Apostles The Pretended quite contrary faigning they honour Saints as one would Socrates or Phocion perpetually mock thereat break down their images call them by the name of idols and false gods The Catholick Church holdeth man hath free wil Genes 4. Deut. 30. Eccl. 15. supported in this article upon so many passages of Scripture The Pretended dispoil man of all liberty which is to destroy the worth of his conditions and to deprive him of the best part of his essence The Catholick Church holdeth the bloud of our Saviour is a treasure infinite and very able to purge away all manner of evil and to merit all good but that it is applyed to us by works of satisfaction and merit and purgative pains in those who stand in need of it as a medicine which profiteth the sick man by the co-operation he bringeth The Pretended teacheth good works are not necessary to salvation but onely faith justifies which is to open a gate to the corruption of good manners and to all kind of liberty The Catholick Church believes a Purgatory for souls which going out of the bodie are not yet purified grounded therein on 19. or 20. passages of Scripture all understood by the ancient Fathers according to our belief The Pretended having disturbed the ashes of the dead deprive them of the assistance and prayers of the living contrary to divine and humane laws and the manifest practice of all antiquity The Catholick Church makes a Sacrament of marriage according to S. Paul and the interpretation of most eminent Fathers of the Church The Pretended make their marriages like those of Barbarians The Catholick Church holdeth the reality of the body of CHRIST in the Sacrament of the Altar and believe that under the Sacramental species which are sensible and corruptible our Saviour subsisteth with a glorious body which is called by S. Paul a spiritual body because it is dignified with qualities and conditions of spirit though it loose not the essence of a body She adoreth therein with all humility that which she cannot comprehend sufficiently after express passages of Scripture the decision of fourty Councels the testimony of five hundred Authours ancient grave and sincere Adding from the authority of the most illustrious Councel of Nice that it is the unbloudy Sacrifice presented for the expiation of the sins of the world The Pretended will place in stead of it chimaeraes imaginary figments cessation of Sacrifices and abominable desolation The Catholick Church publisheth confession and remission of sins by the ministery of Priests as the Son of God did institute it in S. John The Pretended shaking off so wholsom a yoak hath made himself a John 10. way to liberty and dissolution The Catholick Church acknowledgeth a visible Head on earth established by the express word of Jesus Christ in S. Matthew averred by all the holy Fathers Matth. 15. confessed by the continuation of a lawful succession in the revolution of so many Ages The Pretended seek to bring into the house of God an anarchy of the children of Belial The Catholick Church is the bright star of truths The Pretended is a furious Comet which throws disorder and poyson into all the parts of the world To say truly should an Angel have spoken to it yea could it create a golden Age never might this design be accomplished by ways so furious and turbulent But having cost France so much gold and bloud what hath it done but that which is mentioned by the excellent pen of Cardinal Berule in the Preface of the greatness of Jesus A Church without Apostles Apostles without mission Pastours without sheep sheep without Shepheards Faithful without Churches Christians without Baptism Prophets without miracles Temples without Altars Altars without Sacrifices a Religion without ceremonies a Law without obedience a Faith without works and a Charity without effects Behold excellent pieces and well worthy of a reformed Church In the name of God weigh at leisure these considerations Humamum fuit errare diabolicum per animositatem in errore manere August de verbis Apost serm which would deserve a whole volume and since you are convinced by reason kick no longer against the prick go no more about to forge difficulties nor say how shall I put this in execution What means have I to do it What will such and such say What will our whole side say in general Must I confess I have erred and a thousand other thoughts which are true illusions You shall no sooner set your foot in the Roman Catholick Church with so many men of note lately converted but all these fantasies will vanish you shall live in peace of conscience and shall receive before God glory immortal O that we might quickly see that great day wherein France may no longer speak but with one tongue wherein the names of Lutherans and Calvinists may be banished out of the memories of men wherein all French-men reunited under one faith one law one Head one Church may eternally bless the name of Jesus What joy what comfort what embracements of both sides what consolation for so much afflicted kindred which waste themselves with grief and sorrow for these poor straglers what satisfaction for the sacred person of the King what honour for France what peace for the Church what edification for all the world what triumphs for Heaven what blessings of God will fall upon their heads who shall give example of this reunion and shall consent to the peace safety and honour of this Monarchy The third OBSTACLE To live by Opinion THe tree of the knowledge of good and evil Over much wit troubleth us doth also yield fruits which cost us very dear we labour here with too much application of wit which goeth up and down searching and prying into all the objects of the world often forsaking the better for the worse S. Thomas most judiciously S. Them 1. 2. quaest 8. observeth that there is much difference between the natural appetite the sensual and the intellectual The natural aimeth always at things which are really Intellectual appetite faulty good for her and proportionable the sensual is scattered the intellectual much more to desire evil plaistered over with the semblance of good The plant desireth moysture with which it is nourished and will never take a stone for the dew Man having too much wit and sense not contenting himself with things that really are good and truly consonant to his nature forgetteth others in his idea which are good in apparance and evil in substance Notwithstanding apparence taketh upon her when Apparence she hath seduced the sense and conquered the imagination to dive even into the Cabinet of the Prince which is the understanding and putting false spectacles upon his eyes to make him believe that black is white glass is diamond and darkness light It is necessary that the will should dance to this tune and pursue the good which is represented unto her by the
1. dist 41. Manifest reason the will of God could not be unjust and that praedestination proceeded besides the grace of God by most secret merits which were discovered to this divine eye that discerneth all the actions of men 4. Is there a soul so replenished with contradiction which averreth not That what God doth in a certain time he determined to do it in his eternity Now Faith teacheth us he in that time by him determined rendereth life eternal to the just for reward of their merit as himself pronounceth in S. Matthew (c) (c) (c) Matth. 25. Answer to objections And therefore it is necessary to confess God before all Ages was resolved to give the Crown of glory not indifferently but in consideration of good life and laudable virtues And for this it is to no purpose to say the end of our intentions goeth before the means whereby some infer God first decreed beatitude which is the end then considered good works which are the address to this end For I answer when the end possesseth the place of salary as this here doth the merit is always presupposed before the recompence And although the Master of a Tourneament wisheth the prize to one of his favourites yet his first intention is he shall deserve it by his valour God taketh the like inclinations in this great list of salvation he wisheth all the world palms but willeth it to them who well know how to make use of the helps of his grace Thus the most ancient and gravest Fathers of the The doctrine of the most ancient Fathers concerning praedestination Church thought this sentence they agreed on before the impostures of Pelagians in the golden Age of the Church through a most purified ray And to this purpose Tertullian said (d) (d) (d) Tertul. de resur carnis Deus de suo optimus de nostro justus God who is very good of his own was ever just of ours And S. Hilarie said most perspicuously (e) (e) (e) Hilar. in Psal 64. Non res indiscreti judicii electio est sed ex delectu meriti discretio est That Election was not an effect of judgement indiscreet but that from the choice of merit proceeded the distinction made for glorie S. Epiphanius expressed the like opinion That there was no exception of persons in the proceeding of God but that it passed according to the merit or demerit of every one Behold what we may gather from the soundest tradition of the Church (f) (f) (f) The second point of reasons That God is glorified in that he hath our works for praedestination to glory But if we now weigh the second Article whereon we insist which is the glory of God it is an easie matter to see this opinion which appropriateth a certain fatality of divine decrees without other knowledge of cause agreeth not with this immense bounty of God nor the sincere will he hath to save all the world It is not suitable to his justice nor to his promises or menaces he makes to virtues or vices besides it tormenteth minds weakens the zeal of souls and throweth liberty and despair into manners Why should not a miserable reprobate have cause The complaint a Reprobate may make hereupon to say Ah my Lord where are the bowels of goodness and mercy which all pens testifie all voices