to the Saviour of the world which is yet at this time to be seen hanging over the Altar of Saint Sophia So did Mauritius so Henrie the Emperour at Clunie who made offer to the Church of a World all over diversified with most exquisite precious stones This is the cause why the King sent this present Flodoardus Philippus Bergomensis Savaro p. 15. de pietate Regis Ludovici as the History expresly mentioneth to be hanged up before the chief Altar of Saint Peter at Rome in token of the offer he made to God of his person and estate as the eldest Son of the Church And he that would well consider the foundation of the History shall find this Diadem called the Kingdom or Realm was a kind of crown come from Constantinople For it is said that the Emperour Anastasius who sought support from the favour of the King of France against the Goths that swayed in Italie understanding the great feats of arms done by our Clodovaeus sent a solemn Embassage unto him to congratulate and offer him the title of an honourable Consul the purple robe and the Crown which the Grecians of this time called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clodovaeus very gladly entertained this Embassage and shewed himself attired with those ornaments in the Church of S. Martin where he made a largess of gold and silver then acknowledging all these prosperities came to him from God after he was baptized he consecrated this rich jewel which had been presented to him by the Emperour in the chief Church of Christendom to serve as an eternal monument of his Religion Behold how this illustrious Monarch began at that time to manifest the marks of his zeal and to cement together the good intelligence which France afterwards had with the Pastor and spiritual Father of the whole world I am bound to touch this as I pass along with all sincerity being naturally an enemy of these questions which are many times moved with too much servour and inconsideration in the point of contestations of the jurisdiction of Sovereign authorities We are learned enough when we know that Jesus Christ who had the source of power in himself distributed it to Popes and Kings constituting the one for spiritual government the other for temporal It is his pleasure we honour the character of his authority both in the one and other and not to argue upon fantasies God hath set them over out heads to admire their lustes and not to controul their power Amongst the follies of Nero it is reported that one day beholding a space of land which separated two seas and held them in excellent order he had a desire to cut it that these two seas might encounter and himself see what countenance they would carry when they commixed together Take you good heed saith the Oracle unto him otherwise they will overflow to drown you Leave matters as God hath appointed and confound not the limits of nature It is true Ecclesiastical and civil power are two great seas God hath limited and divided them by the interposition of spiritual and temporal administration Both exercise their functions and live in fair peace God preserve us from those miseries which may dis-mantle the wall and cause them to intermingle together so that we may behold the world in a deluge of calamities To what purpose is all this The Sun doth not the work of the rain nor the rain of the Sun Constantine Communis Episcopus corum que extra exclesiam said the Bishops were Bishops in their Churches in that which concerneth Religion and God had appointed him for the government of his Empire in matters temporal Let us rest in these limits Give we to Caesar that which belongeth to Caesar to God what appertaineth to God We have better learned to live than dispute and our Ancestours have preserved a Monarchy so flourishing the space of twelve hundred years not with disputations and unprofitable wranglings but with the arms of wisdom obedience and courage We have always rendered to the Pope the honour 1 Pet. 2. Sub diti estote omni humanâ— creaturae propter Deum sive Regi quasi praecellenti sive â—ucibus tamquam ab co missis he deserveth as to the Sovereign Pastour of the Universal Church which is under Heaven We have confessed and do acknowledge the King true and absolute Monarch in the government of temporal things singularly honouring him and with most cordial affections loving him as an animated pourtraictute of the greatness of the Divine Majesty God thereupon maketh us to prosper and tast by experience that there is no science more noble than obedience nor any felicity but the accomplishment of the will of the sovereign Master On the contrary it is observed in the History of so many Ages that the wounds from Heaven have on all sides fallen upon those who have sought to cast the apple of discord into the house of God The wind blown from their moutheâ— returned on their heads since it is fit iniquity should first kill it self with its own poison The eighth SECTION The good success which God gave to Clodovaeus after he became a Christian CLodovaeus was no sooner become a Christian but that it seemed God had tied to his arms some secret virtue which made him triumph over his enemies and crown all his enterprizes with most glorious successes The first war he undertook after his Baptism was against Gombaut King of Burgundie of whom we have very amply spoken heretofore I much wonder at certain Authours who measuring the affections of Saints with the weaknesses of their own spirits and esteeming it a sweet glory to be revenged upon enemies from whom some notable injuries are received have said that Clotilda excited her husband to the ruin of her uncle to derive an account from him of the death of her father and mother This is too inferiour a conceit of a Lady who was arrived to so high a degree of perfection nay it was so much otherwise that she should enkindle the fire of this war that Gombaut being in the full possession of Clodovaeus to bereave him of life she withheld the fatal blow afterwards seeing he by his ill deportment had lost his Kingdom she did all that possibly she might to preserve a part thereof for Sigismund son of Gombaut her cousin-germane That which first of all ruined this unhappy King Paul Emil. of Burgundie was his heresie which drew upon him the vengeance of God for it being often preached unto him and he convinced by reasons offering himself in private to become a Catholick yet still retained Arianism in publick Behold the cause why he having divided his heart God divided his Kingdom The second cause of his ruin was his nature cruel and covetous which rendered him uncivil and an enemy of all order He sent his Neece as it were in anger to Clodovaeus giving her not any thing in marriage but many complements Whereupon the King making
the person of the good Patriarch Flavianus by express letters What doth not a playstered sanctity for the subversion of the simple What doth not a bad servant when once he possesseth the easie nature of his Master Pulcheria who some years before had seen the heresie of Nestorius to arise and had partly stifled it when she was in the manage of affairs by her excellent direction never was deceived in the choice of a side but most constantly tied herself to the doctrine Great prudence to stick to Altars and the true Church of the See Apostolick That gave a particular benediction to all her enterprizes and made her sway in the peoples hearts as she caused true religion to flourish on Altars All the Eastern and Western Clergie esteemed her and lent their assistance to maintain her authority which was no little support All those who have sought to strike these Powers have therein lost their endeavours And very well Aristobulus King of the Jews one of the greatest States-men who had governed that Kingdom being upon his death-bed freely confessed the foulest fault he had ever committed in matter of policie was to have opposed the Pharisees who then had lawfull authority over affairs of Religion and gave his wife Alexandra counsel to practise and hold good intelligence with them by all possible means The very same which he advised out of reason of State Pulcheria practised by consideration of piety and ever held herself firm on the rock of S. Peter as it it is said the mothers of pearl fix themselves to rocks during the tempest If the wicked Eutyches had appeared in her time she had consumed his heresie as the ice of one night under the rays of the Sun but it was then the kingdom of darkness Chrysaphius perpetually besieged the ears and heart of the Emperour Theodosius disguising all affairs to him according to the sway of his own passion He drew along with him the good Eudoxia who became too curiously intelligent in matter of religion and lost herself to follow rather the aims of her pregnant wit than the tracks of holy humility more agreeing to her sex Pulcheria who understood all this goodly business was much perplexed to see her brother and sister in law after they had shaken off the yoke of her good precepts to fall into a little apostacie and not being able to get access to talk with them she made the apple of her weeping eyes speak to God in continual prayers She wrote to Rome sometime to the Emperour Valentinian her cousin sometime to Eudoxia the Younger his wife daughter of our Eudoxia sometime to Pope Leo himself solliciting them for the reduction of these poor wandering sheep she every where disposed squadrons of religious persons to force God with the arms of prayers All the powers of Heaven and earth conspired at that time The battery was strong enough to move a heart that never yet was obdurate In the end Theodosius awakened as out of a long Theodosius awakened sleep opened his eyes and with horrour saw the precipice whereinto he was ready to fall He detesteth the disastrous Eutyches and leaveth him to the censures of the Church Pulcheria four years after her banishment returned in triumph to the Court with the general applause of all sorts Her first care was to seize on the person of Chrysaphius and by form of justice to send him into the other world that he might no longer trouble this wherein she shewed that living otherwise as a bee in the delights of virginity she had not so much honey but withal a sting The poor Eudoxia well perceived her Mistress was returned and her heart bled to behold this change She no longer remembred the condition of Athenais and she who before would not be but under the feet of Pulcheria could not endure her now by her sides It is a strange thing how the ayr of the Court doth as it were necessarily breath ambition These two pure souls which seemed in the beginning as an Ancient hath said able to abide together in the eye of a needle when they were in concord found the whole world in their discord too little for their separation Eudoxia tyred with the many revolutions of Court returneth to Jerusalem as a Pilgrim with a great oath never to set foot again in Constantinople and verily she had her tomb in Palestine as we shall see anon Theodorus in the collection of his history insinuateth to us that she never undertook this voyage till the death of the Emperour Theodosius her husband which happened shortly after You would have said that his good sister was come of purpose to dispose his soul for this passage He was about fifty years His death of age and had already ruled fourty three years with a most happy reign had not this apple of discord been which outragiously disturbed the peace of his Court and steeped his life in many acerbities That which is read most probable of his death is that riding a hunting at full speed and falling from his horse he hurt the reins of his back so that of necessity he must be carried back to his Palace in a litter at which time he plainly saw his last hour approched and signed his innocent life with the seal of a death truly Christian A Prince in all things else of a most sincere life religious learned mild courteous patient in whom nothing could be blamed but the over-much facility of his nature which many times made his heart of wax to be moulded in the hands of those who were nearest unto him and this was in a manner the cause of his ruin But it was well for him he betook himself firmly to the good counsels of his sister who dearly loved his good and aimed at nothing but the glory and repose of his Empire We have here inserted his Pour-traicture and Elogie IMP. F. AVGVST THEODOSIVS MINOR FLAV. THEODOSIUS JUNIOR ARCADII ET EUDOXIAE FILIUS OCTO ANNORUM PUER ORIENTALE CEPIT IMPERIUM ET PER ANNOS QUADRAGINTA TRES PULCHERIAE SORORIS AUSPICIIS ARMIS ET LEGIBUS FAELL CITER ADMINISTRAVIT PRINCEPS DE MELIORI NOTA CHRISTIANUS VITAE INTEGERRIMAE DIVINIS LECTIONIBUS INTENTUS PATIENTIA ET CLEMENTIA SUPRA CAETEROS CLARUS OBIIT CONSTANTINOPOLI ANNO CHRISTI CDLII AETATIS XLIX Upon the picture of THEODOSIUS A Scepter free from pride a goodness sweet A life not feign'd but where true graces meet As Zeal he for sole favour did advance So Heav'n his shield became the Cross his lance HE had no male issue by his wife Eudoxia and Marriage of Pulcheria and new government the Empire might not fall to the distaff which seemed to invite these two Princesses who till this day had swayed in government to sound the retreat But Pulcheria was become very necessary for the state and as yet had not lost the appetite of rule Theodosius having cast his eyes by the advise of his Councel upon Martianus
awaken their former aversions Time slideth away very quietly with them untill the arrivall of a very unexpected accident Childeric after the departure of S. Leger useth the greatnesse of his power licentiously and soileth both his Name and Dignity with inconsiderate actions which quickly made this great Minister of State to be deplored and all the Envy to be cast upon the King for having so easily dismissed him The contempt of his person began so to creep into the minds of his subjects that defamatory Libels went abroad upon his Passions and Government which seemed to have no other aim but the weakning of his Authority He thought to quench a coal with flames and entreth into outrageous anger against those whom he suspected to raise any question upon his actions He causeth a gentleman named Bodil to be taken and having caused him to be tyed to a post he commandeth him to be ignominiously whipped contrary to the manner of ordinary punishments which occasioned so much acerbity in the Nobility that all in an instant rebelled against him Bodil transported by the fury of his Passion and encouraged by the number of his Complices out of a horrible attempt kills Childeric whilst he was a hunting and passing on to the Palace extendeth his revenge like a devil fleshed in massacres to the person of the Queen great with child whom he murdered The Court is drenched in deep desolation the pillars of the State totter there is need of able men to free them from this danger The friends of Ebroin and S. Leger who sought their own ends in the employment of these two invited them with urgent reasons covered with the good of the State to return to the world assuring them that all France went to ruine if they supported it not Ebroin to whom South-sayers promised wonders and who under hope he had to forsake the Monks Coul had already suffered his hair to grow to be the better disposed for all occasions shewed himself nothing hard to be perswaded S. Leger therein used more resistance but in the end suffered himself to be overcome leaving the sweetnesse of Solitude to enter again into the troubles of the world which never passeth unpunished but in such as do it by the Laws of pure Obedience He is received into his Bishoprick as an Angel and his friends do all they can to bring him to the Court and to gain him a good esteem in the Kings mind who seemed to stand in need of such a servant to purchase the more authority among the people who with much satisfaction had tasted the sweetnesse of his Government Ebroin on the other side seeing Thierry Childeric's brother had taken possession of the Kingdome was very confident of his return having formerly been of the faction of the young King But he being neglected Leudegesillus an antient favourite of Thierry 's had undertaken the government of affairs The furious Monk storms like a mad-man for the dignity of Master of the Palace which he had possessed and being unable to creep into it by mildnesse he entreth thereinto by open violence He rallieth together all his antient friends in this new change of State he gathereth a tumultuary army and flyeth into the field with so much speed that he almost surprized the King with his Favourite to use them at his discretion Necessity enforceth to offer candles and incense to this devil he is sought unto for peace great recompences are proposed to his crimes his ambition takes no satisfaction but in the object of his design He draweth Leudegesillus to a Conference under shew of accommodation and being a man without Faith or Soul he killeth him emptying his place by a murder to replenish it by a Treachery Notwithstanding he lets Thierry know his arms were not taken but for his service and that he had no other purpose but to reduce all powers under his Sceptre The other was in a condition of inability to defend himself which made him resolve rather to take him for a servant then to have him for a master In the end this horrible fury hidden under the habit of a Monk never ceased until it carried him to the nearest place of a Royall Throne So soon as he was possessed of his former dignity he bent all his powers to vengeance and thought upon nothing but of ridding his hands of such as had crossed his fortune S. Leger was the very first he aimed at in his wicked plots he dispatcheth troops to make havock about the city of Autun and gives commands to murderers executioners of his revenge to lay hold of his person The good Prelate who heard the lamentable cryes of the people afflicted by the detestation of these hostilities went forth and presents himself before these barbarians as a victime of expiation to deliver himself over to death and to stay the stream of the miseries which overflowed his diocesse He was prepared to make an Oration but they as Tygres which had no commerce with musick presently fell upon him and having taken him they pulled out his eyes to lead him in triumph to Ebroin He had already poisoned the ear of the young King having set forth this sage Bishop as the most execrable man on earth and the most capitall enemy he had in the world There remained nothing but to produce him in this state fully to accomplish the contentment his bruitishnesse did aim at He at the same time caused Guerin S. Legers brother to be taken doubly to torment him in that he most loved and having presented them both before the King he beginneth to charge them with injuries and scorns the Saints eclipsed eyes and faces covered all over with bloud nothing mollifyed the heart of this Polyphemus Captivity tyed not the tongues of the two brothers nor excesse of miseries dejected their courages They spake with all liberty what might be expected from their constancy rendering thanks to God that he in this world had chastised them with temporall punishments as true children and menacing Ebroin with an eternity of torments which the anger of God reserved for the exorbitancy of his wickednesse This cruel creature who expected some more pliantnesse in so great a misery was immeasurably offended and instantly commanded them to be separated and Guerin to be speedily put to death He received the sentence of death with great fortitude embracing his blind brother with all unexpressible tendernesse and encouraging him to the last conflict with words full of the spirit of God After this he is bound to a pillar and knocked down with stones Ebroin who would relish his revenge by long draughts found out in his heart inventions of a hangman to torment Saint Leger causing him to walk on stones as sharp as razours and appointing his face to be disfigured by cutting out his tongue his nose and lips to send him from thence a prisoner to the Monastery of Fecan All this was executed yet the patience of this incomparable man by so hideous
heart to give entrance thereby to the Spirit of God If you esteem it a most glorious honour to govern innumerable people and to behold from the throne of your Magnificence Nations bending under your Sceptres Know ye that this Power which lifts you so high above the rest of mortals is borrowed from Heaven and is a gift which hath its originall from God who is the Sovereign of all Monarchs of the World It is He that will examine all your works and search into the secretest of your thoughts You forget that notwithstanding all the services that men render to you you are but the Servants and Attendants of this powerfull King You have not judged sincerely you have not kept the laws which your selves have prescribed nor rendred justice to your Subjects nor walked according to the commands of Him whose person you represent This is the reason why He will appear to you suddainly and terribly separating your soul from your bodies You shall see Him on His Throne of Justice compassed with terrours and you shall know that He exercises most severe judgment over those that bear Rule over men All those poor people which tremble under your power shall be lovingly and mercifully dealt with by God but the mighty shall be mightily tormented if they behave not themselves as they ought and shall know that the greatnesse of their Sovereign Authority shall avail them nothing but to serve to augment their just punishments There are no plagues more fatall to the destruction The end of Royalty of Princes then those who under colour of raising their authority would make themselves great by power to commit and that without punishment all kind of enormities Royalty is an Invention of God appointed not for the benefit of the Kings but of the Common-wealth It was not instituted for the vain-glory of men but for the safety of the World and Princes are more for the peoples sake then the people for theirs All the great things were made to serve the lesser Great things were made for the lesser The Sun the Prince of Lights and the heart of Nature serves as well for the eyes of a little fly as for those of a Monarch The Ocean within that its monstrous extent of Seas and wonders tenders its service to the little Fish enclosed in a small shell which cannot subsist without its attendance The one possesses not the least beam nor the other the least drop of water which it employes not for the Commune The Eternall Father would not that the great things should be great in vain but that they pay for their greatnesse by the favours and cares they are to take for the little ones Thus God commanded Moses to carry all that great people that he had brought out of Egypt to serve them all as a mother and if we will believe Orat. 2. in Adam Saint Basil of Seleucia Kings are made to bear the World In antient time they were lifted up upon Bucklers on the day of their Consecration to cause them to understand that they ought to serve for a Buckler for their whole Realm Nature hath made neither King nor Subject amongst Men. Kings are not born Kings but by the consent of those people which have made themselves a Law to obey him whom God should declare to them by his birth or whom themselves should make by Election Royalty is a power of all the particulars united together in one man to be applyed and exercised according to the Law When Romulus founded the Monarchy of Rome composed of divers people that offered themselves to The practice of Romulus to be noted Navar l. 1. c. 9. him he expresly ordained that every one should bring to him some of the earth and fruits of his countrey whereof he composed a masse and caused it to be buried in a great pit which he called the Word intending to shew by this ceremony that Royalty is a heap of Wills of Powers of Riches united in one onely Power This is a borrowing which Kings make without obligation to restore again but with obligement to render it better They ought to do as the Bees which take of the flowers to make Honey thereof They ought to temper and bring to perfection the Virtues and Qualities of the whole Communalty in their own person to compose thereof the publick happinesse Wherefore do you think that the antient Hebrews Targum Navarinus l. 4. planted trees at the birth of the children of their Kings which they held as sacred and dressed them with carefull diligence to make thereof one day thrones for those little Monarchs when they were come to the Crown but onely to teach them that they ought to cover the people with their protection and to enrich them with goods as the tree defends men from the tempest with its leaves and nourisheth them with its fruit They are not properly Masters in a strict sense for that the Master may do whatsoever he will with his goods without giving account thereof But a King cannot use his subjects but according to the law he must entreat them as the Goods of God for that he is accomptable therefore to the Sovereign Judge of Heaven and Earth whose Stewart he is for a certain time and not proprietary for ever If he abuse this trust although the people cannot recall the authority which they have given to him and which hath been established of it self by a long prescription neverthelesse he is answerable to the Divine Majesty for all that he doth The Divines hold that a King which should reign Navarrus in Manualâ— onely for his own honour and pleasure would sin grievously and put himself upon hazard of loosing his salvation To speak then the very truth Royaltie is a very Royalty a glorious servitude great obligement and a glorious servitude and he that shall well consider all its burthens would not so much as stoop to take up a Diadem lying on the ground Doctor Navarrus and other Divines that treat of the duty of Princes say That to be a King is to be the peoples man who is charged before God upon the perill of his soul to take care of their affairs and to maintein them in peace as far as shall be lawfull and possible to defend them from their enemies to render justice to them by himself or his officers That is to choose men of ability and virtuous to undertake those charges to watch over their actions and their behaviour to chastise the evil ones that trouble the publick quiet and to recompence the good ones That is to keep the Laws to root out abuses to cause piety and good manners to flourish to stop all injustice corruptions and exactions As also to facilitate tradeing to order the conducts for Souldiers to take care for the reparations of publick Buildings for Ammunition and provision for the health and conveniency of his Subjects and to exact nothing of them above their ability
that great Kingdome It was an Edict of Death not of the death and of the ruine of one man or of one City or of one Province but of a whole Nation The evil was universall and carried on all parts Menaces Bloud Slaughters Fears and Affrights from Euphrates even to Nile The terrour began at the capital city Shushan where the Edict was seen and read by all the world hanged upon the pillars and on the walls of Publick places bearing these words Artaxerxes the Sovereign Lord and King of all the Nations that are from India as farre as Ethiopia to the Princes and Governours of the seven and twenty Provinces of our Empire Greeting Since the time that I subdued the universe under my Laws it was never my will to abase the greatnesse of my Power but I have desired to govern my good Subjects with all clemency and sweetnesse making them enjoy a peace and tranquility to be wished for by all mortalls and for this purpose inquiring of the means that I might use for the effecting of this design Our most dear Haman the second person of our Kingdome which exceeds all the men of the world in capacity and fidelity hath represented to me that the Jewish people dispersed through all the Provinces of my Empire being separated both by Religion and Laws from all the other Nations despise our Edicts and cease not to render themselves troublers of the publick Quiet Which having been well and duly considered we have ordained and do ordain That they be punished according to the orders of our most dear Haman who is the Superintendent of all our Provinces and whom we honour as our true father Furthermore we will and intend that this Edict shall be put in execution the thirteenth day of the Moneth Adar the last of the year to the end that all the wicked descending into Hell in one and the same day may render peace and quietnesse to our good Subjects which they have troubled by their Factions Such is our good pleasure Given at Shushan the first of the Moneth Nisan Behold how Haman and his Complices workers of Iniquity cut their Furies Quills and dipped them in Bloud to make the King of the Persians say what ever pleased them having his Seal and Authority in their hands Poore Mordecai seeing the great Tempest that was ready to fall upon the heads of all his people having read that Edict and knowing that Haman was at the Table with the King who was not seen by any endeavoured to move the whole World to pity clothing himself with Sack-cloth and covering himself with Ashes together with all his people that wept and howl'd about him This sad Squadron marched even to the Walls of the Palace without entring in for it was not permitted not so much as to Mordecai to be seen at Court in so deplorable a Condition which would have offended the eyes of the delicater sort Bad news hath Wings to fly and abundance of Voyces to make it self be heard The frighted Maids and Eunuches fail not to tell Queen Hester of what ever had passed whereat shee was much amazed and hearing that her Uncle was at the Gate covered over with Ashes with Sack-cloth upon his back she sent him secretly a Sute of Clothes which he refused judging it not sutable to his fortune which made her dispatch another Messenger which was Athac the Eunuch that waited on her who went out of the Castle and inquired of Mordecai of all the state of so sad a businesse The other made him a short Narration of it and gave him a Copy of the Edict to present unto the Queen praying him to tell her that she must necessarily go and see the King and act powerfully with his Majesty for the deliverance of his people Athac returns readily to his Mistresse and faithfully relates to her what he had heard of Mordecai The poore Princesse was in an equall ballance greatly racked in minde Shee durst not go to the King without being sent for and to reject the intreaty of her Uncle in an accident so pressing it was another Death to her She sends Athac back again to represent again to the good Mordecai the danger of that Negotiation and to tell him that there is a Law established by the Prince that ordains That whosoever shall present himself before his eyes without being called for shall be punished with Death unlesse that by his mercy he holds out his Sceptre to him in sign of safety and that thereupon she had not seen his Majesty these thirty Dayes not knowing in what posture she is at present in his heart that if she should finde him in some ill Humour there were an end of that Life which she seeks not to preserve but for the safety of her People Notwithstanding all these Remonstrances her Uncle sends to her to go tells her that if she neglected to negotiate in so important an occasion God would find other means to save his people But she should had need to take great heed lest her Fathers House and her self also should perish by too great a care of their Preservation and that she ought to think that perhaps the Divine Providence had placed her where she was it may be for that onely reason Here one knows not what one ought to admire most whether the Authority that Mordecai took over the Queen or the Obedience that the Queen rendered to him She had no sooner heard that Reply of his but she said It is concluded I will go and sacrifice my self to Death with all my heart to obey my Uncle and save if I can my Nation Go to him Athac and bid him assemble all the Jews that are in Shushan let them keep a Fast of three dayes for the successe of this Attempt with continuall Prayers I will do the same on my side with my servants here and afterward we will adventure upon the businesse Behold how we ought to proceed in great Negotiations making God alwayes to march in the head of them who is the source of all good Successes There was then an admirable Consort of Devotions both within and without the Palace Mordecai was in the middst of his People lifting up his hands to Heaven and saying Great God whose Empire hath no limits and whose absolute will suffers no contradiction Your hands have formed both Heaven and Earth with all the beauties that are included in their bosome and there is nothing that can resist the puissance of your Arm. My God you know every thing and are not ignorant that the refusall that I have made to reverence the proud Haman proceeds of Pride or Vanity that is in me for from this present time I would kisse the ground whereon he treads for the safety of my people But I have been afraid to transferre the honour of the Creatour to the Creature and to give a companion to your Majesty and therefore I be-you O the God of our Fathers to cause one ray
