This is nature's nest of boxes: the heavens contain the earth; the
earth, cities; cities, men. And all these are concentric; the common
centre to them all is decay, ruin; only that is eccentric which was
never made; only that place, or garment rather, which we can imagine but
not demonstrate. That light, which is the very emanation of the light of
God, in which the saints shall dwell, with which the saints shall be
apparelled, only that bends not to this centre, to ruin; that which was
not made of nothing is not threatened with this annihilation. All other
things are; even angels, even our souls; they move upon the same poles,
they bend to the same centre; and if they were not made immortal by
preservation, their nature could not keep them from sinking to this
centre, annihilation. In all these (the frame of the heavens, the states
upon earth, and men in them, comprehend all), those are the greatest
mischiefs which are least discerned; the most insensible in their ways
come to be the most sensible in their ends. The heavens have had their
dropsy, they drowned the world; and they shall have their fever, and
burn the world. Of the dropsy, the flood, the world had a foreknowledge
one hundred and twenty years before it came; and so some made provision
against it, and were saved; the fever shall break out in an instant and
consume all; the dropsy did no harm to the heavens from whence it fell,
it did not put out those lights, it did not quench those heats; but the
fever, the fire, shall burn the furnace itself, annihilate those
heavens that breathe it out. Though the dogstar have a pestilent breath,
an infectious exhalation, yet, because we know when it will rise, we
clothe ourselves, and we diet ourselves, and we shadow ourselves to a
sufficient prevention; but comets and blazing stars, whose effects or
significations no man can interrupt or frustrate, no man foresaw: no
almanack tells us when a blazing star will break out, the matter is
carried up in secret; no astrologer tells us when the effects will be
accomplished, for that is a secret of a higher sphere than the other;
and that which is most secret is most dangerous. It is so also here in
the societies of men, in states and commonwealths. Twenty rebellious
drums make not so dangerous a noise as a few whisperers and secret
plotters in corners. The cannon doth not so much hurt against a wall, as
a mine under the wall; nor a thousand enemies that threaten, so much as
a few that take an oath to say nothing. God knew many heavy sins of the
people, in the wilderness and after, but still he charges them with that
one, with murmuring, murmuring in their hearts, secret disobediences,
secret repugnances against his declared will; and these are the most
deadly, the most pernicious. And it is so too with the diseases of the
body; and that is my case. The pulse, the urine, the sweat, all have
sworn to say nothing, to give no indication of any dangerous sickness.
My forces are not enfeebled, I find no decay in my strength; my
provisions are not cut off, I find no abhorring in mine appetite; my
counsels are not corrupted nor infatuated, I find no false apprehensions
to work upon mine understanding; and yet they see that invisibly, and I
feel that insensibly, the disease prevails. The disease hath established
a kingdom, an empire in me, and will have certain _arcana imperii_,
secrets of state, by which it will proceed and not be bound to declare
them. But yet against those secret conspiracies in the state, the
magistrate hath the rack; and against these insensible diseases
physicians have their examiners; and those these employ now.