proclaim and laws establish Is it then of honey for others and of worm-wood for me How cometh it to pass without any knowledge of merit you drew this man from the great mass of corruption to make him a son of your adoption a coheir of your glory and have left me as a black victim marked with a character of Death What importeth it me that in this first choice you made you did not condemn me without knowledge of cause to think no good for me was to think ill enough for me Was I then able to row against the torrent of your power Could I intrude into your Paradise which you have fitly disposed like the Halcyons nest whereunto nothing can enter but its own bird You have built your Palace of a certain number of chosen pieces in such sort that the account thereof being made and proportions valued one small grain might not be added to encrease the number What could I do in this dreadfull exclusion but accuse your bounty and deplore my unhappiness Behold what a reprobate soul may object and Aug. de verbo Apost ser 11. Si posset loquipecus dicere Deo quare istum fecisti hominem me peculem Answer to objections Glossa in Danielem it were bootless to answer that a bruit beast might complain in this fashion that God had not made it a man or the like might be alledged for infants who die without Baptism For as concerning beasts nothing is taken from them rather much given when from nothing being and life is afforded them with contentments of nature and as for little infants they endure no evil and are no more disturbed to be deprived of the sight of God than was Nebuchadnezzar for the Scepter of Babylon when he in his infancy was bred among shepheards thinking himself the son of a Peasant and wholly ignorant of his Royal extraction But to say A man who dies at the age of discretion and is delivered over to eternal flames was condemned by God without any other fore-sight of his works is it not a cruelty not worthy of ought but Calvinism as if a father might be excusable in marrying one daughter richly and cutting the others throat to set her on a pyle He who would judge wisely must flie the very shadow of an opinion so damnable and all which may seem to favour it 6. Now as concerning the Doctrine which establisheth The fruits of Gods glory derived from our Maxim Praedestination upon grace and prevision of good works it seems to stretch far towards the point of Gods greatest glory It discovereth us his science in attributing unto him an infinite survey over all the actions of Adams children before all Ages by which it seasonably fore-saw all that was to be done by all particulars in so great a revolution of times It in an instant affordeth us this most innocent knowledge seeing we learn by the same way that the prescience which God hath of our works is no more the cause of our happiness than my memory of the fireing of Rome which happened under Nero or than mine eye of the whiteness of snow and fresh verdure of meadows by its simple aspects Nothing happeneth because God fore-saw Qui non est praescius omnium futurorum non est Deus Aug. de civit Dei l. 5. c. 9. it but God fore-saw it because it should so happen by motion of our free-will and not by the laws of necessity Moreover the Justice of the great Master is very eminent in this action for we do not say he works at random and seeks to make boast
on thy part what ingratitudes on mine Preserve me in what is thine and wash away with the precious bloud of thy Son what is mine Shelter me under the wings of thy protection from so many shadows apparitions and snares of the father of darkness and grant that though sleep close my eys yet my heart may never be shut to thy love Lastly fall asleep upon some good thought that your night as the Prophet saith may be enlightened with the delights of God and if you chance to have any interruption of sleep supply it with ejaculatory prayers and elevations of heart as the just did of old called for this reason The crickets of the night Thus shall you lead a life full of honour quiet and satisfaction to your self and shall make every day a step to Eternity The marks which may amongst others give you good hope of your predestination are eleven principall 1. Faith lively simple and firm 2. Purity of life exempt ordinarily from grievous sins 3. Tribulation 4. Clemency and mercy 5. Poverty of spirit disengaged from the earth 6. Humility 7. Charity to your neighbour 8. Frequentation of the blessed Sacrament 9. Affection to the word of God 10. Resignation of your own mind to the will of your Sovereign Lord. 11. Some remarkable act of virtue which you have upon occasion exercised You will find this Diary little in volume but great in virtue if relishing it well you begin to put it in practice It contains many things worthy to be meditated at leisure for they are grave and wise precepts choisely extracted out of the moral doctrine of the Fathers Though they seem short they cost not the less pains Remember that famous Artist Myrmecides employed more time to make a Bee than an unskilfull workman to build a house EJACULATIONS FOR THE DIARY In the Morning MY voice shalt thou hear in the morning O Lord In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee and will look up Psal 5. 3. Thou shalt make thy face to shine upon me and all the beasts of the forest shall gather themselves together and lay them down in their dens Psal 184. 22. My dayes are like the dayes of an hireling Untill the day break and the shadows flie away Job 7. 1. Cant. 4. 6. Beginning a good work In the volume of the book it is written of me I delight to do thy will O my God yea thy Law is within my heart Psal 40. 7. 8. In good Inspirations The Lord God hath opened mine ear and I was not rebellious neither turned away back Isaiah 50. 5. At Church How amiable are thy Tabernacles O Lord of hosts Psal 84. 1. Before reading Speak Lord for thy servant heareth 1 Samuel 3. 9. Speaking My heart is inditing a good matter I speak of the things which I have made touching the King Psal 45. 1. Eating Thou openest thine hand and satisfiest the desire of every living thing Psal 145. In Prosperity If I do not remember thee let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth If I prefer not thee above my chief joy Psal 137. 6. Adversity The Lord killeth and maketh alive 1 Sam. 2. 6. Shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil Job 2. 10. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glorie Luke 24. 26. Troubles Surely man walketh in a vain shew surely they are disquieted in vain Psal 39. 6. Calumnies If I pleased men I should not be the servant of Christ Gal. 1. 10. Praises Not unto us O Lord not unto us but unto thy Name give glorie Psal 115. 1. Against vain hope As a dream when one awaketh so O Lord when thou awakest thou shalt despise their image Psalm 73. 20. Pride Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased Luke 14. 11. Covetousness It is more blessed to give than to receive Acts 20. 35. Luxury Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ 1. Cor. 6. 15. Envy He that loveth not his brother abideth in death 1 John 3. 14. Gluttony The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink Rom. 14. 17. Anger Learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart Matth. 11. 29. Sloth Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord negligently Jer. 48. 10. Rules of Faith God cannot be known but by himself What is to be understood of God is to be learned by God Hilar lib. 5. de Trin. God doth not call us to the blessed life by hard questions In simplicity must we seek him in piety profess him Idem lib. 10. Remove not the ancient bounds which thy fathers have set Prov. 22. 28. Many are the reasons which justly hold me in the bosom of the Catholick Church Consent of people and nations Authority begun by miracles nourished by hope encreased by charity confirmed by antiquity August lib. De utilitate credendi To dispute against that which the universal Church doth maintenance is insolent madness Idem Epist 118. Let us follow universality antiquity consent Let us hold that which is believed every where always by all Vincentius Lyrinensis De profanis vocum novitatibus Acts of Faith Lord I believe help thou mine unbelief Marc. 9. 24. I know that my Redeemer liveth c. Job 19. 25. Hope Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me Psal 24. 4. I will be with him in trouble I will deliver him and honour him Psal 90. 15. Charity Whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee My flesh and my heart faileth but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever Psal 73. 25 26. Feed me O Lord thy suppliant with the continual influence of thy Divinity This I request this I desire that vehement love may throughly pierce me fill me and change me into it self Blosius PRAYERS for all Persons and occasions For the Church WE beseech thee O Lord graciously to accept the prayers of thy Church that she being delivered from all adversitie and errour may serve thee in safety and freedom through Jesus Christ our Lord. For the King WE beseech thee O Lord that thy servant CHARLS by thy gracious appointment our King and Governour may be enriched with all encrease of virtue whereby he may be able to eschew evil and to follow Thee the Way the Truth and the Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. For a Friend ALmighty and ever-living Lord God have mercy upon thy servant N. and direct him by thy goodness into the way of eternall salvation that through thy grace he may desire those things which please thee and with his whole endeavour perform the same through Jesus Christ our Lord. For Peace O God from whom all holy desires all good counsels and all just works do proceed give unto us thy servants that peace which the world cannot give that both our hearts may be set
