網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

since Good Men hope it may not be too long; the prayer of the Saints under the Altar will be the supplication of the Righteous World. That his mercy would abridge their languishing Expectation and hasten the accomplishment of their happy state to come.

SECT. XXVII.-Though Good Men are often taken away from the Evil to come, though some in evil days have been glad that they were old, nor long to behold the iniquities of a wicked World, or Judgments threatened by them; yet is it no small satisfaction unto honest minds to leave the World in virtuous welltemper'd times, under a prospect of good to come, and continuation of worthy ways acceptable unto God and Man. Men who dye in deplorable days, which they regretfully behold, have not their Eyes closed with the like content; while they cannot avoid the thoughts of proceeding or growing enormities, displeasing unto that Spirit unto whom they are then going, whose honour they desire in all times and throughout all generations. If Lucifer could be freed from his dismal place, he would little care though the rest were left behind. Too many there may be of Nero's mind, who, if their own turn were served, would not regard what became of others, and, when they dye themselves, care not if all perish. But good Men's wishes extend beyond their lives, for the happiness of times to come, and never to be known unto them. And therefore while so many question prayers for the dead, they charitably pray for those who are not yet alive; they are not so enviously ambitious to go to heaven by themselves; they cannot but humbly wish, that the little Flock might be greater, the narrow Gate wider, and that, as many are called, so not a few might be chosen.

SECT. XXVIII. That a greater number of Angels remained in Heaven, than fell from it, the School-men will tell us; that the number of blessed Souls will not come short of that vast number of fallen Spirits, we have the favourable calculation of others. What Age or Century hath sent most Souls unto Heaven, he can

tell who vouchsafeth that honour unto them. Though the Number of the blessed must be compleat before the World can pass away, yet since the World it self seems in the wane, and we have no such comfortable prognosticks of Latter times, since a greater part of time is spun than is to come, and the blessed Roll already much replenished; happy are those pieties, which solicitously look about, and hasten to make one of that already much filled and abbreviated List to

come.

[ocr errors]

SECT. XXIX. Think not thy time short in this World since the World itself is not long. The created World is but a small parenthesis in Eternity, and a short interposition for a time between such a state of duration as was before it and may be after it. And if we should allow of the old Tradition, that the World should last Six Thousand years, it could scarce have the name of old, since the first man lived near a sixth part thereof, and seven Methuselas would exceed its whole duration. However to palliate the shortness of our Lives, and somewhat to compensate our brief term in this World, it's good to know as much as we can of it, and also so far as possibly in us lieth to hold such a Theory of times past, as though we had seen the same. He who hath thus considered the World, as also how therein things long past have been answered by things present, how matters in one Age have been acted over in another, and how there is nothing new under the Sun may conceive himself in some manner to have lived from the beginning, and be as old as the world; and if he should still live on, 'twould be but the same thing.

SECT. XXX.-Lastly, if length of Days be thy Portion, make it not thy Expectation. Reckon not upon long Life: think every day the last, and live always beyond thy account. He that so often surviveth his Expectation lives many Lives, and will scarce complain of the shortness of his days. Time past is gone like a Shadow; make time to come present. Approximate thy latter times by present apprehensions of them: be

like a neighbour unto 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, Extasy, 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.

U

GLOSSARY

ABBREVIATIONS, ETC.

.=Johnson.

H. Ě. D. New "English Dictionary on Historical Principles Bradley).

Webster International Dictionary.

[ocr errors][merged small]

Greenhill-Glossary to edition of "Hydriotaphia and Garden of Cyrus "

(1896).

ABRUPT, to break off.

ABSTERSION, cleansing.

ABSUMPTION, consumption.

ACCEPTIONS, acceptations.

ACCUMINATED, sharp-pointed.

ACTIVES, sub., active principles.
ACULEOUS, needle-like.

ADAM, QUID FECISTI? Adam, what hast thou done? 2 Esdras vii. ADRASTE AND NEMESIS, the powers of vengeance (J.).

ADRIANUS ("the moles of "), "A stately mausoleum or sepulchral pile, built by Adrianus in Rome, where now standeth the castle of St. Angelo." [Note by Sir T. B.] ADUMBRATION, faint resemblance, as of a shadow to the object it represents.

ADVISORS, admonitions.

ÆQUICRURAL, of equal length of leg. ESON'S BATH. Son of Cretheus and Tyro, and father of Jason; accord ing to Ovid, he survived the return of the Argonauts, and was made young again by Medea. AFFECTION, influence.

AFFECTIONS, qualities, passions, feelings, men of affection. ALCMENA'S nights,

one night as long as three." [Note by Sir T. B.] AMAZED, Confounded. AMBIDEXTEROUS, able to use both hands alike. AMBITIONS, ambitious men. This use

of the abstract for the concrete in
the plural occurs frequently in Sir
Thomas Browne, as "desires,"
"affections,"
1966 'devotions,"
""zeals,"

etc.

AMISSION, loss.

AMPHIBOLOGY, an ambiguous phrase,

AMPHIDROMICAL FEASTS, held at the naming of a child.

ANAXAGORAS.

