admire, exposed unto the violence of fire grows only hot and liquifies, but consumeth not: so when the consumable and volatile pieces of our bodies shall be refined into a more impregnable and fixed temper like gold, though they suffer from the action of flames they shall never perish, but lie immortal in the arms of fire. And surely if this frame must suffer only by the action of this element, there will many bodies escape, and not only heaven, but earth will not be at an end, but rather a beginning; for at present it is not earth, but a composition of fire, water, earth, and air; but at that time, spoiled of these ingredients, it shall appear in a substance more like itself, its ashes. Philosophers that opinioned the world's destruction by fire, did never dream of annihilation, which is beyond the power of sublunary causes; for the last and proper action of that element is but vitrification, or a reduction of a body into glass; and therefore some of our chymicks facetiously affirm, that at the last fire all shall be crystallized and reverberated into glass, which is the utmost action of that element. Nor need we fear this term, annihilation, or wonder that God will destroy the works of his creation; for man subsisting, who is, and will then truly appear a microcosm, the world cannot be said to be destroyed. For the eyes of God, and perhaps also. of our glorified selves, shall as really behold and contemplate the world in its epitome or contracted essence, as now it doth at large and in its dilated substance. In the seed of a plant, to the eyes of God and to the understanding of man, there exists, though in an invisible way, the perfect leaves, flowers, and fruit thereof; (for things that are in posse to the sense, are actually existent to the understanding.) Thus God beholds all things,

who contemplates as fully his works in their epitome as in their full volume; and beheld as amply the whole world in that little compendium of the sixth day as in the scattered and dilated pieces of those five before.

LI. Men commonly set forth the torments of hell by fire, and the extremity of corporal afflictions, and describe hell in the same method that Mahomet doth heaven. This indeed makes a noise, and drums in popular ears; but if this be the terrible piece thereof it is not worthy to stand in diameter with heaven, whose happiness consists in that part that is best able to comprehend it, that immortal essence, that translated divinity and colony of God, the soul. Surely though we place hell under earth, the devil's walk and purlieu is about it; men speak too popularly who place it in those flaming mountains, which to grosser apprehensions represent hell. The heart of man is the place the devils dwell in; I feel sometimes a hell within myself, Lucifer keeps his court in my breast, Legion is revived in me. There are as many hells, as Anaxagoras conceited worlds; there was more than one hell in Magdalene when there were seven devils; for every devil is an hell unto himself; he holds enough of torture in his own ubi, and needs not the misery of circumference to afflict him; and thus a distracted conscience here, is a shadow or introduction unto hell hereafter. Who can but pity the merciful intention of those hands that do destroy themselves? the devil were it in his power would do the like, which being impossible his miseries are endless, and he suffers most in that attribute wherein he is impassible, his immortality.

LII. I thank God, and with joy I mention it, I was never afraid of hell, nor never grew pale at the descrip

tion of that place; I have so fixed my contemplations on heaven that I have almost forgot the idea of hell, and am afraid rather to lose the joys of the one than endure the misery of the other; to be deprived of them is a perfect hell, and needs methinks no addition to complete our afflictions; that terrible term hath never detained me from sin, nor do I owe any good action to the name thereof: I fear God, yet am not afraid of him; his mercies make me ashamed of my sins, before his judgments afraid thereof; these are the forced and secondary method of his wisdom, which he useth but as the last remedy, and upon provocation; a course rather to deter the wicked than incite the virtuous to his worship. I can hardly think there was ever any scared into heaven; they go the fairest way to heaven that would serve God without a hell; other mercenaries that crouch unto him in fear of hell, though they term themselves the servants, are indeed but the slaves of the Almighty.

LIII. And to be true, and speak my soul, when I survey the occurrences of my life, and call into account the finger of God, I can perceive nothing but an abyss and mass of mercies, either in general to mankind, or in particular to myself; and whether out of the prejudice of my affection, or an inverting and partial conceit of his mercies, I know not, but those which others term crosses, afflictions, judgments, misfortunes, to me who inquire farther into them than their visible effects, they both appear, and in event have ever proved the secret and dissembled favours of his affection. It is a singular piece of wisdom to apprehend truly and without passion, the works of God; and so well to distinguish his justice from his mercy as not to miscal those noble attributes; yet it is likewise an honest piece of logick, so to dispute

and argue the proceedings of God, as to distinguish even his judgments into mercies. For God is merciful unto all, because better to the worst than the best deserve; and to say he punisheth none in this world, though it be a paradox, is no absurdity. To one that hath committed murder, if the judge should only ordain a fine, it were a madness to call this a punishment, and to repine at the sentence rather than admire the clemency of the judge. Thus our offences being mortal, and deserving not only death, but damnation, if the goodness of God be content to traverse and pass them over with a loss, misfortune, or disease, what frenzy were it to term this a punishment, rather than an extremity of mercy, and to groan under the rod of his judgments, rather than admire the sceptre of his mercies! Therefore to adore, honour, and admire him, is a debt of gratitude due from the obligation of our nature, states, and conditions; and with these thoughts, he that knows them best will not deny that I adore him: that I obtain heaven, and the bliss thereof, is accidental, and not the intended work of my devotion; it being a felicity I can neither think to deserve, nor scarce in modesty to expect. For these two ends of us all, either as rewards or punishments, are mercifully ordained and disproportionably disposed unto our actions; the one being so far beyond our deserts, the other so infinitely below our demerits.

LIV. There is no salvation to those that believe not in Christ, that is, say some, since his nativity, and as divinity affirmeth, before also; which makes me much apprehend the ends of those honest worthies and philosophers which died before his incarnation. It is hard to place those souls in hell whose worthy lives do teach us virtue on earth; methinks amongst those many sub

divisions of hell, there might have been one limbo left for these; what a strange vision will it be to see their poetical fictions converted into verities, and their imagined and fancied furies into real devils! how strange to them will sound the history of Adam, when they shall suffer for him they never heard of; when they who derive their genealogy from the gods, shall know they are the unhappy issue of sinful man! It is an insolent part of reason to controvert the works of God, or question the justice of his proceedings: could humility teach other, as it hath instructed me, to contemplate the infinite and incomprehensible distance betwixt the Creator and the creature; or did we seriously perpend that one simile of St. Paul, shall the vessel say to the potter, why hast thou made me thus it would prevent these arrogant disputes of reason, nor would we argue the definitive sentence of God, either to heaven or hell. Men that live according to the right rule and law of reason, live but in their own kind, as beasts do in theirs; who justly obey the prescript of their natures, and therefore cannot reasonably demand a reward of their actions, as only obeying the natural dictates of their reason. It will therefore, and must at last appear, that all salvation is through Christ; which verity I fear these great examples of virtue must confirm, and make it good how the perfectest actions of earth have no title or claim unto heaven.

LV. Nor truly do I think the lives of these or of any other were ever correspondent, or in all points conformable unto their doctrines. It is evident that Aristotle transgressed the rule of his own ethicks; the stoicks that condemn passion, and command a man to laugh in Phalaris his bull, could not endure without a groan,