granted you for the exercise of virtue otherwise you shall pay the losses thereof in the length of a corrupt and miserable life and your bones in old age shall be filled with the follies of youth which shall sleep with you even in your tomb and drag your souls into the bottomless precipice from whence there is no recovery The ninth REASON Which maketh it appear the Court is a life of penance AMongst the motives which the exact Masters of spiritual life propose to Religious men to invite them to perfection they set before their eyes that they are all stirred up to virtue when they already are in the arms of penance The like with just reason we may say to Courtiers the more to inflame them to fortifie themselves in great and glorious virtues to wit that arriving at Court they enter into a house of penance where they every day have a thousand occasions of suffering which is the shortest way to perfection That the Court is a place of publick penance appeareth for the reasons which I intend now to produce First Antiquity hath called penance by the word Envie as Tertullian Tertul. Apol. c. 40. Invidia Coelum tundimus hath done who saith We strike at the gates of Heaven as with the hammer of envie that is to say with penance This name hath been given either for that it doth make God as it were envied if he pardon not seeing the estate of penitents so deplorable Penance called by the name of envy Invidiam facit Deo nisi ignoscat as the most learned Bishop of Orleans hath noted in his observations upon Tertullian or for that the Latine word invidere signifieth originally not to see any thing but to turn the eye aside as from a sad object and the habit estate and condition of the penitents was heretofore so lamentable that the nice and curious averted their eyes from them and could not endure so much as onely to behold them Howsoever it be the title of envie doth excellently well agree with the Court. That is the nest where envie hatcheth her Envy of Court egs the throne where she exerciseth her Empire the Altar where she hath many sacrifices and were she banished from all the corners of the earth we then should search for her among Courtiers their life always being between the two scales of the ballance whereof the one is called envie the other miserie This is it which obligeth them to an extraordinary perfection that they may perpetually stand upon their guard and avoid the least defect This is it which if they know well how to use it doth absolutely shut up from them the gate to all excess for if envie according to the proverb will offer to shave an egge what will she not do in a meadow Secondly the ancient Canons and Doctours of Five degrees of penance among the Ancients 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Church as S. Basil observe five degrees of penance The first was called sorrow which was a state of tears and grones The second is called audience which was a degree to which penitents after an infinit number of sighs were admitted to hear the instructions and preachings of the word of God whereof they were before deprived The third humiliation which was when the penitents were admitted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to a certain part of the Mass but not at the Sacrifices for they went out before the consecration a little after the newly instructed Christians the Priest repeating over them a certain prayer during which time they made a low obeysance their face bowed to the ground The fourth degree is called consistence where the penitents had leave to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hear Mass at the full length as others but not to make any oblation nor to communicate for that was reserved to the last degree called communion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where they obtained a full reconciliation in the participation of the holy mysteries as the fore-alledged Bishop hath most excellently explicated Of these five parts of penance Courtiers for the Practise of these degrees at Court most part exercise those which are most irksom and very seldom sparticipate in the consolations of the other more sweet and benign If penitents have a degree of tears and lamentations where are sighs and groans more frequent than in Court for the many disasters which ordinarily occur in their affairs One may well apply to them that passage of Job expressed in S. Gregorie the Great The Giants or men Job 20. Gigantes gemunt sub aquis Estate of tears of the earth do groan under the waters Out alas how many times the poor miserable creatures after a world of travels pursuits and hopes which are dreams without sleep seeing themselves transported into disgrace with a furious torrent of envie sigh and mourn in an Ocean of calamities One frown of an incensed Prince is more formidable to them than the eye of a Basilisk yea more terrible than the crack of a Canon The favours they enjoy are winged and slippery all the contentment they can possibly receive in ten years will not afford so much joy to their hearts as the repulse of one sole day coming as a stroak of thunder afflicteth them and makes them give ground if they have not recourse to heavenly consolations See you not how Absalom re-established Obsacro ut videaâ— facieâ—â— Regis quod si memor est iniquitatis meae interficiat me 2 Reg. 14. in Court yet deprived of the King his fathers sight bare this disgrace with so much anziety of mind that he asked a bloudy death for his remedy What will the look of a Lion be if the onely deprivation of a favourable eye be so ill to be digested What will become of so many other contrarieties which at every turn transfix so many brave designs so well projected Where will not occasion of many most bitter sorrows be found among so divers accidents which cause us to stand at all times prepared for blows If penitents be in a state State of humilitie of humiliation wherein as other Interpreters observe they not onely humbled themselves prostrated on the earth at the Priests benediction but they lowly laid themselves under the feet of all the world where I pray are souls found born more to servitude more pliant more abased than the Courtiers They bend like the fishers angling-line they stoup they turn and wheel about to all purposes that they may arrive where they pretend They buy all their honour at the price of great submissions their scarlet at the price of sordid ambition and glory with the coyn of slavery That is it which S. Cyprian excellently well observed Behold â—e this Cyprian ad Donatum Qui amictu clariore conspicuus fulgere sibi videtur in purpura quibus hoc sordibus emit ut fulgeat Quos arragantium fastus prius pertuliâ— Quos superbâ—â—fores matutinus saluator obsedit Courtier who
since Luther and Calvin And think not this novelty is onely proved by reason It is your own confession in the 31. article where you openly profess the Church hath not onely been reformed but absolutely made new this sole innovation if you judge aright of it should give you occasion to suspect it The sage Common-wealth of the Lycians heretofore Novelties ever suspected by the wise ordained that all those who would propose any noveltic in matter of law should deliver it in publick with a halter about their necks to the end that if their propositions were not found to be good and profitable the authours thereof should be strangled in the place And what can one think of them which have brought in such huge novelism in matter of Religion so disastrous and so prejudicial to Christendom by the effusion of so much bloud Judge your selves Force of argument and weigh at leisure the force of this argument you shall perceive it is very hard to find evasions against Weak evasions of Ministers this veritie For of two things you must confess one either that the Church hath wholly been extinct the space of about a thousand years and then was newly repaired according to the ancient model of the Apostles or that it hath always been on foot but invisible and unknown These two evasions are very vain and frivolous as First evasion refuted you shall understand thereunto a little applying your judgement For to speak of the first expressed in the 31. Article of your Faith that the Church hath been newly reformed First this is against the word Reason 1 of God who to his Church promiseth an assistance without interruption even to the end of the world These are his words in S. Matthew Behold I am Matth. 28. 2. with you all the days even to the consummation of the world He admitteth not one sole day of interruption and you make one of a thousand or eleven hundred years Secondly you make a Jesus Christ disarrayed a Reason 2 Church reduced to nothing for the space of ten Ages which is very intolerable and shall never be nay not during the time of Antichrist's persecution Reason 3 Moreover were it so you must deny the providence of God so to have abandoned to a general desolation a work fast cemented with the bloud of his Son yea he who hath a care even of the nests of the little halcyons Finally you must say that Jesus Christ was an Impostour and unable an Impostour to have promised a Church without interruption unable in that he could not preserve it all which is blasphemous To affirm the second that this Church hath always Second evasion overthrown been but yet unknown and invisible if all men were changed into beasts it might happen they would be thus perswaded But if they yet retain one dram of human capacitie it were impossible so impertinent is this proposition For first of all because you will affirm nothing without proof out of holy Scripture it is demanded of you where is it spoken of this unknown Church of this invisible Church Much otherwise In sole posuit tabernaculum suum in manifestatione posuit Ecclesiam suam August in Psal 18. she is compared to a Citie planted upon a hill to the Light to the pavilion in the Sun as the Scripture teacheth us and S. Augustine proveth it by the same Scripture upon the 18. Psalm Secondly if this Church were unknown whither should the Gentiles have addressed themselves for their conversion or those that were doubtful for their resolution