resolve to examine the Processe himself The Saint was presented before one of the most corrupt Judges under heaven he was brother to Pallas a servant infranchized who in the Reign of Claudius was the God of the times and Felix as Cornelius Tacitus doth affirm being covered with the great power and favour of his brother did usurp the Authority of a King which he managed with a servile spirit making Cruelty and Lasciviousnesse to reign with equal power in his Government He was the husband or rather the adulterer of three Queens and she who then possessed him was called Drusilla who was the daughter of that Agrippa who was in chains by Tiberius of whom I have made mention in the Tome of the Maxims and descended from the bloud of Mariamna She was married to one named Azizus King of the Emmessaeans but because that Royalty was of no great extent she preferred the President above the King so that Felix courting her for her rare beauty she did willingly forsake her husband to espouse the brother to the great Favourite Pallas who lived then under a most high consideration She conversed with him according to the Law of the Jews and was almost as nice in the curiosity of Religions as of her beauties which was the reason that the more to gratifie her Felix did cause S. Paul to be brought before him He was brought in chains before the President and S. Paul before the Tribunall of Felix the Prince of the Priests failed not to make his appearance at Cesarea with the Antients of the Jewish Nation who brought with them an Advocate named Tertullus to plead against S. Paul which he performed coldly enough But the great Champion of Jesus Christ did defend himself with so great a vivacity of spirit that the Judge did clearly discover that he was not guilty of any fault which was the occasion that he used him with the more humanity and told him that at leisure he would decide that businesse himself in the mean time he permitted him to live at more liberty not hindering any to come unto him and administer things necessary for his life yet for all this he was still under a guard of Souldiers Not long after Felix called for him and his wife Drusilla comes to hear him Drusilla who was the cause of his more gentle usage did speak unto him in the presence of her husband and desired to hear him on his discourses of Faith which gave a fair occasion to our Apostle to speak who driving on his Discourse with vigour did so enlarge himself on the subject of Justice of Chastity and of universall Judgement that Felix was much afraid and interrupted his Discourse fearing that he should leave some Scruples on the conscience of his wife concerning their marriage It is easie to conjecture that this poor Princesse was much shaken at it although the chains of Love and of Ambition did so link her to the world that we do not reade that she was absolutely converted to the Faith and number of the Christians Felix stopping his ears to Judgement did open his eyes to money and having learned that S. Paul had brought great sums of Charity unto Jerusalem he oftentimes spoke with him and seemed to make much of him hoping to gain something from him but when he perceived that there was nothing to be had and that the time of his Commission was expired he left Saint Paul to the discretion of Festus his successour desiring in that to gratifie the Jews and to divert the accusation which they intended at Rome against him Festus being arrived at Jerusalem was invironed Festus renews the Processe S. Paul appealeth to Rome by the chief of the Jews who with importunity did demand that Paul might be sent to Rome to be judged there having a design to kill him by the way But the President did deny them and did command them to come to Cesarea where he would continue in the expectation of them Thither they did transport themselves violently to follow their Accusations which were all effectually answered and confuted by S. Paul who did demonstrate that he had offended neither their Law nor the Temple nor Cesar Festus to content the importunity of the Jews did demand of him if he would go to Jerusalem to decide the controversie there but he refused the Jurisdiction of those perverse people and said That he stood at the Tribunall of Cesar and would have no other Judge and that he appealed to the Emperour The Judge had some debate thereupon and it was resolved that he should be sent to Rome In the mean time the young King Agrippa the son The young Agrippa King of Judea with his sister Bernice assist at the judgement of Paul of that Agrippa before specified came to Cesarea with his sister Bernice to complement the new Governour who received them with great courtesie and amongst other things he made a relation to them of his prisoner which possessed them both with a great curiosity to see him Festus did invite them to the Audience at which on the next morning they appeared with great pomp This was a great Theatre which God had prepared for the publishing of the Gospel where were present a King a Queen the Governour of the Romans the principall of the Nation of the Jews and an infinit number of people who did attend the successe of that action S. Paul having received commandment to speak made a long discourse couched in the Acts of the Apostles where he rendred a reason of his Faith and spake most worthily of the Resurrection of the dead of his Conversion to Christianity of the Apparition of Jesus of the Publication of the Gospel and of the Prophecies that did forego it He declared himself with so much ardency that Festus the President who was a Festus touched with the words of S. Paul Heathen and found his Pagan conscience wounded by his truths was constrained to interrupt him and to tell him That much learning had made him mad but S. Paul replyed to him That he spoke the words of Truth and Sobriety and turning from him to King Agrippa he took him to witnesse it as being one who was not ignorant of the Prophets This young King was so ravished at it that he professed publickly to the Apostle that he had felt him in his heart and that he had almost perswaded him to be a Christian whereupon S. Paul made a great acclamation of joy wishing him that happinesse to be like him in all things his Bonds excepted not judging that this Prince was yet an object capable of the Crosse He was of a sweet condition but he had then great obstacles which hindred him from embracing the saving Truth Bernice who assisted at that Audience was a most lovely Princesse the sister of this Agrippa and Drusilla but not so happy in the reputation of her Honour as of her Beauty She was married first unto her uncle and
were destroyed did you not believe that the enemies were destroyed How much better were it for Peace-makers to make use of the indulgence of Fortune rather then so often to provoke the departures of the Fates against your selves Certainly if there be any consideration of the value of a Christian Title if there be any commiseration of humanity the afflicted condition of all Nations that fight for Christ ought to move you And it must needs be an object full of bitter anguish to see a Nation worried to ruine by fraternall discords which Christ hath espoused to himself by a peculiar Election Germany that mother of fruitfulnesse that advancer of Learning and shop of Warre is now full of mourning the countrey being unmanured many gallant cities being to be sought where the cities themselnes flourished so many men being slain so much wealth consumed so many Churches demolished is now the miserable mirth of Fortune dancing in her ashes Lotharingia overcame Jerusalem with calamities and brought upon her more then all barbarity could execute or all misery could undergo The Low-Countreys are alarm'd with an anniversary contention and is drawing on among the slow Funerals A hidden poison hath invaded England and engaged her in a blind and unexpected Warre Spain so long victorious so long free from jarres and tumult alwayes impatient of slavery and a stranger to want is assaulted to the very throat Fear hath journied over the Alps and possessed Rome Fury had disordered Italy and unlesse the Princes by prudent Counsels and sagacity of wit had re-composed the distractions it was justly to be feared that when they had made a solitude they would have called that Peace what is undisturbed what is not miserable Si tu victrix provincia ploras If thou O France mournest which hast so often triumphed over thine enemies and in a deep sense of misery groanest to feel the darts pulled out of thine own bowels which must be thrown against others What do barren Laurels profit such as are sick and languishing among the rapines of their goods and estates To what purpose is it to hold flowers to the nostrils when the body is wasted and parched with such violent fevers It is a malignant kind of solace for one man to compute his felicity by the increase of anothers grief Nothing is safe nothing pleasant amidst such calamities where the worst of evils is the rejoycing The whole head is sick and the whole heart is heavy from the sole of the foot unto the crown of the head there is nothing whole therein but wounds and swelling and sores full of corruption they have not been wrapped nor bound up nor mollified with oil On that same man who is powerfull in the conduct of this worlds affairs and can dive into the secret of these controversies could in a clear prospective behold the Christian world gasping under so many direfull perplexities doubtlesse it would pierce his soul and he would condemne himself of cruelty did he not procure her restauration Hard are those ears that bow not at these considerations harder are those eyes that can behold them without some moist testimonies of sorrow I shall tell you Best Princes that which chiefly concerneth your interest I shall shew you that which comprehendeth both the augmentation and the glory of your Dignity I wish your Kingdomes setled upon foundations as firm as rocks I wish your Cities may continue obedient all your Subjects obsequious and all things calm and even in your domesticall negotiations These things were written long since which of late have been verified by many sad events Yet it is well worth a serious fear lest those people who are apprehensive of their hard condition under Kings and see the neighbouring Common-wealths enjoy so much lenity and freedome do begin to hate Monarchy and which is absolutely unlawfull conspire to withdraw their Obedience that they may acquire a redemption from their evils by the temptation of Liberty Certainly it is very unequall and unjust that at this day Common-wealths alone should inherit peace and plenty and Christian Kingdomes should labour under generall convulsions and be wasted with unheard of lacerations The rigorous strictnesse of Empire the tuning of the strings too high in Government doth sometimes crack them and dissolve great Empires a hard servitude hath not seldome instructed a Nation into Liberty When the inquinated times of the Hebrew Kings were past and the Jews were now returned from a long Captivity there arose in them an aversation to Kingly Government and almost for five hundred years no man durst think of a Diadem before Aristobulus who rather usurped then received it neither was it established upon a firm basis for his unfortunate posterity did not long enjoy it Cecrops reigned in Athens in the dayes of Moses whom seventeen Kings succeeded some grew insolent some negligent and these perpetuall Governours were dethroned for when it was observed that the diuturnity of Regall Power flattered them into a security of their excesses the Government was reduced to ten years continuance The Kings of Sparta also luxuriating in their glories and made wanton by felicity were soon dismantled of them both Lycurgus tempered the Scepter by a wise These were Magistrates in office like unto the Tribunes among the Roman and the Spartans and Lacedemonians used to appeal from the King to them as did the Romans from the Consuls to the Tribanes At the first they were chosen like oâ—r Parliament men to be advisers about affairs and assistants to the King but in a short time their authority overtopped the Kâ—ngs power institution of twenty eight men called Senatours Afterwards to this number of the Senatours there was added the Ephori with too much priviledge against Kings and hatefull to all men Rome from the beginning was governed by Kings the last whereof which were the two Tarquins ruling that warlike Nation with pride and petulancy by great force and perpetuall disgrace they were expelled from their Magistracy leaving almost an everlasting odium against the Regiment of Kings It would be too impertinent to reckon up the Antient times we our selves have seen in our dayes how many a rigid domination hath sacrificed to the Peoples fury who having endured all things have learned from thence to dare to attempt all things and those Kingdomes which for a long time they suffered under they have at length usurped by cruel and lasting Warres Farre be it from your Subjects to entertain any such perversity of thought and farre from you also be contempt and rigour lest the Divine hand bring to passe that which few fear none dare attempt and all abhor Transmit therefore O ye Princes comfort to the wearisome and Peace to the troubled upon which all wishes are bent in which all people are blessed Behold at length there is given unto us by the singular gift of God a good Pope a man of blamelesse life of consummated understanding of a great mind and extremely zealous he
wonder that in this passage he useth an Hebâ—ew word for two purposes signifying two contraries to wit to shine and to be darkened It is to shew us that obscuritie which cometh A worthy letter in Job from adversitie is a true and perfect light It then being admitted which all mouthes do preach and pens do write that adversities are necessary to make up a great virtue we will thereon conclude that perfection will be more sutably accommodated to the lives of Great men than any other though never so good since they are those who daily are exposed to the greatest hazards The crosses of religious and private men are but meer paper in comparison of those which happen to the Great men of the world The learned Sinesius saith they Sinesius de regno ad Arcadium 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are illustrious on every side one while they mount as high as Heaven another while they descend even to the abyss their change is never in the mean and their fortune is pointed out in extremities this manifestly declareth that as their fortune hath no bounds so they should not limit their virtues O men of honour it is a brave thing to see you couragious in disasters as Eagles who flie confronting that part of heaven where raging tempests most reign not unlike Dolphins who leap and bound with full carreer in the tumultuous waves or as vast rocks who erect their crests against the clouds and mock at the foamie waves billow-beating their feet This is truly the element of virtue resembling the pretious stone called Ceraunia by the Grecians as one would Ceraunia say the Thunderer for it is bred among thunders and is found in places where Heaven all swoln with anger hath cleft the master-pieces of the worlds great magazin So after the black vapours of obloquie after the mistie clouds which have dis-coloured our reputation after envie rage after brutish furies after oppressions of innocencie after the death of kindred after faithlesness of friends after disgrace after thunders shot from the Capitol when you behold a heart firmly fixed in a fair situation which enfoldeth it self within it self and sucketh in the tasteful sweetnesses of a good conscience then behold a thunder-stone which gladdeth Angels and dazeleth eyes fearful of his lightening flashes Conclude then upon this whole discourse that greatness is the very element of great virtue and if you yet hereof doubt learn the same from the authoritie of God who hath judged greatness so necessary an object for virtue that he hath conducted all his greatest servants to perfection if not by the enjoying of greatness at the least by contempt thereof and never had they been so great if struggling with greatness they had not scorned to be great Our Saviour to shew he was the example of perfection would appear great in refusing a world which Satan had as it were unfolded before his feet He would the virtue of the greatest of all men should appear in the refusal of the greatest of all titles when S. John Baptist denied the name of Messias He sheweth the greatness of his faithful servant Moses in the contempt of Pharaoh's kingdom He gave Nero's Court to S. Peter and S. Paul as the Amphitheater of their glorie He likewise many times hath drawn Hermits from the unfrequented desarts to make them mannage great matters in the Catastrophe of their lives in the palaces of Princes so necessary it is to have to do with greatness to act something important If God hath transferred to Court as it were on the wings of impetuous winds those that were by birth and profession alienated to work wonders there what Theatre O ye Noblemen expect you more suitable then this to place virtue in her fairest seat Or what obligation can you have more strictly binding to perfection than your selves The fourth REASON Proceeding from riches IT was a thing very strange amongst the plagues wherewith Aegypt ever bent to resist the spur the more deeply to wound it self was chastised by the angrie hand of God to behold Nilus that great and goodly river wholly become bloudie but yet more marveilous to see that from one and the same river the Aegyptians drew bloud and the Israelites a lively Joseph Antiquit Jud. l. 2. c. 5. and christalline stream The like ordinarily is seen in the lives of good and bad rich men The bad draw into their store-houses gold and silver heaped one upon another by rapines and violence as in a river consisting of the veins and bloud of the poor The good in the honest abilities which Heaven hath graciously given them find pure water which they suffer to distil for the publick good as through the conduit of their liberalities All that which the holy Writ and eloquent tongues of the Fathers thunder out replenished with threats horrour and malediction against riches is not understood but of those whereof the vices of men and not the condition of the things have made the use damnable Such riches are deceitful shadows which cover an apparent good under an undoubted evil they are hands that take their Master by the throat they are poinyards with a golden haft which delight the eyes with vain seemings and pierce the heart with mortal wounds they are precipices furnished with precious jewels such as Heliogabalus desired to illustrate his death with they are hights which are not measured but by their falls they are deadly poisons steeped in a golden cup. For this Eusebius Emys Hom. de Sancta Epiphania nisi sit Episcopus Rhegiensis An tu hunc hominem potentem faelicem vocas qui in suam mortem fortis est Cui proventuum fallax umbra praesentium aeternorum congregat causas malorum Quis beatam dixerit validam in suum jugulum dexteram Quis laudet velocem ad ardua praecipitia festinantem Quis ejus miretur ascensum quem de summo prospicit esse casurum An illum faelicem vocas qui gemmato atque aurato sibi poculo venena miscet cause Eusebius Emyssenus said Poor man who admirest those that are on the top of the wheel of the favours and riches of the world whereunto they have ascended by iniquitie are maintained by violence and cannot descend but by headlong ruin How blind are you to have thoughts so unmanly and unworthy of a Christian Esteem you a frantick man to be stout and couragious who stabs himself with a poinyard Say you he hath a brave steddie hand who hits his own heart right with a daggers point Say you that man is happie who holdeth the shadow of good in his hands to produce to himself an eternitie of evils Who hath ever said He who nimbly mounteth on a rock to precipitate himself was an ableman Who hath said seeing him on the steepic cliffs top ready to fall This man is happie all the world hath an eye upon him Who hath said of him that hath a golden cup in his hand filled
with poyson This man is fortunate to drink in so rich a goblet And you yet daily say the same when you behold a man in the iniquitie of ill gotten goods covetous ungrateful disloyal perfidious to God and men you think him happie and see not that he twisteth his own ruin in threads of gold and silver Such riches are damnable It is true But who maketh them damnable The perverse disposition of men Take away vice which is not of the essence of riches you will find they are a great prop to virtue and a powerful motive to perfection for those that possess them It is to you Noblemen to whom S. Hierom a a a Hierom. Epist ad Demetriadem Vestri generis eâ—â— habere calcare diâ—â—ias addresseth this worthy saying To you it appertaineth to have riches to tread them under your feet and not carrie them on your head the more they are under you the more they raise you and the more they elevate you to perfection The reasons are manifest and pertinent First it is a matter very difficult to preserve a great virtue in a great povertie it being given but to very few souls yea and to those of the best temper The poorer sort ordinarily have so much employment to think how to live that little time remaineth for them to think how to live well The Difficulties â—f the poor in virtue bellie that hath no bread hath no ears and precepts of wisdom are found very short and insufficient among people perplexed and over-whelmed with want A father of a family who beholdeth poverty in his house besides a multitude of children ranked like Organ-pipes whom he must cloath feed and provide for who seeth creditours attending on him at their day sergeants dogging him processes that afflict him cattel casually to die on the one side his house utterly to sink on the other side his debts not payable but with bankrupting and rents to fail him at a need hath full enough to do to cast time as the proverb saith behind his back Necessitie many times is the mother of vice and when one hath no more goods he is in danger to do that which is not good Behold why the Wise-man asked of God Mendicitatem divitias nè dederis mihi tribue tantum victui meo necessaria nè necessitate compulsus furar perjurem nomen Dei mei Prov. 30. 8. if not great riches at the least exemption from povertie You who have be it great or indifferent means are not brought into this penury if you call not that a penury when you cannot satisfie an exorbitant concupiscence which hath no other pleasure than excess nor other bounds but infinitie You see in your house a settled estate far distant from the multitude of discontents under which so many mortal men do groan ought not this to serve you for some small motive to perfection See you not in Genesis how God willing to exercise Adam in a contemplative life caused him to find at his first coming house table bed and cloath laid If it had then behoved him to take pains to get his dinner and build himself a house as little birds do their nests then had he had pain and care but to the end he should have full liberty for his Masters affairs God took all obstacles from him that he might have no cause to accuse any man in his miserable misfortune but his own ingratitude O you Noblemen God Priviledges of Nobilitie useth you as Adam in terrestrial Paradise he suffereth you to eat the corn at ease which others have sowed and the wine which others pressed he causeth your meat to come to your tables as if it were born by certain invisible engines he holdeth the elements creatures and men in breath not onely to supply your necessities but your well-beseeming accommodation and can you then think he requireth a thing unreasonable of you if giving you all things above other men he would have you virtuous as other men Secondly I say poormen admit the case they be not so pressed with painful necessities of life and that time passeth with them a little more sweetly they may perhaps deafly attend devotion in the silence of a little family but their virtue is not strong enough in the wing to take a long and distant flight nor have they arm enough to undertake great enterprises Their little authority maketh their words not to have much weight nor their actions how laudable soever to be of power to draw others to imitate them Besides rich men sometimes have an aversion from doing well for fear they should have virtue common with the poor from whom they would if it were possible be separated even in elements but great men are ever powerful Authoritie oâ— great men to strengthen their devotion to authorize good works I leave you to think if many not through malice but by the servile slavery of complacencie do praise even their vices and imperfections what will they do with their virtues For we must not suppose as saith the Wise-man that the state of hell is wholly established upon earth and good conscience eternally banished many are vitious more through infirmitie as not being able to resist the tyrannie of opinion and custom than out of affection they bear to vice If it happen rich men advance the standard of piety all the world rangeth themselves under their banner some that were willing and not daring to do it others though unwilling were drawn along with a swinge of superiority which they would not contradict This is an argument which I will hereafter deduce more at large when I shall speak of example And from hence O you rich men judge if God giving you such a liberty and reputation to do well you make ill use thereof what neglect you fall into when you employ your authority to raise vice with a strong hand and put virtue in dis-estimation Anciently pearls were called ushers because they made way Pearls are ushers saith Seneca for Ladies who were adorned with them Rightly may now riches bear the like name every where they are obeyed every where they make place it is a good reason if all the world serve them for ushers they do the same office for piety without which all their goodly lustre will be but unjust pillage Then shall they potently reign when they have restored virtue to her throne Finally to conclude with a third and in my opinion the most formal reason which evidently declareth how riches are absolute obligations unto you of Christian perfection it is that God seemeth to have enchased all in the charity which is exercised towards our neighbour Give alms and behold Luc. 11. 41. Date Elemosynam ecce omnia munda sunt vobis Alms the works of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Synes in Epistol your selves wholly pure This practice of giving alms is so excellent that God hath chosen no other for himself His
somewhat yield to the love of those who look after me for my good and the authoritie of such as command over me by justice I cannot perish in making a sacrifice of my proper will for peace and the common good to those whom God hath appointed me for guiders and superiours This is the great science which I will hereafter seek in the government of the inward man Behold what an humble creature might say but insolency the inseparable companion of heresie proceedeth much otherwise And as concerning purity let us not go about to 2. Mark speak of the vices of particular men which are excesses of nature not laws of profession For to say there are vices in one bodie and in one sect is to say nothing but to say these vices are confirmed and authorized by the maxims and examples of the same sect this is to say all Now this is it which we behold in the proceedings of the Pretenders For it cannot be denied but we ought to keep promise with men and by a much stronger reason what we promise to God Yet notwithstanding the principal of the Pretenders have taught by word and practised by example the doctrine of the whole bodie which is that one may break a vow of chastity to wit of a thing very good for it is praised by the mouth of our Savour and S. Paul of a thing very reasonable for millions of Matth. 17. 2 Cor. 7. Saints have practised it in the beginning of the Church of a thing most holy for the scripture hath given it the name of sanctity to break a vow sealed Thessal 4. as with the seal of the invocation of the holy Trinity and the bloud of Jesus to break it not by frailty but profession against the doctrine and practice of all antiquity Is this a mark of the true Church Take the third mark obedience most natural to 3. Mark the primitive Christians and all just men who are called a Nation of obedience and you shall find in Eccl. 3. the infancie of the pretended religion a revolt against all ecclesiastical and secular Powers continued in all times and in all the parts of the world where she might be introduced with such cruelties as we know by experience Take lastly the fourth mark which is the dove-like 4. Mark sweetness that shone in the first Christians even in the times of persecution and you shall find in the pretended Religion there is nothing but Conventicles Consistories of state factions armies ransackings and horrours which make all good consciences to tremble Should I enlarge upon this discourse I could mention matters able to make marbles weep but I will not labour to be eloquent in our evils which I seek to sweeten what I may not intending to exasperate any Onely I ask what will your prime Sectaries answer Publication of the pretended how far from true Christianitie to the Church at the day of judgement when she shall say My first Children bare neither rod nor stick to plant faith in the hearts of men and you have published a Religion all bristled with swords and sooted over with the smoak of Canons all sprinkled with the bloud of Catholicks My lawful children at the publication of the Gospel spake not one bitter word against executioners among the most exquisite torments which might be inflicted And you what vein I pray have you spared in my bodie from whence you drew not rivers of bloud to distain the lilies of France Your fore-fathers built Churches for me and you See Monsieur de Sainctes in the Book of saccage have demolished them They erected Altars and you have pulled them down They advanced Crosses to me and you have broken them They have consecrated Priests for my service and you have massacred them in my arms The Apostles taught me to place the bodies of Saints under Altars and you have taken them from that repose whereunto nature consigned them from that repose many times afforded to malefactours you have divided them between fire and water yea you have infected elements making them as executioners of those venerable bodies whose foot-steps they honoured And of what bodies of a S. Irenaeus burned at Lions of a S. Hilarie at Poictiers of a S. Aygnan at Orleans of a S. Martin and a S. Francis of Paula at Tours not to speak of others The Apostles teach us to honour Kings and you have loaden them with reproches even to the figuring of King Charls the ninth with marks most unworthy in a coyn you stampt with crosses and Church Chalices yea to the disenterring of the heart of Francis the second interred at S. Cross in Orleans and the wasting it in flames Judge now O you Pretenders whether a Religion which carried on the brow thereof acts so barbarous pollutions so hydeous cruelties so execrable can possibly have the least spark of piety For a third consideration examine well the 3. Point Foundation of Catholick Religion Augustin contra ep fun foundation of this new Religion and you shall discover the deceit thereof Catholick religion hath for foundation all that which may settle a fair and generous soul as S. Augustine observed If the word of God should hold the chief place and serve as a basis for this great building of the Church as is most reasonable we incessantly challenge Ministers to shew us one onely text express formal and irreproveable contrary to the articles of our faith For hitherto they have produced nothing but semblances to deceive inferiour judgements being unable to make them good before understanding and capable men If a lawful succession and mission of Pastours be required which is absolutely necessary for the establishment of an Ecclesiastical Hierarchie we shew that from the Apostles hitherward our Prelates and Bishops do all successively follow one another If the authority of Councels demanded which are the sinews the mouthes and living oracles of a true Religion let them be looked on in the revolution of so many Ages and they will be found altogether for us If the interpretations of Fathers and Doctours who were the lights of their times the instruments of the holy Ghost and Secretaries of the Divinity have any weight with a soul wel composed to establish a truth then especially when they all with one accord and consent do speak they loudly condemn the errour and novelism of our Adversaries If miracles which were wrought in the sight of all mankind with so much approbation that they have evicted confession from the most incredulous and reverence from the most stupid weigh down the ballance it is on our side If the studie of perfection and holiness of life be infallible marks of true faith you may as soon tell the stars in the skie as reckon up the number of holy personages who have flourished through all Ages amongst us and who therein are daily noted with such excellencies that living as Angels they speak like true Oracles of the Divinitie
nec magna lequimur sed vivimus paper This is it which hath given me occasion having treated of motives obstacles and remedies which men of quality may have in the way of spiritual life briefly to prepare a little practice of virtues which more concerneth their condition to behold them afterwards appear in the history of Courts which I purpose to begin in this present volume It much importeth at the very first entrance to make a good idea of Devotion which many plaister over in their own manner and attire with their passion making that sometimes serve for vice which beareth the scepter of virtue Some imagine devotion to be nothing but an ordinary practice of unseemly gestures and motions such as little puppets would make if they were animated with some small quantity of quick-silver Others make use of devotion as Dionysius the Tyrant did of Philosophers not that he loved them but that folding himself in their clokes he thought he should be honored by the people So shall you find sometimes in the world those who for a vain interest of reputation will cloth themselves with the robe of false devotion as if one should seek to shelter himself under a wet sack I speak not here of devotion which concerneth Religious men nor that which is in the sweetness of contemplation but I affirm the virtue of devotion according to S. Thomas is nought else but a prompt will to the service of God Noblemen have cause to aspire thereunto I. A good devotion in Great men is to have a True devotion of Great men Sentite de Domino in bonitate Sap. 1. great and faithful feeling of the Majesty of God not serving him with exteriour semblances but sincerely cordially constantly holding all the maxims of state and condition under the rules of conscience and disposing themselves rather to hazard all than to loose God by one sole sin II. A good devotion to clip the wings of the covetousness Note these points and examine them often Animae irreverenti infraenatae nè tradas me Eccl. 23. 6. of riches and greatness covetousness which never findeth measure but in extremities nor other period than a precipice Take heed of a soul without bridle without reverence III. A good devotion not to reach at the goods of the Church by any false pretence represented in the Court of Rome by any black or covert deceits sowed together with white threed nor afterward to charge a man with titles like an old sepulchre and hold to himself the patrimonie of Jesus Christ therewith to fatten dogs and feed hawks or such other infamous creatures which live on the sins of others Finally these goods are Eagles feathers In felle amaritudinis in obligatione◠iniquitatis Actor 8. which eat and consume others whilest a soul is lodged there it remaineth in a bitterness replenished with gall and in the perplexed intrications of sin IV. A good devotion not to incroach upon the possessions of your neighbour nor enforce the good 3 Reg. 21. Naboth to sell his land for the accommodation and content of your Lordship but if he will leave it to Isaiah 5. 8. Vae qui conjungitis domum ad domum agrum agro copulatis usque ad terminum loci Nunquid habitabitis vos soli in medio terrae Dissolve colligationes impietatis solve fasciculos deprimentes Isaiah 58. 6. Salvian l. 5. de guber Quot Curiales tot Tyranni give him a good price a reasonablerate a full satisfaction Woe to you said Isaiah who annex house to house inheritance to inheritance as far as the land stretcheth Would you dwell alone in the midst of the earth V. A good devotion in things which one may rightfully exact to be staid just temperate not covetous no Harpy no Tyrant but to extend the bowels of compassion towards the poor who are our flesh and bloud to open the eyes not to invent new impositions that may draw the marrow from the people but to take away or lessen the old that necessity requireth no more Salvianus complaineth that in his time there were as many Tyrants as Lords and Courtiers And that is the cause why God gave the Roman Empire as a prey to Barbarians being Masters more mild than the covetousness of great ones VI. A good devotion to discharge his debts and Non morabitur opus mercenarii tui apud te usque ad mane Levit. 19. 13. Diligite justitiam qui judicatis terram Sap. 1. promises and never suffer the wages of the poor hireling to lie hid in his coffers VII A good devotion to attend publick charges which you are to undergo especially those that concern distribution of justice with understanding conscience and diligence understanding to know the affairs conscience to handle them faithfully diligence not to draw out the expedition of causes in languishing delays so prejudicial to the publick VIII A good devotion in banishing superfluitie Tertul. de cultu foeminar Discutiendae sunt deliciae quarum mollitie fluxis fidei virtus effaeminari potest of apparel and tast excesses curiosities houshold-vices To cause modestie frugalitie employment and virtue to reign and to be the first himself to light the torch to his familie You must necessarily expel delights for their tenderness and excesses weaken and enervate all religion IX A good devotion to make choise of servants to instruct or make them honest and to esteem no man faithfull in your service who is disloyal to God Not to be desirous to keep a bad servant for ones Attende tibi à pestifero fabricat enim mala Eccles 11. 35. own interest though the whole house would be changed into gold by his hands X. A good devotion to hinder disorders and sins which are committed in publick when you have authoritie in your hands without shewing your self insatiable to revenge your own proper injuries and more cold than ice in the quarrel of God When a In cujus manu est ut prohibeat jubet agi si non prohibet admitti Salvian l. 7. man hath the power in his hands to stay a sin to permit it is to commit it These are points of devotion which we must hereafter moreamply digest The second SECTION In what all Devotion and spiritual life consisteth YOu who aspire to spiritual life know there are three sorts of man in you alone the Vegetal Animal and Intellectual and that all your Three sorts of man in us perfection consisteth in putting the Vegetal and Animal man under the feet of the Intellectual A great number of men are now adays vegetals that is to say who so live as if they had no other soul but the vegetative as plants and lead the very life of the mushrome Others are animal who make their souls wholy evaporate in sensual love in choler rage in brutishness Few shall you find who are intellectual who work with reason and understanding And behold wherein consisteth our excellencie