Several editors have wrongly printed "Anaxarchus," who actually held the opinions attributed by Browne to Anaxagoras. ANGUSTIAS, agonies (J.).

ANIMA EST DEI," the soul is the angel of man, the body of God." ANIMOSITY, Courage.

ANTICHRIST ("should be born of the tribe of Dan "). A belief held by the Ancient Church, based partly on the omission of the name of Dan from the list of tribes in the Apocalypse, and partly on the mention of him as "adder" and " serpent" in Jacob's last blessing of his sons. [Condensed from Greenhill.] ANTICIPATIVELY, prematurely. ANTICKS, clowns.

ANTINOMIES, contradictions to law.
ANTIPODES, Opposites (J.).

APOGEUM, to the utmost point of distance from earth and earthly things (J.).

APPARITIONS, appearances without realities (J.).

APPREHEND, to dread, to conceive, comprehend.

APPREHENSION, reason, conception; PASSED APPREHENSION, former opinion; GROSSER APPREHENSIONS, men of grosser apprehension. ARCANA, mysteries.

ARCHIDOXIS, a work of Paracelsus,
translated into English in 1662.
ARCHIMIME, chief jester.
AREFACTION, drying.

AREOPAGY, the great court, like the

Areopagus at Athens (J.). ARUSPEX, Soothsayer, diviner.

...

ASCENDENS NATURÆ (i.e., OPERA DEI). "A planet in the ascendant reveals to those who seek many of the great things of nature (i.e., the works of God)." Paracelsus, "De Imaginibus." "Thereby is meant our good Angel appointed us from our nativity." [Note by Sir T. B.] ASPEROUS, rough. ASPHALTICK LAKE, Lake of Sodom, the waters of which, being very salt, and therefore heavy, will scarcely suffer an animal to sink (J.). ASPIRES, aspirations.

ASQUINT, askance.

ASSASSINE, vb., to assassinate.

ASSIZE ("to call to "), to summon to judgment.

ASSUCFACTION, habituation.
ASTERISK, Small star.

ATTENDANCE, accompaniment.

ATTENUABLE, liable to diminution.
ATTRITION, friction.

66

AUDACITIES, bold persons. AUDITORIES, lecture-rooms. AURELIA, chrysalis, "aurelion." AVE-MARY bell. A church-bell, that tolls every day at six and twelve of the clock, at the hearing whereof, everyone, in what place soever, either of house or street, betakes himself to his prayer, which is commonly directed to the Virgin." [Note by Sir T. B.]

BASILISO, a piece of ordnance. BELIEFS, believers. BELISARIUS AND BAJAZET, the former, after many victories, said, owing to incurring the Emperor's displeasure, to have been reduced to beggary; the latter to have been made captive by Tamerlane and shut up in cage; both stories are false " (J.). BENEPLACIT, good pleasure. BENEVOLOUS, favourable. BEVIS, a famous giant-killer of Southampton, a hero of medieval English

[ocr errors]

romances.

BEZO LES MANOS, a salute, a kiss of the hand.

BISHOP ("the miserable"). Virgi

lius, Bishop of Salzburg in the eighth century, said to have been burnt for asserting the existence of Antipodes.

BIVIOUS, which open different tracks to the mind; lead two ways (J.); "bivious theorems." BLOOD, "though we behold our own blood," though we bleed when we are wounded (J.). BOLARY, of the nature of bole, a clayey substance.

[blocks in formation]

CACUS'S OXEN, stolen from Hercules, and drawn backwards by Cacus into his cave to avoid suspicion of theft.

CALDA, warm water (J.).

CALICULAR, in form of calix or cup. CALLOSITIES, " calluses," or hard spots in the soul.

CANDLE, "by the candle," term bor

rowed from the auction-room where certain sales were held, at which the bidding went on as long as a small piece of candle continued to burn. CANDOUR, Whiteness.

CANTONS, corners of a shield in heraldry.

CARIOLA. "That part of the skeleton of a horse which is made by the haunch-bones." [Note by Sir T. B.] CARNOUS, fleshy.

CARRACK, large merchantman. CASTRENSIAL, belonging to a camp. CATHOLICON, universal medicine. CAUSALLY, for a special reason (Greenhill).

CAUSES ("four second"), of all things. That is, the efficient,' the "material," the "formal," and the "final."

CAUTELOUS, cautious.

CEBES' TABLE, an allegorical repre sentation of the characters and conditions of mankind (J.). CENTOES, patched garments, used metaphorically.

CERTUM EST QUIA IMPOSSIBLE, "it is
certain, because it is impossible "
(i.e., to human reason). Tertullian,
"De Carne Christi," c. 5.
CHIASMUS, decussation (Greenhill).
CHIONIA ("the King of "), Gum-
brates, King of Chionia, a country
near Persia.

CHIROMANCY, palmistry.
CHORAGIUM, dance (J.).

CHOROGRAPHY, description of places
and countries.
CHYMICKS, chemists.

rounds

CIRCENSES, Roman horse-races (J.).
CIRCINNATIONS, spherical
(Greenhill).

CIRCUMSTANTIAL, accidental.
CIRROUS, bearing tendrils.
CIVILITY, state of civil society.

« 上一頁繼續 »