l. 22. But wee no more, then all the rest. The 'wee' of every MS. which I have consulted seems to me certainly the correct reading. The 'now' of all the printed editions is due to the editor of 1633 imagining that he got thereby the right antithesis to 'then'. But he was too hasty, for the antithesis is between 'then' when we are in heaven, and now while we are 'here upon earth'. In heaven indeed we shall be 'throughly blest', but all in heaven are equally happy, whereas here on earth,
we'are kings and none but we
Can be such kings, nor of such subjects be.
The 'none but we' is the extreme antithesis to 'But we no more than all the rest'.
The Scholastic Philosophy held, not indeed that all in heaven are equally blest, but that all are equally content. Basing themselves on the verse, 'In domo Patris mei mansiones multae sunt,' John xiv. 2, they argued that the blessed have in varying degree according to their merit, the essential happiness of Heaven which is the vision of God:
Only who have enjoy'd
The sight of God, in fulnesse, can think it;
For it is both the object and the wit.
This is essential joy, where neither hee
Can suffer diminution, nor wee;