l. 3. _The Sun itselfe, which makes times, as they passe_: i.e. which
makes times and seasons as they pass.
Before the Sunne, the which fram'd daies, was fram'd.
_The Second Anniversary_, l. 23.
The construction is somewhat of an anacoluthon, the sun alone being
given the predicate, 'Is elder by a year,' which has to be supplied
with all the other subjects in the first two lines. Chambers,
inadvertently or from some copy of _1633_, reads 'time', and this
makes 'they' refer back to 'Kings, favourites', &c. This does not
improve the construction.
l. 22. _But wee no more, then all the rest._ The 'wee' of every MS.
which I have consulted seems to me certainly the correct reading.
The 'now' of all the printed editions is due to the editor of _1633_
imagining that he got thereby the right antithesis to 'then'. But he
was too hasty, for the antithesis is between 'then' when we are in
heaven, and now while we are 'here upon earth'. In heaven indeed we
shall be 'throughly blest', but _all_ in heaven are equally happy,
whereas here on earth,
we'are kings and none but we
Can be such kings, nor of such subjects be.
The 'none but we' is the extreme antithesis to 'But we no more than
all the rest'.
The Scholastic Philosophy held, not indeed that all in heaven are
equally blest, but that all are equally content. Basing themselves on
the verse, 'In domo Patris mei mansiones multae sunt,' John xiv. 2,
they argued that the blessed have in varying degree according to their
merit, the essential happiness of Heaven which is the vision of God:
Only who have enjoy'd
The sight of God, in fulnesse, can think it;
For it is both the object and the wit.
This is essential joy, where neither hee
Can suffer diminution, nor wee;
'Tis such a full, and such a filling good;
Had th'Angells once look'd on him they had stood.
_The Second Anniversary_, ll. 140-6 (p. 264).
But though not all equally dowered with the virtue and the wisdom to
understand God, all are content, for each is full to his measure, and
each is happy in the happiness of the other: 'Solet etiam quaeri an in
gaudio dispares sint, sicut in claritate cognitionis differunt. De hoc
August. ait in lib. de Civ. Dei: Multae mansiones in una domo erunt,
scilicet, variae praemiorum dignitates: sed ubi Deus erit omnia in
omnibus, erit etiam in dispari claritate par gaudium; ut quod habebunt
singuli, commune sit omnibus, quia etiam gloria capitis omnium erit
per vinculum charitatis. Ex his datur intelligi quod par gaudium omnes
habebunt, etsi disparem cognitionis claritatem, quia per charitatem
quae in singulis erit perfecta, tantum quisque gaudebit de bono
alterius, quantum gauderet si in se ipso haberet. Sed si par erit
cunctorum gaudium, videtur quod par sit omnium beatitudo; quod constat
omnino non esse. Ad quod dici potest quod beatitudo par esset si ita
esset par gaudium, ut etiam par esset cognitio; sed quia hoc non erit,
non faciet paritas gaudii paritatem beatitudinis. Potest etiam
sic accipi par gaudium, ut non referatur paritas ad intensionem
affectionis gaudentium, sed ad universitatem rerum de quibus
laetabitur: quia de omni re unde gaudebit unus, gaudebunt omnes.'
Petri Lombardi ... _Sententiarum_ Lib. IV, Distinct. xlix. 4. Compare
Aquinas, _Summa, Supplement._ Quaest. xciii.
All in heaven are perfectly happy in the place assigned to them, is
Piccardo's answer to Dante (_Paradiso_, iii. 70-88): 'So that our
being thus, from threshold unto threshold throughout the realm, is a
joy to all the realm, as to the King, who draweth our wills to what he
willeth: and his will is our peace.'
ll. 23-4. The variants in these lines show that _1633_ has in this
poem followed not _D_, _H49_, _Lec_ but _A18_, _N_, _TC_.