Think It More Satisfactory To Live Richly

The Created World Is But A Small Parenthesis In Eternity.

To Call Ourselves A Microcosme, Or Little World, I Thought It Onely A Pleasant Trope Of Rhetorick, Till My Neare Judgement And Second Thoughts Told Me There Was A Reall Truth Therein: For First Wee Are A Rude Masse, And In The Ranke Of Creatures, Which Only Are, And Have A Dull Kinde Of Being Not Yet Priviledged With Life, Or Preferred To Sense Or Reason; Next We Live The Life Of Plants, The Life Of Animals, The Life Of Men, And At Last The Life Of Spirits, Running On In One Mysterious Nature Those Five Kinds Of Existence, Which Comprehend The Creatures Not Onely Of World, But Of The Universe.

But The Iniquity Of Oblivion Blindly Scattereth Her Poppy, And Deals With The Memory Of Men Without Distinction To Merit Of Perpetuity.

Let The Fruition Of Things Bless The Possession Of Them, And Take No Satisfaction In Dying But Living Rich.

Nor Do They Speak Properly Who Say That Time Consumeth All Things; For Time Is Not Effective, Nor Are Bodies Destroyed By It.