Hagio-mimesis The imitation of the saints

Reverend Sir,

'Twas extremely obliging that you honoured me with the perusal of your Hagiomimesis, (the occasion was sad, the improvement good) where the nature and ground of the Imitation of Saints, is distinctly opened, and rarely Illustrated by an excellent example; when that digitus ferro-luteus saw the fatal hour approaching, he cryed out,¹ ut se aliquis ad mortem capessendam exemplo juvaret, that some one would die by him, that he might learn to die by the example; and this was like him, whose name was vir sanguinum, a man of blood: But that brave person, that great Saint your treatise refers to, hath by the incomparable instance of her gracious behaviour, taught us all, how to die, and now to live too, which is the first and hardest lesson. Benè vixisse, magnum est; ²I judge ⟨image 4⟩the same Anointing which took her up to the Galleries of Love, fashioning her insensibly into so curious a President, hath disclosed to you this secret,³ of giving life by dead bones, preserving Religion from mortality, gathering flowers from the Coffin, Embalming Examples, and finding out advantages in the severest Providences. Good Sir let me once more desire you to publish your Meditations on this subject, and the rather, because we have had the fire of the last day, lately represented to us in a dreadful figure, happily you may now at length provoke the present evil world to Emulation,⁴ and save some. Jerome espoused the example of Hilarion. Who knows in what methods God will please to discover himself to poor sinners? Will any say, (they knew not Hammer-Smith) you dipped your Pen too much in love, when you drew the fair Character of an endeared Child? Regard it not, aequo animo audienda sunt imperitorum convitia,