he had very lately rejected this suit at his Councel-table resolving with himself to refuse it the second time But the battery was too forcible Eudoxia declared it was an ill presage not to ratifie the first grant her son had made by a kind of miracle in such an age such a habit on such a day and among such shouts of the people I know not who could have resisted such sweet violences Arcadius will he nill he was constrained presently Marna destroyed by the infant Theodosius to sign the petition without restriction or modification and which is more to constitute express Commissioners for the execution thereof who failed not upon the urgent sollicitation made by the Empress to raze the temple of Marna and build a most stately Church in the place Behold how potent and religiously cunning women Women stout to do good are when they addict themselves to good But God made all these passages conduce to the glory of his well-beloved Theodosius willing that hell should howl and tremble already under the feet of an infant who was no more than born to make him one day dreadfull to all the powers of impietie The joy the parents conceived for the birth of Contentions between the Empress Eudoxia and S. Chrysostom Theodosius was not long I know not through what mischance Eudoxia contested again with S. Chrysostom upon a wilfulness as forcible in the pursuit as unfortunate in the issue for it steeped the remnant of this poor Princess days in bitter distasts and headlong threw her into a death disadvantagious to the reputation of her life to teach Great-ones and above A good document for Great-ones all Ladies to bridle their passions and never to oppose the authoritie of the Church The Miters of Prelates are as the Crowns of the Kings of Aegypt they carry aspicks which insensibly sting those who too near approach with intention to offend them having justice on their side It was a shamefull spectacle for Christendom to see upon this great Theater of the world a woman contest with a Bishop and hazard her reputation against the most eloquent tongue of the world This Princess was ardent in any thing she enterprized and made all affairs dance to the tune of her intentions she so powerfully wrought the Bishops that they assembled a little Councel of Prelats passionate and plyant to her will who passed a sentence of condemnation against Chrysostom S. Chrysostom banished under pretext of a scroul charged with a tedious contexture of calumnies invented against this holy Prelate Eudoxia would free herself and to give contentment to the people it behoved her to proceed therein with some colour of justice Behold him banished into Bithynia It was a bold act to tear out of the throne of Constantinople a man who filling the sayls of eloquence as easily moved the people as winds do the sands of Lybia which stir at their pleasure The people of Constantinople spared not to murmur as do the waves of a mutinous sea and their mutterings were seconded with an earthquake which happened there at the same time all tended to a revolt if Chrysostom had not been repealed from this exile by the Emperours authoritie Being returned to his See he altered nothing of his former manner crying out thundering and violently beating down the vice and corruptions of that Age. And as by chance Eudoxia caused a silver statue to be dedicated to her self in a publick place at the consecration whereof many sports dances and disorders were used this gave new occasion to speak which so vexed the Emperess that she resolved to ruin him whatsoever it cost her Arcadius shewed himself a little soft and obsequious to the humour of his wife who spared no wyles inventions credit nor violence to bring her enterprize to pass She came in the end unhappy as she was to be as prosperous as she wished in this pursuit S. John Chrysostom is exiled to Cucusa a town in Armenia which hath nothing more remarkable in it than to have been honoured with the banishment of this worthy man He swallowed so many toyls and incommodities in this exile that there he left his life the more to illustrate the glory of his death Divers prodigies happened at Constantinople as messengers of the anger of Heaven armed for revenge of his injustice Among others a violent storm of hail which much astonished all the Citie and four days after Eudoxia died in Death of the Empress travel having long endured many bitter throws It is held her sepulchre shook until such time as the body of the Saint carried in triumph through Constantinople seemed by the presence thereof to fix her tomb who had furnished him with so many disturbances in his life The Emperour Arcadius made no long abode in this world after the death of the Empress his wife and S. John Chrysostom behold him surprized with a maladie which he presently knew to be as it were a fore-runner of his death After he had setled the affairs of his conscience he ordered those of his Kingdom and though he had his brother Honorius Emperour of the West he would not rely upon him for the guardianship of his son all great men are jealous and many times diffident of their own bloud But he appointed as Tutour for his little Theodosius who then was onely eight years of age Isdigerdes King of Persia his friend who deputed a great Prince named Antiochus to establish an absolute peace with the Emperour and offer him his aid against all pretenses that might be raised against his state Artemius a Consular man very wise and faithfull took the stern of affairs in hand which most prosperously he mannaged in the great troubles and revolutions of the Western Empire Theodosius was left an Orphan with four sisters Qualities of Pulcheria sister of Theodosius Flaccilla Pulcheria Arcadia and Marina but above all the rest Pulcheria possessed his heart from his infancy She was the pearl of Princesses and one of the wisest women which ever mannaged the affairs of a Kingdom She had a strong and pleasing spirit a solid pietie an awakened wisdom an incomparable grace to gain hearts to her devotion Her brother made such account of her rare virtues that he associated her for a companion of his Empire holding her in the quality of a Queen She was onely two years elder than himself the one was thirteen the other fifteen years old In the fifteenth year of her age behold her already so capable of government that she was Regent of the Empire and as it were a mother to her brother Artemius who had instructed her in state affairs could not sufficiently admire the vivacitie of her wit the solidity of her judgement the equity of her counsels and the happiness which ordinarily accompanied her resolutions She then resolved to live in perpetual virginity not as some have thought to take away the jealousie of a husband towards a brother and
protest if it were to do again I had rather die in The life of Hugo a Monastery covered with leaprousie than with the scarlet robe of a Cardinal Yet notwithstanding this man had been so little idle that besides the Concordances of the Bible which he composed and the Commentaries he made upon the whole Corps of holy Scripture he so couragiously employed himself in the exercise of good works that being drawn out of the excellent Order of S. Dominick he retained all his former virtues which found no change in him but that they added to their native beauty the lustre of authority I speak this not to inform Prelates from whom I should receive instruction but to represent to so many of the young Nobility as we now daily behold advanced to Ecclesiastical charges the peril there is in Prelacies which are not guided by the paths of a good conscience It is a monstrous thing said holy S. Bernard to hold the highest place and have the lowest courage Bern. de consid lib. 1. cap. 7 the first Chair and the last life a tongue magnificent and a hand slothfull much noise about you and little fruit the countenance grave and actions light great authority and no more constancy than a weather-cock It were a better sight to behold an Ape on the house top and smoke in a candlestick than a man dignified without merit On the contrary part when science and virtue agree with Nobility to make up a good Church-man it is so glorious a spectacle that it may be said God to produce it on earth hath taken a pattern from himself in Heaven I wish no more faithfull witnesses than this Prelate which I shall present unto you in this first Treatise after I have made a brief Summary of precepts which I have purposely comprised in very few pages to render them the readier for the understanding well knowing there are store of books largely enough dilating on this subject the length of which I have avoided to attend the matter I wish it may have an effect in your hearts worthy of your courage that honouring your dignity for virtue virtue may enoble you with titles of true glorie THE HOLY COURT SECOND TOME THE PRELATE The first SECTION That it is convenient the Nobilitie should govern the Church I Begin by the Altar to measure the Aeternitas mundi ex obedientiâ ad intelligentiam motricem Apudi Matthiam de Viennâ qui liber impressus anno 1482. Temple of the Holy Court and set a Prelate before your eyes who bare Nobility into the house of God and there furnished himself with all the virtues which made him speak like an Oracle and live as a true image of the Divinity The Platonists say the whole order of the world dependeth on Intelligences which bear sway in the motion of the first Heaven and we in imitation of them may say all the good of Christendom proceeds from the examples of Ecclesiastical men to whom the Son of God hath consigned his authority on their brows his word in their mouths his bloud and Church into their hands For if bees engendred of the body of a bull carry in their entrails the very form of that bull from whence they are derived by a much more just title the people Vlysses Aldobran de apibus will bear the marks of those whom God hath given them for Doctours and Fathers whether it be by correspendence of nature through custom or by imitation which ever hold a very great predominance over spirits disposed to receive their impressions Behold the cause why a Prelate who liveth conform to his profession imprinteth the seal of the Son of God on all those souls he governeth and produceth himself in as many objects as he hath imitatours of his virtues As on the contrary part he who liveth ill in great Nobility and dignity is a Seraphin in appearance but a Seraphin without eyes without heart without hands which hath wings of a profane fire able to burn the Propitiatory if God afford not his helping hand And forasmuch as we at this day see the Nobility aspire to Ecclesiastical charges and many fathers to dispose their children thereunto sometimes with more fervour than consideration it hath caused me to undertake this Treatise for the Nobility which dedicate themselves to the Church as well to shew the purity of intention they ought to exercise therein as to give them a fair discovery of the goodly and glorious actions they ought to pursue in the practice thereof I here will first offer you a simple draught which I afterward intend to adorn with the greatness of S. Ambrose as with more lively colours Plato rejoyced to behold Princes and Governours of Common-wealths to become Philosophers and we have cause to praise God when we see the children of Noble houses to dispose themselves to Priesthood not by oblique and sinister ways but with all the conditions which their bloud requireth and sacred dignity exacteth in so noble a subject Why should we deny them Myters Crosiers and eminency in the Church So far is their birth from ministering any occasions of the contrary that it rather affordeth them favour both to undertake such charges with courage and discharge their conscience with all fidelity The reasons hereof are evident For first we must aver that by how much the more honourable the charges are so much the rather they are proper for such as make profession of honour provided always on the other side they have qualities suitable to those ministeries they pretend to exercise And are there any in the world more ambitious of honour than Noblemen Ostentation is the last shirt they put off and where can you find a more solid and eminent honour than that which is derived from the lawfull administration of Ecclesiastical functions Aristotle saith Truths which transmit themselves Arist lib. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Xenophon l. 4. de factis dictis Socratis tribuit etiam Socrati Strabo Geograph l. 14. Aelian l. 14. c. 34. Var. Eus in Chrō Agathias histor l. 2 c. through the common sense of every man get into credit as it were by the decree of nature Now such hath been the esteem of all Nations that Kingdoms and Common-wealths being established upon Religion and temporal jurisdiction as on two columns Religion so much the more excelleth politick government as things divine transcendently surmount humane And for this cause favours priviledges and preheminences have ever been given to Priests in the greatest and most flourishing Monarchies and Common-wealths of the world as we may see in Histories and in the policie of the Aegyptians Assyrians Chaldeans Medes Persians Grecians Romans Gauls and other Nations The honour of Priesthood gained so much on the hearts of all people that the Monarchs of the earth seemed not to rule but with one arm if they made not in one and the same person the alliance of Priesthood and Royalty so that oftentimes
they shewed themselves as depraved in their proceedings as greedy in matter of honour The Roman Emperours who stretched their authority as far as the point of their launce could be extended and who needs would be Commanders of arms to become thereby Masters of laws failed not to joyn the Myter with the Diadem and as soon to make themselves great Prelates as great Emperours thinking by this means to have the more power over the hearts of the people and the less opposition for resistance when they had depressed the forces which might give some remarkeable counterpoize to their greatness And it is an admirable thing that the first Baron ad annum Christi 383. num 6. Gratianus primus nomen Pontificis respuit Christian Emperours as Constantine and his children still retained the titles of the great Pontifices of Gentilism as a Maxim of State lest forgoing this fantasie of dignity they should behold themselves bereaved of some jewel of their Crowns This is to authorize my proposition which saith true honour belongeth to Ecclesiastical charges when they are well administred since the Monarchs of the world from the very abuse of these dignities have derived glory but to desire them for honour is to dishonour the dignity by the unworthiness of your desire So many Ixions now adays cast themselves athwart the smoke to court a cloud that there is almost no love left but for false Deities That which maketh Ecclesiastical men honourable is well to use their titles and embellish their charges with the ornament of their lives Otherwise all this petty gaudery which we see sparkling round about them is very little It is not the Myter which maketh the Bishop but to be esteemed worthy of the Myter by transcendency in virtue is to be more than a Bishop without merit Sometimes we beholding the Meteors of the air Superiora non habent coronas quia nè ventos quidem Senec. natural q. l. 1. c. 1. imagine to see Crowns about the Sun and Stars which really are nothing but vapours composed of gross air which illusion coloureth our imagination figureth and the wind scattereth This is to make fools believe there are Crowns encompassing this mighty Star The Sun is adorned sufficiently with his proper rays should he borrow his brightness from the vapours of the earth he would no longer be the Sun Even so is it when with a terrestrial and impure eye we consider some exteriour marks of Ecclesiastical dignity we think such things make Prelates and we therein are deceived for they are vapours of the earth which the wind sooner or later will dissipate He that will be truly resplendent must within himself bear the source of his own light Herein consisteth the most excellent form of honour when a Prelate allieth sincerity of life to the dignity of his place and that to serve as an example for all noble spirits who make election to be of the Church he advanceth his extraction by the lustre of virtues which are as rays reflecting from the Divine greatness I say for a second reason that when Noblemen hold Ecclesiastical offices and therein employ their whole extent of duty we may hope from their ministeries not onely more radiance but succour also as from such as command with greater authority and make themselves to be obeyed with more advantage It is undoubtedly true that God sufficiently maketh it appear he hath no need of men when purposing to stretch out his arm to some extraordinary actions he oftentimes extracteth creatures from dregs and dust to set them in thrones and establish them with such authority that he causeth the powers of the earth to bow under their commands who bear the decrees of Heaven which hath been seen in the infancy of the Church and in the sequel thereof through all Ages Yet must we say that as our Saviour S. Thom. 3. part q. 30. although he had a science increate as God a science infused as a Prophet a science of beatitude as he who was possessour thereof from the first moment of his life notwithstanding to accommodate himself to the laws of that nature which he had assumed spared not to work by humane science which Divines call experimental so in the government of the Church though he sometimes operates without any regard had to dependence on the ordinary course which himself hath established as when he took simple fisher-men to make them Masters over the Sages and Instructers of Monarchs yet at other times proceeding in a common strain and more usual to nature he chose men of note and authority to employ them in the large confines of his Empire and jurisdiction So drew he Moses from Pharaoh's Court to make him the God of Pharaoh so for Princes among the Gentiles which he meant to enrole under his standard he elected Kings and Sages so after he had constituted his Church under the government of a poor fisher-man of Galilie he took one derived from the bloud of Emperours whom he made his Successour to wit S. Clement so he caused in divers occasions Ambroses Gregories Leoes Calixtuses to arise and so many others of most honourable extraction that they might bear Nobility as a dowry into the bosom of the Church which they had so happily governed This Nobility was to their dignity as a guilded case to a rich tablet as gold to the diamond beauty of body to the soul habiliaments to the grace and garb of body They had more lustre more splendour more resolution and the subjects who have not always intentions so pure in rendring honour to Ecclesiasticks as not to regard the exteriour ornament of their qualities and conditions became more obsequious to their commands having not boldness enough to contradict even those who by right of their birth had as soon entered into Empire as life How many times had secular powers been seen to transgress their limits to usurp on the Church and what disorder had we beheld to arise from the prosecution of this confusion had not the hand of God raised Ecclesiasticks of noble houses of great authority of much courage to sustain the shock to tie the hands of the factious and punish the boldness of the most daring to call back as Job saith the prey out of the teeth of iniquity and make a Diadem to himself wholly composed of actions of justice magnanimity religion in this manner more resplendent than if he had possessed all the pearls of the Orient What a fair field of battel what goodly palms what bright glory hath a noble soul to make it self a brazen wall for the defence of the Church and obtain of God the blessing pronounced by the Prophet Isaiah in favour of the High-Priest Eliachim Isaiah 22. Figam illum paxillum in loco fideli erit solium gloriae domui patris sui suspendent super cum omnem gloriam dâ—mus patris ejus What a glorious honour is it to be set in a place of
Illud praecipuum â—t magis mores commendarent statum quà m statuâ— mores The greatest knowledge in the world is well to act your part It importeth not in what condition of life we are so that we discharge our conscience and the dutie of our places We must so use the matter that our manners may recommend our condition and not derive their worth from our dignities In the fourth place he used infinite care to maintain conjugal chastity in the lives of the married oftentimes shewing by pregnant reasons that lust (o) (o) (o) Luxu â—â— was a fire which burnt the garment of the soul and wasted mountains even to the bottom And because bravery is ordinarily the nest where dishonesty hatcheth he couragiously opposed profuseness in that kind using sharp reprehensions against women vain and dissolute in attyres One day amongst the rest he proved they were as in a perpetual prison loaden with punishments and condemned by their own sentence (p) (p) (p) Excess in apparel Hinc collum catend constring it inde pedes compes includit Nihil refert à uro cerpus oâ—eretur aut ferro si cervix premitur si gravatur incessus nihil pretium juvat nisi quod vos mulieres ne pereat vobis poena â—repidatis Quid interest aliena sententia an vestra vos damnet Hinc vos etiam miserabiliores quà m qui publico jure damnatur quòd illi optant exui vos ligari Lib. 1. de Virginib It is pity saith he to see a woman that hath upon the one part a great chain about her neck and on the other guives about her feet What matter is it whether the body be charged with gold or iron if the neck be alike bowed under a yoak and the gate bindred The price of your bands serves for no use but to give you cause to fear your torments Miserable that you are who condemn your selves by your own proper sentence yea more miserable than criminals for these desire nothing but their own liberty and you love your captivity In the end he much recommended charity justice government of the tongue flight from ill company and modesty in all deportments whence it came to pass that he wrote those admirable books of Offices which set out all Christian virtues with an eminent lustre The good Prelate was in his Bishopprick as the Pilot in the ship the soul in the body the sun in the world labouring in all kinds and having no other repose but the vicissitude of travailes The fourth SECTION His combates and first against Gentilism IT is time now that we behold our strong Gyant Evident danger of Christendom enter into the list against monsters for armed with weapons of light he enterprised sundry battails against Sects vices and the powers of darkness which sought to prevail I will begin his prowess by the encounter he had with Symmachus Governour of the City of Rome who endeavoured by his eloquence and credit to re-advance the prophane superstitions of Gentilism This combat was not small not less glorious for the memory of S. Ambrose with him that will well consider it the danger was very great for the name and design of Julian the Apostata as yet lived in the minds of many men of quality and of maligne spirits who had conspired with time to stifle Christianity making corrupt and imaginary Deities to re-enter into the possession of the world This Symmachus was the Ensign-bearer a subtile man well spoken and of great authority to whom the Emperours had caused a golden Statue to be erected with the title of The Prime man of the Empire both in reputation wisdom and eloquence and for that cause he promised himself he had power enough to set God and the devil upon one and the same Altar He practised to disguise Pagan Religion by his artifices drawing it from the ordures and bruitishnes thereof chanted by Poets to give it a quite other face and represent it with a mask which he had framed out of sundry Philosophers under the reign of Julian to render it the less odious And seeing the times favoured him by reason that after the death of Gratian a most Christian Prince Valentinian who was an infant under the guardianship of an Arian mother held the stern of the Empire he resolved therefore to fish in a troubled water and by surreption obtained certain Edicts in favour of Paganism against which S. Ambrose framed most powerful oppositions I will render you heer the two pleadings in those terms they were pronounced to confront the babble of a Politician with the eloquence of a Saint The understanding Reader shall heet observe two most rich peices of eloquence which I have rendred rather as an Oratour than a Translatour to give them the lustre they deserve I am desirous you may see in the Oration of Symmachus what a bad conscience can do which hath eloquence to disguise truth and how we must ever judge of men rather by their works than their words The Oration of Symmachus to Theodosius and Valentinian the Younger for the Altar of Victory exercise of Pagan Religion and revenue of Vestals SACRED MAjESTIES SO soon as this sovereign Court wholly possessed by Note that he feigneth Theodosius as present who knew nothing what had passed you hath seen vice subdued by laws and that you through your piety have tazed out the memory of passed troubles it hath taken upon it the authority which the favour of this happy Age hath afforded and discharging the acerbities long time retained upon the heart thereof hath once again commanded me to bring you its complaints in a solemn Embassage Those that wish us not well have hitherto bereaved us of the honour of your audience thereby to deprive us of the effect of your justice But I now come to acquit me of two obligations the one as Governour of the City the other as Embassadour As Governour I do a work which concerneth the Weal-publick and as Embassadour I present you the supplications of your most humble subjects Dissentions we have no more amongst us for the opinion All the Pâ—gan Senatours agreed not before upon this Embassage is ceased that one to become a great States-man must be particular in his opinions The greatest Empire which Monarchs may enjoy is to reign in the love and estimation of their subjects so is it also a matter intolerable in those that govern the State to nourish their divisions to the hurt of the publick and establish their credit upon the loss of the Princes reputation We are far distant from those imaginations for all our care perpetually watcheth for your interest and for that cause we defend the decrees of our Ancestours the rites of our Country and fatal happiness thereof as a thing which concerneth the glory of your age to which you gave a new lustre when you publickly protested never to enterprise any thing upon customs established by our Ancestours Behold wherefore we most
heretofore ordained for the Vestals by the Common-wealth should at this present be summed up as the coyn of the Weal-publick As the Common-wealth is composed of particulars so hath it no more right over donatives than it hath on particular persons Your selves who govern all preserve for each one what appertains to him and would have justice extend it self further than your power Consult if you please with your magnificence and it will tell you that what you hitherto have given to so many particulars is no more a publick good for the gifts are no longer theirs who bestowed them and that which was in the beginning a benefit by custom and succession of time becomes an obligation It is to affright the consciences of your Majesties with panick fears to think to make you believe you give to our religion that which you cannot take from it without injustice I pray God the secret assistances of all Sects may favour your Clemencie and that this same which hath so long time ayded your Ancestours if it can no longer stand in credit with you may at least keep you in its protection We will on your Majesties behalf afford it all rights and it towards you shall continue ordinarie favours We demand nothing new in requiring the exercise He speaketh of Valentinian of a Religion which hath preserved the Empire for your father now with the Gods and which hath blessed his bed with lawfull heirs of his crown This good Prince being entered into the condition of the Gods immortal beholdeth from Heaven the tears of these poor Vestals and well sees customs cannot be violated which he with so much affection maintained but by the diminution of his authoritie Afford at least this contentment to your good brother received into this celestial companie as to see a decree corrected that was not his own Cover an act under oblivion which he had never suffered to pass had he foreseen the discontent of the Senate and for which the deputies were diverted which we sent unto him when he was alive for the fear his enemies had of his equitie It much importeth the publick to take away a foul blame from the ashes of a good Prince and justifie the passed by abolishment of the present The fifth SECTION The Oration of S. Ambrose against Symmachus MOST SACRED MAjESTIE ALthough your Minoritie gave us undoubted signs It is drawn from his reasons conceptions and as it were from all his own words of the strength of your spirit and constancie of your faith yet the rank I hold near to your person obligeth me to prevent the surprizes of a craftie discourse which creepeth amongst so many golden words as the serpent amongst the flowers It is ill the Governour Symmachus hath employed so fair a tongue on so foul a subject The deceit of his eloquence makes us suspect the weakness of his Gods for ever a bad cause seeketh that support in words which in truth it cannot find Such are the ordinarie proceedings of Pagans when they speak of their superstitions Their Orations resemble those ancient Temples of Aegypt which under golden Tents lodged Idols of Rats and Crocodiles But the Scripture teacheth us rather to live than talk and recommendeth the contempt of language to oblige us to soliditie of virtues That is the cause why most sacred Majestie after I have entreated you to take my discourse rather in the weight of reasons than number of words I will answer to three points which the Governour seemeth to comprize in his speech The first toucheth the Religion of Pagans The second the revenews of Vestals And the third the cause of the famin we have felt A singular refutation of Symmachus his strongest argument I understand in the first article it is Rome which speaketh with her eyes full of tears sighs at her heart demanding the exercise of Pagan superstitions because they are such saith the Governour which drave Hannibal from the walls and the Gauls from the Capitol It is to publish the infirmitie of false Gods to defend them in this manner and better we cannot refute Symmachus than by shewing him armed against himself For I ask if those Gods are the Protectours of this Empire why they so long time suffered Hannibal to triumph in the ruins of Italie Were their hands so short they could stretch them no further than their walls and Temples As for the Gauls what shall I say I much wonder how the governour doth mention it since it is in effect a thing most ridiculous to say that the enemies being in the heart of the Citie all these protecting Gods should stand idle in their Temples in such sort that all histories have published the people of Rome owed their preservation not to the Gods or sacrifices which nothing availed them but to the gagling of a goose which by good hap awakened the drowsie Centinels if it be not that Symmachus as he is inventive enough will say that Jupiter had then forsaken his burning Chariots and thunder-bolts to shut himself up in the throat of this gosling But as a lye is ever industrious to hurt it self did not Hannibal adore the Roman Gods If it be true that they always bear victorie in their hands why did not Hannibal surprize Rome with the assistance of those Gods Or why did not the Romans vanquish Hannibal in all their battels Why had both the one and the other oftentimes the worst On what side soever you turn you must see Gods conquered who cannot denie their impotencie if they avow not their nullitie It is not Rome then that speaketh in this manner as Symmachus makes it never gave she him this commission but she says by the mouthes of her brave Captains Romans what have I done to become a butcherie and Rome speaketh with Majestie to be imbrued with the bloud of so many creatures Victories abide not in the entrails of beasts but the arms of souldiers It is not the death of oxen hath made me subdue Monarchs but the valour of men Camillus by force of arms displayed my standards on the Capitol which your ceremonies suffered to be taken away Attilius exposed his life for the trial of his fidelitie safety of the Weal-publick Scipio Africanus found triumph not among the Altars of the Capitol but in the field of battel If you desire to see the goodly effects of your superstitions behold Nero who was the first that drew the sword of Caesars against the Christians behold Emperours monethly made and unmade like the moon behold those who were the most zealous in your ceremonies whereof some having shamefully enthraled the worlds Empire to forreigners the other promising themselves great victories under the favour of their Gods have found servitude Was not there then an Altar of Victorie in the Capitol From whence I pray proceeded so many sinister accidents if good hap be divinely destined to those who obey it I much repent me of these barbarous ceremonies
