To the extent possible under law, the Text Creation Partnership has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above, according to the terms of the CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). This waiver does not extend to any page images or other supplementary files associated with this work, which may be protected by copyright or other license restrictions. Please go to http://www.textcreationpartnership.org/ for more information.
SIR:
WHiles you pity my affliction, take heed lest you aggravate it, and in your thoughts make it greater then it is in my own; It is true, I am under restraint; What is that to a man, that can be free in the Tower, and can∣not but be a prisoner abroad? Such is my condition, and every Divine Philosophers with me. Were my walls much straiter then they are, they cannot hold me in; It is a bold word to say,
I cannot, I will not be a prisoner: It is my Soul that is I: my flesh is my partner, (if not my ser∣vant) not my self: However my body may be immured, that a∣gile spirit shall flye abroad, and visit both earth, and heaven at pleasure. Who shall hinder it from mounting up (in an instant) to that supream region of blisse, and from seeing that, by the eye of faith, which S. Paul saw in ex∣tasie; and when it hath viewed that blessed Hierarchy of heaven to glance down through the in∣numerable, and unmeasurable globes of light (which move in the firmament, and below it) in∣to this elementary world; and there to compasse seas and lands, without shipwrack, in a trice, which a Drake, or Cavendish cannot doe, but with danger, and in some years navigation; And if my thoughts list to stay them∣selves in the passage; with what variety can my soul be taken up
of severall objects; Here, turn∣ing in to the dark vaults, and dungeons of penall restraint, to visit the disconsolate prisoners, and to fetch from their greater misery, a just mitigation of mine own; There, looking in to the houses of vain jollity, and pity∣ing that which the sensuall fools call happinesse; Here stepping in to the Courts of great Princes, and in them observing the faw∣ning compliances of some, the trecherous underworking of o∣thers; hollow friendships, faith∣lesse ingagements, fair faces, smooth tongues, rich suits, view∣ing all save their hearts, & censu∣ring nothing that it sees not; There calling in at the low cot∣tages of the poor, and out of their empty cupboard furnishing it self with thankfulnesse; Here so over-looking the Courts of Justice, as not willing to seeri∣gour or partiality; There listing what they say in those meetings
which would passe for sacred, and wondring at what it hears. Thus can, and shall, and doth my nim∣ble spirit bestir it self in a restless flight, making onely the Empy∣reall heaven, the bounds of it's motion; not being more able to stand still, then the heavens themselves, whence it descen∣ded: Should the iron enter in∣to my soul, as it did into that good Patriarchs, yet it cannot fetter me: No more can my spi∣rit be confined to one place, then my body can be diffused to many. Perhaps therefore you are mistaken in my condition; for what is it I beseech you that makes a prisoner? Is it an allot∣ment to the same room without change, without remove? What is that still to a minde that is free?
And why is my body then more a prisoner then the best mans soul; that, you know, is peremptorily assigned, for in∣habitation
to this house of clay till the day of dissolution: Why more then the starres of Heaven, which have remained fixed in their first stations ever since they were first created? Why more then those great persons which keep up for state; or Dames for beauty? Why more then those Anachorites whom we have seen willingly coop'd up for merit? How much more scope have we then they? We breathe fresh aire, we see the same heavens with the freest travellers.