Page images
PDF
EPUB

the raised saints. For, supposing the truth of the history of the Scriptures, we may observe that the power of God has already extended itself to the performance of such things as import as much as we need infer, sometimes by suspending the natural actings of bodies upon one another, and sometimes by endowing human and other bodies with preternatural qualities. And indeed, lightness, or rather agility, indifferent to gravity and levity, incorruption, transparency, and opacity, figure, colour, &c., being but mechanical affections of matter, it cannot be incredible that the most free and powerful Author of those laws of nature according to which all the phenomena of qualities are regulated, may (as he thinks fit) introduce, establish, or change them in any assigned portion of matter, and consequently in that whereof a human body consists. Thus, though iron be a body above eight times heavier, bulk for bulk, than water, yet in the case of Elisha's behest its native gravity was rendered ineffectual, and it emerged from the bottom to the top of the water: and the gravitation of St. Peter's body was suspended whilst his Master commanded him, and by that command enabled him to come to him walking on the sea. Thus the operation of the most active body in nature, flame, was suspended in Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace, whilst Daniel's three companions walked unharmed in those flames that, in a trice, consumed the kindlers of them. Thus did the Israelites' manna, which was of so perishable a nature that it would corrupt in a little above a day when gathered in any day of the week but that which preceded the Sabbath, keep good twice as long, and when laid up before the ark for a memorial would last whole ages uncorrupted. And to add a proof that comes more directly home to our purpose, the body of our Saviour after his resurrection, though it retained the very impressions that the nails of the cross had made in his hands and feet, and the wound that the spear had made in his side, and was still called in the Scripture his body, as indeed it was, and more so than according to our past discourse it is necessary that every body should be that is rejoined to the soul in the resurrection: and yet this glorified body had the same qualifications that are promised to the saints in their state of glory; St. Paul informing us "that our vile bodies shall be transformed into the likeness of his glorious body," which the history of the gospel assures us was endowed with far nobler qualities than before his death. And whereas

the apostle adds, as we formerly noted, that this great change of schematism in the saints' bodies will be effected by the irresistible power of Christ, we shall not much scruple at the admission of such an effect from such an agent, if we consider how much the bare, slight, mechanical alteration of the texture of a body may change its sensible qualities for the better. For without any visible additament, I have several times changed dark and opacous lead into finely-coloured transparent and specifically lighter glass. And there is another instance, which, though because of its obviousness it is less heeded, is yet more considerable, for who will distrust what advantageous changes such an agent as God can work by changing the texture of a portion of matter, if he but observe what happens merely upon the account of such a mechanical change in the lighting of a candle, that is newly blown out, by the applying another to the ascending smoke. For in the twinkling of an eye an opacous, dark, languid and stinking smoke loses all its smell and is changed into a most active, penetrant, and shining body.

THE CHRISTIAN VIRTUOSO.

(PUBLISHED IN 1690.)

I have taken notice of two other accounts upon which the experimental knowledge of God's works may, in a well-disposed mind, conduce to establish the belief of his providence, and therefore, though I shall not dwell long upon them, I must not altogether pretermit them.

First then, when our Virtuoso sees how many, and how various, and oftentimes how strange and how admirable structures, instincts, and other artifices the wise Opisicer hath furnished even brutes and plants withal, to purchase and assimilate their food, to defend or otherwise secure themselves from hostile things, and, to be short, to maintain their lives and propagate their species, it will very much conduce to persuade him that so wise an Agent, who has at command so many differing and excellent methods and tools to accomplish what he designs, and does oftentimes actually employ them for the preservation and welfare of beasts, and even of plants, can never want means to compass his most wise and just ends in relation to mankind, being able, by ways that we should never dream of, to execute his

able to him, and to encourage man to both these by explicit promises of that felicity that man without them can but faintly hope for, he would be ready then thankfully to acknowledge that this way of procuring beseems the transcendent goodness of God, without derogating from his majesty and wisdom. And by these and the like reflections, whereof some were formerly intimated, a philosopher that takes notice of the wonderful providence that God descends to exercise for the welfare of inferior and irrational creatures, will have an advantage above men not versed in the works and course of nature to believe upon the historical and other proofs that Christianity offers, that God has actually vouchsafed to man, his noblest and only rational visible creature, an explicit and positive law, enforced by threatening severe penalties to the stubborn transgressors, and promising to the sincere obeyers rewards suitable to his own greatness and goodness. And thus the consideration of God's providence, in the conduct of things corporeal, may prove, to a well-disposed contemplator, a bridge whereon he may pass from natural to revealed religion.