prosperitie and so much glorie I ow this acknowledgement both to the publick and your particular amitie for you have granted me the repose of my Church you have stopped the mouthes of the perfidious and by my good will I wish you had as well shut up their hearts and this have you done with marvellous authoritie fortitude and faith The holy Emperour ceased not afterward to oblige the Church in all occasions by the favour of his Edicts and shewed himself so openly zealous that even he first of all the Emperours merited the title of Most Christian given afterward to our Kings His Predecessours who professed Christianity ever suffered their reputation to be dishonoured with many blemishes which much weakened the worth of their actions but Gratian was the most royal and sincere of them all for he so little complied with the Zeal and virtue of Gratian by the direction of holy S. Ambrose Gentiles that their Priests coming together to offer him the title and habit of Great Pontife which all the Christian Emperours had yet for ceremony and reason of State retained this good Prince confidently refused it by the counsel of Saint Ambrose and although the Gentiles were so much moved they could not abstain from words of menace he contemned all humane respects where the glory of God was interessed As for the rest to consider further the energy of the discretion of this holy Bishop it is to be noted that the faith of Gratian his tender plant was not a languishing and idle faith but much employed in the exercise of good works which Ausonius a worldly man could not sufficiently admire in his schollar well seeing he knew much more than his Master He who observed the most particular actions of Singular qualities of a young Prince the life of this Emperour hath left in writing that from the time of his childhood never did he let any day pass without praying to God most devoutly daily rendering some vow to Altars and that those who knew his most secret thoughts gave assurance he lived in unspeakable purity of heart and moreover he was very sober and abstinent in his ordinary course of life and for as much as toucheth and concerneth chastity it might well be said that the Altar of Vestal Virgins where perpetually burned a sacred fire which purged all was not more holy than the chamber of Gratian nor the couches prepared in the Temple for ceremonies more chaste than his Imperial bed He had the heart of a mother towards his poor subjects and the beginning of his Empire was consecrated by the comfort of the people for whom he much sweetened the taxes and subsidies freely cutting off what was due to his own coffers and to take away all cause of enquiry in time to come upon that which he liberally had granted he commanded through all Cities papers and obligations of publick debts to be burnt Never bon-fire more clearly blazed than the same not a creature complained the smoak hurt his eyes Every one praised the Emperour beholding that as his benefits were not frail and transitory so the evils he took away were never to return How could he but do well for the publick seeing Admirable charity in an Emperour he was most liberal towards particulars He was not contented to visite the sick but himself led Physitians along with him thither causing them to minister at his charge and in his own presence that which was necessary for their recovery He was seen after the defeat of the Barbarians which I spake of to run into the Tents of his souldiers to enquire the number of the hurt and himself with his own victorious hands to touch the wounds and cause them instantly to be drest hastening and encouraging the surgeons And if any poor souldier through distast refused to take broath he would sit down by him and charm him with such sweetness of words till he obtained of him that which conduced to his health He ceased not to comfort the most afflicted to congratulate with the most happy to enquire into the necessities of all the world even to the making the packs of a poor subject to be carried by his own mules and all this did he indefatigably with singular promptness and alacrity void of oftentation giving all and reproching no man Behold the fruits of the good education of S. Ambrose which well sheweth that in making a good man of a great Prince the whole world is obliged The twelfth SECTION The death of the Emperour Gratian and the afflictions of S. Ambrose OUt alas Eternal God who art elder than the beginning of time and more durable than the end of Ages must great gifts be so freely given to the world to become so short My pen abhorreth to pass beyond the bloud of this poor Prince in whom the earth had nothing to wish but immortality Behold what a wound it is for the Empire what sorrow in the Church and a touchstone to the virtue of S. Ambrose Gratian after the death of his father had reigned about seven years when behold a monster started up in England to dispossess its natural Prince and cast fire and confusion into the Empire It was Maximus who according to the relation of Zosimus was a Spaniard by Nation companion of the great Theodosius and Captain of the Roman troups which were then in great Britain This wicked man vexed to the quick that the Emperour Maximus rebelleth against his Prince and his wicked disposition Gratian had associated Theodosius in the Empire without ever mentioning himself at all resolved to enter into the Throne by tyranny since he could not arrive thither by any merit Never Tyrant used more industrie to cover his ambition than did this man Never hath any sought more support from the dissimulation of sanctity and justice yet I beseech those who make account by the like ways to bring their purposes to pass to learn by the success of Maximus that if the arm of God sustain not an affair the more exaltation it receiveth the deeper ruins it findeth Maximus then a son of the earth who had nothing great in him but the desire of reign made himself sometime an English man other-while a Spaniard ever leaning to that side where he saw most support for his affairs As an English man he laboured to have it thought he had some correspondence of affinity with Saint Helena mother of great Constantine and he was so impudent as to take the very name of that family causing himself to be proudly called Flavius Clemens Maximus As a Spaniard he would be reputed the allye of Theodosius whom he saw to be powerfull in the affairs and whose force he more feared than loved his advancement As for Religion he well discovered by the effect that he had no other God but honour Notwithstanding like those who provide oyl to burn in the lamps of Idols as well as in that of the living God he embraced all sorts of
all other consideration This good husband who had so much affection for his dear spouse suffers himself to be won by the ambition and easiness of his nature which bowed much to the wills of those who seemed to wish him well and by the lustre of the purple presented to him Maximianus would needs play the Tyrant aswell over loves as men and plotting marriages placeth his daughter in the conjugal bed of Constantius to plant him in the Throne of Caesars S. Helena of more worth than an Empire understanding Virtue of S. Helena the news bare this alteration with great constancy not complayning either of the chance force or disloyalty of Constantius but accounted it an honour that to refuse her no other cause was found but the good fortune of her husband She more feared than envied Scepters and was hidden in her little solitude as the mother of pearl under the waves breeding up her young Constantine in such sort as God should direct her Constantius touched with this admirable virtue lived in body with Theodora and in heart with his Helena He gave contentment in the East to a man Imperious and served the times to have his will another day But he was in the West in the better part of himself Besides when he was absolute and that he must needs divide the Empire with Galerius his Colleague he voluntarily resigned the rest of the world unto him to have France Spain and his I le of England where the moity of his heart remained It is a very hard matter long to restrain an honest Love of Constantius and S. Helena and lawful love It is said when Sicily was torn from Italy by an arm of the Sea which interposed it-self a-thwart palm-trees were found by the violence of waters rent asunder which in sign of love still bowed the one to the other as protesting against the element which had separated their loves The like happened to Constantius and Helena the torrent of ambitions and affairs of the world having parted their bodies could not hinder the inclinations of their hearts Constantius returned into Great Britain there to live and make his tomb for he in the end died in the Citie of York And as he being on his death-bed was asked which of his children he would have succeed him since besides Constantine he had three sons by Theodora at that time forgetting his second wife and her off-spring he answered aloud CONSTANTINUM PIUM I will have no other successour but the PIOUS CONSTANTINE which was approved by all the Army Thus God the Master of Scepters and Empires willing to reward the modestie of the virtuous Helena laid hold of her bloud to give it the Empire of the world in the end leaving the sons of Theodora to whom Maximian promised all the greatness of the world The third SECTION His Education and Qualitie A Great Oratour hath heretofore said speaking Gregor epist 6. l. 5. ad Childebertum Quantò caeteros homines regia dignitas antecellit tantò caeterarum gentium regna regni profectò vestri culmen excellit of Constantine that he appeared as much above Kings as Kings above all other men It is the Elogie which afterward S. Gregorie gave to our Kings Verily he was accomplished with a spirit and bodie in so high a degree of perfection that there needed no more but to see him to judge him worthy of an Empire Nature sometimes encloseth great souls in little bodies ill composed as fortune hath likewise placed Kings in Shepherds Cottages It is an unhappiness deserving some compassion when a great Captain is of so ill a presence as to be taken for one of his servants and be made to cleave wood and set the pot over the fire to prepare his own dinner as it heretofore happened to Philopaemen Constantine took no care for falling into such accidents Beautie of Constantine It seemed as Eumenius saith that nature from above had been dispatched as a brave harbinger to score out a lodging for this great soul and to give him a bodie suteable to the vigour of his spirit so well was it composed He was of a stature streight as a palm of an aspect such that the Oratours of that time called it divine of a port full of Majestie his eyes sparkled like two little stars and his speech was naturally pithie sweet and eloquent his bodie so able for militarie exercises that he amazed the strongest and so sound that he had no disease In these members so well proportioned reigned a vigorous spirit very capable of learning if the glorie of Arms had not wholly transported him into actions of his profession His father well enformed of his fair qualities caused him to come into the East where he took a tincture of good letters at the least so much as was needfull for a warlick Emperour and applied himself seriously to the exercise of Arms wherein he appeared with so much admiration that he was alreadie beheld with the same eye one would an Achilles or an Alexander were they alive again Diocletian who had not as yet forsaken the Empire would have him at his Court to work him from apprehension of Christianitie to which he might be alreadie much disposed and draw him to the hatred of our Religion It was a most dangerous school He was bred in the Court of Diocletian for this young Prince for education ordinarily createth manners and we are all as it were that which we have learned to be in our younger dayes Constantine notwithstanding gathered flowers in this garden-bed not taking the breath of the serpent which was hidden there-under He soon learned from Diocletian militarie virtue prudence to govern souldiers good husbandrie in revenews authoritie to become awfull but he took nothing either of his impietie or malice This Barbarous man in the beginning passionately loved him and would perpetually have him by his sides but when he saw that passing through Palestine and other parts of his Kingdom the young Constantine was more respected than himself so much his carriage especially compared to the harsh countenance of the Emperour had eminence in it he began to grow into suspicion and as it is said desired secretly to be rid of him But Constantine prevented the blow retiring under an honourable pretext to the Court of Galerius the associate of his father Constantius who most willingly left this son with him in pledge thereby to hold some good correspondence with him This Galerius was a creature of Diocletians who Constantine at Court of Galerius had heretofore declared him Caesar yet still retained such power over him that when he had displeased him he made him run on foot after his coach not deigning so much as to look upon him He in the beginning very courteously entertained the son of his faithfull friend affording him all manner of favours but in process of time he conceived a strong jealousie beholding in this young Mars more excellent parts than
assembly of Bishops while expecting his coming and suddenly he appeared not accompanied with any Guard or souldiers but with a small number of friends Eusebius who was there present saith in his History that never was any thing seen more admirable than the person of this Monarch at the meeting of this Councel For besides that he was of a most gallant stature and a singular presence he was delighted to hold it as it were enchased in rich attire The purple wherewith he then was clothed mingling the lustre thereof with the rays of precious stones which sparkled on his head made reflections of grace and majesty arise in the eyes of all the beholders He passed through the middle of the Assembly and all the Prelates rose up to do him reverence Then being come unto his place he stood upright expecting from the Bishops a sign given him to sit which being done and prayer ended he sat down upon a golden chair very low which was placed in the middle to the end he might be encompassed with so great a number of Saints as a Palm with a row of Cedars The others also being seated near him Eustatius selected out to open the Councel stood up and made an Oration whereof we find some pieces in Gregorie a Priest of Caesarea which import thus much We have very much obligation O sacred Majestie to Oration of Eustatius at â—he opening of the Councel render immortal thanks to the living God in that he hath made choice of your person to put the Empire of the world into your hands and that by your means destroying idolatrie he hath exalted the glorie of his Altars and established Christianitie in that tranquilitie which we presently enjoy It is an act from the right hand of the Omnipotent which we durst not hope for in our days if God had not made you to be born for the good of the universal world It is a prodigie to have seen you in a short time to calm so many tempests disperse so many smoaks of sacrifices to devils extirpate so many horrible superstitions and enlighten such cloudie darkness with the rays of the knowledge of the true God The world which was before polluted with ordures is purified the name of Saviour is known to Nations the most barbarous The Father is glorified the Son adored the Holy Ghost declared a Trinitie consubstantial that is to say one same Divinitie in three Persons is acknowledged by all the faithfull That is it O sacred Majestie which supporteth the greatness of your Empire with those three fingers of power wherewith it holdeth the mass of the earth poized as it were to serve as a basis As your felicitie is inseparably tyed to its honour so ought you to reverence defend and invincibly protect all that which concerneth the glorie thereof Behold a strange accident and which is to us more sensible than the persecution of Diocletian They go about to dis-member the Trinitie and thrust the knife of division into its throne One Arius who hath taken his name from furie a wolf bred among us in a sheeps skin a Priest of Alexandria an enemie of the doctrine of Apostles and Prophets hath proclaimed war against the Son of God endeavouring to deprive him of the essence honour and power which he holdeth equal from all eternitie with his heavenly Father This is it which hath assembled us here to condemn his errour and most humbly to beseech your Majestie that when you have heard the opinions of all these great men here present you will hold a steadie hand upon the preservation of Apostolical doctrine and command all those to be cut from our body who will persever in their damnable opinions to the end we may breath the Christian air in all liberty which the world beginneth already so sweetly to taste under the happiness of your reign Then was the time saith S. Hierom when the first trumpet began to sound against Arius After the good Bishop of Antioch had ended the Emperour beholding all the assembly with a very gracious aspect spake in Latin to retain the majesty of the Roman Empire and in a moderate tone those words which are couched in Eusebius the sense whereof we render Venerable Fathers I must needs affirm that I never Oâ—ation of Constantine desired any thing more passionately than to enjoy your sweet presences and infinitely am I bound to God that he hath accomplished my desires granting me a blessing that I prefer before all the happiness in the world which is to see you all here assembled and united in will for the glory of God and peace of the Church I pray you suffer not the storm to surprize us in the haven thereby to snatch from us the comfort which we already have in our hands and if God hath given us victorie against Tyrants let us not turn our arms against our selves to tear out our proper entrails It is most certain these domestick troubles are much more to be feared than all the hostilities in the world The sword of persecution can dissever nothing but members but these divisions tend to the subversion of souls which maketh them so much the more dangerous beyond common wars as the spirit is above the body God having afforded me so many victories and so many prosperities I proposed to my self there remained nothing from me to ask of him but an humble acknowledgement of his benefits and leisure to rejoyce with those whom I saw through his favour in repose sheltered under the good success of mine arms and the authority of my Laws It hath been a grief very sensible unto me to understand of those revolutions which have passed in our Citie of Alexandria and which have afterward dispersed themselves through the rest of Christendom I have done all that possibly I might in the beginning to stop them but seeing the evil increased with so much danger I have called you hither to apply the last remedy I beseech you O venerable Priests of the living God to preserve among your selves that concord which I think I may read in your countenances and not to suffer your selves to be deprived of the benefit of peace since the Divine providence hath selected you to establish it upon Altars by your prayers for all the rest of the world Cut off speedily the root of evil and sweetly pacifie these troubles of the Church you shall do a thing most acceptable to God and as for my self who am your fellow servant I shall hold me obliged as for a singular benefit The Interpreter explicated the Oration of the Emperour in the Greek tongue Then the propositions of Arius were read At the reading whereof the most part of the Bishops stopped their ears for horrour as afterward S. Athanasius observed From thence they proceeded to opinions where the disputation was enkindled on both sides Constantine afforded a singular attention to all that was said peaceably entertained sentences encouraged all the world sweetened acerbities
do as yet retain of terrestrial to make them appear in their best lustre A man saith this Authour who thinketh to know all and do all without having any need of the counsel of others is necessarily of two things the one either a God amongst mortals or a beast among men The Scripture speaking of the great sea of brass which Solomon made in the Temple saith in the book of Paralipomenon 2 Parol 45. that it contained three thousand measures and the third book of Kings affords it but two thousand 3 Reg. 7. 16. This seemeth to involve some contradiction which Tostatus cleareth in saying this great vessel in truth amounted to three thousand measures but that there was never poured out any more thereof than two thousand So is it with the wits of men how capable soever we are not to cloy them with charges and affairs so far as to exhaust them but to divide burdens in proportion since there is none but God alone of ability for all The presumption of those who will undertake above their forces so to leave nothing for others to do much more hurteth than would stupidity He addeth to wit the shape of body which is not Nigredo sanguineâ— regnantem discernit praestat humano generi ne de aspectu Principiâ— possit errari Cassiod Var. l. 1. Ep. 2. a little recommendable in the stature figure port gate age countenance speech and even in the very habit All this when it is eminent surprizeth minds and striketh its stroak to give estimation to a man before we enter into his interiour but if the house answer not to the frontispiece what may we else say but that nature hath built up a goodly mansion to lodge therein a handsom beast What he hath said in the third and fourth place of prudence natural and acquired which some have to deliberate and well resolve on an affair accompanied with a stout resolution and a very strict execution is verily most necessary in a great States-man There are ordinarily two great rocks in this sea of affairs which have in them oppositions very contrary in negotiation of things important The one is irresolution and the other obstinacy in opinion Irresolution ever holds men suspended in the air and tormenteth subjects who expect their dispatches and directions from the counsel of those who deliberate Obstinacy through a false presumption of ability will never forgo what hath been once proposed and resembleth a rude Portress which driveth all good advise from the house One would not believe the hurt this last plague draweth upon all good counsels and how hard it is to be cured Verily it is a prodigie that God who discovereth from the superiour vaults of Heaven to the bottom of the abyss the least atoms of the world and who is so clear-sighted that hell hath not darkness thick enough to hide it self before him notwithstanding all-wise as he is to dissolve our pride he feigneth Jer. 26. 13. some repentance in his actions but we whose thoughts are timorous fore-sights uncertain actions confused oftentimes have so much arrogance as to be desirous to make good our faults for fear to confess our errours A maxim of Politicians maintaineth it is to diminish Diminutio majestatis fecisse mutanda Seneca authority to do that which must be undone for ever it is better to stifle a monster in his birth which one hath begot than shortly after to foment and nourish it with humane bloud Ahasuer us revoking Esther 16. the cruel Edict which he made conceming the massacre of the Hebrews yieldeth a pertinent reason thereof saying This diversitie of decrees proceeded not from the levity of his spirit but from the alterations of times which make way for affairs that are treated As for execution which followeth deliberation it is verily the hardest piece for there are many to be found who deliberate as the rat in the fable to hang a little bell about the cats neck to fortifie their Common-wealth against surprizes Counsel is received by all with applause but when they come to execution every one turns his back It is not to be imagined how much a man who executeth affairs prudently resolved on either of himself or by such as are very trusty hath eminence above others in matter of government King Antigonus said his warfare was rather a warfare of times and occasions than arms and Polybius writeth that the least things which Polâ—b lib. 9. are done in war are those which are handled with sword and violence but the most eminent are executed by the knowledge how fitly to manage an occasion Behold in a nearer degree the qualities which form the capacity of a States-man not enlarging my self to speak here of others especially of those that are put into the number of blessings which the common sort attribute to fortune But a man may have all possible inclinations and might notwithstanding be ever like those musicians who performed all their musick in wardly no man hearing any of it outwardly if he produced not himself in direction which is the application of all the gifts of grace and nature that a man can have for the practise and course of affairs This direction will teach you a marvellous secret Nil vile nil cupidum Judices decet Claras suos maculas reddunt si illi ad quos multi respiciunt aliqud reprebensione sordescant Cassiodorus which is to proportion your self to time place persons affairs treated and to measure your self in such manner that your actions may be profitable for all the world It will bring you forth from behind the curtain and advance you on the Theater to see and to be seen reciprocally by all those who have eyes There it is where you are not to present any thing that is sordid dejected proud furious light fearfull nor passionate for great fortunes have this property to extrude all the blemishes of the heart into the forehead and although much art may be used to hide ones self they make a man appear naked who never is well clothed with habiliments of fortune if he have not true ornaments of virtue What think you if men be now adays so curious as to vaunt to see spots in the Sun where will they not find fault especially if they have a subject given them Great excuses serve for no other purpose but to cover vice which truth discovereth and same publisheth with as many trumpets as men have mouthes This sage advise will tell you that it is not necessary you shewing your self in publick must therefore make all your defects appear and what ever you bear upon your bea rt as if you had a breast of christal but also that the way well to cover your passions is to have none I say not you ought to be without resentments and inclinations for as those places where there is neither sound nor motion savour ill so souls thus deafened are not always the most purified
not conceiving what he would say In a few days this Anastasius who so much feared thunder that he fled into a Cave so soon as at any time he heard the least notice thereof was slain by a thunder-stroke upon the very stairs of the place which he had chosen for a sanctuarie Justine derived from base birth and mounted through all the degrees of War to the dignitie of the Captain of the Guard was chosen Emperour of whom he being a valiant man and well beloved Theodorick began to cōceive a great jealousie still fearing he might take out of his hands the Empire he had usurped The beginning of the storm was that Justine an Emperour most Catholick treated the Arians of Constantinople who had been tolerated under Anastasius with the severitie ordained by laws despoiling them of Churches which they had boldly usurped They failed not to address their complaints and offer up their grievances to the ears of Theodorick who interpreting the disgrace of his sect to the contempt of his person entered into violences more fit for a Barbarian than a King who had been trained up to civilitie by such good counsels for he threatened to turn all Rome into fire and bloud if the Emperour Justine did him not right and for this purpose he sent Pope John commanding him to go speedily to Constantinople to cause the Churches to be rendered to the Arians supposing his dignitie would procure him full power with the Emperour The Pope answered he had made very ill choice of him for such an Embassage that the rank he held in the Church permitted him not to be a provider of Churches for the Arians and that if he had any bad design upon his person he was ready to stretch out his neck for the defence of the Church there being no need for him to pass the seas for this and undertake the voyage This made him enter into much greater extravagancie threatening the Citie with a deluge of bloud if it were not remedied Behold the cause why the Pope was intreated to go to Constantinople and to find some way how to sweeten affairs yet to let nothing pass to the prejudice of his conscience He yielded to the tears of the people and undertook the voyage of Constantinople accompanied with some of the principal Senatours where the Emperour Justine received him with much submission and unspeakable magnificence Theodorick expecting the issue of this great Embassage which was not so soon ended entered further and further into a vast labyrinth of suspicions and jealousies beginning to distrust Roman Senatours and to monopolize all affairs with his Goths which was the beginning of his ruine He at that time did four things which infinitely grieved all good men The first was he advanced two who appeared like two comets over the heads of mortals The one was called Congiastus and the other Trigilla both men of rapine and concussions who by their evil deportment did much disgrace the authoritie of their Prince The second was that he who heretofore used great moderation in matter of subsidies bare himself therein most inordinately by the perswasion of those two Goths who were prodigiously covetous and insariable in their avarice The third was that in a grert scarcitie of victuals he caused all the corn to be taken out of the fields near Rome enforcing every one by an express Edict to sell that little which he had upon a very low price for the Kings own granaries and the entertainment of souldiers which gave occasion of many tears the poor entering into despair if the force of this Edict should be of long continuance In the end for a fourth violence he fell upon the most eminent Senatours dispoiling them of their goods and threatening them banishment and death under suspitions of treasons Boetius endeavoured to cure Theodorick by all the sweetest ways but seeing his spirit was become very dark and much altered in all that which might be said reasonable not to loose honour and good conscience in the general ship-wrack he foresaw he began to roar like a Lion against the corruptions of this mercenary Court He stoutly set upon these two powerful favourites and resisted them in the greatest vigour of their credit with such liberty and constancy that it well from that time forward appeared this man had his soul in his hand being ever ready to resign it for the defence of justice Trigilla who was the Superintendent of the whole government of the Empire and the instrument of King Theodorick would fain seem an able man and to give colour of wisdom and reason to actions disproportionable namely in that Edict published concerning the great heaps of corn amassed together in the magazine of the Prince in the sharp wants and indigencies of the people Boetius loudly blamed this manner of proceeding and ceased not to declare the miseries of Provinces in words very effectual demanding audience of the King for the good of his State Theodorick whether he had not as yet altogether renounced the reputation of a righteous Prince or that he thought his great favourite Trigilla was grounded upon most pertinent reasons and strong encounters of affairs which made him stir up these novelties would needs in his cabinet hear a conference between Boetius Trigilla concerning the Decrees where Boetius defended the cause of the poor with such weight of reasons prudence and courage that he hindered the battery of Trigilla and prevailed so far with the Prince that he procured him to revoke his Edicts whereupon these two favourites with all the faction which followed them finding themselves immeasurably offended began more and more to cast into the soul of Theodorick already much changed infinite distrust against Boetius and the whole Senate And then Paulinus and Albinus two personages the best qualified in Rome who had run through all the most honourable charges of the Common-wealth were very ill intreated by suggestions and suspicions which these men had raised against them Boetius seeing the affairs reduced to such a pass where dissimulation could not repair them spake in the end to Theodorick in full Senate with all the libertie which his conscience dictated unto him saying SIR I am not ignorant that we are in a time wherein it is as it were much easier to flie than to speak of the State of this Empire without offence to any and that all discourse which at this present may be framed will ever be suspected by those who have made even our thoughts criminal to your Majestie Yet must I needs say it is a matter very hard to be silent in so great revolutions of affairs since nature hath not created us like crocodiles who are said to have eys to weep not a tongue to complain I perceive we loose as it were all that which we have of Romane in us and that in this universal disaster where all the world should strengthen their arms against violence men are contented to do as in a thunder