or all the faithful for their direction God referreth them all to his Church Is it not a meer mockerie to send them to a thing invisible Thirdly if there be no proof in Scripture which averreth this some human reason at least is required Can a proposition more reasonable be made than to ask of those who maintain a thing to have been in former Ages to produce some marks thereof That they shew how for a thousand years of desolation their Church hath been in being That they set before us one sole historie which witnesseth how in the thousand two three four and five hundred years there was found a company of brethren who professed an universal sum of all the articles which these men now maintain The Phenix is very rare but yet it is said in such Allaâ—us est Phoenix in urbem anno urbis 800. Pâ—â—â— l. 10. c. 11. and such a year a Phenix was seen in Rome Do we find that any man saith the like of the pretended reformed Religion There is not a word of it We find the Waldneses Circumcellians Gnosticks Borborites and Beguins who have held some piece of our Hereticks belief and we likewise behold that all have been condemned as Hereticks But there is not one to be found who hath framed this body of the pretended Religion as it is at this day composed What meaneth this Is it to have one small sparkle of the understanding of man to affirm such a thing to have been and not to know how to produce one proof Is not this to play Aesops ass that vaunted he had Aesops Ass great secrets of wisdom to communicate to other beasts and to authorize it he hid himself a long time in a drie pit from whence he came with a Philosophers cloak saying That whilest he had been invisible A notable passage of Tertullian he had much addicted himself to sciences and the knowledge of truth In the end it was known he was an ass and with many blows and bastonadoes Asinus de puteo modo venis jam exclamas Dic qui sis à quo venias quod sit tibi jus in nobis Tertul. in Marc. l. 4. c. 23 he was sent back again to the pit from whence he came This is the parable which Tertullian spake to the Hereticks of his time You now come forth as an Ass out of Aesops pit and you crie out Tell me who are you From whence come you who sent you What right have you upon us to extinguish the belief of our fore-fathers Do you not behold a beginning of the pretended shameless and ridiculous Religion which well proveth its nullitie The second consideration on which we must rest Second point progress and publication of the sect is well to ballance the progress advancement and publication of this sect If you find it conformable to the ancient manner of the Primitive Church follow it If it be directly opposite have you not great reason to abandon it Now Sir so it is and behold how The true Church from her infancie hath had four marks most evident The first is a profound humilitie The second a great love of virginitie chastitie and continencie witness Athenagoras a most ancient Reperire apud nos est permulâ—os viros mulieres qui in celibatu consenescunt Rom. 12. Authour who maketh mention of this great puritie of bodie
and saith It is the mark of the excellencie of our Religion The third a great obedience to Superiours recommended by S. Paul to the Romans Let every soul be subject to superiour Powers The fourth a sweetness and an admirable patience in persecutions Behold what appeared in the publication of the Gospel If you observe any thing like Consider the force of this proof in the progress of the pretended Religion then have you cause to have a good opinion of it But if you therein do see all her proceedings opposite to the same conclude it is not of God And tell me what are her proceedings in the fore-alledged points It cannot be doubted but that the virtue of humilitie First mark is the foundation of faith and one of the most noble characters of Christian Religion Where humilitie Prov. 11. is saith the Wise-man there is wisdom and God is pleased to drie up the roots of proad people Now Ezech. 10. all heresie is inseparably tied to a proud spirit from whence it took beginning derived nourishment and receives increase We might alledge an infinite number of testimonies to this purpose But we do not now tell you Epiphan hoeres 19. Illebertus hoereticus sub Zacharia how two heretick women of the race of Elxay did as it were cause their spittle to be adored nor how one Hildebert gave the paring of his nails to his sectaries for reliques so true is it that heresie being a sprout of the evil spirit still retains the mark of that pride which having once assaied to disturb Heaven never suffers the earth to enjoy repose It is well known how in the last Age one called John Leyden by trade a botcher and ring-leader of Corvin and Florimon Hereticks in Germanie having first published a law of pluralitie of wives went into the field drawing along with him huge troups of unchaste creatures where after he had played the prophet he caused himself to be chosen King took a triple diadem erected a proud pavilion wherein he gave audience established his Court and Potentates choosing out rogues and reprobates at that time attired in cloth of gold and silver and other costly stuffs which having but a little before served for ornaments on Altars were now cut in pieces by the hands of these Harpies and employed to cover infamous bodies that rather deserved to be involved in sulphur and flames When this King of Cardes marched through the Citie you would have taken him for the great Duke of Muscovia or some antick King of Hierusalem A Page mounted on hors-back bare a Bible covered with plates of gold before him another carried a naked sword willing thereby to expreâ—s he was born for the defence of the Gospel Besides he commonly had in his hand a golden globe whereon these words were engraven King of Justice on earth Anne Delphonse the first of fourteen wives this Impostour had married went along with him covered with a mantle furred with ermines clasped with a great buckle all of massie gold This would seem strange if we had not lately known the insolence of rebels and their imaginary regalities which are mounted to such a height of furie that they draw very near to the like frenzie Yet will we not at this time instance hereupon in any thing concerning this article We onely say that to separate Religion from rebellion and the manners of men from doctrine the maximes of Sectaries make an absolute profession of the most enraged vanity that may be observed in the course of human life For if the Scripture doth so strictly recommend Rom. 12. Non alta sapientes sed humilibus consentientes Prov. 35. Ne innitaris prudentia tuae unto us in the practice of humilitie not to make our selves over wise or able not to rest upon our own judgement nor proper prudence to hearken to our fore-fathers to obey Pastours who have lawful succession to work our salvation with fear and trembling at Gods judgements what may we think of a sect which authorizeth a peculiar spirit which hath ever been the seminary of all schisms and disorders which without distinction putteth the Scripture into all hands to judge of points of faith from whence have risen amongst them an infinite number of divisions which teacheth to account as dotages all that which the piety of our fore-fathers reverenced all that the wisest and most religious men of the earth decided which teacheth to spit against light and trample under foot the commandments of Pastours and Prelates to flatter ones self with assurance of salvation and predestination in the greateste orbitancies and neglects of life Verily it is an admirable thing to behold how the petty spirits of artificers and silly women busie themselves herein and to what a degree of pride they come when abused by I know not what imaginary texts of Scripture they grow big with the opinion of their own abilitie What pride more irregular than to see men not content with the Religion of Charlemaigne and S. Lewis nor of the Churches and tombs of their Ancestours to become so curious as to think their Kings and Pastours to be Idolaters and all the better part of mankind bestial from whom they separate themselves as from people infected with a spiritual contagion and do all they can to deifie their own opinions What pharisie ever came near this height of pride If there were any the least spark of humilitie a good soul would say within it self What do I or where am I It is an old saying He that too much believes in himself is a devil to himself I think I am grounded on the word of God but have not all hereticks had the same foundation which they in conclusion found onely to subsist in their own imagination Why should I separate my self from the main bodie of the ancient Church to satisfie the itch of my peculiar judgement It is not credible that so many men of honour and worth who are clear-sighted in all other things should be deceived in this they may have had doubts and opinions as we but they have overcome them by humility and reason they have stuck to the bodie of the tree they have followed the general consent of people which rather live in uniformitie than adhere to noveltie Let them not be figured to me as Idolaters ideots and men superstitious they have far other aims than these The wisest and most temperate of our side believe them not to be damned in their Religion To what purpose then is all this to handle a business apart to be separated from our near alies from Sacraments Church tombs and to be the cause of so many divisions spoils and bloudshed I plainly see we must hereafter live in re-union It is the spirit of God which commandeth it If I have beliefs in my heart different from the ordinary I ought not divulge them to create schisms and scandals I should inform my self I should obey it is fit I
