He displays Himself throughout.

Like common air That spirit of life through all doth fare, Sucked in by them as vital breath That willingly embrace not death.
But those that with that living law Be unacquainted, cares do gnaw; Mistrust of God's good providence Doth daily vex their wearied sense.
Now place me on the Libyan soil, With scorching sun and sands to toil, Far from the view of spring or tree, Where neither man nor house I see; * * * * * Commit me at my next remove To icy Hyperborean ove; Confine me to the arctic pole, Where the numb'd heavens do slowly roll; To lands where cold raw heavy mist Sol's kindly warmth and light resists; Where lowering clouds full fraught with snow Do sternly scowl; where winds do blow With bitter blasts, and pierce the skin, Forcing the vital spirits in, Which leave the body thus ill bested, In this chill plight at least half-dead; Yet by an antiperistasis[136] My inward heat more kindled is; And while this flesh her breath expires, My spirit shall suck celestial fires By deep-fetched sighs and pure devotion.
Thus waxen hot with holy motion, At once I'll break forth in a flame; Above this world and worthless fame I'll take my flight, careless that men Know not how, where I die, or when.
Yea, though the soul should mortal prove, So be God's life but in me move To my last breath--I'm satisfied A lonesome mortal God to have died.
This last paragraph is magnificent as any single passage I know in literature.
Is it lawful, after reading this, to wonder whether Henry More, the retired, and so far untried, student of Cambridge, would have been able thus to meet the alternations of suffering which he imagines?
It is one thing to see reasonableness, another to be reasonable when objects have become circumstances.

Would he, then, by spiritual might, have risen indeed above bodily torture?
It is _possible_ for a man to arrive at this perfection; it is absolutely _necessary_ that a man should some day or other reach it; and I think the wise doctor would have proved the truth of his principles.

But there are many who would gladly part with their whole bodies rather than offend, and could not yet so rise above the invasions of the senses.

Here, as in less important things, our business is not to speculate what we would do in other circumstances, but to perform the duty of the moment, the one true preparation for the duty to come.