every one prays the thunder-bolt may not fall upon his own house and very little regards the danger of his neighbour So likewise we see many Senatours whose dignitie ought to put into their mouthes good and forcible words for the defence of justice satisfying themselves to avoid the blow and expecting safetie in common ruines As for my self I freely protest that being born of bloud which never learned to flatter any man and seeing my self in a rank where my silence may prove injurious to the publick since I cannot uphold libertie already too much leaning to its ruin I will at least support the image of it and in so general a servitude speak something wherein I will either discharge my conscience for the present or comfort my ashes for the time to come Alas Sir when I behold you sitting upon the Throne of glory whereunto the hand of God seemeth to have raised you by miracle fortified you by discretion and blessed you with so many prosperities I cannot chuse but remember with the most tender resentments of my heart the calms of the first years when you took into your hand the stern of this large Empire Who ever saw divers mettals so happily commixed as we then beheld different Nations united in one entire body under your authoritie What consent in affections What correspondence in all orders What vigour in laws What obedience in subjects What agreement in the Senate What applause among the people What policie in Cities What good fortune in arms What blessing in all the success of your affairs Seemed it not that God had affixed to your standards and Edicts some secret virtue which made the one triumph in war and the other become prosperous in peace with so much terrour and reputation that even things opposite of their own nature knit themselves firmly together for your benefit O Sir what is become of that golden face of your government Who hath metamorphosed it into this leaden visage Perhaps you thought it was a part of the greatness of your Majesty to hold a Senate under to whom all the good Emperours have so much ascribed that they esteem them as necessary for their greatness as leaves about the rose to set out his beautie I could tell you Sir how much these counsels are pernicious Justin Genev hist li. 6. were it not that the experience of the years of your reign hath taught you more than all the malignitie of men can deface If you will be pleased to call as yet to counsel your wit and understanding which God hath replenished with so many fair and noble lights believe me you shall find this people is as the hearb Basil which rendereth a good savour as it is said when gently handled and createth scorpions when rudely chafed Hold us in the estimation and condition wherein you hitherto have reteined us and you shall see nothing more tractable than the Roman people but if you proceed with those violences by which some daily pervert your good nature it is to be feared least this severitie produce not rather poison even for those who hope out of it to derive sweetness Our enemies cease not to exasperate you upon want of respect due to your Majesty and yet God knows we have so regarded royall authoritie that seeing it in most vnjust hands where it lost its lustre we suffered it not to loose the fruit of our obedience Allow Sir the liberty which ever hath been the most pretious inheritance of this Empire you have placed men over our heads who to become great and unwilling to seem any thing less than what they are seek to smother in our miseries the baseness of their own birth and believe the means to justifie their own carriage is to take away eies from those who have them and to render tongues mute least they may learn a truth Now adays to be born rich is to become a prey and to arrive at government with some supereminences of wit is to raise enemies all great actions are suspected and it seemeth that to find safety we must seek it either in ignorance or idleness We have so learned to obey that we would not hitherto so much as enter into consideration of the distribution you made of your favors leaving them more free unto you than are in the sun his rays and contenting us to honour the character of your Majesty as well on rocks as marbles and silver But now when we see the pretious interests of the Kingdom in hands less pure than we wish what els can we do in so publick a clamour but here most humbly remonstrate that which the subtile dissemble the miserable suffer the good deplore and even the very stones relate Where is the time Sir when we heard those noble words to proceed from your mouth That the flock may be sheared not flayed that a body overcharged sunk to the ground that there was no tribute comparable to the precious commodities derived from the love of subjects And now all the Cities and Countries bewail the rigorous concussions they feel to satisfie with their sweat and bloud the avarice of some particulars who are notwithstanding as greedy as fire and more unsatiable than the abyss I exasperate not here our miseries by an amplification of words I have Sir made you to see when you pleased to bear me in your cabinet the tears of Provinces which softened your heart to compassion and opened your hands to liberalitie so that if your good affections be not altered by some you are capable enough to discharge heaven of all promises which it hath made unto us by the happiness of your Empire Unseal those eies which you so oft have opened for the comfort of your poor subjects in what part soever you turn them you shall behold nought but miseries Is it not a strange thing that slaves being sometimes sold to courteous Masters sweeten the sharpness of their condion by some gentle usage and that there should be none but the people of Rome who yearly buy out their bondage none but the people of Rome who were made accountable for the goods pulled from them and tributarie for the shipwrack of their povertie From thence the way is taken to the oppression of Magistrates and some are perswaded that throughly to mow the meadow you must humble the heads of plants most eminent Paulinus is despoiled Albinus is guiltie of treason they be culpable enough since they are rich powerful It is said there can be no safetie found but in their disgrace And who seeth not that these proceedings tend to the ruine of that most noble body which almost thirty years maintained your royal Crown Out alas Sir if we exclaim against witches who poison fountains how can we be silent seeing endeavour is used to invenom the soul of the Prince who is the source of all counsels to the end we may hereafter find poison where we hoped for remedie Sir onely behold and imitate your self re-assume
mirrour what perfection My eyes dazle in beholding her actions and my pen fails in writing her praises What a courage that a young maid not above fifteen or sixteen years of age entereth into a Kingdom with intention to conquer it for God much otherwise than the Caesars who so many times have devoured it by ambition What a prudence to tolerate the conversation of a step-mother whilest she medled not with her Religion What liberty of spirit and what strength of words to defend her faith so soon as she saw her self assailed in this virtue which was more dear unto her than the apple of her eye What patience to endure to be dragged along upon the pavement by the hair to be beaten even to bloud to be thrown into the river to be used like the dust of the earth for the honour of Jâ—sus Christ not challenging any one not complaining not seeming offended nay not telling her husband into whose bosom she poured forth her most secret thoughts the affront she had received for fear to break peace with a creature who deserved the hatred of all the world What wisdom what grace what eloquence used she in the conversion of her husband What love for his soul what zeal for his salvation what care for his direction What authority to stop with a word the armies of the father and son instantly ready to encounter What resignation of her own will in this separation from her husband And what a heart of diamond against a thousand strokes of dolours to take thankfully a death so bloudy so tragical so pitifull To see her self at an instant bereaved of a son and a husband and of all things in the world offering up unto God in all her afflictions the obedience of her heart prayers of her lips and victims of all the parts of her body What triumph when after her death her brother-in-law who had participated of her good instructions in rememberance of her and her husband was absolutely converted to the Catholick faith and changing the whole face of the Kingdom repealed the banished restored the Bishops to their Sees Religion into force Laws into authority and the whole Province into peace What miracle to see sage Indegondis on the top of all her tropheys whereof she tendereth homage to God in the glory of Saints How ought we here to render to her the offerings of our most humble services Behold here the limits which I proposed to my self so to give an end at last to these Histories having thought it more fit and suitable to my employments to abbreviate my self in these four Models than unboundedly enlarge them yet it hath been somewhat difficult with me to make a resolution to put forth this second Volume among so many duties of our ordinary functions being thereunto sollicited by entreaties which held as it were the place of commands And I may well say I were stupid and ungratefull if I should not confess to have been much excited to prosecute this labour by the honourable invitations which my Lord Bishop of Bellay hath used towards me in his Works I cannot set too high a price upon his recommendation in such a subject For he is verily one of the most able and flourishing wits that ever handled a pen. To see the number of his books one might say he began to write so soon as to live and to consider their worth it is a wonder how so many graces and beauties which other attain not but with much labour encreased with him as in a soil natural for eloquence If there be any slight discourses who amuse themselves to argue upon some words of his writings it is not a matter unusual seeing we are now in an Age where there are some who revive the example of those corrupted Grecians that preferred a sauce made by the Cook Mithecus before the divine Works of Phidias If this piece have given you any contentment take the pains to read it over again sometimes at your leisure tasting the Maxims therein with an utilitie worthy of its subject For believe me the precipitation now adays used in slightly running over all sorts of books causeth a certain indigestion in the mind wherewith it is rather choaked than nourished Reading is never good if the understanding take not occasion thereby to negotiate by meditation and industrie that which concerneth the health and ornament thereof 1 TIM 1. To the King of Ages Immortal and Invisible to GOD alone be honour and glorie given for ever and evermore THE HOLY COURT MAXIMS OF CHRISTIANITIE AGAINST THE PROPHANE COVRT Divided into three Parts WHEREOF The I. Treateth of the Divinitie The II. Treateth of the Government of this life The III. Treateth of the State of the other World THE THIRD TOME Written in French by NICHOLAS CAUSSIN of the S. of JESUS and translated into English by Sr. T. H. DEUS EST NOBIS SOL ET SCUTUM LONDON Printed by William Bentley and are to be sold by JOHN WILLIAMS at the Crown in St. Pauls Church-yard 1650. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LADIE FRANCES Countess of PORTLAND and Baroness WESTON RIGHT HONOURABLE THe excellent endowments of your soul acknowledged even by envie and admired by truth together with your known propension to the reading of pious Books invites me to this Dedication as proper for your sweet retirements and consonant to my intentions which onely aim in some measure to express my humblest respects to your Honour The matters herein handled are Instructions apt to inform the mind by way of Maxims learned discourses made familiar to less able understandings and choise Histories exemplifying both that so all sorts of Readers though of different capacitie disproportionable judgement may find somewhat to entertain their curiositie My scope Excellent LADIE in this Translation is through your Honours hand and under so noble a Patronage to convey the third Part of the HOLY COURT into English light which as the first breathed air under the benign aspect of her sacred Majestie may also hope in this latter piece with like happiness to be crowned with your Honors chearful acceptation The height of my ambition is by this poor way to serve you since more ample demonstrations are wanting to my weak abilities as likewise not to doubt your noble disposition will be satisfied with such my humble acknowledgements The advancement of virtue and depression of vice is my Authour's scope throughout the whole Work which he elegantly pursues and victoriously atchieveth Triumphs of that kind best become his grave and serious pen whilest my task is faithfully in our language to imitate his living figures though in dead and discoloured forms and confidently to tell your Honour that I will ever be The most Obsequious Servant of Your Commands T. H. TO MONSIEUR MONSIEUR THE PRINCE SIR THe excellency of the subject I handle in these discourses makes me reflect on that of your Greatness to offer you a Work which being conceived by your authority must needs seek for
August serm 19. de verbis Apost Inhonestos amatores â—stendite Siquis amore foeminae lasciviens vestis se aliter quà m amatae placet illi dixerit nalo te habere tale birrhum non habebit si per hyemem illi dicet in lacinia te amo eliget tremere quà m displicere Numquid illa tamen damnatura est Numquid adhibitura tortores Nunquid in carcerem missura Hoc solum ibi timetur non te videbo faciem meam non videbis of our love towards God pertinently maketh use of the practise of prophane loves Behold saith he these foolish and dishonest Amourists of the world I demand whether any one surprized with the love of a woman attyreth himself any otherwise than to the liking of his Mistress If she say I would not have you wear such a cloke he puls it off I command you in the midst of winter to take a sommer garment he had rather shiver with cold than displease a miserable creature But yet what will she do if he obey not Will she condemn him to death Will she send him executioners Will she thrust him into a dungeon Nothing less she will onely say if you do not this I will never see you more This word alone is able to make a man tear himself in pieces in the endeavour of complacence and service O foul confusion of our life and prostitution of spirit A God who makes a Paradise of his aspects and a hell in his separation from us promiseth never to behold us with a good eye unless we keep his commandements nor can his menaces but be most effectual since he hath sovereign authority in his hands He deserves to be served above all things service done to him is not onely most pleasing but after this life gaineth recompence In the mean time we rather choose to live the slaves of creatures and dwell under the tyranny of our passions than to embrace the yoke of God Were it not fit we hereafter order the small service we do to God as well in our prayers as actions in such sort that there be neither work word nor thought from morning till night which hath not all its accommodations and is not squared within the rule God desireth of us with intentions most purified and indefatigable fervours Finally the last character of love is to suffer for 3. To suffer Satiabor cum apparuit gloria tua Psal 16. Satiabor cum affâ—ictuâ— fuero ad similitudinem tuam Jesus the father of sufferings and King of the afflicted The Kingly Prophet said I shall be satisfied when thy glory shall appear to me Another translation importeth I shall be well pleased when I shall behold my self marked with the characters of thy sufferings Jesus Christ in the great sacrifice of patience made in the beginning of Ages supplyes the person of a great Bishop putting on flesh wholly imprinted with dolours a heart drenched in acerbities a tongue steeped in gall Round about him are all the most elevated and couragious souls who all wear his livery and both constantly and gloriously dispose themselves to this great model of dolours Would we at the sight of so many brave Champions lead a life lazy languishing and corrupt Know we not all creatures of the world groan and bring forth that all elements are in travel and in a ceaseless agitation The air it self say Philosophers is perpetually strucken with the motion of heaven as with a hammer or whip that this benummed mass may not hatch any poyson Rivers are cleansed and purified by the streaming current of their waters The earth is never in repose and the nature of great things is generously to suffer evils The clock goeth on by the help of its counterpoise and Christian life never proceedeth in virtue but by counter-ballance of its crosses Our souls are engaged by Oath to this warfare Animas nostrâ—s authorati in has pugnas accessimus Tertul. ad Scap. so soon as first we enter into Christianity said the noble Tertullian Suffering is our trade our vow our profession Love which cannot suffer is not love and if it cease to love when it should bear it never was what it professed A lover said in Olympius that when he was onely Olympius Te sine vâ— misero mihi lilis nigra videntur Pallentesque rosae c. some little moment absented from the creature he most loved in the world all the best seasons were irkesome all discourses troublesome and the greatest delights turned into bitterness Flower de-luces seemed cole-black in the meadow when he beheld them in his pensive solitude roses the most vermillion grew pale gilli-flowers lost their lustre the very bay-trees which resist winters cold could not withstand the sadness caused by this absence but in a moment they all appeared quite withered to him Viands with him had no rellish wine tast nor sleep repose But so soon as this creature returned all was animated by her presence Flower-deluces became white again roses resumed their vermillion gilli-flowers their beauty lawrels their verdure wine and viands their tastfulness and sleep its contentment But if there happened any harsh and painful accidents which he must bear for her sake they seemed a Paradise All worldly loves speak the same yet are we unwilling to say or do any thing for this excellent Word of God which is endowed with a beauty incomparable exalted above all the beauties of the sons of men This Jesus who maketh a Paradise spring from his eyes This Jesus who distilleth honey from lips of roses for the comfort of his elect This Jesus who causeth Nations to tremble under the force of his word as under flaming arrows and is attired with the conquest and tropheys of souls Behold him on the bright empyreal Heaven crowned with a diadem of honour and revested with celestial purple who regardeth us who beholdeth us and never ceaseth to draw us unto him So many brave spirits have followed him amongst torrents thorns and flames which they found replenished with a sweetness that charmed their pain in the sight of their best beloved It is this sweetness turned the stones of S. Stephen into flower-de-luces and changed the burning coles of S. Lawrence into roses For it S. Bartholomew despoiled himself of his skin as freely as of a garment and S. Catharine hastened to the wheel armed with keen rasors S. Tecla to Lyons S. Agnes to the wood-pile S. Cicely to the sharp sword and S. Appollonia suffered her teeth to be torn out with as much ease as the tree suffers his leaves to fall away from him O the sweetness of Jesus who makes all the valiant and knoweth how to turn doves into eagles of fire Shall we never understand what it is to love him towards whom all generous hearts sigh and for whom all charities are crowned with immortal garlands The eighth EXAMPLE upon the eighth MAXIM Of the admirable change of worldly love Drawn from the Ecclesiastical history
danger like a wanton victim which leaps and skips between the ax and the knife God is my witness I write these lines with a spirit of compassion for so many who dissolutely abuse the gifts of Heaven and if any one happen upon the reading of this I beseech him by the love of his salvation not to despise a pen which tendereth so sincere affection for the good of his soul A man who hath never so little reason should he not argue within himself and say Verily the harmonious consent of so many Ages which have upheld and reverenced a Religion innocent pure and holy is not a matter of sport The horrible punishments of such as sought to disengage themselves from the homage due to the Divinity of Jesus Christ are no fables since we still behold the foot-steps of their ruins The lights and reflections of the Divinity which beset me on every side are speaking tongues the consent of so many Ages and holy personages yet alive on the earth are no small testimony These kind of men who seek to sow dangerous maxims in our minds are creatures of little authority evil manners and of a conversation either insolent or covert They are neither Apostles nor Prophets It is not credible truth should so long be hidden to be discovered to them amidst their abomination They have neither sanctity miracles nor reason They are not rich but in libertinous words and blasphemies All they can promise me is nothing else but a slight contentment of nature in this life yet cannot they give it me For amidst these unlawfull pleasures I feel my conscience much disturbed and perplexed with remorse If I feared God I should find this fear would banish all other affrightments from my heart Now have I that both of men and laws yea even of beast It seemeth at every accident which happeneth to me each creature becomes a sword and an arrow of God to punish my evil thoughts and inordinate actions If that be not true which these men promise as they make no clear proof of what they say behold me then convinced of the most horrible crime which hath ever been behold me the object of all the execrations that have fallen on their heads who bent themselves against God Behold me fettered in eternal and inexplicable pains which I shall escape neither alive nor dead Every understanding man always inclineth to the surest way I see that following the opinion my Ancestours had in matter of Religion there can happen no other evil unto me buâ— to be an honest man to replenish my heart with good desires my thoughts with pleasing hopes my hands with works of justice and to waste my self like a torch of aromatick wood in a life satisfied with it self and laudable to posterity whereas going along with these I walk on thorns and ice in the depth of night not knowing who pursues me behind Avaunt novelties avaunt cursed impieties farewel infamous atheisms adieu execrable liberty you shall never be ought with me O youth if thou didst well tast these words what repose what contentment what glory shouldst thou acquire O unhappy youth which adherest to these impious and licentious companies what wilt thou say when time shall have taken from thee the scarf which now veileth thine eyes and that thou shalt see the chastisement of God which shall follow thee in all thy undertakings misery by thy sides torments and pains before Against toleration thee and peoples execration over thy head But you meek ones and you men to halves who endure with soft and flexible ears unworthy blasphemies against God under the shadow of wit and pleasant entertainment if you have yet any vein of Christianity in all your body ought it not to bownd and leap against these criminals who in the heat of wine and banquets flout in your presences at the truth of a Religion which your Ancestours left you with so much sweat such virtues and so many good examples If you who be men of quality and authority persecute even to the gates of hell such as once have offended you when you do negligently suffer them to dishonour him who hath imprinted the ray of majesty with his finger on your faces do you not render your selves guilty of all the crimes committed through your coldness and neglects God hath preserved since so many Ages doth and will preserve this Kingdom by the piety of our great King by the zeal of his Clergie by the prudence of his Councel and good Officers and by the devotion of people which are as sincere in France as in any place of the world enlightened with the rays of faith But it is for impiety that Crowns are broken that Scepters flie in pieces and Empires have in all times passed from Nation to Nation It is I saith the great God who make Councellours fools and Judges stupid I who Adducet Consilarios in stultum finem change the golden girdle of Kings into a coard I who throw confusion on the brow of Priests I who supplant the greatest when they seek to overthrow true pietie The Edict of Darius a Pagan King which he made in favour of the Hebrews Temple hath astonishing words when he saith What man soever shall be so Omnis homo qui hanc mutaverit jussionem tollatur lignum de domo ipsius erigatur configatur in eo domus ejus publicetur Esdras hardie as to change and alter my commandment for the building of the Temple of God let a gibbet be erected for him of the same wood of which his house is built let it be raised in the street let him be affixed thereunto and his house confiscated This teacheth you it is a great unhappiness to build your house at the expence of Gods houses Rafters and beams of such edifices have many times served for instruments of punishment to such as raised them The favours of great men fortunes of ice inexhaustible riches reputation friends companions factours lackeys buffons all have forsaken them as butter-flies which escape the hand of a child they are fallen through the sin of impiety which hath made an eclipse of their fortune and life in the brightest lustre of their greatness That the Remedie of our evil consisteth in the Zeal of our Faith 6. THe Remedie of evils which turmoyl us is wholly in our own hands and the cure of our wounds dependeth on our own wills Good examples and strong laws may do all on spirits which have not yet totally renounced their own good nor is there any one so desperate who is not taken either by the hands of virtue wholly made of adamant or feareth not to fall into the chains of justice Let Ecclesiasticks whom God hath entrusted with his bloud his word and his Sacraments begin first of all to dart rays of sanctity in the firmament of honour where God hath placed them Let secular men in dignities and eminent fortunes affect zeal in Religion Let such as are
in your sins They said therefore to him Who art thou Jesus said to them The beginning who also speak to you Many things I have to speak and judge of you but he that sent me is true and what I have heard of him these things I speak in the world And they knew not that he said to them that his Father was God Jesus therefore said to them When you shall have exalted the Son of man then you shall know that I am he and of my self I do nothing but as the Father hath taught me these things I speak and he that sent me is with me and he hath not left me alone because the things that please him I do alwayes Moralities 1. ONe of the greatest misfortunes of our life is that we never sufficiently know our own good till we lose it We flie from that we should seek we seek that we should avoid and never begin to bewail our losses but when they are not to be recovered Those Jews possessed an inestimable treasure by the presence and conversation of the Son of God But they set light by it and so at last they lamented amongst eternal flames what they would not see in so clear a light Let us take heed of despising holy things and avoid hardness of heart which is a gulf of unavoidable mischiefs 2. It is a strange thing that God is so near us and yet we so far from him That which hinders us from finding him is because he is above and we below We are too much for the world too fast nailed to the earth too much bound to our superfluous businesses and cares of this life and too much subject to our own appetites He must not be slave to his body that pretends to receive good from God who is a Spirit He must not embark himself deeply into worldly matters who desires the society of Angels He must pass from his sense to his reason from reason to grace from grace to glory If you desire to find God search for him as the three Kings did in the manger in his humility Look for him as the blessed Virgin did in the temple in his piety Seek him as the Maries did in his Sepulcher by the meditation of death But stay not there save onely to make a passage to life 3. When you have lifted me up to the Cross saith our Saviour you shall know that I am the true Son of God And indeed it is a great wonder that the infinite power of that Divinity would manifest it self in the infirmity of the Cross It was onely for God to perform this great design ascend up to his throne of glory by the basest disgraces of the world The good thief saw no other title or sign of his kingdom but onely his body covered over with bloud and oppressed with dolours He learned by that book of the Cross all the glory of Paradise he apprehended that none but God could endure with such patience so great torments If you will be children of God you must make it appear by participation of his cross and by suffering tribulation By that Sun our Eagle tries his young ones he who cannot abide that shining ray sprinkled with bloud shall never attain to beatitude It is not comely to see a head crowned with thorns sit in a rotten chair of delicacies Aspirations O Blessed Saviour who dost lift up all the earth with three fingers of thy power raise up a little this painfull mass of my body which weighs down it self so heavily Give me the wings of an Eagle to flie after thee for I am constantly resolved to follow thee whithersoever thou goest for though it should be within the shadow of death what can I fear being in the arms of life I am not of my self nor of the world which is so great a deceiver Since I am thine by so many titles which bind me to adoration I will be so in life in death in time and for all eternity I will take part of thy sufferings since they are the scarfs of our Christian warfare Tribulation is a most excellent engine the more a man is kept under the higher he mounts He descends by perfect humility that he may ascend to thee by the steps of glory The Gospel for Tuesday the second week in Lent S. Matthew 23. Jesus said The Pharisees sit in Moses 〈◊〉 believe therefore what they say THen Jesus spake to the multitudes and to his Disciples saying Upon the chair of Moses have sitten the Scribes Pharisees All things therefore whatsoever they shall say to you observe ye and do ye but according to their works do ye not for they say and do not for they bind heavy burdens and importable and put them upon mens shoulders but with a finger of their own they will not move them But they do all their works for to be seen of men for they make broad their Phylacteries and enlarge their fringes And they love the first places at suppers and the first chairs in the Synagogues and salutations in the market-place and to be called of men Rabbi But be not you called Rabbi for one is your Master and all you are brethren And call none father to your self upon earth for one is your Father he that is in Heaven neither be ye called Masters for one is your Master Christ he that is the greater of you shall be your servitour And he that exalteth himself shall be humble and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted Moralities 1. IT is a very dangerous errour to think that our Saviour in this Gospel had a purpose to introduce an Anarchy and to make all men equal He sheweth in many places that he would have Kings Princes Magistrates Fathers and Doctours But he would not have men to come to honours by a vain ambition nor others to honour them but onely as they have dependency upon the power of God Almighty Let every soul saith the Apostle be subject to higher Powers for there is no power but it cometh from God He gives us superiours not for us to judge but to obey them If a man cannot approve their manners he must at least reverence the character of their authority They should be good Christians for themselves but they are superiours for us He that resisteth their power doth resist God who ordained them And all the great evils happening by heresies and rebellions proceed from no other fountain but from contempt of powers established by the decree of heaven A man may pretend zeal but there is no better sacrifice than that of obedience If great persons abuse their offices God will find it out and as their dignities are great so their punishment shall be answerable 2. One of the greatest disorders of this life is that we go for the most part outwardly to please the world and are little careful of a good inward application of our selves to please God In stead of taking the way of Gods image
And if we must needs forsake this miserable body we then desire to leave it by some gentle and easie death This maketh us plainly see the generosity of our Saviour who being Master of life and death and having it in his power to chuse that manner of death which would be least hydeous being of it self full enough of horrour yet nevertheless to conform himself to the will of his heavenly Father and to confound our delicacies he would needs leave his life by the most dolorous and ignominious which was to be found among all the deaths of the whole world The Cross among the Gentiles was a punishment for slaves and the most desperate persons of the whole world The Cross amongst the Hebrews was accursed It was the ordinary curse which the most uncapable and most malicious mouthes did pronounce against their greatest enemies The death of a crucified man was the most continual languishing and tearing of a soul from the body with most excessive violence and agony And yet the Eternal Wisdom chose this kind of punishment and drank all the sorrows of a cup so bitter He should have died upon some Trophey and breathed out his last amongst flowers and left his soul in a moment and if he must needs have felt death to have had the least sense of it that might be But he would trie the rigour of all greatest sufferings he would fall to the very bottom of dishonour and having ever spared from himself all the pleasures of this life to make his death compleat he would spare none of those infinite dolours The devout Simon of Cassia asketh our Saviour going toward Mount Calvarie saying O Lord whither go you with the extream weight of this dry and barren piece of wood Whither do you carry it and why Where do you mean to set it Upon mount Calvary That place is most wild stony how will you plant it Who shall water it Jesus answers I bear upon my shoulders a piece of wood which must conquer him who must make a far greater conquest by the same piece of wood I carry it to mount Calvarie to plant it by my death and water it with my bloud This wood which I bear must bear me to bear the salvation of all the world and to draw all after me And then O faithfull soul wilt not thou suffer some confusion at thine own delicacies to be so fearfull of death by an ordinary disease in a doun-bed amongst such necessary services such favourable helps consolations and kindnesses of friends so sensible of thy condition We bemoan and complain our selves of heat cold distaste of disquiet of grief Let us allow some of this to Nature yet must it be confest that we lament our selves very much because we have never known how we should lament a Jesus Christ crucified Let us die as it shall please the Divine Providence If death come when we are old it is a haven If in youth it is a direct benefit antedated If by sickness it is the nature of our bodies If by external violence it is yet always the decree of Heaven It is no matter how many deaths there are we are sure there can be but one for us 2. Consider further the second condition of a good death which consists in the forsaking of all creatures and you shall find it most punctually observed by our Saviour at the time of his death Ferrara a great Divine who hath written a book of the hidden Word toucheth twelve things abandoned by our Saviour 1. His apparrel leaving himself naked 2. The marks of his dignitie 3. The Colledge of his Apostles 4. The sweetness of all comfort 5. His own proper will 6. The authority of virtues 7. The power of Angels 8. The perfect joys of his soul 9. The proper clarity of his body 10. The honors due to him 11. His own skin 12. All his bloud Now do but consider his abandoning the principal of those things how bitter it was First the abandoning of nearest and most faithfull friends is able to afflict any heart Behold him forsaken by all his so well-beloved Disciples of whom he had made choice amongst all mortal men to be the depositaries of his doctrine of his life of his bloud If Judas be at the mystery of his Passion it is to betray him If S. Peter be there assisting it is to deny him If his sorrowfull mother stand at the foot of the Cross it is to increase the grief of her Son and after he had been so ill handled by his cruel executioners to crucifie him again by the hands of Love The couragious Mother to triumph over her self by a magnanimous constancy was present at the execution of her dear Son She fixed her eyes upon all his wounds to engrave them deep in her heart She opened her soul wide to receive that sharp piercing sword with which she was threatened by that venerable old Simeon at her Purification And Jesus who saw her so afflicted for his sake felt himself doubly crucified upon the wood of the Cross and the heart of his dear Mother We know it by experience that when we love one tenderly his afflictions and disgraces will trouble us more than our own because he living in us by an affectionate life we live in him by a life of reason and election Jesus lived and reposed in the heart of his blessed Mother as upon a Throne of love and as within a Paradise of his most holy delights This heart was before as a bed covered with flowers But this same heart on the day of his Passion became like a scaffold hanged with mourning whereupon our Saviour entered to be tormented and crucified upon the cross of love which was the Cross of his Mother This admirable Merchant who descended from Heaven to accomplish the business of all Ages who took upon him our miseries to give us felicities was plunged within a sea of bloud and in this so precious shipwrack there remained one onely inestimable pearl which was his divine Mother and yet he abandons her and gives her into the hand of his Disciple After he had forsaken those nearest to him see what he does with his body Jesus did so abandon it a little before his death that not being content onely to deliver it as a prey to sorrow but he suffered it to be exposed naked to the view of the world And amongst his sharpest dolours after he had been refused the drink which they gave to malefactours to strengthen them in their torments he took for himself vinegar and gall O what a spectacle was it to see a body torn in pieces which rested it self upon its own wounds which was dying every moment but could not die because that life distilled by drops What Martyr did ever endure in a body so sensible and delicate having an imagination so lively and in such piercing dolours mixt with so few comforts And what Martyr did suffer for all the sins of the
