the grave, and think there is but little to come. And since there is something of us that will still live on, join both lives together, and live in one but for the other. He who thus ordereth the purposes of this life will never be far from the next, and is in some manner already in it, by a happy conformity, and close apprehension of it. And if, as we have elsewhere declared, any have been so happy as personally to understand Christian annihilation, ecstasy, exolution, transformation, the kiss of the spouse, and ingression into the divine shadow, according to mystical theology; they have already had an handsome anticipation of heaven, the world is in a manner over, and the earth in ashes unto them. FINIS. RELIGIO The Author of THE TASK was not one of those unaffectionate beings who have neither bosomfriends nor favourite pocket-companions. Although the fact is nowhere recorded I am persuaded that MEDICI was one of his darling books. They who hesitate to adopt this conclusion may yet be glad to have the passages brought together on which it is founded, for it cannot be undelightful to see the unanimity of thinking which existed between two of the purest minds that have adorned our country. Will it be thought that I mean to disparage dear Cowper by bringing forward these analogies? Far from it! they make me love him the more. There are but few books in the world, worth reading, which do not disclose their authors' acquaintance with the wisdom to be found in other books that were written before them. J. P. There is no church whose every part so squares unto my conscience as this church of England, to whose faith I am a sworn subject. Religio Medici, page 6. The world was made to be inhabited by beasts, but studied and contemplated by man; 'tis the debt of our reason we owe unto God, and the homage we pay for not being beasts. The wisdom of God receives small honour from those vulgar heads that rudely stare about, and with a gross rusticity admire his works. Those highly magnify him, whose judicious inquiry into his acts, and deliberate research into his creatures, return the duty of a devout and learned admiration. Teach my endeavours so thy works to read, What reason may not go to school to the wisdom of bees, ants, and spiders? Ruder heads stand amazed at those prodigious pieces of nature, whales, elephants, dromedaries, and camels; these, I confess, are the colossus and majestic pieces of his hand; but in these narrow engines there is more curious mathematicks, and the civility of these little citizens more neatly sets forth the wisdom of their maker. Rel, Med. p. 25. |