Finally if we will give any credit to ancient monuments the marbles in Churches and tombs of our Ancestours speak for us Behold verily the powerful and invincible reasons Most wholesome advise how to resolve on choise of Religion Augustin contra ep fund which made S. Augustine resolve upon the Religion we profess Many great considerations said he with much reason keep me in the obedience of the Catholick Church The consent of people and Nations hold me The authority of the same Church which is risen up by miracle nourished with hope augmented by charity established by its antiquity The succession of Bishops holds me therein whith beginning in the See and authority of S. Peter to whom God recommended Evangelio non crederem nisi me Ecclisiae Catholicae commoveret authoritas Contra ep Manich. Most weake foundation of the Pretenders the care of the flock is maintained to this present time Lastly the name of Catholick holds me in it He addeth he would not believe the Gospel it self if he were not convinced by the authority of the Church Let us now see whether you have better choise and more consideration than this worthy man who is one of the prime wits of the world Let us see what your Ministers oppose against so many infallible proofs to cover their want of antiquity mission succession miracles sanctity judgement and reason They cease not to buzze out every where a false pretext of Scripture which verily is the greatest illusion that ever was For these wicked ones seeing themselves battered on every side from the beginning of this reformation knew well in their consciences the Scripture was against them Yet notwithstanding said they to mock at the faith of mankind and lead them into Atheism we must avoid the decisions of a Power lively and lawful we must onely take colour from the holy text we will make it say what we list we will maintain nothing is to be believed but what is written and that which is written we will disguise with our glosses and consequences to catch those who think they have some wit Behold the onely means to colour our pretences You then who are endowed with sufficient and Reasons which shew the nullity of this foundation solid judgement consider a little how deceitfull weak and ruinous this foundation is First it appears the devil and all Hereticks of former times have 1. Reason taken the same foundation ever saying the Scripture was on their sides which is most untrue Notwithstanding behold to what pass all hereticks came Munter proved by Scripture he was the Prophet Neque enim natae funt haereses nisi dum scripturae bonae intelliguntur non bene August ad Consentium ep 222. David George a diabolical man that he was God Eon condemned by the Councel of Rhemes that he was the true Messias even by the same Scripture Secondly the world having been two thousand years and more without Scripture the first were 2. Reason written in Hebrew by abbreviation with such ambiguity that every one following his own opinion might frame a Bible to his own liking Yea sometimes such diversity was found in the Hebrew Greek Latine and Chaldaick letter that where one read David another read a bowl where one the liver another a pillow where one beauty another a savage beast where one the word another life where one read the liâ—â—â—g another the dead And you who neither know Hebrew Greek nor Latine on whom will you relie Thirdly upon passages written in every express 3. Reason terms as This is my body the spirits of men have forged two hundred opinions quite different what then will become of difficulties more thorny Julian Bishop of Tolledo wrote a volumn of apparent contradictions Juliani 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Scripture which in substance hath none but which notwithstanding seem many times to say things directly contrary such obscurity there is in some passages Whom should we believe Do you not see this were a means to maintain eternal divisions if there were not Judges to decide differences in a kingdom but that every one should carry the cause according to the proportion of his loud crying to make his texts and allegations to be of force What would this come unto And you would bring the like disorder into the Church Fourthy in the ancient law the Bible was in the 4. Reason Ark and no man durst open it and turn it to resolve controversies upon this Rule but did expect the decision thereof from the Priests mouth who had a lawful succession The lips of the Priest are the Malach. 2. 7. store-houses of knowledge and from his mouth you shall enquire the law said the Prophet Malachie Fiftly the wisest men in the world after they had 5. Reason maturely thought upon it found no other way to determin controversies but to have recourse to the decision of a Head Such is the opinion of S. Irenaeus S. Augustine and S. Hierome Vincentius Lirinensis and all other Sixthly it is the commandment of God When any Ezech. 44. 24. A most just proceeding controversies shall be raised my Priest shall hold sessions and shall judge For of necessity we must have an authority commanding magistral and decisive For Conclusion can one speak any thing more 6. Reason just than that in case any place of Scripture hath obscurities in it it were to much better purpose to hear thereupon the decision of ancient Fathers disinteressed from our controversies than to enforce our selves to pass upon the judgement of a passionate Adversary without warrant or authority When in the year 1523. heresie began first in France and that there was but one Minister a wool-carder called John Clarck in the Citie of Meaux where should we find the interpretation of Scripture in the mouth of this carder or in a lawful Councel Judge behold what you go about you may hereby see how much this pretext of Scripture is malicious shifting and frivolous I adde that they overthrow themselves by those 7. Reason ways wherewith they seek to establish themselves For if we ought not believe any thing but that which is written in what place of their Bible will they find that twenty thousand passages must be taken out of ours In what place will they shew us the books of the Macchabees are not Canonical In what place that Sunday must be kept holy and not Saturday In what place that vows must be broken In what place that Iesus Christ is eaten by the mouth of faith and so many other places which make us sufficiently understand they ruin themselves by their own hands Finally for the fourth consideration take the 4. Point Math. 7. Effects of heresie maxim from the Son of God To judge well of a sect you must judge by the fruits and the effects What fruits and what effects have we seen to come from this pretended Religion The fear of God stifled
in the hearts of men by a presumption of their salvation Christian discipline oppressed by liberty chastity trodden underfoot by unbridled luxury the standard of rebellion advanced against the sacred persons of Kings a million of French exposed to slaughter four thousand Church-vesteries Monsieur de Sainctes in his Book of saâ—cage pillaged five hundered Churches demolished France so many times given over as a prey to strangers corruptions so strange desolations so dreadful acts so barbarous that they make the hair stand an end on the heads of all good men which have never so little understanding A stile of fire were needful or a pen of a damant steeped in bloud to express them Ah poore France France the paradise of earth eye of the world pearl of all beauties How many times by the means of this heresie hast thou seen thy bosom heretofore crowned with ears of corn and guilded with harvests all bristled with battallions How many times hast thou seen the land covered with blades and the sea with ships How many times hast thou felt the arms of thy children to encounter in thy proper entrails How many times hast thou seen flames of brothers hostility flie through thy fat and fruitful fields When hast thou not sweat in all the parts of thy bodie When have not rivers of bloud been drawn from thy veins but such bloud as was able to cement together huge bulwarks for the defence of our Countrey or to serve for seed for flower-deluces to make them grow and be advanced in the plains of Palestine and they have been sacrificed to furies Innocency seemed to afford infants shelter from the tempest yet the sword of heresie found a passage into their tender bodies Age rendred old men venerable yet would no pardon be granted to their gray haits moistined with the massacre of their children Virgins were guarded in their mothers arms as a Temple of God yet have they been dishonoured So many personages of eminent quality have served as an aim for their impiety their pains have been sport for them and their deaths a spectacle What hair would not stand an end with horrour and what eye not weep forth bloud when we speak of these disasters which your selves detest Nor can you sufficiently wonder at the crueltie of those who have taken the liberty of such barbarous outrages and so bloudy tragadies I pass over this discourse as over coles covered with ashes and would willingly be silent were it not that as it was fit to expose massacred bodies to view thereby to cure the madness of the Milesian maids so must I discover some bloudy effects in the pretended Religion to raise a horrour against it in good souls Why also have you in this time renewed so many wounds which were not well closed and for want of a little obedience so lawfully due to the most just Prince of the world do you make a civil war to exhaust France of gold and bloud after such expence and so many bloud-lettings If these acts seem so base and inhumane to you why abhor you not the sect which produced them If God curse him who is the cause of scandals were it not fit if you have some beliefe stranged from common sense rather a thousand times to stiffle it in the bottom of your conscience than to divulge it with these disturbances divisions and spoil of a Countrey which you should love as men and honour as true Children Were there some stain in the house of our Mother which never was must you therefore call her whore drag her along by the hair and carry fire to burn her house in stead of providing water to quench the flames Is it not better to become patient to sweeten the acerbities of times spare wounds on ulcered bodies or at least to be satisfied with silence in a matter where you can pretend no right of correction What was that so exorbitant which the Church commanded for which you separated your selves and took arms to defend the wranglings of our Apostataes made afterward your Apostles What Maximes have we so rough and unreasonable that they must be taken away with the sword there to plant reformation Consider a little the notable corrections and admirable policies which Arch-hereticks have invented to introduce them into the Church I will here with all sincerity recite the Maximes of the Catholick and the Pretended Maximes of the chief Sectaries of which some have afterward affrighted you and you have disavowed them as you daily do by others God making you plainly see in the inconstancy and great diversitie of your Doctrine the little confidence you should put therein The Catholick Church teacheth that God would have all the world saved as the Apostle hath expressed in the Epistle to Timothie that he desireth good 1 Tim. 2. 