Father willing to please all living Creatures gave them bodies fashioned to their likings and inclinations and as there are other instruments necessary for a Taylour others for a Smith So he hath given other members to Lions others to Bulls others to Fishes and Birds He gives to a Lion which is a predominant Beast a Robustuous body Eyes of lightning a Roar of Thunder a Gate Haughty To Bulls Horns to defend themselves To Birds a little head and a sharp beak to cleave the air feathers to cover them wings to fly To Fishes a tail to serve them for a Rudder and little sins to be unto them as Oars S. Basil likewise observed that this great Father of a family distributeth to birds of prey a body fit to seek out for their living and to such as are of a more peaceable disposition members suteable to their nature So true it is that there is nothing in the world which is not replenished with the wisdome of this great Master-workman He provideth and armeth each one according to his Kind Some have naturall arms to resist such as assail them others have a marvellous promptitude to fly from that which is contrary to them others have an incomparable dexterity to defend themselves some poise themselves in the air with their feathers others grapple with their claws others fortifie themselves with their horns and if there be some which serve as a prey to the rest God supplyeth this necessity with a very great fruitfulnesse which he affordeth those poor little creatures exposed to the violence of the stronger Thus discourseth Lactantius To conclude There is not any creature so little which beareth not his own S. Basil in Hexam Lactant. l. de opificio Dei c. 2. Mill his chimney his habit his ware and his shop about him and if this paternall bounty continually open its hands to replenish all creatures with benedictions what would it not do for man who so divinely and so happily busieth the divine providence and is the rule of all the rest of the world It were to enter into a vast Labyrinth of discourses and reasons to represent at this time before our eyes how this eternall understanding maketh infinite many engines to concurre in all the creatures of this great universe to contribute to our benefit our protection and delight I will onely expresse one thing very considerable which he powerfully doth above the ordinary nature of elements to divert the inconveniencies of people and to afford them favours beyond all humane hopes Behold how under the torrid zone which would otherwise be inhabitable by reason of excessive heats he causeth â—ain to fall so commodiously that he seems to distill it through a Limbeck in rule and measure Behold how in Egypt when the Pharaohs covered the land with arms and chariots against his people he made Nilus most gently to overflow to supply the want of rain which as it is said never falls in that countrey We will also tell you what modern writers have observed in certain Islands where there are neither rivers nor fountains for the use of the living God gives them certain trees which at a time determinate by his Providence fail not to sprinkle down water with so much advantage that the thirst of man and beast thereby is sufficiently slaked Who is he that considering all these works of nature will not cry out that God really is what S. Isiodore of Peleusium said the common Magazine of all the people of the earth from Isiodor l. 2. ep 151. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. whence they incessantly derive an infinite number of liberalities the true Temple of sweetness and benignity wherein altars are perpetually covered with victimes What doth he not in civil life to make men live in peace abundance and tranquility what good Laws inspireth he not into them what laudable instructions suggesteth he not even to people adverse to his honour what industries and what inventions in all acts what conveniencies in trade what authority imprinteth he on the face of Kings and Magistrates what obedience he causeth insensibly to creep into the hearts of people so that bloudsuckers and murderers do also adore some rayes of Justice And forasmuch as he permitteth poor and miserable creatures in the world which seems to have some repugnance with his bounty we see by experience it is so necessary that we may say of them what the glorious Hanna did in her Canticle The poor of the Earth belong to God and he hath laid the whole universe on their shoulders without them arts would fail industries would languish the services and benefits which the rich derive from men who are their likes would wholly cease and which is more the two most eminent virtues of the world Mercy and Patience would be banished from the earth Besides God hath an incomparable care of those necessitous people whom we think to be wholly abandoned He hath numbred their hairs he hath taken the task to preserve all their bones he moistneth the dry bread of peasants in tastefull sweetnesse he diverteth them from the apprehension of their miseries he fitteth them to their conditions he comforteth their labours he crowneth their patience Lastly to expresse the tendernesse of Gods mercy in a word there is not so much as our own tears from whence he doth not make us to draw sweetnesse and consolation for our solace O ineffable Bounty O greatnesse unheard of O inexhaustible liberality And can we then beholding this model have a heart shut up against all manner of liberality what a horrour is it to see men burn with enraged a varice which sticks to their bones as doth their marrow and which shall sleep with them in their Tomb § 5. The Mercles of the Incarnate word are able to soften the harshest hearts BUt with what admiration is not the heart of man seized on when he entreth into the great Abysses which are discovered in the second modell in the Oeconomy of our Redemption Have we any proof more manifest then that which is so well weighed by S. Anselm in these words What greater mercy can there be then to see a humane nature Quid misericordius intelligivalet quam quod peecatori aeternis tormentis deputato unde se redimeret non habenti Deus pater dixit accipe unguentum meum da pro te filius dixit tolle me redime te Ansel l. Cur Deus homo despoiled of the robe of honour and of the diadem of glory by a just chastisement of its rebellions condemned to a prison of flames and darknesse even then when it was unable to free it self and when there was neither Angel nor man could deliver it from the misery whereinto it was plunged to see it say I sought unto by God when it flew from his liberality and to consider how the heavenly Father transported with unspeakable love said unto it Take my onely Son to redeem thee from so
cause that continuing a widow in a flourishing age there were Princes in her kingdome who durst promise themselves that she would reflect on them for a second marriage Among others the Count of Champaign proposed this good hap to himself more then was to be believed and ceased not to play the Courtier even to the fitting his gallery with verses and Emblems of the Queen This prudent widow who had to do with Great ones in the beginning of her authority of Regent engaged not her self to any nor did she likevvise reject their suits but so soon as some of them perceived she had no purpose for them they presently took arms to disturb the Kingdome and lessen the authority of the young King The Count of Champaign saw himself by necessity embarked in the faction but he had much ado to defend himself from the affection vvhich possessed him for this exquisite beauty For vvhich cause he pleaded like a lover and betrayed his faction discovering the things most important vvhich gave Queen Blanch a great light to guard her self from the vvicked enterprises of her enemies and dissipate all factions Observations upon the Passion of DESIRE Wherein we may behold the misery of ambitious and turbulent Spirits THe wind which is an invisible power and Marvellous effects of the passion of Desire which appears before our eyes no more then nothing maketh tall ships to move pulleth up trees by the roots overthroweth houses exercising on land and sea powers too-too visible Desires and hopes likewise which to say truely are but imaginations almost unperceivable vex empires embroil states desolate Cities and Provinces and make havock such as we cannot in thought conceive nor can our eyes ever sufficiently deplore It is a strange thing that from a little fountain-head which onely distilleth drops of vvater great rivers grovv and from a desire vvhich invisibly hatcheth in the heart of man lofty ambitions burning avarices and enraged covetousnesse proceed which destroy mankind Our first desires respect body and life which is the foundation of all the blessings we can hope in this world and here it is wherein those who flourish in Empires and eminent fortunes shew passions and cares able to make them immortall if humane nature might reach to such a state We all know that Lewis the eleventh was a Monarch Strange desire of life in Lewis the eleventh who by the greatnesse of his wit and power darkned all the Kings of his Time but we likewise cannot be ignorant that he had most ardent Passions which gave him infinite disturbances the consideration whereof may serve Great ones for the establishment of their repose Never any man more loved life nor more feared death then this mighty Prince who seeing himself laden with infirmities and assailed by old age a disease incurable employed the whole power of an ample Kingdome to hold together a poor thread of life There was not any remedy in the world which he tried not there was no secret in physick which he opened not his profusion caused him to give a Physician ten thousand crowns a moneth and although this Monarch were one of the most eminent of his time and that he sought nothing but to climb over the heads of Princes yet he made himself a slave to Hippocrates his disciples to idolatrize health It is to be thought if Medea had in his dayes returned into the world he would have put himself into her hands of purpose to wax young again like another Peleus So soon as he heard speech of a man who cured maladies by certain extraordinary wayes needs must he come from the utmost limits of the earth and for this cause he called S. Francis de Paula who drave away feavers and plagues from humane bodies with so much ease yet could he not prolong the Kings dayes whom God would punish by the privation of that he most loved He also took the holy viol of Rhemes to keep it in his chamber and therein to find treasures of life which was bootlesse to teach us there is no greater a Hang-man of our hearts then inordinate ill rectified desire The desire of life transported him to extraordinary actions For having been all his life time very plain in apparell towards his latter dayes when he went out of his chamber he sumptuously clothed himself he shuffled his officers and changed them out of a certain desire of novelty that it might be known he was yet alive he cared not to be cursed so that men believ'd him to be living Yet if he had done all this to lead the life of a man and of a King with some reasonable contentment his cares might have been the more excusable But all this great endeavour was but to drag along a miserable life among the distrusts of his nearest allies among jealousies of his own sonne among woodden and Iron cages wherein he kept a Bishop of Verdun for the space of fourteen years among chains and clogges of Iron which he called his threads among disconsolate sadnesses which they sought by all means to sweeten one while making clowns to sport before him another while furnishing out a musick of Hogs ranged under a pavillon of velvet which they pricked through the ears with bodkins to make them chant forth their goodly warblings What inventions doth a passionate man find out to prolong his punishments Next unto life the most ardent desires are for wealth and honour which make turbulent and busie spirits to disturb the whole world vvithout enjoying one hour of repose One might as soon number the starres and the sands of the sea as reckon up the souls of this kind vvith vvhich the Histories of all nations are stuffed For in matters that concern particular ends you on every occasion see children bandied against their parents and kinred in mutiny one against another vvho bely their bloud betray nature and devour lands bloudy and smoking for imaginary pretensions in the matter of their inheritance 2. But it vvould be very hard to find a spirit more covetous more factious and more tempestuous to encrease his estate then vvas that of Lotharius the sonne of Lewis the Courteous Hence it was that he shamefully degraded shaved and shut the King his Father in Prodigious victory which in the end Lotharius gained over himself after a great storm of passions in becoming Religious a Cloister Hence that he contrived so many matches and ploted so many conspiracies Hence that he levied so many armies and gave so many battells Hence that he ransack'd so many Churches put the Clergy to ransome threw down Justice and exhausted the nobility Hence it was that he had alwayes an eye towards the field and an armed hand to ruine the inheritance of his brothers Lastly hence proceeded that bloudy battel of Fontenay where a hundred thousand men of account died in the place so many rivers and seas of bloud must an outrageous ambition swim in which is wedded to particular ends and covetousnesse
dissolve his busie practise and to reduce misled minds unto reason Notwithstanding this violent Mayor of the palace ceased not openly to declare his design in full Assembly in favour of Thierry using many pretexts and colours which put a quite other face upon a businesse so unreasonable Good men who more feared his bloudy countenance and his irreconcileable enmities then approved his reasons looked one upon another expecting that some generous soul should stand for truth and all of them imagined that having declared themselves with much weaknesse and small effect they might not serve so much for a support to Childeric's cause as for an object of Ebroins revenge Cruelties and Jealousies often ruine many good affairs and they took the way to overthrow this if Leger had not risen up who spake with so much reason grace authority and courage that he alone gave a countrepoise to Ebroins malice and drew all the soundest in the Assembly to his side where Ebroins adherents seeing Truth carried as in Triumph by hands so courageous did disband studying more their own preservation then to serve his ambition Childeric mounts up to the Throne which nature had prepared for him Ebroin who knew the main and manifest contradictions he had framed against his right hath a soul full of affrightments and already accounts himself for a dead mad he searcheth for some sanctuary to hide himself but findeth none more safe then Religion Necessity makes a Monk where piety could never make a Christian He comes and throweth himself at Childeric's feet offers him his head and life with most humble submission by which he begged of the young King that if his goodnesse permitted him not to moisten the entrance into his Throne with the bloud of the guilty his Majesty would please to confine him to a Monastery to bewail his sinnes and daily to die as many times as he should call to mind his own Ingratiude Childeric who was not born to bloud and who at that time had his heart busied enough with the joy of his victory which is a time when Mildnesse costs him least permitted him to retire into the Monastery of Luxeuil in Burgundy Mean time Leger who had given such testimonies of his capacity Courage and fidelity is put into Ebroins place and undertaketh the absolute government of all the affairs of the Kingdome His virtue should have dispensed with him at this time not to give others occasion to think that he had beaten down Ebroins tyranny of purpose to raise himself upon his ruines But there are certain chains of Adamantin charges and Court-dignities which oftentimes captive the most austere His Rivall bursts with anger to see him lifted up to this dignity when his calamity enforced him to be tyed to a Coul which is a piece he never had thought was for his purpose He was a strange Hermit like to Nicephorus Gregoras his fox who being blacked over with ink counterfeited the Monk and told the poultrey he much repented him to have used them so ill but that hereafter they might confidently converse with him since his habit and condition permitted him not to live otherwise then innocently This miserable man had no other repentance but that he had not prospered in his ambition no other poverty then the impotency of taking away others mens goods no other obedience then the hypocrisie of his submission no other singing then the sorrows of his fortune and no other Religion but his habite All his prayers tended to nothing else but to demand some change of State that he might change his fortune whereas Leger taking wayes quite contrary in his government made Religion Justice and Peace to flourish His zeal opposed impiety his equity injustice his sweetnesse violence and his authority carried all that was reasonable But there is a certain unhappinesse in the mannage of state-affairs which makes a man hate his own quiet and virtue too regular is often troublesome even to those it intends to oblige Leger is offensive to some because he makes them more honest then they would be to others because his lights manifest their darknesse whilst others think that in the newnesse and change of a Minister of State they shall better make up their own reckoning Childeric himself takes a distaste against the faithfullest of his servant and whether that Ebroins faction breathed this passion into him or whether it proceeded from his licentious youth or whether his humour felt too much constraint in the innocent severity of the manners of his Mayor of the Palace he shewed him not so pleasing a look as he had accustomed He desirous more efficatiously to sound the Kings opinion most humbly besought him to give him leave to passe the Feast of Easter in the city whereof he was Bishop which Childeric easily assented to But perverse souls who enkindled the fire of division under colour of friendship told the good Prelate that the easinesse his Prince had witnessed in this late occasion was but a bait to undo him and that he had resolved to cause his person be seized on of purpose to murder him One fears all from a power that taketh the liberty to do all which was the cause that Leger entred into great affrightments noon this news and resolved to leave the Court to free himself from Envy and the dangers which threatned him He communicateth his intention with his greatest confidents who are nothing of his opinion and they shewed him he must not yield to a little stormy gust but rather die in the midst of the waves holding the helm in his hand then to forsake the vessel that his flight would give matter of suspicion to the King of advantage to his enemies and of confusion to his own friends and that hitherto there was not any sign of disgrace which might make him to begin where the onely extremity of evils might constrain him to end Notwithstanding whether fear had taken too much hold upon this good Prelates mind or whether his conscience reduced into his imagination the repose of those innocent dayes he had spent in the Monastery he takes a sudden resolution not to forsake the world by halves but by laying down the government of the affairs of the Kingdome to rid himself also of his Bishoprick The conclusion of this businesse is followed by a speedy dispatch which made the King wonder who sent trusty persons to invite him to return and to give him assurance of his good affection towards him but his zeal had its ear in heaven not to hearken to the perswasions of the earth He goes to the Monastery of Luxeuil where he sees Ebroin who was there held as a fettered beast and not in a condition to bite The Abbot who knew the differences that were in Court fearing lest hatred might hatch its egg by the help of a religious habit caused them to be reconciled and to talk together although he had separated their abode fearing that too fiequent conversation might in them
in the memory of all Ages is an Act of Justice which he performed even then when marching forth of Rome in great state to go to the warres as I have related in the first Volumn he hearkned to a poor widow-woman which desired Justice of him he alighted from his horse to understand her businesse at large and restored her to her right before he departed thence Which thing did so wonderfully astonish S. Gregory that he prayed as they say for the Soul of Trajan and saved it the which the Doctour Alphonsus Ciaconius justifies in a learned Treatise although the Cardinall Baronius be of another opinion By all this it is apparent and manifest that a Prince ought to have especiall care above all things not onely to be just but to make it appear both by his words and deeds that which he bears in his heart He is the greatest King according to the Philosopher Diogenes which is the justest and if he be without Justice he is nothing but an empty Name and a shadow of Royalty The most excellent thing that a King can do in that his Dignity said the same Wise-man is to worship the Deitie to ordain Laws to conduct Armies and all this is to be done Legally according to the rule of Justice The people feel it not if he be devout if he be sober if he be discreet if he be chaste but if he be unjust this is a publick mischief this all presently feel as if the Sunne should go out of his bounds or if some malign Constellation should cause burning or flouds to happen upon the earth King Nebuchadonozor is represented in the Prophet Daniel by a Tree under the which the fowls made their nests and under the which the other living creatures remained under covert to give us to understand that Princes ought to stretch forth their Power even like branches to protect their Subjects by rendring them Justice A true Prince to speak as Casiodore doth ought to serve for a Temple to Innocency for a Sanctuary to Temperance for an Altar to Justice You therefore O Monarchs that take delight in the glittering of your Crown know ye that it is given you from above to be Gods Vicegerent rendring to every one that which belongs to him You ought to watch like an Angel over your whole Estate and not to suffer at any time that the smallest things should be destitute of your tenderest cares Hearken to that which God speaks to you by his Apostl◠Masters render that which is just and right to your servants seeing that you cannot be ignorant that you have a great Master in heaven to whom you must give an account of your actions Hearken to that which he commands you by his Prophet Do Judgement and Justice deliver those that are oppressed Jer. 21. from the hand of the persecutours Takē good heed you afflict not the stranger the orphan nor the widow The Justice of private persons is manifest in their particular commerce but that of a King hath other kind of beams to make it appear and be beheld in its glory If you be a true King as Nature hath not given Acts of Justice in punishment and reward you an hundred mouthes to speak nor a hundred hands to do all that is necessary with your Government it is fitting that you make a good choice of those to whom you commit the managing of your Arms of your Revenues and of your Laws Never suffer you that your Name which is sacred and your Authority which is inviolable should serve for a pretence to wicked ones to oppresse your Subjects The huntings of men are for the wild Boar the Wolves and the Foxes those of Princes ought to be after the Outrageous the Robbers and Tyrants All offences are but the overflowings of Injustice there can be nothing chaste saith S. Augustine where adulterers are nothing safe where robbers nothing out of danger where murderers If the sword of the Prince the revenger of iniquities do not stop the audacious cities become forrests and forrests everlasting terrours if there be not Laws for men and punishment for offences Corrupt nature would never make an end of offending if Gooernment restrained not its enterprizes The chiefest care of him that is set over people is to take away the evil and the evil-doers that honest people may live in safety for this cause are Kingdomes Magistrates Arms Laws the world would be nothing but robbery and the life of man confusion if Justice did not suppresse the violence of disordered affections But to speak the truth the Prince that should be severe in punishments and should have an heart lockt up at rewards would be as it were lame of one arm he ought equally to be ready to chastise offences and to recompence well-doing When the Government of Kings is so loose that vices come in request and those that commit them it is almost a kind of sin then to do well and when virtues are so unhappy as to be deprived of the honour which is due to them it is a scandal of that age and the shame of Crowns It is not sufficient to appoint Judges to hear and determine of suits he must be well informed of their proceedings and their actions he must sometimes imitate S. Lewis which gave judgement under an Elm about the differences of his Subjects and consecrated the Woods and the Fields by the sincerity of the Oracles that went forth of his mouth The Emperours of Constantinople heard likewise the controversies of their people and as Codin saith when one party pleaded they held one ear uncovered and covered the other to signifie that they kept it for the adverse party It is a weaknesse of judgement to go about to decide a businesse having heard but one party one ought to have an ear somewhat hard at such diversity of reports which are made by parties diversly interessed in a businesse otherwise it is to be feared that a long repentance will quickly follow a short determination Civil Justice is exercised within Bars and on Judgement-seats but the Military hath been oft very much neglected by some former Princes in its time when having lost the opportunity of making a good Peace they have afterwaids made an unhappy Warre Those Judges that buy Justice it is a very great chance if they do not sell it and those Souldiers which are not paid by the Taxes levied for that end are as it were authorised to pay themselves by the permission of spoils and plunderings Our Laws and our Age may blush when the Roman histories tell us that one Scaurus conducting an Army oftentimes lodged in the fields where there were trees loaden with fruit and yet the souldiers durst not lift up the hand to gather one onely the passing by of a great army left every thing in the same order in which it had found them And amongst Christians one Regiment onely of Souldiers hath often made a desolation in the Countrey and
woman well bred and of good courage Ishbosheth was offended thereat for that he had done this without telling him of it But Abner for one poore word spoken to in a very mild manner entred into a rage against The insolence of Abner his King and said that it was to use him like a dog to quarrel with him for a woman after so great services as he had done for the Crown reproching his Master for that he held both his life and his Kingdome of him But seeing that he used him in this manner he would take a course with him and would translate the government from the house of Saul to that of David Masters should not give too much authority to their subjects The poor Prince held his peace and durst not answer one word onely to this bold fellow which was a pitifull thing to see him thus devoured by his own servant The houses of Great ones are very often filled with such servants who having been honoured with an especiall confidence of their Master in the administration of their affairs whether they be their Receivers or Stewards of their families take upon them authority and not contenting themselves to govern the goods enter upon the right of their Lords leaving them nothing but a name and shadow of the Power which is due unto them Abner grew so hot with anger that he dispatched He treateth with David his Messengers to David to desire his friendship and promiseth him to bring the whole Kingdome of Ishbosheth into his hands David answered that he was content to make peace with him so that he would cause his wife Michol to be restored him whom they had married to another after his departure which was readily agreed to for him for they took her away from the hands of her husband that followed her weeping this woman with her lofty spirit had some pleasing behaviour wherewith Davids affection was taken In the mean while Abner powerfully sollicits the people of Israel to betake themselves on Davids side shewing them that God had committed their safety and rest into his hands and that it was he which should unite together all the families under his obedience for to compose a Monarchy which should become happy to his people helpfull to his friends and terrible to his enemies This discourse did very much shake the principall ones of the Nation which were not ignorant of the small hopes that were in the person of Ishbosheth which was disparaged both by nature and fortune This stout Captain following the businesse came to meet with David in Hebron who made him a feast hearkened unto his propositions and conducted him back with honour Joab who was at that time absent at his return quickly understood of the coming of Abner whereat Joabs Jealousie over Abner he entred into a furious jealousie fearing lest David should be of the humour of those which delight more in making of friends then keeping of those that are made and that the friendship of a man which seemed to draw a whole Kingdome after him might much prejudice his fortunes He enters roughly into his Kings chamber telling him that this was but a deceiver which came but to spy out his secrets and to do him some ill turn that he should lay hold of him seeing he was come under his power And for that David answered him nothing seeing him in a hot anger he went out furiously and without authority sent a message to the chief Captain Abner to intreat him to return to Hebron under colour of treating more fully with David The death of Abner He lightly believed it and came back the same way when as Joab that lay in wait for him took him treasonably and killed him at the gate of the city David was indeed very much perplexed hereat and David tolerates Joab in his fault upon necessitie uttered grievous curses against Joab and his whole race neverthelesse as the wisest did judge that there was a great interest in this death and that his chief Captain had become the executour thereof this made some to think that there was some design and though that suspicion was false David did all that he could to deface the blemish thereof assisting at the funeralls of Abner very near to the corps protesting against the cruelty of those that had taken his life from him and highly setting forth the praises of the dead yet he caused not processe to be made against Joab conceiving that he was not able to destroy him in such a time when it was dangerous to provoke him Neverthelesse he kept the resolution to punish him even to his death but Joab contemned all upon the confidence that he had that none could go beyond him and measured his own greatnesse by the impunity of his great offences It is hard to excuse David upon this treaty that he David cannot be excused upon the treaty made with Abner if one have not recourse to the secret and over-ruling will of God projected with Abner traytour to his Master if one have not recourse to the secret and over-ruling will of God or to the right that he pretended to have to the Crown in consideration of his first anointment made by Samuel He knew that the Edicts of his royall dignity were written in heaven and for this cause without endeavouring by any criminall way he expected the work of Providence and applyed himself to the events for without any thought of his Ishbosheth King of Israel was slain by two murtherers Rechab and Baana which killd him as he slept upon his bed at noon-day and brought his head to him at which this great King was so highly incensed abhorring this barbarous act that he condemned them presently to death and after he had caused their heads and feet to be cut off he made them to be hanged at the fish-pond of Hebron David absolute by the death of Ishbosheth son of Saul The death of Ishbosheth the son of Saul ended the difference which was between the two Royall houses and the other families yielded themselves to David by an universall consentment It was then that he began to reign absolutely and to make to appear as in a glorious light the admirable qualities and Royall virtues wherewith he was adorned And it is certain that of all the Kings of Juda there was none hath equalled him in all kind of perfections He was one that feared God without superstition religious without hypocrisie valiant without any sternnesse liberall without reproching it to any one a good husband without covetousnesse The Royal qualities of David stout without insolency vigilant without unquietnesse wise without subtilty courteous without loosnesse humble without cowardlinesse chearfull without too much familiarity grave without fiercenesse and kind without any complements He united all those things together which ordinarily His zeal to religion make Princes great and proved in each of them so advantageous as if he had been