menaces and fulfil his promises. But of these rare structures, instincts, and other methods, and, if I may so style some of them with reverence, stratagems and fetches of divine skill, that God is pleased to employ in the conduct of the visible world, especially animals, I have already elsewhere purposely discoursed, and therefore shall now proceed, and observe, in the second place, that when we duly consider the very different ends to which many of God's particular works, especially those that are animated, seem designed, in reference both to their own welfare and the utility of man, and with how much wisdom, and, I had almost said care, the glorious Creator has been pleased to supply them with means admirably fit for the attainment of these respective ends, we cannot but think it highly probable that so wise and so benign a Being has not left his noblest visible creature man unfurnished with means to procure his own welfare, and obtain his true end, if he be not culpably wanting to himself. And since man is endowed with reason, which may convince him (of what neither a plant nor brute animal is capable of knowing, namely) that God is both his maker and his continual benefactor, since his reason likewise teacheth him, that upon both those accounts, besides others, God may justly expect and require worship and obedience from him; FISHING WITH A COUNTERFEIT FLY.1 since also the same rational faculty may persuade him, that it may well become the majesty and wisdom of God, as the sovereign rector of the world, to give a law to man, who is a rational creature capable of understanding and obeying it, and thereby glorifying the author of it; since (farthermore), finding in his own mind (if it be not depraved by vice or lusts) a principle that dictates to him that he owes a veneration and other suitable sentiment to the divinely excellent Author of his being, and his continual and munificent benefactor; since, on these scores, his conscience will convince him of his obligation to all the essential duties of natural religion; and since, lastly, his reason may convince him that his soul is immortal, and is therefore capable as well as desirous to be everlastingly happy, after it has left the body, he must in reason be strongly inclined to wish for a supernatural discovery of what God would have him believe and do. And therefore, if being thus prepared he shall be very credibly informed that God hath actually been pleased to discover by supernatural revelation (what by reason without it he can either not at all, or but roughly guess at) what kind

Being at length come to the river-side we quickly began to fall to the sport for which we came thither, and Eugenius finding the fish forward enough to bite, thought fit to spare his flies till he might have more need of them, and therefore tied to his line a hook, furnished with one of those counterfeit flies which in some neighbouring countries are much used, and which, being made of the feathers of wild fowl, are not subject to be drenched by the water, whereon those birds are wont to swim. This fly being for a pretty while scarce any oftener thrown in than the hook it hid was drawn up again with a fish fastened to it: Eugenius looking on us with a smiling countenance seemed to be very proud of his success, which Eusebius taking notice of, Whilst (says he) we smile to see how easily you beguile these silly fishes, that you catch so fast with this false bait, possibly we are not much less unwary ourselves, and the world's treacherous pleasures do little less delude both me and you: for Eugenius (con

1 This and the following piece are from Occasional Re

of worship and obedience will be most accept-flections.

easy

Rare qualities may sometimes be prerogatives without being advantages. And though a needless ostentation of one's excellencies may be more glorious, yet a modest concealment of them is usually more safe, and an unseasonable disclosure of flashes of wit may sometimes do a man no other service than to direct his adversaries how they may do him a mischief.

