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makes the end of youth untimely, and of age wretched, the city's sack, and the country's beggary: she is the captain's pride, and the captive's sorrow; the throat of blood, and the grave of flesh: she is the woe of the world, the punishment of sin, the passage of danger, and the messenger of destruction: she is the wise man's warning, and the fool's payment; the godly man's grief, and the wicked man's game. In sum; so many are her wounds, so mortal her cures, so dangerous her course, and so devilish her devices, that I will wade no further in her rivers of blood, but only thus conclude in her description :-she is God's curse, and man's misery; hell's practice, and earth's hell.

Walour.

VALOUR is a virtue in the spirit which keeps the flesh in subjection, resolves without fear, and travails without fainting: she vows no villainy, nor breaks her fidelity; she is patient in captivity, and pitiful in conquest: her gain is honour, and desert her mean; fortune her scorn, and folly her hate: wisdom is her guide, and conquest her grace; clemency her praise, and humility her glory: she is youth's ornament, and age's honour; nature's blessing, and virtue's love her life is resolution, and her love victory; her triumph truth, and her fame virtue: her arms are from antiquity, and her coat full of honour, where the title of grace hath her heraldry from heaven: she makes a walk of war, and a sport of danger; an ease of labour, and a jest of death: she makes famine but abstinence, want but a patience, sickness but a purge, and death a puff: she is the maintainer of war, the general of an army, the terror of an enemy, and the glory of a camp: she is the nobleness of the mind, and the strength of the body; the life of hope, and the death of fear: with a handful of men she overthrows a

multitude, and with a sudden amazement she discomfits a camp: she is the revenge of wrong, and the defence of right; religion's champion, and virtue's choice. In brief, let this suffice in her commendation :-she strengthened David, and conquered Goliah; she overthrows her enemies, and conquers herself.

Resolution.

RESOLUTION is the honour of valour in the quarrel of virtue, for the defence of right and redress of wrong: she beats the march, pitcheth the battle, plants the ordnance, and maintains the fight: her ear is stopt from dissuasions, her eye aims only at honour, her hand takes the sword of valour, and her heart thinks of nothing but victory: she gives the charge, makes the stand, assaults the fort, and enters the breach: she breaks the pikes, faceth the shot, damps the soldier, and defeats the army: she loseth no time, slips no occasion, dreads no danger, and cares for no force: she is valour's life, and virtue's love; justice, honour, and mercy's glory : she beats down castles, fires ships, wades through the sea, and walks through the world: she makes wisdom her guide, and will her servant; reason her companion, and honour her mistress: she is a blessing in nature, and a beauty in reason; a grace in invention, and a glory in action: she studies no plots when her platform is set down, and defers no time when her hour is prefixed: she stands upon no helps when she knows her own force; and in the execution of her will she is a rock irremoveable: she is the king's will without contradiction, and the judge's doom without exception; the scholar's profession without alteration, and the soldier's honour without comparison: in sum, so many are the grounds of her grace, and the just causes of her commendation, that, leaving her worth to the description of better wits, I will in these few words

conclude my conceit of her :-she is the stoutness of the heart, and the strength of the mind; a gift of God, and the glory of the world.

Honour.

HONOUR is a title of grace, given by the spirit of virtue to the desert of valour, in the defence of truth: it is wronged in baseness, and abused in unworthiness; endangered in wantonness, and lost in wickedness: it nourisheth art, and crowneth wit; graceth learning, and glorifieth wisdom: in the heraldry of heaven it hath the richest coat, being in nature allied unto all the houses of grace, which, in the heaven of heavens, attend the King of kings: her escutcheon is a heart, in which, in the shield of faith, she bears on the anchor of hope the helmet of salvation: she quarters with wisdom in the resolution of valour, and in the line of charity she is of the house of justice: her supporters are time and patience, her mantle truth, and her crest Christ treading upon the globe of the world; her impress, Corona mea, Christus. In brief, finding her state so high that I am not able to climb unto the praise of her perfection, I will leave her royalty to the register of most princely spirits, and in my humble heart thus only deliver my opinion of her-she is virtue's due, and grace's gift; valour's wealth, and reason's joy.

Truth.

TRUTH is the glory of time, and the daughter of eternity; a title of the highest grace, and a note of divine nature: she is the life of religion, the light of love, the grace of wit, and the crown of wisdom; she is the beauty of valour, the brightness of honour, the blessing of reason, and the joy of faith: her truth is pure gold, her

time is right precious, her word is most gracious, and her will is most glorious: her essence is in God, and her dwelling with his servants; her will in his wisdom, and her work to his glory: she is honoured in love, and graced in constancy; in patience admired, and in charity beloved: she is the angel's worship, the virgin's fame; the saint's bliss, and the martyr's crown: she is the king's greatness, and his council's goodness; his subjects' peace, and his kingdom's praise: she is the life of learning, and the light of the law; the honour of trade, and the grace of labour: she hath a pure eye, a plain hand, a piercing wit, and a perfect heart she is wisdom's walk in the way of holiness, and takes up her rest but in the resolution of goodness: her tongue never trips, her heart never faints, her hand never fails, and her faith never fears: her church is without schism, her city without fraud, her court without vanity, and her kingdom without villainy. In sum, so infinite is her excellence in the construction of all sense, that I will thus only conclude in the wonder of her worth :-she is the nature of perfection in the perfection of nature, where God in Christ shews the glory of Christianity.

Time.

TIME is a continual motion which from the highest Mover hath his operation in all the subjects of nature, according to their quality or disposition: he is in proportion like a circle, wherein he walketh with an even passage to the point of his prefixed place: he attendeth none, and yet is a servant to all; he is the best employed by wisdom, and most abused by folly: he carrieth both the sword and the sceptre for the use both of justice and mercy: he is present in all invention, and cannot be spared from action: he is the treasury of graces in the memory of the wise, and brings them forth to the world upon necessity of their use: he openeth the

windows of heaven to give light unto the earth, and spreads the cloak of the night to cover the rest of labour: he closeth the eye of nature, and waketh the spirit of reason; he travelleth through the mind, and is visible but to the eye of understanding: he is swifter than the wind, and yet as still as a stone; precious in his right use, but perilous in the contrary: he is soon found of the careful soul, and quickly missed in the want of his comfort; he is soon lost in the lack of employment, and not to be recovered without a world of endeavour: he is the true man's peace, and the thief's perdition; the good man's blessing, and the wicked man's curse: he is known to be, but his being unknown: but only in his being, in a being above knowledge: he is a riddle not to be read but in the circumstance of description; his name better known than his nature; and he that maketh best use of him, hath the best understanding for him: he is like the study of the philosopher's stone, where a man may see wonders, and yet short of his expectation: he is at the invention of war, arms the soldier, maintains the quarrel, and makes the peace: he is the courtier's playfellow, and the soldier's schoolmaster; the lawyer's gain, and the merchant's hope: his life is motion, and his love action; his honour patience, and his glory perfection: he masketh modesty, and blusheth virginity; honoureth humility, and graceth charity. In sum, finding it a world to walk through the wonder of his worth, I will thus briefly deliver what I find truly of him :-he is the agent of the living, and the register of the dead; the direction of God, and a great work-master in the world.

Death.

DEATH is the ordinance of God for the subjecting of the world, which is limited his time for the correction of pride: in his

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