feet his head uncovered with tears in his eyes affrighting all the world and left ten Concubines to keep his palace which was very ill advice according to the world for what could these women do being forsaken by men and strength but onely to prostitute themselves to the souldiers and yield up all the honour they had left as a prey to them Further also he sent back the Ark of the Covenant Whence this small courage came when David proceeded which Zadock and Abiathar had brought into his camp which might have put very much courage into his army and obliged it to defend a thing so honourable and so precious to this nation Whence do we think then that this ordering himself in a king to whom neither valour was wanting nor wisdome nor experience but onely that he saw clearly that this calamity was an ordinance of God which had been foretold by the Prophet Nathan and in pursuit whereof this virtuous Prince had no other thought then to suffer the work of providence and to submit his whole heart in the full extention thereof to the chastisement of his judge and to kisse the rods which beat him He marched like a Penitent and not like a Captain he adored the judgments of God upon him he enlarged his pains going a foot and that bare-foot to exalt the justice of his sovereign Master He esteemed himself unworthy to look upon the Ark of the Covenant and used himself with all kind of rigour to honour the design of Heaven for his abasement This is the cause that he endured all and complains of nothing bearing with a deep patience the enraged tongue of Shemei who seeing him in this estate The patience of David towards Shemei in which the most barbarous would have pitied him persecuted him with bloody injuries and went about to have stoned him Abishai offred himself to have cut him in pieces at the present but David sharply reproved him for it and would that they should suffer him to exercise his rage at his pleasure not being ignorant that all which happened to him was design'd from above He contented himself with saying If God will be mercifull to me he will call me back and make me to see again his Ark and his Tabernacle But if he cause me to know that I am not sitting any more to please him nor to serve in the estate of a King I am ready to obey all his pleasure seeing it belongs to him to do whatsoever he will with me These words alone were His great humility and humble words more worth then all crowns and brought him again into the favour of God by bearing that his affliction with so great humility In the mean while Absolon entered into Jerusalem The pernicious counsel of Achitophel without resistance with his pestilent Councell of State Achitophel which the surer to engage him in the war and an irreconcileable hatred against his father gave him most detestable counsell and which could not have been inspired but from the blackest of the bottomlesse pits he perswades him to abuse all the concubines that his father had left in the palace the which this disloyall son would execute most erroneously causing a pavillion to be set up in the sight of all the people and going publickly thereinto to accomplish all his incests Behold the politick wisdome of this mischievous servant whom they esteemed as a god in counsels who is there that saw not that this action besides that it drew upon Absolon the wrath and vengeance of God made him odious and abominable to all his people and to all those which had any feeling of Religion or publick honesty After he had begun so villanously he assembled his The wisdome of Chushi the servant of David in the counsel of Absolon counsell for to give order for the affairs of the warre Achitophel counselled him to take twelve thousand men of the best exercised to pursue his father the same night and to take him in that disorder and wearinesse and to make him away assuring him that if that one man alone were down all the kingdome would be for him In this private councell there was by good chance one wise man named Chushi a secret friend of David and his confident which was come to joyn himself in appearance to Absolons party closely to countrepoise the counsells and authority of Achitophel He saw well that if God had permitted the execution of this first advice that David had been lost without any recovery this was the reason that after he had insinuated himself into the heart and friendship of Absolon testifying that from henceforth he would serve him with the same fidelity that he had done to his predecessour he declared unto him That they should do nothing hastily for that his father was an old Captain which knew all pollicy in warre and that he had still in his Army men full of counsell and valour that he should not rouse up the Bear in her wood after he had robbed her of her young ones and that despair is a valiant piece in warre that it stood not with his honour to give battell unlesse he were assured of the victory for that If at his first encountre he should have the worst yet disadvantage would be of dangerous consequence able to abate the courages and put the whole Army to a rout But if he would stay awhile the people would gather together about him in a great number as the sand on the Sea-shore and that he being in the midst of so mighty an Army might overthrow the Cedars and pull up Towns by the roots without any body being able to resist him This Counsell was rellished and preferred before the first whereat Achitophel entâ—ed into such a rage that he suddenly went forth of the chamber and retired himself to his house where after he had disposed of the estate of his family-affairs he took unto himself an unlucky cord and strangled himself by the most manifest justice of God After which Absolon seeing himself sufficiently well accompanied passes over Jordan takes Amasa for his chief Captain and intends to give battel to his father David which had had a little leasure to recollect and fortifie himself takes courage again divides his Army into three parts names Lieutenants and Captains and appoints three for Chief Joab Abishai and Ittai He would also have been himself in the encountre but his Counsell beseeched him to retire which he did after he had encouraged his people to do their duty well but above all that in case they should gain the Victory that they should guard his son Absolon without doing him any hurt This being done the Trumpets sound and the Absolon gives battel to his father where he is overthrown and killed Armies approch Davids people enter into the field of the Battel as Lyons their Masters good cause gave them such confidence It seemed that the victory that day had taken a pledge to follow
are those that dispute here though beyond their sight concerning the Learning of Solomon and would His Knowledge prove that he composed Comedies and Satyrs but although we cannot deny that he was filled with abundance of Learning yet we must affirm that his Politicall Science had the chiefest place and that all his knowledge of Naturall things tended but to that intent seeing that he specified it in his Prayer that the desire of Wisdome that he professed was onely for the Government of his Kingdome And hence we may gather that Learning is an Instrument very necessary for the accomplishment of Whether learning be profitable for Princes great Princes although that the ignorant may conceive otherwise They say that this makes them too lofty curious and self-conceited and that hence they take the boldnesse to rest upon their own belief and deifie all their opinions a great Authority being sufficiently able to raise up a little sufficiency They bring the examples of Nero and Julian the Apostate both which having so well studied they governed ill and came to an unhappy end But I shall avouch to them that knowledge and judgement without piety is an unprofitable commodity and sometimes pernicious to Kings Hence it is that they take occasion to move extravagant questions to undertake dangerous businesses to authorize their faults by apparent reasons and to be pricked forward with a conceit which causes them to despise all counsels Neverthelesse it is an insupportable abuse to blame The learning of a Prince defended good things in those which either have but the counterfeit thereof or which make an evil use of them I esteem not Nero nor Julian to have been very learned men because they had skill in Poetry and Rhetorick without ever well attaining the knowledge of their principall profession and if they having learned good precepts among humane Writers have abused them shall one say for that that they are naught and dangerous for a Prince By the same reason we might condemne the Sunne because that Phaeton burnt himself in those heats And take away the Water from amongst the Elements because that Aristotle as they say was drowned therein Lastly we might bring an accusation against Nature in generall and so find nothing to be good of all that God made because it may be corrupted by the wickednesse of men But for two or three Princes somwhat learned which have used their skill evilly how many ignorant ones shall we find which have done farre more cruel and barbarous things then these as Dioclesian Licinius Maximian Bajazet and Sclim Nature hath placed all the Senses which are the principles of our Knowledge in the Head to give us to understand that all the lights ought to be in a Prince which is the Head of his Realm The Soul is not more necessary for the Body then Understanding for a King He is as Philo reports to his people that which God is to the creature And what doth God but onely shed forth his clearnesse throughout the whole world visible and invisible and what ought a Monarch to do but to make himself the fountain of good counsels that should maintain his estate What can a Prince do which sees not but with others eyes which speaks not but by the mouth of another which hears not but with borrowed ears but onely lose his estimation in the minds of his Subjects and yield up his Authority as a prey unto those that knowing his insufficiency take the boldnesse to enterprise any thing without punishment I confesse there are those which having not studied have a very good understanding which they have polished by the experience of things in the world and by conversing with great personages but how can we say that those are ignorant which know as much as the books and might serve for examples to Philosophers their modesty doth yet make them affirm and acknowledge that if they had received a deeper tincture of good learning they should have drawn therefrom the more grace and advantage I would in no wise that a Prince should be like to Knowledge ought to be moderate the Emperour Michael Paripanatius which had alwayes Table-books in his hand and a pen composing of Verses or making Periods to run smooth I do not so much esteem such petty shews of superfluous knowledge and ill ordered in a great one but to see a man at the government of people which hath laid a deep foundation of true piety knows the secrets of Philosophy the best purified is no wayes ignorant of Divine and Humane Laws is skilfull in the Histories of all Nations with very diligent Observations and particular applications to his own government A man that can judge speak and act that can expresse himself with clearnesse and majesty of words fitting to his estate this is it which makes him appear as a God amongst men which gives him authority amongst his people which makes him esteemed by his equalls feared by his inferiours terrible to his enemies and honoured by all the world It is by these means that Augustus Cesar Trajan Vespatian Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and so man others whereof Tiraquel reckons up eight and thirty very famous in his Book of Nobility have attained to that heighth of reverence which hath made them honoured throughout all ages For a proof of this we see the great reputation The judgement of Solomon on the contention of the two women that Solomon got in judging of the two women which disputed whose the little infant should be Both of them said equally that she was the true mother the one acted it cunningly the other proceeded therein with truth It was needfull to know which spoke from the heart and which from the tongue onely There are counterfeits so well stuft out and neatly coloured that many able men cannot know nor are able to distinguish the true from the false Parmeno counterfeited so perfectly the cry of a young chicken that one would have thought that nature could not have set out out any thing better in comparison of him So many skilfull men so many gray heads were at that time in the Court of Solomon which lost themselves in this counterfeit without being able to discover it and when he commanded a sword to be brought and to divide the little infant all the world was amazed some thought his judgement was grosse that it was cruel and bloudy but Solomon had studied in the bosome of nature the affections of a true mother When he understood that the one approved of this command and was urgent that the infant should be divided in two he drove her away as an impudent one but when he saw that the other was moved and wounded deeply at her heart and that she cryed with a pitifull voyce that they should rather give the infant all whole to that wicked one then to make two pieces of it When he considered the affrightment on her face and all the veins of her body
heretofore found and pillaged in Rome were sent back again to the Place from whence they had been transported by Titus Vespatian This warre was finished in three moneths with an Army of six thousand men so easie it is to row when God conducts the vessell But that of the West was very long in its continuance Obstinate in its Resistance Malignant in its Designes and Lamentable in its Effects Theodoric King of the Goths as I have said in the life of Boetius had made himself Master of Rome and of all Italy where he reigned with great authority He left for Successour Athanaric sonne of his daughter Amalazunta at that time but nine years old under the Protection of his Mother She was the most accomplish'd Princesse of her age and most worthy to govern an Empire Neverthelesse since she saw her self invironed with those Goth Princes that were of an humour sufficiently cruell and that did not easily brook her domination She honoured with her confidence Theodate one of the principall of them because he was of the blood Royall and appeared the most moderate of all the rest playing rather the Philosopher then the Captain This ungratefull man after the death of the little Athanaric who was not of a long life was moved with so furious a State-jealousie that by the basest of Treasons he caused that poor Princesse to be strangled in a Bath fearing lest she as being farre more able then he in the managing of affairs and he holding the Sceptre onely by her favour might take too great a share in the Government But this unnaturall man that thought to settle his Crown by the death of that innocent Queen totally ruin'd his affairs and could not avoid the vengeance of God that pursues Traytours even to the gates of hell The Emperour Justinian that had already projected to recover his City of Rome and all Italy out of the hand of the Goths hearing the rehearsall of that horrible basenesse committed against the person of Amalazunta that had sought Alliance with him failed not to take the occasion and to declare a warre against Theodate thinking that it was then a good time to set upon an Empire when he that governs it begins to be forsaken of God for the enormity of his Crimes This cowardly King was so much astonished at this news that at first he humbled himself by very great submissions offering the Sovereignty to the Emperour of the East and contenting himself to reign under him But the other seeing him so wicked and so weak despised him and caused Belizarius to advance with his Army into his Territories who suddenly possessed himself of Sicily Theodate although an Arrian Heretick had recourse to the Pope and invited him as well by Intreaties as by Menaces to make a Voyage to Constantinople to Treat a Peace between the two Crowns Agapetus who was then seated on Saint Peters Chair was so Poor and Indigent that he had not wherewith to furnish himself with Provision for the Journey that he was fain to pawn the Sacred Vessels of Saint Peters Church to bear his charges by the way He failed not to transport himself into the East and was received by Justinian with all the respects due to so high a Dignity but when he came to touch upon the point of Peace the Emperour told him That the businesse was already too farre advanced That that Warre was an Holy Warre against the Enemies of God and his Church which ought not to be hindered by the Counsells of a Pope and that he need fear nothing that Theodate could do who was more able to threated then to hurt The Pope suffered himself easily to be perswaded and quitting the Interests of that King busied himself about the Government of his Church It is a wonder that he had so much Authority as to depose Anthimus Patriarch of Constantinople who had been brought in by Faction and to substitute Menas in his Place in spight of the Empresse Theodora who had not at that time all the power that is attributed to her over the spirit of her Husband The Good Shepheard after he had Courageously done the duty of his Charge dyed in Constantinople where he left a most sweet odour of his sanctity In the mean while Belizarius pursues the Conquest enters into Pou and takes Naples by night using a Stratagem of Warre that made him put on three hundred men through subterraneous places where there passed nothing but water The taking of so flourishing a City gave astonishment and rage to the Goths who Conspired against their King Theodate and substituted by Election Vitiges in his place who was not of so Noble a Family but who seemed to them Bold and Generous to repair the Ruines of the State As soon as he was chosen he suddenly caused Theodate to be slain who was surprised in his flight and washed away by his blood the murther of Amalazunta This Prince was agitated with two contrary Passions with the desire of solitude and with the motion of his ambition the one counselled him to quit the Empire the other to retain it while that he would content them both he contents no body and was surprised in his irresolution In this conjuncture of affairs the Grecian Generall advances and marches straight to Rome which receives him with open Arms some through love and others through impotence Vitiges desirous to make his Crown renowned by some illustrious Act and to confirm by his Valour the judgement of those that had chosen him assembles from all parts the Goths spurring them on both with the Glory of their Nation and the necessity of their affairs in such a manner that in a small time he lay siege to Rome with an Army of an hundred and fifty thousand men It is in this occasion that the Valour of Belizarius was made visible in all its advantages for with an Army of six thousand men he susteined that prodigious number of Barbarians amidst sicknesse hunger and a thousand other incommodities and when the Romans wanted Arms and Ammunitions of Warre he made Arrowes of the Statues of the Gods and of the Cesars to throw at the head of his enemies In the end having sollicited with diligence and expected with constancy the succours that came to him from the East he raised the siege and scattered all that thick Cloud of Armies that environed him Vitiges is constrained to retire into Ravenna where he besieges him and presses him so strictly that he forces him to deliver to him his City and even his own Person He was carried away Prisoner with his Wife and abundance of Lords to Constantinople presented to Justinian and served for a Pompous object in the Triumph of Belizarius who was received with the full satisfaction of all the Nobles with the admiration of the wisest and with the generall acclamation of all the World The Emperour alone began to be pricked with jealousie and to entertein him with coldnesse In the mean space the Goths make
Queen in Vashti's place putting the Crown upon her head Mordecai was ravished at this choice and walked every day from the first beginning that she was brought to Court before the Seraglio to hear news of her having recommended her to a certain Eunuch his confident that had of her a very particular care He sent her very opportunely necessary advice to teach her how to behave her self and above all he was so wise as to recommend to her not to declare the Nation whereof she was and to make no discovery that she had any relation to him which he judged to be to the purpose for fear lest Haman who was in so great favour and who hated naturally the Jews should ruine her before she had taken rooting in the Kings heart Behold a wonderfull sport of Providence which tooke a little stone with an intention to beat down a great Colossus and makes in one instant of an earthen pot a vessel of gold Men stand now amazed to think what wind drove this poor Jewesse to the crown of the chief Monarchy that was at that time in the whole world They think that sure it was a great chance but God knew that it was a great counsel digested from all eternity in his thoughts For if command is due according to Aristotle to persons that are most accomplished there was some foundation in the excellent qualities of Hester on which to set a Crown for beside the beauty of her body and the ingeniousnesse of her mind she had great gifts of virtues that rendred her lovely to all the world and might serve for models to all Ladies She was not a lump of flesh or a body without a soul nor a worldly woman that had no other Idol but her Beauty nor other Deities but Pleasure and Ambition as it happens ordinarily to most women who seeing themselves elevated to the top of the grandeurs of the age strangely corrupt their manners and dishonour their condition Hesters chief and principall virtue that made a most pure source of pleasures flow into the rest of her life was That she was devout and that being young of age frail of sex high of condition in a Court of an Infidel King amongst so many other Pagan women she never forgat God but observed punctually as farre as it was lawfull and possible for her the exercise of her Religion making her prayers with an incredible ardour and retaining a faith inviolable in the midst of the Empire of impiety She brought the King her husband to the worship of God and to the love of her people as farre as she could perceive any disposition in him She erected a Temple in her heart having not yet the power to build one in her Kingdome and directed all her Devotions to the sacrificing of her self She was also greatly to be commended for the little care she had of her Body against the nature of that sex which often preferres their flesh before God and all Paradise This appeared evidently at that season when she was to present her self to the King the second time since that in an occasion so important wherein all other women would have had an infinite care of their habit and attire she contented her self with so small a thing and yet in her naturall grace just as a rose adorned with its own leaves she obscured all other beauties even the most tricked and pranked Her art was to have no art at all to take what nature had given her and to render all to God Furthermore she brought to Court a great Humility and a perfect submission which she never quitted being as obedient to her uncle when she had the Crown upon her head as in her lowest age she hearkned to his advice she put it in execution she despised no body but her own self The habit of a Queen was to her a burden almost insupportable and she never found more joy then in her solitude There are few women that are born without self-wilfulnesse and without opinions that augment themselves with age and increase excessively in high conditions which makes us admire this woman in contemplating nearer her deportments and seeing how little she relied upon her own self but although she was endowed with a rare wit yet she hearkned to reason and without much ado yielded to good counsel which rendred her demeanour very happy and all her negotiations most advantageous Besides all this as God had chosen her for great things so he gave her the prudence of the Saints accompanied with a good judgement with docility with providence with discretion with circumspection and with expeditnesse in the execution of affairs To this prudence was joyned a courage and an incomparable generosity even to enterprise by a motive of virtue actions so dangerous that she could expect nothing from them that was lesse then death And for to crown all these virtues she possessed farther an illustrious patience taking every thing from the hand of God and suiting her self to his will in all the successes and events of the businesses of the world Behold the principall qualities that adomed this Princesse and that may be seen in those women that God hath gratified with his favours In the sequel of this story he makes us see the brave employment that he gave her in that Court of Ahasuerus to bruise the head of a great Serpent and to deliver her Nation from a gulf of great and horrible calamities Princes and great men would be happy if without dying by procuration they might live in person They are born often enough with most excellent qualities they are calm seas and killed with riches that might do good to all the world if the winds would but let them runne according to their own nature But as the Beauties of women are courted by many Lovers so high conditions have their flatterers that under a shadow of themselves Adorers make themselves Masters and under colour of Service exercise an Empire even over those that think they command the whole Universe Their name by this means serves for a Passeport to all mischeifs their Authority for a sanctuary to crimes their Taxes for tinder to concupiscense their Power for an instrument to revenge and for a scourge to mankind This may be manifestly seen in the sequele of this History where it is said That Ahasuerus exalted Haman above all the Princes and Nobles of his Kingdome and took the wickedst man of the earth to make of him the most puissant that Crimes might have as much assistance as this Monarch had power and riches His goodnesse was seduced in this point and his too easie spirit was gained by great appearances that stole him from himself and left him nothing but a meer apparition of Dignity This Haman which he thought at first to be a Persian an honest man an able and affectionate to his service was partly an Amalekite and partly also a Macedonian a sonne of the earth that had neither God nor conscience
they preferred a flint before a pearl The first unhappinesse of his conduct was that he had not an heart for God but for his own interest and that he did not unite himself close enough to Samuel that had made him King and that was the Oracle from which he should have learned the divine Will The second was a furious State-jealousie his capitall devil that put his Reason into a disorder and infected all the pleasures and contentments of his life He was but weak to hold an Empire and govern with love and yet he loved passionately all that he could least compasse and would do every thing of his own head thinking that the assistance of a good Councel was the diminution of his Authority Sometimes he was sensible of his defects but instead of amending them he desired to take away the eyes of those men that perceived them His Spirit was little in a great body his Reason barren in a multitude of businesse his Passions violent with small reservednesse his Breakin gs out impetuous his Counsels sudden and his Life full of inequalities Samuel had prudently perceived that the Philistims were dangerous enemies to the State of Judea because they knew its weaknesse and kept it in subjection a long time depriving it of the means of thinking fully upon its liberty And therefore he maintained a peace with them and used them courteously gaining all that he could by good Treaties and would not precipitate a Warre which was to weaken the Israelites without recovery But Saul thought not himself an able man if he had not spoiled all and without making any other provision of necessary things he made a great levy of Souldiers and a mighty Army to go against the enemies in which there was but two swords It was a plot that permitted not the Hebrews to have Armorers nor other men that laboured in Iron totally to disarm them and at the least motion that they should make expose them for a pâ—ey These assaulted Philistims found him businesse enough through the whole course of his Government and Life and in the end buried him with his children in the ruines of his State But God that would give some credit to Samuel's choice sent at first prosperities to Gods people under the conduct of that new King wherein that which served for a glory to that holy man was a vain bait to Saul to make him enterprise things that could give him no other ability but to destroy himself About a moneth after his election Nahash the Ammonite raised an Army to fall upon the Jabites that were in league with the people of Israel and those seeing that they were not strong enough to resist so terrible an enemy dispatched an Embassage to him to treat about a Peace But that insolent Prince made answer to their Embassadours that he would not make any treaty of Peace with them on any other condition then by plucking out their right Eyes and covering them with a perpetuall ignominy These poor people that were reduc'd almost to a despair implored on all sides the assistance of their neighbours and failed not to supplicate to the Israelites their friends to do something in their favour Their Messengers being arriv'd at Gibeah related the sad news of the cruelty of Nahash that filled the people with fear and tears Saul returning from the fields was driving his oxen when hearing the groans of his Subjects demanded the cause of it and having been informed entred into so great a rage at the pitilesse extremities of that fierce Ammonite that he instantly tore in pieces his two oxen and sent the pieces of them through all the cities and villages of his Dominion commanding every one to follow him to revenge that injury otherwise their cattle should be dealt with as he had done with his two oxen The Israelites mov'd partly by compassion and partly also by fear of those menaces poured out themselves from all parts to this Warre in such a sort that he had got together three hundred thousand men He divided them into three Battalions and went to meet the Ammonite whom he set upon so vigorously and combated so valiantly that he totally defeated his Army and humbled that proud Giant that thought on nothing but putting out mens eyes making him know that pride goes before reproach as the lightning before the thunder All the great people that compos'd that Army returned unto their houses and Saul retained onely three thousand men whereof he gave one thousand to his son Jonathan that was a man full of spirit and generosity and farre better liked then his father Saul This Militia was too little considerable for so great enemies yet he had a courage to assault a place of the Philistims and routed their Garrison whereat they being pricked beyond measure betake themselves into the field with an Army in which there were thirty thousand chariots of warre and people without end whereat the Israelites were so affrighted that all scatter'd themselves and went to hide themselves in caves so that there remained but about six hundred men with Saul who marched with a small noise and durst not appear before his adversaries Samuel had promised to see him within seven dayes to sacrifice to God and encourage the people But Saul seeing that the seventh day was come without having any tidings of him takes himself the burnt offering offers the Sacrifice and playes the Priest without having any Mission either ordinary or extraordinary As soon as he had made an end of burning the Holocaust Samuel arrives to whom he related how that seeing all the people debauch themselves and quit the Army and how that being pressed by his enemies in a time wherein it behoved them to have recourse to prayer before they gave battle he was perswaded that God would like well enough that in the necessity and long absence of Samuel he should perform the office of a Priest by presenting the burnt offering which he had done with a good intention without pretending to usurp any thing upon his office Samuel rebuked him sharply for that action to shew that there is no pretense nor necessity that is able to justifie a sin and that it no way belongs to Lay-people to meddle with the Censer and to do the Functions that regard the Priests Then Samuel fore-told him that his Kingdome should not be stable and that God would provide himself another that should be a more religious observer of his Law thereupon he left him for a time and Saul having recollected all the people that he could endeavoured to oppose the enemy The brave Jonathan accompanied with his armour-bearer found a way to climb over rocks and to surprise a court-of-Guard of the Philistims which they thought had been inaccessible which put them in a terrible fright imagining that those that had got so farre had great forces though they did not yet appear This brought their Army into a confusion and God also putting his hand farre into the
say shall come to passe under thy Reign Behold a strange Prophecy and some body may wonder that Elisha did not cause that wicked man to be strangled that was to make all those tragedies for how many mothers are there that would have choaked their own children at their breast if they had foreseen that after they had sucked their milk they would one day assume the spirit of an hangmand to tyrannize over mankind Yet Elisha rejects not that Hazael but consecrates him King by his speech because that he knew that it was a disposition of God who would make use of him as of the rod of his fury to chastise the Idolatries of his Kings and the sins of his People All men of God have this property to submit themselves exceedingly to Gods will although it seems to will and permit things strangely lamentable In conclusion as Predictions are very ticklish and flatter the intention of those that promise themselves Empires and wonders they animate also the heart of those that have wicked undertakings and one ought never to permit any one to take consulations with Astrologers and Southsayers about the life and fortune of great men This Embassadour returning to the Court deceived his King giving him all hopes of a life and when he doubted least of death strangled him with a wet napkin paying himself with a Kingdome for a recompence of his wickednesse And although it was a disposition of God that Benhadad should be deprived of his Sceptre yet it failed not to be a crime in Hazael The last rancounter that Elisha had at Court was with King Joash who went to see him a little before his death and this Prince foreseeing that he would quickly depart out of this world said to him weeping that he was the Father the Chariot and the Conductour of his Kingdome and of all his People expressing that he was afflicted with the regret of his losse above all the things of the world But Elisha to comfort him made him take his bow and arrows and put his hand upon the Kings hand as to guide it after that he commanded the window to be set open towards Syria and caused the King to let flie an arrow which he accompanied with Propheticall words saying That it was the arrow of salvation whose feathers God himself did guide and that it was a messenger that prophesied to him that he should combate and destroy the Syrians enemies of his people After that he bad Joash again strike the ground with the point of a dart that he had in his hand which he did three times and the Prophet told him that he should carry away as many victories over the King of Syria but if he had stricken till seven times he should have ruined him even to the utmost consummation A little while after Elisha dyed with an high reputation of sanctity and an extreme regret of all the orders of the kingdome and was interred in a place where he raised afterward a dead man by the touching of his bones God rendring every thing wonderfull in him even to his very ashes It appears by all this discourse that this personage had not a Piety idle and fearfull amorous of its own small preservation without caring for the publick good but he had an heart filled with generous flames for the protection of his people and an incomparable security to shew to Princes the estate of their conscience He supported all the Realm by his prayers by his exhortations by his heroick actions and the losse of one such man was the overthrow of the prime Pillar of the State ISAIAH JEREMIAH ISAIAH THE PROPHET IEREMIAH THE PROPHET THe Prophet Isaiah hath engraved his spirit in his Book and cannot be commended more advantageously then by his works He that would make him great Elogies after so sublime a Prophecy would seem to intend to shew the Sun with a torch The things that are most excellent make themselves known by themselves as God and the Light and I may say all the words that this divine Personage hath left us are as many characters of his Immortality It is with a very just title that we put him amongst the holy Courtiers for he was born at the Court of Judea and some hold that he was the nephew of King Amasiah This birth so elevated and so many fair hopes which might flatter him to make him follow the course of the great ambitions of the world did no way shake the force of his spirit It was a soul consecrated to things Divine that sacrificed the first fires of his youth by the most pure flames of Angels Never did Prophet enter into that Ministery with more authority and disposition of heaven He had a sublime vision in which he saw the Majesty of God seated upon a Throne of Glory environ'd with Seraphims that were transported through the admiration of his greatnesse God in person created him his Prophet the Seraphim a messenger of the sovereign power purified his lips with a Carbuncle from whence proceeded a celestiall fire that if he had got any pollutions at the Court where tongues are so free they might be taken away by that sacred touch He offered himself to God with an heart full of chearfulnesse to carry his word before Kings and Subjects without fearing their menaces or their furies And he acquitted himself all his life time worthily of that duty and prophesied more then fourscore and ten years not ceasing to exhort to counsel to rebuke to instruct to comfort and to perform all the exercises of his charge His Eloquence is as elevated as his birth he speaks every where like a King with a speech firm lofty and thundering that passes all the inventions of man When he threatens and fore-tells the calamities of Nations it is so much lightning kindled by the breath of Seraphims that proceeds out of this Divine mouth that pierces the rocks that shakes the mountains that crushes the highest cedars into dust the nations into fear and the Kings into respect When he comforts they are rivers of milk and honey that flow from his tongue and spread themselves with incomparable sweetnesses into afflicted hearts When he describes the perfections and the reign of the Messias they are the amorous extasies of a spirit melted by the heats of Jesus that strikes burns and penetrates him more then seven hundred years before his Birth The holinesse of his Life marched alwayes hand in hand with his Doctrine He was a man dead to all worldly things that lived but by the raptures of his deified spirit He loved singularly the poor and comforted them in all their necessities He spake to Kings and reproved their sins with an heroick constancy worthy of his Bloud and Ministery At the same time as Romulus began the Court of Rome Isaiah saw that of Judea where he experimented great changes and strange diversities according to the revolutions of humane things He passed his youth under his uncle Amasiah who
