will forward our Journey to the New Jerusalem a City that hath all peace all joy Where there is no leading into Captivity nor crying in her streets A City of pure Gold and the Walls of Jasper A City that hath no need of the Sun neither of the Moon to shine in it for the glory of God doth light it Where we shall not forget him for we shall sing Allelujahs to him Where we shall not forget him for we shall have such glorified bodies as to see him face to face without a flaming bush to interpose without meaner Objects than Saints Angels Cherubims and Seraphims ESSAY II. 7. De Humana fragilitate JOB 14.1 Man that is born of a Woman is of few Days and full of Trouble QUod natum est poterit mori Every birth will have a burial And a greater Rhetorician than Seneca tells us There is a time to be born and a time to dye The hand of fate signs no Indulgences reprieves not any seeing all are doom'd and destin'd to the shades of death Nullâ prece mobilis Ordo No intreaties can reverse the Decretals of Heaven The world it self with its resplendent Luminaries Sun Moon and Stars plead no exemption 8. Those weaker fires must be burnt with a more powerful one from Heaven and every thing reduc'd to its primitive condition to a figur'd nothing God only that was without beginning knows no end All things else will have their calcination will to rubbidge That Microcosm man also though but an Epitome of the World yet of greater dignity than the whole Universe for Adam's disparadising himself must have this Dilapidation Though the hands of the Almighty have kneaded us Thy hands have made me and fashion'd me round about and baked these bodies when inorganical in the Oven of the Womb to a purity of ripeness to an animation yet our first sinning hath crackt these Vessels that we moulder to dust again 9. Though thou hast formed us so like unto thy glorious self as made David out of an extasie of admiration cry out I am fearfully and wonderfully made yet since we have blotted out the Inscription of Heaven which was so gloriously figur'd on us defac'd that noble Impress thou was pleas'd to stamp upon common clay 't is no injustice if we return to dirt again for this Lord Paramount to change our free tenure into Lease hold nay into Villenage Since we refus'd to live in the Sun-shine of his favour 't is of our own meriting that we are doom'd to a Land of darkness Though these earthly Tabernacles have the enoblement of being Ancient Demain Crown-lands yet have they no priviledge of immunity shall not be freed from the common Gabels nature imposes upon them but have their devastation too Though our bodies by divine Institution are the Temples of the Holy Ghost yet if we make them receptacles for sin we cannot expect loss than a dissolution of them For The wages of sin is death Every man as Tertullian hath it being Homicida sui a murderer of himself Man forges the weapon and sin is the sword that doth execution on us 10. Dari bonum quod potuit auferri potest The same power that cast these divided Elements into one entire Building can with the breath of his nostrils destruct them again and since we prove not Vessels of Honour will speedily take the matrials asunder and lay them in the dust And yet may we not with Holy Job say unto him What dost thou For 't is the Lord's doing and therefore marvellous in our eyes Seeing then we have pull'd this house upon our own heads which if sin had not undermin'd though but houses of Clay had outbraved times dilapidation Let us therefore be content our own consciences having already proved our Indictment to hear that irreversible sentence pass'd on us which hath long since sent many to the place of execution though reprieved for a few days yet wilt thou bring us also to death and to the house appointed for all living We must all back to the place whence we came the Earth there lie fetter'd in the prison of the Grave to be torn and mangled by her little Furies fierce executioner till our bones are pickt clean till they have their incineration too 11. In the sacred rolls of Heaven we find the same judgment denounced against the heritage of the Lord Thou Worm Jacob. No higher title doth the Lord bestow on the greatest of the Sons of men For they shall all lie down alike in the grave and the worms shall cover them Stoop here and see the polished Tomb-stone that 's laid over us the worm shall cover us And read what Epitaph Job hath writ on it Man that is born of a Woman is of few days and full of trouble It had been enough to have said We are born of women without reading to us the destiny of a short continuance for by that we might have spell'd our fleeting condition and as in a mirrour viewed the forms and Idaea's of our present suffrings 'T is necessary to
must be proportionable Our abode here shorter than a peregrination Tho we pass by those Iliads of Dangers that obviate us and burn out to the bottom of the Wiek dye in our socketts yet deduct so many Years for our declination since those more durable ones and almost one half of that abbreviated time for Sleep the Hand-Maid of death how inconsiderable when cast up will the Summa totalis be that we have to live How short our continuance If they were but Sojourners when the World was in the Meridian of his Age in its greatest Stature what a hasty transition do we make in its setting in its decrepitness As if we came to give the World a visit and in scorn to its miserable shortness bid a farewel to it If Life was but a shadow when God darted on them the rayes of his glorious Countenance and held Dialogues with the Sons of Men how far distant are we that refuse to come into his presence from the substance 4. If our Life in those large striding times was but a Span long how short are we now of that Span And if God doth not alarm us to Judgment that a few Ages more succeed ours their being will be so fleeting so voluble a duration so short so inconsiderable that they will not know how to entile it