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THE SECOND BOOKE 249
and consumption of our body waite for us, and applyeth
them to the apprehension or feeling we have in this
life;
Secreti celant collet, at myrtea circum
Sylva teg it, curce non ipsa in morte rehnquunt; 1
Them paths aside conceale, a mirfcle grove
Shades them round; cares in death doe not remove;
when Mahomet promiseth unto his followers a paradise
all tapestried, adorned with gold and precious stones,
peopled with exceeding beauteous damsels, stored with
wines and singular cates : I well perceive they are but
scoffers which sute and apply themselves unto our
foolishness, thereby to enhonny and allure us to these
opinions and hopes fitting our mortall appetite. Even
so are some of our men falne into like errours by
promising unto themselves after their resurrection a
terrestriall and temporal life accompanied with all
sorts of pleasures and worldly commodities. Shall we
thinke that Plato, who had so heavenly conceptions
and was so well acquainted with Divinity as of most he
purchased the surname of Divine, was ever of opinion
that man (this seely and wretched creature man) had
any one thing in him which might in any sort be
applied and suted to this incomprehensible and unspeakable
power ? or ever imagined that our languishing
hold-fasts were capable, or the vertue of our
understanding of force, to participate or be partakers
either of the blessednesse or eternal punishment ? He
ought in the behalfe of humane reasoned be answered :
If the pleasures thou promisest us in the other life are
such as I have felt here below, they have nothing in
them common with infinity. If all my five naturall
senses were even surcharged with joy and gladnesse,
and my soule possessed with all the contents and
delights it could possibly desire or hope for (and we
know what it either can wish or hope for) yet were it
nothing. If there bee any thing that is mine, then is
1 VIRG. AEN. 1. vi. 443.