reveals to me nor speak any more in his name but then I selt a fire boiling in my heart that was shut up in the marrow of my bones and I fell into a swoon and could not endure the violence of my thoughts without unloading my self by the tongue and publishing that which you inspired into me And for this behold me reduced to irons And have I not good cause to say that which miserable men use to say That the day of my nativity in regard of originall sin and so many calamities that spring from that source is lamentable and cursed and that it were to be wished that the womb of my mother that bare me had been my sepulchre Wherefore did I come out of the bowels of a woman to be a spectatour of so many sorrows and so much confusion The Saints speak sometimes like men according to the sense of the inferiour part of the soul especially when they see themselves overwhelmed with great evils but God raises them up immediately and makes them resume the tongue of heaven As the Prophet was deploring his miseries in that dark prison God gave lights and remorses to his persecutour that came the next day to deliver him either through some compassion or because he had attempted that beyond the limits of his authority The prisoner instead of expressing some kind of weaknesse spake more boldly then before fore-telling even to Pashur that he should be led captive into Babylon and that he should die there the other not daring to enterprise any thing against him After that very time Jeremy betook himself to the Palace to speak with the King and with the Queen his wife to advertise them of the utmost misery that menaced their Crown if they did not make an entire conversion to God to give an example to their Subjects Besides this he gave some State-counsel and told the King that since God had permitted that he should be subdued by the Arms of the King of Babylon that had put him on the Throne and to whom he had promised Faith Homage and Tribute he should do well to keep his promises inviolable rather then to adhere to the King of Egypt and expect the assistance of his Arms. This was the most important point of State that concerned the safety of all the kingdome Neverthelesse King Zedekiah whose spirit was a little soft hearkned to the advice and took sometimes fire but it was but for a little time he being no way constant in his good resolves When he saw himself menaced with a siege by the King of the Babylonians he was affrighted and inclined a little to his side but assoon as he perceived that he diverted his arms another way he brake his promised faith being weary of the rigour of the Tributes that the other exacted of him Thereupon Jeremy ceased not to publish that it was an errour to expect that the army of Pharaoh King of Egypt which was reported to be upon its march to help Jerusalem should do any good that it should return upon its own steps without enterprising any thing that Nebuchadonozor was not so farre off but that in a small time he would render himself before the city to besiege and win it That it was a decree of God and although the Army of the Chaldeans should be defeated yet those that remained though wounded and sick should be sufficient to take Jerusalem abandoned of the Divine protection When he had spoken this publickly he resolved to retire himself for a time and to go into the countrey but he was taken at the gate of the city by Irijah that accused him falsly and said that he was going to render himself to the army of the Chaldeans whereupon he carried him under a good guard to the Magistates who having beaten and ill used him sent him to prison where he remained many dayes without consolation At last the King having heard of what had happen'd to him caused him to come secretly to him and spake to him to conjure him to tell the truth whether those Predictions that he ceased not to sow in the ears of all the world were Revelations from God whereof the Prophet assured him again and gave him some good incitement to incline to the most wholesome counsels Poor Jeremy seeing this Prince use him kindly said unto him Alas Sir what have I done and in what have I offended your Majesty to be used as a rogue by those that usurp your authority What crime have I committed by telling you the truth Where are your false Prophets that said that there was no need to fear the coming of Nebuchadonozor and that he had other businesse to dispatch is he not at length come to verifie my Prophecies Since you do me the honour at present to hear me My Lord and my Master hearken to my most humble request and grant me a courtesie that I desire of you in the Name of God which is that I may no more return into the prison out of which your Majesty hath caused me to be drawn for the continuation of the evils that I have suffered there is able suddenly to tear my soul from my body and it will be but a grief to you to deliver me to death for having given you counsels of life and safety The King was softned by the words of the Prophet but he was so timorous that he durst not take the boldnesse to cause a prisoner to be delivered by his absolute authority fearing the reproaches and out-cryes of those that would have the upper end in all affairs He caused onely the goaler to be bid to use him a little kindlier taking him out of the black dungeon to give him a place more reasonable and to have a care that in that great famine of the city he should not want bread This was executed and he staid some time at the entrance of the prison with a little more liberty during which he spake again to those that visited him and said freely That there was no way to escape the sacking of the city but by rendring themselves to the Chaldeans This made Pashur and his complices incensed again with a great wrath and speak insolently to the King that Jeremy might be delivered to them publishing that he was worthy of death that he was a seditious fellow that did nothing but make the people mutiny and separate them from their obedience to him The miserable Zedekiah that had let these men take too high an ascendent upon his person had not strength of spirit enough to resist them but against his conscience abandoned his poor Prophet to them although it was with some regret These wicked men having taken him let him down with cords into a deep pit of the prison which was full of mire and filth where he expired the remainder of his deplorable life and had dyed there of miseries if God had not raised him up a protectour of whom he never so much as dreamed There was in
dinner of Locusts and wild Honey retired in his Cabben then at the fight of the pomps and pleasures of the King of Galilee But God that is the Master of Kings and the Directour of Hermites hath thus disposed of him and willed that he should dye at Court after he had so long a time lived in the wildernesse It is not certainly known what occasion drove him to it whether he went thither by zeal or whether he was sent for by design or whether he was forced by violence Some think that the miseries of his countrey afflicted under the government of a dissolute Prince affecting him with a great Compassion He went out of the desert of his own accord to admonish the king of his duty Since that all those that came neer him and that were obliged to speak to him were mute partly by a servitude fatall to all those that are tyed to the hopes of the world and partly also being seized with fear by reason of the power and cruelty of a womans spirit that possessed Herod Others as Josephus have written that the Prince hearing every day of the great concourse of all sorts of people that went to the wildernesse to see Saint John was afraid lest under colour of piety this might make some change of State Tyrants love not men endowed with an extraordinary virtue and that have not learnt the trade of flattering their voyce is the Cock that frights those cruell Lyons their life is a flash of Lightning that dazles their Eyes their actions are as many Convictions of their Iniquity And therefore this Authour saith that without other form of processe Herod caused him to be apprehended to prevent him and break off those assemblies that were made about him Yet it is probable and more consonant to the Scripture which assures us that this Prince bare some respect to John and heard him and did many things according to his advice that he proceeded not against him at first with so much violence But the cunning Fox as he was according to the judgement that the Eternall Truth made of him seeing that Saint John was in an high esteem for holinesse and in great credit amongst the people strived to winne him and to draw him to him to make himself be reputed for a good Prince that cherished honest men and to maintain by this means his authority that was already rottering and little rooted in the true Maximes of a good Government It was thus that Dionysius the Tyrant made use of the Philosophers not for any affection that he bare them but to appropriate them to the bad intentions that he had in State and to give them some colour by the expresse or interpreted approbation of those personages that were in reputation for their wisdome But Herod did ill choose his man this was not a Court-flatterer a Tool for all Trades a Shoe for all Feet but a stiffe and austere man to whom a whole World would not have given the least temptation to do any thing against his conscience It would be a superfluous thing to enlarge ones self at length upon the rare qualities of Saint John who having been many times highly commended by the Creatour of Virtues and the Distributour of true praises who hath preferred him above the greatest of the world seems to have dryed up by his abundance the Elogies of the most eloquent Let us content our selves to say that there are abundance of excellencies in him enough to make all chaires speak and all pens write even to the end of the world He was born of the blood of Aaron the brother of Moses the first ornament of the Priesthood and the great Conductour of the People He came out of a barren Womb which he rendered fruitfull above all fecundities of the earth His birth was declared miraculously by the voyce of an Archangell He was sanctified almost as soon as conceived and virtue appropriated him to her self before that nature had brought him to the Light He was a worshipper of the word when he was yet in the bowels of his mother and received the first rayes of the everlasting day before that his eye was open to the brightnesse of the Sun Reason was advanced to him by a wonder altogether extraordinary He hath had this honour to know first after the Virgin Mary the news of that high mystery of the Incarnation and of the Redemption of the world Of all the Nativities of so many children of Adam the Church celebrates none but that of John who hath this common with our Saviour and his most holy Mother who by a speciall priviledge honoured his birth by her actuall presence So that he saw his first day under the aspect of the Mother of the Universe His name was given him by an Archangell a name of grace and favour that shewed he was placed in the ranke of the dearest delights of Heaven and the tongue of his dumb Father tyed by an heavenly virtue was loosed by its power that it might pronounce that fair name He was exempted from grievous sins and as many Divines hold even from veniall He consecrated his retirement in the Desert almost as soon as he entered into the world Farthermore he was a Prophet and more then a Prophet a Virgin a Doctour a forerunner of the Son of God the Trumpet of Repentance the Authour of a Baptisme that ushered in that which regenerates us all whereof Jesus was pleased to receive the sprinckling In fine he was the Horizon of the Gospel and the Law and the first that shewed with the finger the Lamb of God and the Kingdome of Heaven But let us make no reckoning of what I have alleaged but let us say onely that which the word hath said of him That he was not a Reed to bow at every wind nor a man that could be allured by the delicacies of the Court He spake there as a Prophet he conversed there as an Angell and at last dyed there as a Martyr The time furnished him with an occasion about which he could not speak without making much noyse and he could not hold his peace without betraying his Conscience That Herod Antipas which we are to speak of here was the sonne of the great Herod the Murtherer of the Innocents and of a Samaritan woman who after the death of his Father forasmuch as the Legitimate issue of Mariamne had been unworthily murthered to make way for unjust heirs had for his part of the Kingdome of Judea Galilee which he held in quality of a Tetrarch He was a Prince of a small courage addicted to his pleasures lascivious and loose that endeavoured to preserve himself by poor shifts having nothing stout nor warlike in his person He had a brother named Philip which held another parcell of that Kingdome of Judea dismembred and little enough considerable the Romans having possessed themselves of the best part of it after they had deposed Archelaus that had reigned as Successour of his
was wished him on the birth of his son did make answer that there needed not such acclamations for nothing could be born from him and Agrippina but what should be pernicious to the Empire Not long after this unfortunate man did die consumed with diseases that attended his filthy life and left behind him his son three years of age who saw his mother banished and being destitute of means was brought up in the house of his Aunt Lepida under the discipline of a dancer and a barber who did corrupt his spirit with the first impressions of vice which from his birth he was too much disposed to receive The times changing his mother returned into favour and by her charms prevailed upon the spirit of the Emperour Claudius the successour of Caligula a simple and The perfidiousnesse of his mother a stupid man who espoused this dangerous woman who afterwards poisoned him by a potion and so placed her own son on the Throne of the Cesars And although the Astrologians had fore-told her that he should be Emperour and withall the murderer of his mother she made nothing of it and thought it no hard bargain to buy the Empire with her own bloud saying Let him reign and let him kill me By the artifice of this wicked woman Nero was saluted Emperour in the seventeenth year of his age with a marvellous applause and in the publick acclamations honoured with all great Names and specious Titles all which he received saving onely that of Father of his Countrey saying He was too young to have so many children He was very tractable in his youth upright gentle discreet well-spoken and demean'd himself for the first five years very worthily under the conduct of Seneca But when he approached to the one and twentieth year of his age the ingredients of vice which with his birth he brought into the world the base education in his infancy the heat of his youth the delights of the Court and which is the greatest of all temptations the Power to do all did weigh down the Philosophy and the Instructions of Seneca who proved by experience That there is nothing more difficult then to perswade those to virtue whom too much Power had put in the possession of all vices His deboistnesse began by the ill examples which he learned in his infancy which were altogether unbeseeming his person he became a Tumbler a Puppet-player a Comedian a Waggoner a Songster and a Minstrel not for Recreation but to make a publick Profession of it to dispute with the Masters of those Faculties and to abandon all the affairs of Peace and Warre to be vacant to those exercises insomuch that he made it more to out-act a Comedian on the stage then to gain a Battle in the field He was also a night-walker and gave and sometimes received many sore blows which did not permit him to passe unknown From hence he laid himself open to most extravagant profusenesse insomuch that he gave to Tumblers the patrimonies of Consuls and made the funeralls of some inconsiderable men to equall the Magnificence of the Obsequies of Kings he never did wear the most gorgeous garments longer then one day He did build his Palaces with so much cost as if he would dispend on them onely all the wealth of Rome When he travelled he would be followed with a thousand caroaches and his mules were all shod with silver He made his halls after the form of the firmament where the vault being of gold intermingled with azure and illuminated with counterfeit starres did roul continually over his head and rained on him showers of flowers and waters of a most exquisite smell There would he dine from noon till midnight in the riot of execrable services He had a touch in his tender age of the vices of wantonnesse luxury avarice and cruelty but being in the beginning it was with some shame concealed in private But in the end he took off that mask by an open and inordinate dissolutenesse which knew no restraint He was of belief that there was not one chaste person in the world and took great pleasures in those who did repeat their filthinesse to him There was never man more abandoned to all manner of uncleannesse without distinction of kindred sex time place or man-hood There was not one part in all his body that was not sacrificed to dishonesty his polluted spirit made him invent those abominations which are not to be indured by chaste ears and with which I will not defile my paper The excesse of his insolencies did at last render him odious to those who were most near unto him and when they gently told him of his extravagancies he would leap into a fury and made a crime of their virtue who did best advise him He filled up the apprenticeship of his enormities with the death of Britannicus a young Prince the sonne of the Emperour His cruelty towards Britannicus Claudius and brother to his wife Octavia in which he imployed the most famous Sorceresse of Rome named Locusta who prepared the poyson and made an assay of it before him on a sucking pig who died immediately now finding it for his turn caused it to be served to his brother as he dined at the table with him The malignity of the poyson was so piercing that in an hour after he fell dead at the feet of his mother and his sister who were both present at this tragick spectacle Nero to excuse himself said That it was the effect of a great sicknesse to which he had been subject from his cradle and that they ought to be of comfort But the Princesses concealing their imagination for fear of provoking his rage did manifestly perceive that he sowed those seeds of his murder which he would afterwards continue in his Family It is almost impossible to believe the tender affection The love to his mother degenerated to misprision with which he prosecuted his mother Agrippina He sometimes did give to the souldiers that did guard his body for their word The good Mother He could not live without her He did put into her hands the most delicate interests of all his Affairs and desired that all things should stoop to her Authority The mother also did indeavour by all possible artifices to tie her self unto his person even unto the using of Charms for it is most certain that she gave him the skin of a serpent inclosed in a bracelet of gold which he carried ordinarily about him and afterwards in despite did lay it by and did look for it not long before his death but could not find it The endearments of this Agrippina were too fond and her kisses more hot then belonged to a mother Seneca was amazed at the horrour of it and to Seneca by a lesse evil diverts a greater avoid a greater evil he procured a young maiden named Acta who otherwise was a slave that came from Asia but very beautifull to serve as a
whole Negotiation to the Queen and trust to none to whom she had not spoken and openly testified her desires In the mean time the Earl of Leicester who had promised to speak unto her and who onely could give a fair colour to the estate of that Marriage to perswade Elizabeth to incline unto it did deferre to speak unto her from day to day and being importuned to it by the violent sollicitations of the Duke he counterfeited himself sick and continued in a malignant silence He knew very well that to ruin a good busines The fury of Elizabeth we must make use of an indiscreet tongue he therefore permitted that some Ladies who for the most part with curiosity enough do deliver the secrets of lovers should report the first news of it unto the Queen This was to put her spirit upon the Rack and to torment her in the most sensible part She who was extreamly jealous on any motions that were made unto her concerning the Queen of Scotland and would grow into a fury upon the least discourse that did reflect upon her right unto the Crown finding her self assaulted at one time by two strong passions did enter into a rage that cannot be represented Her spirit which naturally was formed for dissimulation could not now conceal it self but she did let fall some words unto the Duke of Norfolk telling him That although he slept softly upon a cushion be should take care it was not taken from him And immediately upon it leaving off these riddles she sharply reproved him for presuming on the marriage with the Queen of Scotland without first acquainting her with it The Duke made answer That he never attempted any thing of himself without attending her pleasure and commandement and that he gave an express charge to the Earl of Liecester to acquaint her with it and to desire her condiscent unto it but perceiving her Majesty was averse unto it he would willingly forbear any further suit having no other aim but to rule his life and fortunes according unto her intentions On this promise she departed from him and went to look out the Earl of Liecester who was the Master of the Guard of the Chamber who understanding that she was advertised that the secret of the marriage was deposed in his brest he was suddenly possessed with a great fear which made him look pale and tremble in the presence of the Queen whom he prevented and with tears in his eyes besought her to excuse him that he had not acquainted her with it because he said he waited an opportunity to find her in a good humour to give the less trouble to her mind which is found before to be too much disquited His counterfeit sickness his pale colour but above all the inordinate affection which Elizabeth did bear unto him did at that time save him from the thunder of her Choler But poor Norfolk did presently behold himself abandoned by his friends discountenanced by the Queen followed spied persecuted and at last confined to the Tower of London Not long after there were scaffolds made in the The horrible Catastrophe of the Duke of Norfolk great Palace a Tribunal was planted and seats were made one both sides of it for the Commissioners to sit who were to be his Judges He was brought to the Bar by two Knights before whom an Ax was carried the back whereof was turned towards the accused The Earl of Talbot was made President of the Court and sate on the Judgement seat and on both sides of him there were ranked a considerable number of Judges and Counsellours After that their Commission was read the Duke was cited and accused to have endeavoured to dispossess Queen Elizabeth and to set the Queen of Scotland on her Throne To hold great intelligence with the Pope and forreign Princes enemies to the Crown of England and with his possession to have assisted the enemies of the State with many more particulars The poor Duke was much amazed to see himself so suddenly invested with so dangerous an accusation and charged with so many Articles He desired that he might be allowed Counsel to draw up his justification but it was refused and being demanded to answer readily to the Crimes of which he was accused he replied very innocently I commend my self to God and to my Peers The Atrocity of the Crimes do amaze me but the Royal Clemency of her Majesty which hath conferred favours on me beyond my hope doth again incourage me I beseech you my Lord President that I may have right done unto me and that my memory may not be too much oppressed with the variety of confused complaints I acknowledge my self happy to have you my Peers to be my Judges and most willingly do commit my life to the integrity of the greatest part of you assuring you on my innocence that I will not faulter with you and though I do ingeniously acknowledge that I have not altogether directed my actions according to an exact rule of Justice yet so it is that I have not offended her Majesty At that time there was one Barret Advocate General to the Queen a violent man bold against those who were fearfull and fearfull of those who were bold who to shew his abilities and the zeal which he did bear to the service of his Mistress did vigorously proceed against the Duke and did perplex him with multitudes of words The good Duke who knew better how to handle his sword than his tongue and had withall but an uncertain memory did defend his honour and his life as well as he could but his party was no way equal so much Authority perfidiousnes and malice did pour down upon him that he was not able to wade through it At the last he was commanded to withdraw that they might advise upon his sentence and on his return they shewed the edge of the Ax towards him to carry him before hand the sad news of the sentence of his death which condemned him to be drawn upon a sledge unto the Gibbet to be there hanged drawn and quartered This sentence did startle him at the horrour of it and produced from him these expressions Sentence is here pronounced against me as a Traitour but I do trust in God the Queen I hope though I am deprived of your company I shall rejoyce in that which is in Heaven in that assurance I will prepare my self for death I desire nothing of the Queen but onely that she will be favourable to my Children and my servants and that there may be care taken for the discharge of my debts Some moneths afterwards the sentence of death being a little moderated he was brought to the place of execution where he died like a Divine rather than a Souldier preaching to the people and accusing himself that he treated on the marriage with the Queen of Scotland without acquainting his own Queen with it He also accused himself of having seen letters written
not sending their terrour unto the labouring world have attained unto solid and unshaken honour What forbiddeth you to follow what retardeth your emulation There is one rock which is often to be feared unto which the cares and cogitations of some Politick men who differ much from your Piety do cleave They think if the administrations of the Publick should be regulated by the law of God and the judgement of pious men they would become base low and unesteemed they would be exposed to prey and direption and is he penitent I insult not doth he crave audience I grant accesse doth he submit his neck my mercy shall meet his submission At the destruction of Cannae Hannibal was heard to say Miles parce ferro Marcellus wished he could quench the flames of burning Syracusa with his tears Titus with erected hands and eyes to heaven wept over the prostrate carcasses of the Jews What should be then the most decent and laudable behaviour of a Christian King towards a subdued and almost suppliant Enemy Should he strut with pride Should he inebriate himself with passion Or should he strengthen his fury to an utter desolation The more generous beasts abhorre this practice Vast and inexorable wraths should not cohabit with royall mind many things are to be pardoned to humane frailty many things to ignorance something truly to affection but all things to repentance It behoves him to preserve many even to the prejudice of their obstinate or erroneous wit neither are all those to be heard that are resolved to perish Errour illaqueates some men and Opinion sets the complection upon the procedures of most men others are ensnared by the counsels of a treacherous vigilancy and some there are who have no fault but their fortune His pardon he will extend and communicate to many whosoever can really desire to obtain from God his own pardon Further I adde that those reasons which are produced as subservient to the attainment of a just end ought themselves also to be legitimate otherwise the foundations may be firm yet the superstructures may totter That is not good which is not well done the means we use must be as innocent and unreproveable as our meaning That which knoweth no mediocrity I know not how to term a virtue A depraved intention by a kind of contageous force ever infected the most austere and sacred conduct of affairs subdolous inventions also and crafty artificers shade and eclipse the beauty of sincere intentions Grosse and scandalous is their errour who having proposed to themselves some laudable mark are little sollicitous of the arrows they shoot They who have trusted to this footing have many of them slipt and dasht themselves against such a rock of absurdities as hath endangered their brains I shall instance in those who have thought that health might be innocently purchased from the Devils themselves by the virtue of Magicall forms and that this is the safety which the Divine Oracles pronounce we may acquire from our enemies But Paul is peremptory in the confutation hereof saying That evil must not be done that good may come thereof No man is mercifull by thefts nor charitable by surreptitious gains no innocent person seeketh convalescence by wicked accommodations To go to War is lawfull to kill is lawfull when you are backt with the Authority of your Prince and seconded with a just Cause but on the contrary to do injustice is never not unlawfull We may incline and bow the ears of the Deity to a condescendence but we may not sollicit hell for Auxiliaries we may not contemerate things sacred nor violate the Divine Charters of the Church we may not subvert Religion nor contaminate Chastity we must not attempt facinorous art nor invade the lives of Princes with poniards or venomous potions we ought not to destroy Military Discipline by transgressing the Rights of Warfare nor adventure upon certain villains to promote a desperate ambition That Warre ceaseth to be just however pretended to have a just beginning when the future events are intermixed with palpable injustice and being well begun if they degenerate into evil progressions they ought speedily to have an end We are faln by degrees greatest Princes upon the matter intended of which it is your part to judge and from sound deliberations to provide for the felicity of Christians both Temporall and Eternall Your Authority is or ought to be unquestioned and your disposednesse of mind and intentions what can they be in good Princes but unsuspected but the Cause is perplexed and involved yet the Reasons that seem to conspire the end are violent A fierce and cruel Warre is carried on among you exercised in the besieging of Cities acquainted with destructions terrible for its monstrous spreadings under which the Church laboureth the wishes of the oppressed evaporate into sighs and the convulsed world mourneth it hath not proceeded in an ordinary way nor is it continued after a humane manner Sift out if you please the causes and weigh diligently with your selves the occasions of such an amazing tumult If at any time we behold things natural acting within the limits of their prescriptions this doth not elevate our considerations to a wonder but when we see them irritated by some vehement impetuosity or the determined confinements of Natures Law to be perverted we suspect some hidden force within which suddenly bursteth forth and is circumfused from whence such various motions do arise As often as we see the winds to be ordinarily stirred we either judge it to be some breath or exhalation or we conjecture that the air hath a naturall faculty to move it self lest it should become dull and torpid in an inagitable Globe but as often as we behold boisterous tempests to arise by the sharp and violent conflicts of the winds which compell vast trees from their roots and level strong built houses with the ground which devour whole navies and shake the foundations of the world we ascribe these to the aiery Principalities dissipated through the regions of the Earth In like mnaner when Warres are managed among men in their accustomed forms we attribute these to the ambitious designs of men to cholerick temperaments and to the easie impatience of an objected contumely but if they exceed proportion and example also we suspect that there is some undiscovered origin of evils transcending our understandings and astonishing our senses He that will duly and sadly weigh the matter will confesse this of such a cruel Warre for it is not actuated with a civil mind neither hath it those decencies and Military ornaments which are wont to accompany great minds but it is tainted with a virulent malignity which devoureth both parts and creeping as it were with a slow contabescence it eats up all things the Countreys are in a mourning estate the Cities are dejected the Bloud of gallant men is prodigally wasted the choicest flowers of the Nobility are destinated to butchery and the shambles of prevailing Rebels private