Even now we attribute too much by calling it a continuance having already in the way to that general dissolution suffer'd so much change but that the precedent Words check the loudness of the phrase T is but short but a few Days Man that is born of a Woman is but of few Days He that lives longest hath but his Term his being here is but as a Thought presently shoulder'd out by another The Flower we know though more gorgeous in attire than Solomon in all his Glory in the morning is by the Suns vigor raised out of the Bed of Earth displays her Colours and in the evening sickens and dyes Yet Man is no other sometimes less considerable rising with the Sun and stays not his setting 5. How great a part of mankind from their Mothers lying in date their laying out deliverd by the Hands of the Midwife from the Mantles and bloody coverings of the Womb to be sealed up in a winding-Sheet post from one Grave to the other How many with the Babes of Bethlehem see the World without continuing so long as to understand what they see or if they know it in the best of content conclude it not to be worth the knowing if but for its short continuance How many before they arrive to that perfection Nature designs us the beauty and strength of Youth are often so debilitâ—â—ed that for want of Strength expire How few make their perambulations till they feel the decrepitness of old Age kicking up their Heels or if the Thread of their Life be drawn out to a more unusual length yet is it but a lassitude a Province of Labour and Sorrow every Minute expecting when Death strikes at the crazy Doors of their Bodys the Damps that they carry about them making their Taper all that time burn Blew ready to extinguish 6. That Death shall unbody our Souls take down these tapestry Hangings of Flesh strip us to the bones what 's more incinerate Calcine those very bones distracts not reason since there is a necessity for all men once to dye Mors necessitatem habet aequam et invictam But that we should untimely dye and which is more admirable Non admittere mortem sed attrahere Make our hands the Bodyes carefull Conservators our own Executioners is a wonder too transcendent When a healthfull composure intends us for a longer time precipitate our ruine dig our own graves as if we conceited a greater misery in living then Job or to lay violent hands on our selves were after the Roman garb to deck our heads with Garlands and Trophies for the conquest over our present sufferings 7. The two main Columns that support mans life are heat and moisture If there be an excess or deficiency in either this stately Colossus becomes irreparably ruinous But if we were such perfect Naturalists as to acquaint our selves with the right constitutions of our bodyes and had an observant will to act according to the dictates of our knowledge by measuring out such a temperament that the heat be not cooled by an exuberancy of moisture or too thrifty allowance for it to feed on our lamp might burn with a greater Nitor a more lasting Clarity But such things are we born of women either to know so little or which is worse make not practical what we do know that either with excessive ating cloy we that heat make it unfit for digestion or throw too much drink upon those glowing embers or else frying up our marrow emptying our veins to fill the exorbitant desires of our lusts we are hurry'd to our last sleep many decad's of dayes sooner then if we measur'd out every thing aequâ lance with the hand of Mediocrity No marvil our day is so soon clouded our tale so soon told our Pilgrimage so soon terminated for not only Nature intends us a quick dispatch but we must needs steal a Thief into our farthing candle mend the swift pac'd sand that measureth our time by shaking the glass of our life into quicker motion Like that exquisite Limner who cut a visible line through that small one coppied out to him by his competitor 8. We have but one passage that leads us into the world and that a strait one For we come like Rebeccha's twins strugling and striving for our admittance but death hath bands of Executioners in a readiness to give us our passport Though there is but one postern that leads us out of the land of the living Death yet many are the wayes trod out to it Mille modis lethi miseros mors una fatigat Some foot it by those lesser paths of Agues and Colds Others ride the beaten and trodden wayes of Surfets and Feavers Others the common rodes and high ways of Pestilence and the Sword At this Centre Death all lines meet all rodes give up their passingers and when we have discharg'd our Bill of fare paid Nature her arrears for we have been dying even from our infancy vestigia nulla retrorsum We make no return The eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more 9. Though we have our Magna Charta confirm'd to us by the king of Kings and Lord of Lords of a Sovereignty over the Creatures as is acknowledged by the Psalmist Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet Yet there is no creature so contemptible but may have a time to triumph with the spoyls of his Lord. Praesentemque viris intentant omnia mortem Every thing menaces destruction hath an Invenom'd arrow ready to let fly at us The Fates could string their Bow with one single hair when they sent a death to Fabius a Roman A fly was
