Centuries of Meditations

18

Sometimes I should soar above the stars, and enquire how the Heavens ended, and what was beyond them? Concerning which by no means could I receive satisfaction. Sometimes my thoughts would carry me to the Creation, for I had heard now, that the World which at first I thought was eternal, had a beginning: how therefore that beginning was, and why it was, why it was no sooner, and what was before, I mightily desired to know. By all which I easily perceive that my Soul was made to live in communion with God, in all places of His dominion, and to be satisfied with the highest reason in all things, After which it so eagerly aspired, that I thought all the gold and silver in the world but dirt, in comparison of satisfaction in any of these. Sometimes I wondered why men were made no bigger? I would have had a man as big as a giant, a giant as big as a castle, and a castle as big as the Heavens. Which yet would not serve: for there was infinite space beyond the Heavens, and all was defective and but little in comparison; and for him to be made infinite, I thought it would be to no purpose, and it would be inconvenient. Why also there was not a better sun, and better stars, a better sea, and better creatures I much admired. Which thoughts produced that poem upon moderation, which afterwards was written. Some part of the verses are these,