4. of which he is the source and that he communicates himself to all his children The Pretended say that God absolutely desires evil yea doth it willingly predestinating men without any regard some to life others to eternal damnation as if a father who had daughters should cut the throat of one most innocent and marry the other wealthily having no reason for it but his will which is most execrable impiety pronounced by the authour of this sect in the book of his Institutions and chapter 21. where he saith Men are not all created to the like condition but that life eternal is pre-ordained for some and eternal damnation for others The Catholick Church speaks of our Saviour with most profound and religious reverence The Calvin in Evang Mat. 27. Institut 2. cap. 16. Authour of the Pretended makes him inferiour to his Father calling him the second King after God and attributing ignorance to him despair on the Cross and the pains of the damned which are things most horrible The Catholick Church holdeth Jesus Christ is the onely and sole Mediatour of redemption and that there is no other name either in heaven or earth in which and by which we can be saved and for that cause she honours it all she can extending and multiplying the fruits of honour and praise not onely in his own person but in his dear friends also which are the blessed Virgin and the Saints whom we pray unto as the fruits of his Cross and take them for Mediatours of intercession grounded therein on the word of God which commandeth the friends of Job to take him for intercessour Job 42. though he were in this transitory life and not at all doubting if the soul of the evil rich man prayed unto Abraham out of hell but we on earth Luc. 16. may be permitted to call to our aid souls so faithful so much honoured by God and whose praises he reckons his own greatness We likewise reverence holy images since it is an ancient custom in the Church the marks whereof we yet behold in Tertullian who might have conversed Tertul de pudicitia c. 7. with the Disciples of the
government of the Church III. Throughly to retain the summary of the Christian doctrine to inform your self of the explication of every Article not for curiosity but duty To read repeat meditate ruminate them very often To teach them to the ignorant in time of need But above all to give direction to your family that they may be instructed in those things which belong to the knowledge of their salvation It is an insupportable abuse to see so many who drag silk at their heels and have Linx's eyes in petty affairs to be many times stupid and bruitish in matter of Religion and in the knowledge of God IV. To abhor all innovation and liberty of speech which in any the least degree striketh at the ancient practices of the Church V. And therefore it is necessary as our Father Judicious notes of S. Ignatius concerning sincere faith S. Ignatius hath observed to praise and approve Confession which is made to a Priest and the frequent * * * Haec Authoris 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 notanda non probanda Communion of the faithful interpreting the devotion of others in a good sense VI. To recommend the Sacrifice of the Mass to love practice perswade others to the laudable custom of being present thereat as much as may be To esteem Church-musick prayers Canonical hours Supplications Processions and such like VII To praise the Orders of Religion the vows of poverty chastity obedience works of supererrogation and evangelical perfection ever generally preferring virginity and continency in discourse before marriage VIII To esteem of Reliques to recommend the veneration and invocation of Saints to be much affected to the service of the most blessed Mother of God to approve of pilgrimages which are orderly performed Indulgences and Jubilies which the glorious King S. Lewis recommended to Philip his son in his last words IX To have a religious opinion of the abstinences and fasts instituted by the Church and of the manner of penances and mortifications which religious and other devout persons piously practice X. To maintain the commandments of the Church and ordinances of Superiours both by word and example and though their lives should not be conformed to their doctrine yet not to detract nor murmure at their actions in publick or private thereby to alter in the peoples belief the reverence and respect to their dignity but as much as shall be expedient privately to admonish them of their defective carriage in their charges XI Highly to esteem the doctrine of sacred Theologie which is taught in schools and to make account of the great Doctours whom the Divine providence hath raised in this latter Age valourously to oppose heresies XII Not to insist in ordinary discourses upon exaggerations comparing men who live in this Age with the Apostles Doctours and Saints of antiquity XIII To fix our selves upon the resolutions of the Church that what our own peculiar reason would judge to be white we to esteem it black when the decrees of the Church it self shall be so always preferring the judgement of the Church before our private opinion knowing that humane reason especially in matters of faith may easily be deceived but the Church guided by the promised Spirit of truth cannot erre XIV Not in considerately to be embroyled in the thorny controversies of predestination Highly to commend grace and faith but warily without prejudice of free-will and good works XV. Not so to speak of the love and mercy of God that one may seem thereby to exclude the thoughts and considerations of fear and divine justice Behold the ordinary rules to preserve your self in faith If you now desire to know how this virtue is purified and refined in mans heart and in what consisteth the excellency of its acts behold them here You must carefully take heed of having onely a dead faith without charity or good works which S. Augustine calleth the faith of the devil It is a night-glimmer obscure and melancholy but lively faith is a true beam of the Sun The acts of a strong and lively faith are I. To have great and noble thoughts of God as Heroick acts of faith Matth. 8. that brave Centurion of whom it is spoken in S. Matthew who supposed the malady health death life of his servant absolutely depended upon one sole word of our Saviour and thought himself unworthy he should enter into his house Cassius Longinus a Pagan Cassius Longinus libro 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so learned that he was called the Living Librarie one day reading Genesis could not sufficiently admire the sublime speculations which Moses had of the Divinity when he wrote of the worlds creation that God at the sound of one sole word made the great master-pieces of this universe to rise out of nothing as heaven earth water the Sun and Moon II. To believe with great simplicity removed from all manner of curiosity and nice inquisition God Si levaveris cultrum tuum super eo polluetur Exod. 20. would not the point of the knife should be lifted up on his Altar to cut it So likewise the point of humane spirit must not be raised on the Altar of faith nor the curtain drawn to enlightē the mysteries with the torch of reason S. Lewis was most perfect in this degree who would not stir a foot to behold a miracle in confirmation of his belief III. To believe with great fervour esteeming nothing impossible to your faith as did that simple shoemaker who under a King of the Tartars removed Paulus Veneus l. 1. c. 18. de reb orient a mountain in the sight of the whole world by the fervour and simplicity of his faith IV. Not to stagger nor be afflicted when you ask any thing of God in your prayers holding it undoubted that it will be granted if it be for the greater glory of the Sovereign Master and your more advantageable profit You must always hold your hands lifted up in some kind as Moses did even to the Exod. 17. setting of the Sun to vanquish our Amalekites V. To have a generous heart and full of confidence in adversity not to admit distrust during the storm but with firm footing to expect the consolation of heaven even when we shall be in the shades of death as said the Prophet VI. Little to prize temporal goods in comparison of eternal To be ready to dispoil ones self from all the pleasures and commodities of the world if there be any danger of faith as that brave Courtier Hebr. 11. Moses who forsook the contentments of Pharaohs Court to be afflicted with his own people VII To give alms liberally with a firm belief that the hand of the poor is the treasury of God VIII To employ even life it self as so many Martyrs have done and to seal your faith with your own bloud This is the most heroical act but yet it ought to be guided by discretion Now to make easie the acts of faith I.
