indeed he is, neither can know him: and our safest eloquence concerning him is our silence, when we confess without confession, that his glory is inexplicable, his greatness above our capacity and reach. He is above, and we upon earth; therefore it behoveth our words to be wary and few.

Ecclesiastical Polity, i.

II.

Wherefore that here we may briefly end of Law there can be no less acknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world: all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power; both angels and men and creatures of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy. Ecclesiastical Polity, i.

III.

man to know which the They are to beginners an

What is there necessary for Psalms are not able to teach? easy and familiar introduction, a mighty augmentation of all virtue and knowledge in such as are entered before, a strong confirmation to the most perfect among others. Heroical magnanimity, exquisite justice, grave moderation, exact wisdom, repentance unfeigned, unwearied patience, the mysteries of God, the sufferings of Christ, the terrors of wrath, the comforts of grace, the works of Providence over this world, and the promised joys of that world which is to come, all good necessarily to be either known or done or had, this one celestial fountain yieldeth. Let there be any grief or disease incident into the soul of man, any wound or sickness named, for which there is not in this treasure-house a present comfortable remedy at all times ready to be found. Hereof it is that we covet to make the Psalms especially

familiar unto all. This is the very cause why we iterate the Psalms oftener than any other part of Scripture besides; the cause wherefore we inure the people together with their minister, and not the minister alone to read them as other parts of Scripture he doth.

Ecclesiastical Polity, v.

IV.

Touching musical harmony, whether by instrument or by voice, it being but of high and low in sounds, a due proportionable disposition; such notwithstanding is the force thereof, and so pleasing effects it hath in that very part of man which is most divine, that some have been thereby induced to think that the soul itself, by nature, is or hath in it harmony. A thing which delighteth all ages and beseemeth all states ; a thing as reasonable in grief as in joy; as decent, being added unto actions of greatest weight and solemnity, as being used when men most sequester themselves from action. The reason hereof is an admirable facility which music hath to express and represent to the mind, more inwardly than any other sensible means, the very standing, rising, and falling,— the very steps and inflections every way, the tunes and varieties of all passions whereunto the mind is subject; yea, so to imitate them, that whether it resemble unto us the same state wherein our minds already are, or a clean contrary, we are not more contentedly by the one confirmed, than changed and led away by the other. In harmony the very image and character even of virtue and vice is perceived, the mind delighted with their resemblances, and brought by having them often iterated into a love of the things themselves. For which cause there is nothing more contagious and pestilent than some kinds of harmony; than some, nothing more strong and potent unto good. And that there is such a difference of one kind from another, we need no proof but our own experience; inasmuch as we are at the hearing of some more inclined unto sorrow and heaviness, of some more mollified

and softened in mind; one kind apter to stay and settle us, another to move and stir our affections; there is that draweth to a marvellous, grave, and sober mediocrity; there is also that carrieth, as it were, into ecstacies, filling the mind with an heavenly joy, and for the time in a manner severing it from the body. So that, although we lay altogether aside the consideration of ditty or matter, the very harmony of sounds being framed in due sort and carried from the ear to the spiritual faculties of our souls, is by a native puissance and efficacy greatly available to bring to a perfect temper whatsoever is there troubled; apt as well to quicken the spirits as to allay that which is too eager; sovereign against melancholy and despair; forcible to draw forth tears of devotion, if the mind be such as can yield them; able both to move and to moderate all affections.

Ecclesiastical Polity, v.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

I.

1552-1618.

GOD, whom the wisest men acknowledge to be a power ineffable and power infinite; a light, by abundant clarity invisible; an understanding which itself can only comprehend; an essence eternal and spiritual, of absolute pureness and simplicity; was and is pleased to make himself known by the work of the world, in the wonderful magnitude whereof (all which he embraceth, filleth, and sustaineth), we behold the image of that glory which cannot be measured, and withal, that one and yet universal nature which cannot be defined. In the glorious lights of heaven we perceive a shadow of his divine countenance; in his merciful provision for all that live,-his manifold goodness; and lastly, in creating and making existent the world universal, by the absolute art of his own word, his power, and his mightiness;

which power, light, virtue, wisdom, and goodness, being all but attributes of one simple essence, and one God, we in all admire, and in part discern per speculum creaturarum, that is, in the disposition, order, and variety of celestial and terrestrial bodies: terrestrial in their strange and manifold diversities; celestial in their beauty and magnitude,-which, in their continual and contrary motions, are neither repugnant, intermixed, nor confounded. By these potent effects we approach to the knowledge of the Omnipotent Cause, and by these motions their Almighty Mover.

History of the World, i.

II.

In this time it is, when (as aforesaid) we, for the most part, and never before, prepare for our eternal habitation, which we pass on unto with many sighs, groans, and sad thoughts, and in the end, by the workmanship of death, finish the sorrowful business of a wretched life, towards which we always travel both sleeping and waking; neither have these beloved companions of honour and riches any power at all to hold us any one day by the glorious promise of entertainments; but by what crooked path soever we walk, the same leadeth on directly to the house of death, whose doors lie open at all hours and to all persons. For this tide of man's life, after it once turneth and declineth, ever runneth with a perpetual ebb and falling stream, but never floweth again our leaf once fallen, springeth no more; neither doth the sun or the summer adorn us again with the garments of new leaves and flowers.

Certainly the miseries of war are never so bitter and many as when a whole nation, or great part of it, forsaking their own seats, labour to root out the established possessions of another land, making room for themselves, their

wives and children. They that fight for the mastery are pacified with tribute, or with some other services and acknowledgments, which had they been yielded at the first, all had been quiet, and no sword bloodied. But in these migrations, the assailants bring so little with them, that they need all which the defendants have, their lands and cattle, their houses and their goods, even to the cradles of the sucking infants. The merciless terms of this controversy arm both sides with desperate resolution, seeing the one part must either win or perish by famine, the other defend their goods, or lose their lives without redemption. Most of the countries in Europe have felt examples hereof; and the mighty empire of Rome was overthrown by such invasions. But our isle of Britain can least witness the diversity of conquests; having by the happy victory of the Romans, gotten the knowledge of all civil arts, in exchange of liberty that was but slenderly instructed therein before; whereas the issue of the Saxon and Danish wars was, as were the causes, quite contrary. For these did not seek after the dominion only, but the entire possession of the country, which the Saxons obtained, but with horrible cruelty, eradicating all of the British race, and defacing all memorial of the ancient inhabitants through the greater part of the land. But the Danes (who are also of the Cimmerian blood) found such end of their enterprise as it may seem that the Cimmerians in Lydia, and Scythians in the higher Asia did arise unto. So that by considering the process of the one, we shall better conceive the fortune of the other.

History of the World, ii.

IV.

In performing these and other services, thrice Aristomenes was taken prisoner; yet still he escaped. One escape of his deserves to be remembered, as a thing very strange and marvellous. He had with too much courage adventured to set upon the kings of Sparta; and being in that fight