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, 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.



ON THE RELIGIO MEDICI


This I confess, about seven years past, with some others of affinity
thereto, for my private exercise and satisfaction I had at leisurable
hours composed; which being communicated unto one, it became common unto
many, and was by transcription successively corrupted, until it arrived
in a most depraved copy at the press. He that shall peruse that work,
and shall take notice of sundry particulars and personal expressions
therein, will easily discern the intention was not public: and being a
private exercise directed to myself, what is delivered therein, was
rather a memorial unto me, than an example or rule unto any other: and
therefore if there be any singularity therein correspondent unto the
private conceptions of any man, it doth not advantage them: or if
dissentaneous thereunto, it no way overthrows them. It was penned in
such a place, and with such disadvantage, that (I protest) from the first