trust to be planted by the hand of God to serve as a prop for the house of God to be the seat of glory for the Lord of Hosts to carry the moveables riches and greatness of the Church on his shoulders Finally for a third reason to conduct the Nobility to Ecclesiastical dignities is to bring it into its house All things willingly return to their source The waters cease not to glide along to render themselves to the Ocean The rays of the Sun touch the earth not forsaking their star the branches of the tree offer the homage of their verdure leaves and fruit to the root he goeth well that hasteneth to his beginning Now so it is that the greatest part of Church endowments came from the Nobility who then despoiled themselves to cover the Altars and now many unveil the Altars to cloath themselves If you O Noblemen desire to enjoy the patrimony which your Ancestours have left to the Church you ought not to seek it by unlawfull mischievous and tyrannical ways but by means proportionable to the intentions of those who laid those rich foundations And what intentions had they but to cut the trees Ezech. 17. Quercus Basan dolata in remos navis Tyri divites saeculi Ecclesiae appliciti Hieron super Ezech. of Basan to make oars for the vessel of S. Peter but to lay their wealth at the feet of God who according to the Prophet made himself a foot-step of Saphirs to serve as a ladder for glory but to entertain on earth an image of the Heavenly Jerusalem to grant to the Church men of science and conscience men of courage and fidelity for the ornament support and maintenance thereof If you approach thither with such an intention I am of opinion the gates ought to be opened unto you and that you should enter into your self to govern the house of Jesus Christ and not destroy it We have thanks be given to God a great King all whose inclinations dispose him to goodness as lines to the center as much love as he hath for justice so much zeal hath he for the glory of Altars As God is pleased to sow the stars on the azure of the firmament so hath he a sensible delight to furnish the Church with good Prelates because they are the stars of the earth Merit under him is in possession of good hopes and hope is not far distant to be consummate in fruition He is pleased to gratifie the Nobility with the goods of the Church but he will his intention be seconded by the merit of those that shall enjoy them Take the ways of wisdom and virtue to enter into your inheritance which ever are most assured and the most honourable The time hath been when one must as it were have done evil to receive good if now good be offered to those who do it who would willingly be vitious and sow crimes to reap miseries The second SECTION That the Nobility should not aspire to Ecclesiastical offices but by lawfull ways PRophane Lucian spake truer than he thought Lucian in Jov. Trag. when he feigned Gentilism was filled with gods whereof some were made of wood and stone subsisting by the prerogative of antiquity which age and time gave them the other much more lately formed were of gold and silver resenting the profuse prodigality of the latter Ages This caused a divorce in the Temples the gods of earth were still willing to hold their ranks shewing besides the antiquity of their original that they were framed by the confident hands of admirable work-men and had lineaments excellently polished The gods of gold and silver dignified by the riches of the stuff of which they were composed spake proudly and needs would have priority since the mettal whereof they were made transcended much in the estimation of men The matter was put into deliberation in the great Parliament of Olympus and the golden gods carried it not by merit but by authority of their riches Should this scoffing spirit be raised again in these our days to make a Satyre on the manners of these times he could not be better fitted For to speak not universally of all Ecclesiastical Nobles since thanks be to God there are many who most happily have linked to Nobility all the other qualities requisite to their condition but considering in gross the disorder and corruption we may well say the gods of gold at this day have the upper hand We heretofore saw divers spiritual men extracted from low condition who arrived to dignities by the degrees of labour integrity knowledge and were finally crozier'd and mytered by the strength of much merit These men appeared in the Church of God as those ancient Statues made by the hand of Policletes Phidias and Sysippus there was not a lineament in them which spake not But when gold and silver began to sway more than ever the rich allured with the wealth of the Church brake a way through by the help of contentions authority and command which silver gave them over the courses of human things they maugre industrie and virtue have made golden gods which banish as it were all the gods of the earth notwithstanding the excellent forms and all the gifts of nature and grace they could possibly acquire It seemeth for these men the Church is at this day become a great Oak over-turned where men hastily on every side run for prey there is not a hand so little that will not become outragious to bear away some spoil thereof But you noble and generous spirits who in your minorities dedicate your selves to the ministeries of the Church behold the first step you must tread Be carefull herein as your lives and salvation are dear unto you aim well your carrier enter by the gate of honour to free your self from the disturbances of life and troubles of death Be ye assured it is the abomination of the desolation foretold by the Prophet Daniel Daniel 9. 27. Act. 8. 27. the gall of bitterness and perplexity of sin declared by the Apostle S. Peter to enter into an Ecclesiastical benefice by unlawfull and strained ways without vocation The reasons hereof are evident First the Saints have called this vice the iniquity of Libanus alluding to these words of the Prophet Habacuck The Iniquity of Libanus shall cover thee Habac. 1. Iniquitas Libani operiet te where the text spake to those who despoiled the holy Land because the mount Libanus is a holy hill of Palestine all covered over with fair Cedars much renowned in the Scripture from whence it cometh it mystically signifieth the Church and those are truly covered with the iniquity of Libanus who surcharge themselves with the weight of inexorable justice for attempting on the highest pieces of the patrimony of God which are the offerings of the faithfull left for the maintenance of Ecclesiastical state This iniquity of Libanus is the sin of Zeb Zebeus and Salmana who are branded with perpetual infamy for
profession he spake these words unto them My holy daughters It is not yet three years since I undertook Excellent speeches to virgins this charge and you know from whence I was drawn and the small time given to dispose me to so weighty a burden notwihstanding I afford you the fruits of my tongue since I have learned more in your manners than in books The flowers which grow in my discourses come from your garden It is not precepts for Virgins but examples drawn from the life of Virgins Your manners have breathed a certain grace into my soul I may say that all that which my endeavour hath of good odour in it is derived from your prayers For who am I but a barren thorn But God who heretofore spake to Moses among thorns will now to day speak by my mouth His Sermons and books had so much effect that Virgins came from the utmost limits of Christendom to be veiled at Milan which S. Ambrose seeing he could not wonder enough that he perswaded virginity where he was not it not being in his power sufficiently to multiply it according to his desire in places where he resided (f) (f) (f) Hic tracie alibi persuadeo si ita est alibi tractemus ut vobis persuadeamus L. 1 de virginibus He caused the Bishop of Bologna to come unto him led on by the same spirit as himself to assist in this design of whom he one day said in full assembly (g) (g) (g) Adest piscator Bononiensis aptus ad hoc piscandi genus Da Domine pisces qui dedisti adjutores Behold the fisher of the Church of Bologna fit for this