as not to provide wood, pitch, a mourner, and an Urne.1 Five Languages secured not the Epitaph of Gordianus.2 The man of God lives longer without a Tomb then any by one, invisibly interred by Angels, and adjudged to obscurity, though not without some marks directing humane discovery. Enoch and Elias, without either tomb or buriall, in an anomalous state of being, are the great Examples of perpetuity, in their long and living memory, in strict account being still on this side death, and having a late part yet to act upon this stage of earth. If in the decretory term of the world we shall not all dye but be changed, according to received translation; the last day will make but few graves; at least quick Resurrections will anticipate lasting Sepultures; Some Graves will be opened before they be quite closed, and Lazarus be no wonder. When many that feared to dye, shall groane that they can dye but once, the dismall state is the second and living death, when life puts despair on the damned; when men shall wish the coverings of Mountaines, not of Monuments, and annihilations shall be courted While some have studied Monuments, others have studiously declined them: and some have been so vainly boisterous, that they durst not acknowledge their Graves; wherein Alaricuss seems most subtle, who had a River turned to hide his bones at the bottome. Even Sylla, that thought himself safe in his Urne, could not prevent revenging tongues, and stones thrown at his Monument. Happy are they whom privacy makes innocent, who deal so with men 1 According to the epitaph of Rufus and Beronica, in Gruterus. nec ex Eorum bonis plus inventum est, quam In Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Egyptian, Arabic; defaced by Licinius the emperor. 3 Jornandes de rebus Geticis. in this world, that they are not afraid to meet them in the next, who when they dye, make no commotion among the dead, and are not touched with that poetical taunt of Isaiah.1 Pyramids, Arches, Obelisks, were but the irregularities of vain-glory, and wilde enormities of ancient magnanimity. But the most magnanimous resolution. rests in the Christian Religion, which trampleth upon pride, and sits on the neck of ambition, humbly pursuing that infallible perpetuity, unto which all others must diminish their diameters, and be poorly seen in Angles of contingency.2 Pious spirits who passed their dayes in raptures of futurity, made little more of this world, then the world that was before it, while they lay obscure in the Chaos of pre-ordination, and night of their fore-beings. And if any have been so happy as truly to understand Christian annihilation, extasis, exolution, liquefaction, transformation, the kisse of the Spouse, gustation of God, and ingression into the divine shadow, they have already had an handsome anticipation of heaven; the glory of the world is surely over, and the earth in ashes unto them. To subsist in lasting Monuments, to live in their productions, to exist in their names and prædicament of chymera's, was large satisfaction unto old expectations, and made one part of their Elyziums. But all this is nothing in the Metaphysicks of true belief. To live indeed is to be again ourselves, which being not only an hope but an evidence in noble beleevers; 'Tis all one to lye in St. Innocents churchyard, as in the Sands of Egypt: Ready to be anything, in the ecstasie of being ever, and as content with six foot as the Mole of Adrianus.* 1 Isa. xiv. -Tabesne cadavera solvat An rogus haud refert.-LUCAN Angulus contingentia, the least of Angles. 3 In Paris, where bodies soon consume. A stately Mausoleum or sepulchral pyle, built by Adrianus in Rome, where now standeth the Castle of St. Angelo. BRAMPTON URNS I THOUGHT I had taken leave of urnes, when I had some Years past given a short Account of those found at Walsingham,1 but a New Discovery being made, I readily obey your Commands in a brief Description thereof. In a large Arable Field, lying between Buxton and Brampton, but belonging to Brampton, and not much more than a Furlong from Oxnead Park, divers Urnes were found. A Part of the Field being, designed to be inclosed, while the Workmen made several Ditches, they fell upon divers Urnes, but earnestly, and carelessly digging, they broke all they met with, and finding nothing but Ashes, or burnt Cinders, they scattered what they found. Upon Notice given unto me, I went unto the Place, and though I used all Care with the Workmen, yet they were broken in the taking out, but many, without doubt, are still remaining in that Ground. Of these Pots none were found above Three Quarters of a Yard in the Ground, whereby it ap-. peareth, that in all this Time the Earth hath little varied its Surface, though this Ground hath been Plowed to the utmost Memory of Man. Whereby it may be also conjectured, that this hath not been a Wood-Land, as some conceive all this Part to have been; for in such Lands they usually made no common 1 See Hydriotaphia, Urne Burial: or, a Discourse of the Sepulchral Urnes lately found in Norfolk. 8vo. Lond., printed 1658. |