May your counsels there be happy and successful ones, to bring about that peace, which if we be not quickly blessed withal, a general ruin threateneth the whole kingdom. From Winchester-house, the 22nd, (I think I may say the 23rd, for I am sure it is morning, and I think it is day,) of December, 1642. Your lordship's most humble and obedient Servant, KENELM DIGBY. MY LORD, THE POSTSCRIPT. LOOKING Over these loose papers to point them, I perceive I have forgotten what I promised in the eighth sheet, to touch in a word concerning grace. I do. not conceive it to be a quality infused by God Almighty into a soul. Such kind of discoursing satisfieth me no more in divinity, than in philosophy. I take it to be the whole complex of such real motives, as a solid account may be given of them, that incline a man to virtue and piety, and are set on foot by God's particular grace and favour, to bring that work to pass. As for example: to a man plunged in sensuality, some great misfortune happeneth that mouldeth his heart to a tenderness, and inclineth him to much thoughtfulness. In this temper, he meeteth with a book or preacher that representeth lively to him the danger of his own condition; and giveth him hopes of greater contentment in other objects, after he shall have taken leave of his former beloved sins. This begetteth further conversation with prudent and pious men, and experienced physicians, in curing the soul's maladies, whereby he is at last perfectly converted, and settled in a course of solid virtue and piety. Now these accidents of his misfortune, the gentle 184 OBSERVATIONS UPON RELIGIO MEDICI. ness and softness of his nature, his falling upon a good book, his encountering with a pathetic preacher, the unpremeditated chance that brought him to hear his sermon, his meeting with other worthy men, and the whole concatenation of all the intervening accidents, to work this good effect in him, and that were ranged and disposed from all eternity, by God's particular goodness and providence for his salvation, and without which he had inevitably been damned; this chain of causes, ordered by God to produce this effect, I understand to be grace. INTRODUCTION. BY THE EDITOR. THIS little treatise, based in a great measure on Kirchmann's learned work, "De Funeribus Romanorum," was at one time much read by literary men. Charles Lamb and Hazlitt admired it. Leigh Hunt also, if I remember rightly, has, in his light and graceful way, paid the author some well-deserved compliments on its beauty and eloquence; and I may add, that whosoever reads and reflects upon it, will not only unite with them in their admiration, but remember ever after with satisfaction the day when the "Urn-Burial" first came into his hands. It is a grand declamation upon death-impressive, but not exaggerated; solemn, yet not uncheerful. The hope of immortality, the Christian's hope, struggles through and softens the gloom. We whisper to ourselves from time to time, as we read, "There is balm in Gilead." Our spirits rise above the fogs and mists of the earth, and the star of religion sheds its golden beams upon us more brightly as we ascend. There is a philosophical method, and very superior art, in the management of the subject. At first everything smells of the earth, earthly. Tombs and dust and charnel-houses, and all the secrets of the grave, rise up before our imagination. It reminds one of an Egyptian necropolis, with all its sublime stillness and beauty. Pensively we read, not without a deep conviction, that "mutato nomine, de nobis fabula narratur." And oh, there is, as too many know, a loveliness in Death! He keeps the keys of those bright and sunny realms, gladdened by some face we love, which not even the offer of earthly immortality could quench the thirst of visiting, "in ordine quo natura permiserit." The grave is the |