may do himself the more honour shew the excellency of his power by mounting us on a higher Throne drawing the Rays of our Glory to a brighter Lustre Historians every where shew us many brave men as well Heathens as Christians who had no other fault but too much merited of their Country that have been paid with scorn and ingratitude nay with Proscription and afterwards with the consent applause of those very Persecuters have thrown off the Mantles and Coverings of Darkness and Obscurity and like the Sun after an interposition appeared all Glorious 6. God seldom remunerates his Servants here with a temporary felicity Some indeed have been crown'd with Rose-Buds have let no Flower of the Spring pass by them Though Mordecai a Captive was invested with the Royal Robes and rode upon the King's Horse yet others have gone on foot and not a seeming Gourd to refresh them but so as he comforts and keeps vivid the Vitals with his Spirits and Extracts distilled through that glorious Limbeck Paul the Apostle We may be troubled on every side but not distressed perplexed but not in despair persecuted but not forsaken God hath Balsom for every Wound a Plaister for every Sore and though he dress it not while it is green and fresh yet he will make his applications before it fester What though God suffer an Executioner to lay violent hands upon thee he cannot go a step beyond death he does but antidate the work of a Disease the difference only is a nefarious hand presently storms the body and a malady takes it in by a longer Siege few drop like a wasted Taper in the Socket but some violent wind puts it out some sharp Disease is the extinguisher and the Conflicts and Colluctations that such have with death adequate the throws of a more hasty Transition So that it matters not whether we die Sicca or humida morte whether we are burnt with a quick fire at the stake or a lingring one of a Fever whether we are thrown into the Tiber or drowned at home with a Dropsie whether starved in a Prison or shrivelled in our Chamber with a Consumption 7. Since God hath a Statute upon our Bodies It being appointed for all men once to die and that we cannot be removed from our Troubles of Life but by death then the shortest way must needs be the best 'T is a poor thrift to put a Save-all into our Farthing Candle to be angry because the thred of nature is broken before she has time to wind off the whole bottom Though the eye of Moses was not dim nor his natural force abated yet when God bade him Go up and die he readily quitted his own command went up to the top of Pisgah and died The Primitive Christians set so great an estimate upon the days of their death that they called them Natales Then they only began their Epocha of living the world was but before in labour with them and death was the Midwife to give them a Nativity 8. Certainly could we but hear the Transports of a refined Soul singing an Obiit to the world preparing her Heavenly Viaticum it would have a strange charm awake our Poppy Souls and infuse into them raptures of joy and exultation unexpressive or if fabricated according to the Model of that Philosopher who would have a Window in the Breast of every man we might see a strange Festivity within him not a Cloud in that Hemisphere What more lovely than the wounds of Sebastian though drawn with a rugged Pencil Those feathered Arrowswinged him for an Heavenly Flight Does not a Martyr amidst his Flames shew like the Sun encircled with Rays of Glory And S. Stephen when brought before the Council appeared not with pallor dejection like a Malefactor that looks half executed before the doom be past but so Seraphical that the Judges saw his face as though it had been the face of an Angel When a Saint hath been mounting a Scaffold have we not been big with conceit by those few Stairs he was ascending a Throne that it was his Jacobs Ladder that railed him up to Heaven 9. He must needs make a boon Voyage that in so little a time is set on the shore of eternity with so few steps is carried from earth to Heaven Let not then any thing startle us though vizarded with loathsomness and deformity nor be terrified though we change life for death with that brave Theban Epaminondas so the Victory may be glorious It is God's care and who would not almost love his Disease for such a Physician many times to use Corrosives to the Body that the Soul may have her Lenitives punish the worser part that the better may be preserved To a mortal man there can be no immortality of evil man himself hath but a short period his life compared to things of the least duration And yet they that acted the most tragical parts no doubt had some Interludes and Recesses It was not long that Joseph lay in prison nor Job on the Dunghil nor Jeremy in the Dungeon Others have put on Mourning for a longer term but they also had a time to shift their Sables Dabit Deus bis quoque sinem 10. It is against the Rules of a Tragedy to have every Scene filled with Blood shed and Slaughter A strange distempered Season if the Heavens should continually be hung with black as strange if we always sate in darkness that the Sun did not sometimes peep through our cloud of Adversity Though it enlighten not the whole Body yet it may guild the Fringes and Borders of it gives us though not a glorious light yet sufficient to keep our dying spark alive But against all partiality it must appear strangely short if compared to the never terminating pains of the Fiends below where the Worm never dieth nor the Fire ever goeth out It is observed by Boetius That a punctum of time and ten thousand years hold better proportion than so many years and that endless thing Eternity Aeternum aeternum quanta haec duratio quanta How much horrour and amazement should the consideration of it bring to them that barter for a present felicity a few transient Glimmerings so much horrour and confusion where they shall spend morientem vitam be always dying and yet never die not one drop of Water shall be cast into the Furnace to slack their Flames not one spark of Fire shall warm these refrigerating Waters and to heighten the wonder contraries shall dwell together without any destructive clashing Lamentable is the cry of the Prophet Esay Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire who among us shall dwell with everlasting Burnings 11. Is it not then better to be cast down with sorrow for sin than to be sunk so low that we never rise again to be clouded for a while than over-cast for ever Melior est modica amaritudo in faucibus quà m aeternum tormentum in visceribus It is better