tinues he), as the apostles were fishers of men | pretty while withdrew that luminous liquor, in a good sense, so their and our grand adver- that is as it were the candle to this dark lansary is a skilful fisher of men in a bad sense, thorn, he had continued to forbear the disclosand too often in his attempts to cheat fonding of it, he might have deluded my search mortals meets with a success as great and and escaped his present confinement. as you now find yours. And certainly that tempter, as the Scripture calls him, does sadly delude us, even when we rise at his best baits, and, as it were, his true flies: for, alas! the best things he can give are very worthless, most of them in their own nature, and all of them in comparison of what they must cost us to enjoy them. But however riches, power, and the delights of the senses are real goods in their kind, though they be not of the best kind, yet, alas! many of us are so fitted for deceits that we do not put this subtle angler to make use of his true baits to catch us. We suffer him to abuse us much more grossly, and to cheat us with empty titles of honour, or the ensnaring smiles of great ones, or disquieting drudgeries dignified with the specious names of great employments, and though these, when they must be obtained by sin, or are proposed as the recompenses for it, be, as I was going to say, but the devil's counterfeit flies, yet, as if we were fond of being deceived, we greedily swallow the hook for flies that do but look like such, so dim-sighted are we as well to what vice shows as to what it hides. Let us not then (concludes Eusebius) rise at baits, whereby we may be sure to be either grossly or at least exceedingly deceived; for, whoever ventures to commit a sin, to taste the luscious sweets that the fruition of it seems to promise, certainly is so far deceived as to swallow a true hook for a bait, which either proves but a counterfeit fly or hides that under its allur-attract the eye of others but are not suffered ing show which makes it not need to be a counterfeit one to deceive him.

ON A GLOW-WORM IN A PHIAL.

If this unhappy worm had been as despicable as the other reptiles that crept up and down the hedge whence I took him, he might as well as they have been left there still, and his own obscurity as well as that of the night had preserved him from the confinement he now suffers. And if, as he sometimes for a

And as though this worm be lodged in a crystalline prison, through which it has the honour to be gazed at by many eyes, and among them are some that are said to shine far more in the day than this creature does in the night, yet no doubt, if he could express a sense of the condition he is in, he would bewail it, and think himself unhappy in an excellency which procures him at once admiration and captivity, by the former of which he does but give others a pleasure, while in the latter he himself resents a misery.

This ofttimes is the fate of a great wit, whom the advantage he has of ordinary men in knowledge, the light of the mind exposes to so many effects of other men's importunate curiosity as to turn his prerogative into a trouble; the light that ennobles him tempts inquisitive men to keep him as upon the score we do this glow-worm from sleeping, and his conspicuousness is not more a friend to his fame than an enemy to his quiet, for men allow such much praise but little rest. They

to shut their own, and find that by a very disadvantageous bargain they are reduced for that imaginary good called fame to pay that real blessing liberty.

And as though this luminous creature be himself imprisoned in so close a body as glass, yet the light that ennobles him is not thereby restrained from diffusing itself, so there are certain truths that have in them so much of native light or evidence, that by the personal distresses of the proposer it cannot be hidden or restrained, but in spite of prisons it shines freely, and procures the teachers of it admiration even when it cannot procure them liberty.

THOMAS DUFFET.

FLOURISHED ABOUT 1676.

[Of Thomas Duffet very little is known except that he was an Irishman who kept at first a milliner's shop in the New Exchange, London, and who while thus engaged discovered an ability for song-writing and burlesque. This last talent, however, has got him into sad disfavour with some of his biographers, the editors of Biographia Dramatica taking him hotly to task for his presumption in laughing at Dryden, Shadwell, and Settle. Indeed, so occupied with this part of their task were they that they neglected even to state the time of his death or to mention a single song of his, and all encyclopaedic biographers from then till now have followed their example. Indeed in many cases their words have simply been reprinted, although their reverence for Settle and Shadwell is but an absurdity to us; while we all know that Dryden, though a great poet, was not a great dramatist, and his plays are just the kind for a clever burlesque writer to delight in.

That Duffet's burlesques were successful even the editors of Biographia Dramatica acknowledge, but they declare that for the favourable reception they found "Mr. Duffet stood more indebted to the great names of those authors whose works he attempted to burlesque and ridicule than to any merit of his own." Of these burlesques six are at present known: The Amorous Old Woman (doubtful); Spanish Rogue; Empress of Morocco; Mock Tempest; Beauty's Triumph; and Psyche Debauched. The best of these, say the biographers just quoted, met with the worst success, -a thing not uncommon even in our days.

However it is as a song-writer that Duffet is now remembered, and as such only do we care to study him and present him here.]

TO FRANCELIA.

In cruelty you greater are,

Than those fierce tyrants who decreed The noblest prisoner ta'en in war

Should to their gods a victim bleed.

1 Written in 1676 to "The Irish Tune," composed originally by Miles Reilly of Cavan, and afterwards carried into Scotland by the famous harper Connallon, where it

A year of pleasures and delight

The happy prisoner there obtained, And three whole days ere death's long night, In power unlimited he reigned.

