The various cosmography of that part hath
already varied the names of contrived constellations;
Nimrod is lost in Orion, and Osyris in the Dog-star.
While we look for incorruption in the heavens, we find
that they are but like the earth;--durable in their main
bodies, alterable in their parts; whereof, beside comets
and new stars, perspectives begin to tell tales, and the
spots that wander about the sun, with Phaeton's favour,
would make clear conviction.
There is nothing strictly immortal, but immortality.
Whatever hath no beginning, may be confident of no
end;--all others have a dependent being and within
the reach of destruction;--which is the peculiar of
that necessary essence that cannot destroy itself;--and
the highest strain of omnipotency, to be so powerfully
constituted as not to suffer even from the power of
itself. But the sufficiency of Christian immortality
frustrates all earthly glory, and the quality of either
state after death, makes a folly of posthumous memory.
God who can only destroy our souls, and hath assured
our resurrection, either of our bodies or names hath
directly promised no duration.
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