ure of a soul, whose too much mixture with
earth makes it unfit to judge of these high raptures and illuminations,
let him know, that many holy and devout men have thought the soul of
Prudentius to be most refined, when, not many days before his death, "he
charged it to present his God each morning and evening with a new and
spiritual song;" justified by the example of King David and the good
King Hezekiah, who, upon the renovation of his years paid his thankful
vows to Almighty God in a royal hymn, which he concludes in these words:
"The Lord was ready to save; therefore I will sing my songs to the
stringed instruments all the days of my life in the Temple of my God."

The latter part of his life may be said to be a continued study; for as
he usually preached once a week, if not oftener, so after his sermon he
never gave his eyes rest, till he had chosen out a new text, and that
night cast his sermon into a form, and his text into divisions; and the
next day betook himself to consult the Fathers, and so commit his
meditations to his memory, which was excellent. But upon Saturday he
usually gave himself and his mind a rest from the weary burthen of his
week's meditations, and usually spent that day in visitation of friends,
or some other diversions of his thoughts; and would say, "that he gave
both his body and mind that refreshment, that he might be enabled to do
the work of the day following, not faintly, but with courage and
cheerfulness."

Nor was his age only so industrious, but in the most unsettled days of
his youth, his bed was not able to detain him beyond the hour of four in
a morning; and it was no common business that drew him out of his
chamber till past ten; all which time was employed in study; though he
took great liberty after it. And if this seem strange, it may gain a
belief by the visible fruits of his labours; some of which remain as
testimonies of what is here written: for he left the resultance of 1400
authors, most of them abridged and analysed with his own hand: he left
also six score of his sermons, all written with his own hand, also an
exact and laborious Treatise concerning self-murder, called Biathanatos;
wherein all the laws violated by that act are diligently surveyed, and
judiciously censured: a Treatise written in his younger days, which
alone might declare him then not only perfect in the Civil and Canon
Law, but in many other such studies and arguments, as enter not into the
consider