To your victorious eyes I gave

My heart a willing sacrifice,
A tedious year have been your slave,
Felt all the pains hate could devise.

But two short hours of troubled bliss

For all my sufferings you restore, And wretched I must die for this,

And never never meet you more.

Never! how dismally it sounds,

If I must feel eternal pain, Close up awhile my bleeding wounds, And let me have my three days' reign.

SINCE COELIA'S MY FOE.1
Since Coelia's my foe,
To a desert I'll go,

Where some river
For ever
Shall echo my woe.

The trees shall appear
More relenting than her,
In the morning
Adorning

Each leaf with a tear.

When I make my sad moan
To the rocks all alone,

From each hollow
Will follow
Some pitiful groan.

But with silent disdain
She requites all my pain,
To my mourning
Returning

No answer again.

Ah, Coelia! adieu,

When I cease to pursue, You'll discover

No lover

Was ever so true.

became and is still well known as "Lochaber." On its first introduction to Scotland it was called for a short time "King James's March to Ireland."

Your sad shepherd flies From those dear cruel eyes,

Which not seeing,

His being

Decays, and he dies.

Yet 'tis better to run

To the fate we can't shun, Than for ever

To strive for

What cannot be won.

What, ye gods, have I done, That Amyntor alone

Is so treated,

And hated,

For loving but one?

THE MISTAKE.

Alas! how short, how false, and vain,
Are the uncertain joys of man;
But O how true, how fixed are,

His restless pain?

His certain grief and never-ceasing care? The trees that bend with flakes of snow, Spring will adorn with verdant leaves; The fruitful grain that buried lies,

In joyful blades again shall rise,

And grow,

To pay the rustic's pain with golden sheaves.
But man, poor wretched man,

Once in love's boundless occan launched, no more
Returns again to joy's forsaken shore.

By flatt'ring hope deceived-
For what is wished is soon believed-
Francelia's favour like a cheerful sun

I thought on her Amyntor shone,

Which swell'd my joys to such a wild extreme,
I made an idol of each dazzling beam.
Pardon my easy faith, O fond deluded soul,
'Twas but a waking dream;

Thy comfort's vanished, but thy grief is whole.

Rivers by ebbing waves left dry, Returning tides as swiftly fill; The valley that does lowest lie

Ends at the rising of a hill;

All things to change do swiftly haste.

A welcome light
Succeeds each night;

Only my passion and my pain must last, Since my Francelia's rigid doom is past; Confin'd as sinners are in hell, I see with envy where the happy dwell. Deep lakes and rugged way

My passage stay,

But ah! how soon

That weak defence should down,

Were it not guarded by my angel's frown!

Mistaken hope, be gone!

Wait on the happy and the fair,

To whom thy cheats are yet unknown,
Let sad Amyntor's fate alone;
Thy fading smiles increase despair.
Without a murmur or an altered face
My unrelenting fate I will embrace,

So close my fire shall be confin'd,
I will not trust the whisp'ring wind.
My sighs shall fan the flame and feed the smart,
Till it consume my rash despised heart,
Then one short groan shall fix a lasting date

To this long difference of love and hate,

Unless our present thoughts attend our future

state.

That point I'll leave to those that here are blest,
Souls with neglected love and grief opprest
Can find no greater hell by seeking rest.
Mine to discover seats of bliss or woe,
Would freely go,

Were it assured Francelia, though too late,
Would sigh and say she was ingrate;
A love so true deserved a kinder fate.

UNCERTAIN LOVE.

The labouring man that plants or sows,
His certain times of profit knows;
Seamen the roughest tempest scorn,
Hoping at last a rich return.

But my too much loved Celia's mind
Is more unconstant and unkind
Than stormy weather, sea, or wind.
Now with assured hope raised high
I think no man so blest as I-
Hope that a dying saint may own,
To see and hear her speak alone.

But ere my swiftest thought can thence
Convey a blessing to my sense,
My hope, like fairy treasure's gone,
Although I never made it known;
From all untruth my heart is clean,
No other love can enter in,
Yet Celia's ne'er will come again.

COME ALL YOU PALE LOVERS.

Ccme all you pale lovers that sigh and complain, While your beautiful tyrants but laugh at your pain,

Come practise with me To be happy and free,

« EelmineJätka »