"Necessary Observations", Precept 22
Poems (pub. 1638)
Letter to Sir Thomas Fairfax (21 December 1646)
Sam, Sam, Pick Oop Tha' Musket
“He who would to the purpose do a good action, must not neglect his season.”
Heaven On Earth, 1654
The Obedience of A Christian Man (1528)
Context: If God promise riches, the way thereto is poverty. Whom he loveth, him he chasteneth: whom he exalteth, he casteth, down: whom he saveth, he damneth first. He bringeth no man to heaven, except he send him to hell first. If he promise life, he slayeth first: when he buildeth, he casteth all down first. He is no patcher; he cannot build on another man’s foundation.
He will not work until all be past remedy, and brought unto such a case, that men may see, how that his hand, his power, his mercy, his goodness and truth, hath wrought altogether. He will let no man be partaker with him of his praise and glory. His works are wonderful, and contrary unto man’s works.
“His only fault is that he has no fault.”
Nihil peccat, nisi quod nihil peccat.
Letter 26, 1.
Letters, Book IX
“The last thing a drunkard loses, you see, is his cunning: it outlasts his soul by a long season.”
Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, To Green Angel Tower (1993), Part 1, Chapter 9, “Pages in an Old Book” (p. 301).
Source: Treason of the Intellectuals (1927), pp. 158–159
