“Whether the heirs of the kingdom are, at their first admission,
instated into a full possession of all their glory, and kept to that
stint, I think may be a doubt. For if the faculty be perfected by the
object, about which 'tis conversant; then the faculties of those
blessed ones being continually employed upon an infinite object, must
needs be infinitely perficible, and capable still of being more and
more enlarged, and consequently of receiving still new and further
additions of glory.
“Not only so, (this is in Heaven:) but even the influence of that
example, they leave behind them on earth, drawing still more and more
souls after them to God, will also add to those improvements to the
end of the world, and bring in a revenue of accessory joys.
“And would it not be unjust in us then to deny them those glorious
advantages, which our commemoration and inclination may and ought to
give them.”[3]
ADAM LITTLETON.
[Footnote 3: “Five Sermons formerly printed,” p. 61., at the end of
the volume. The one from which the above passage is extracted is that
preached at the obsequies of the Right Honorable the Lady Jane
Cheyne.]
* * * * *
Circles and right lines limit and close all bodies, and the mortal
right lined circle, must conclude to shut up all. There is no Antidote
against the Opinion of Time, which, temporally considereth all things;
Our Fathers find their Graves in our short memories and sadly tell us
how we may be buried in our survivors. Grave-stones tell truth scarce
forty years: Generations pass while some Trees stand, and old families
last not three oaks. To be read by bare Inscriptions like many in
Gruter, to hope for Eternity by Ænigmatical Epithetes, or first
Letters of our names to be studied by Antiquaries, who we were, and
have new names given us like many of the Mummies, are cold
consolations unto the students of perpetuity even by everlasting
Languages.
SIR T. BROWNE.
CHAPTER CCXXXVI.
CHARITY OF THE DOCTOR IN HIS OPINIONS.—MASON THE POET.—POLITICAL
MEDICINE.—SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE.—CERVANTES.—STATE PHYSICIANS.—ADVANTAGE
TO BE DERIVED FROM, WHETHER TO KING, CABINET, LORDS OR
COMMONS.—EXAMPLES.—PHILOSOPHY OF POPULAR EXPRESSIONS.—COTTON
MATHER.—CLAUDE PAJON AND BARNABAS OLEY.—TIMOTHY ROGERS AND MELANCHOLY.
Go to!
You are a subtile nation, you physicians,
And grown the only cabinets in court!
B. JONSON.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account