sort of fish Lord afford fish since you have given us coadiutours And considering that some murmuted at these his proceedings as if the world should instantly fail by this means he shewed in a most eloquent Sermon that no one had cause of complaint either married or unmarried the married because they had wives not virgins the unmarried because they should find sufficient and that the carnal who opposed virginity under pretext of multiplication resisted by this means the chastity of marriages where continency is oftentimes exercised even by necessity as for the rest we are not to believe the world will be ruined through virginity For admit it should fail it would ever be a matter more honourable for it to decay by virtue than concupiscence But it is so much otherwise said he that we should lay hold of that which we see by experience in the Churches of Africa and Alexandria where there are most virgins they have the greatest number of men This employment nothing lessened the assistances which he afforded for the instruction of those who lived in an ordinary course (h) (h) (h) Su perstitions and excesses taken away Above all he endeavoured to root heresies out of their hearts and certain customs of Gentilism which easily stole in by contagion into the houses of the faithfull Among other things there was a Pagan-guise much practised at Milan and other places of Christendom which was to celebrate the first day of the year with riots and disorders a matter much resenting the Bacchanals He so cut off this abuse by his great authority that of a day prophaned with so much sensuality he in few years made it among Christians a day of penance and fasting which for some space afterward was observed in the Church until such time as the memory of the superstitions of Gentilism was wholly extinct Others entertained this foolish belief that when the moon was eclipsed she suffered much through the persecution of ill Angels who then endeavoured to exile her and therefore they went out of their houses with many pans and cauldrons making a loud noise to dissolve as they said the design which evil spirits had against the Moon The sage Pastour made an express homily against this superstition wherein he much confounded those who were infected herewithal Moreover it being a custom very ancient and introduced by the Apostles to make in Churches which then were the houses of the faithfull Agapes that is to say bankets of charity in favour of the poor this by little and little was changed into liberties unworthy of Christianity For sensuality had got such ground that stifling charity in this action it rather seemed a sacrifice to the belly than an act of piety S. Ambrose abolished all these rites and cut off such abuses even in the least root that it was never seen again to sprout in the Church S. Augustine in cited by his example practised the like in Africa and afterward caused the decree to be inserted in the third Councel of Carthage In the proportion that he extirpated vice he planted solid virtues in the hearts of the faithfull whom he ordinarily entertained with these ensuing instructions counselling other Bishops to do the like (i) (i) (i) Puritie of intention First he sought in all places to form in minds a strong imagination of the presence of God unwilling that Christian virtues should be petty hypocrisies guided by the natural extent of humane respect but rather intentions wholly celestial and for that cause he said (k) (k) (k) Si quis solus est seipsion prae caeteris erubescat If any man be alone let him regard himself more than any other in the world (l) (l) (l) Covetousnes opposed Secondly seeing the inordinate desire of riches was a petty apostacy of faith and root of all disorders he very often did beat on this anvile labouring by all sort of good endeavours to withdraw hearts from the love of earth that he might raise them to Heaven Among other things you have these excellent words in the epistle to Constantius (m) (m) (m) Multaoneri moderata usui Viatores sumus vitae hujus multi anbulant sedopus est ut quis benè transeat Saj ienti nihil alienum nisi quod virtuti incongruwn Quocunque accesserint sua omnia Totus mundus possessio ejus est quoniam eo toto quasi suo utitur Ep. ad Constantium To enjoy much is to have a great burden Great riches are a vain ostentation the indifferent for use We are all Pilgrims in this life all the business is not in going perfection consisteth in a ready passage To what purpose do you so torment your self with the desire of boarding Be wise and you shall have sufficient A virtuous man thinks nothing is without him but sin Wheresoever he sets his foot he finds a kingdom All the world belongeth to him because he useth all the world as his own In the third instance he made sharp war against the ambitions and vanities of the time disposing minds as much as he could to Christian humility by this Maxim (n) (n) (n) Ambition Nihil interesse in quo statu quis se probabilem praestaret sed illum esse sinem bonorum ut quocumque quis statu probaretur
satisfaction of my mind but the establishment of my fortune Notwithstanding I have wholly left it through a most undoubted knowledge that we cannot resolve on any thing solid therein Judge you what you please but ever a well rectified spirit will be ashamed to profess a science not supported by reason and which knows almost no other trade but to deceive This at that time somewhat startled him but stayed not his purpose so much he loved to deceive himself and so much he resolved to find out this secret in the end But ever as he waded further not discovering firm land he found trouble in a barren labour and much vanitie where he to himself proposed some soliditie Nothing confirmed him so much in contempt of this folly as the discourse he had with Firminus a young man of eminent qualitie sick of the same disease that he was for the curiositie of Astrologie ceased not to incite him as being born of a father an Astrologer a man of honour but so curious that he calculated the very horoscope of cats and dogs that were whelped in his house yet so little had he profited therein that at the same time his son came into the world a servant of his neighbours being delivered of a male-child he foretold according to the rules of his art that both of them being born under one same constellation should run the like fortune which was so false that this Firminus his son being born of a rich family progressed far into the honour of the times whilest the son of the servant notwithstanding the favours of his goodly horoscope waxed old in servitude This young man who made this narration though convinced by his own experience still suffered himself to be beguiled with his proper errour so difficult it is to take away this charm by force of reasons Our Augustine by little and little dispersed those vapours both by the vivacitie of his own excellent judgement and the consideration of others folly He was likewise solicited to attempt a kind of magick much in request among the heathen Philosophers of that Age which was to seek predictions from the shop of the devil by means of the effusion of the bloud of beasts and sometiemes of children But God who as yet held a bridle on this uncollected soul and would not suffer it to be defiled with those black furies gave him in the beginning so much horrour upon all these proceedings that a Negromancer promising him one day to bear away the prize of Poesie in a publick meeting of Poets if he would assure him of a reasonable reward he answered that were the Crown to be given in those games of profit of gold wholly celestial he would not buy it by such kind of ways at the rate of the bloud of a flie Which he partly spake through some sence of pietie partly also by the knowledge he had of the illusion and barrenness of such sciences He was much more troubled about the Articles His Religion of Faith for though from his childhood he was educated in Christian Religion under the wings of his good mother S. Monica yet suffering his mind to mount up unto so many curiosities he had greatly weakened the sence of pietie And being desirous to penetrate all by the help of humane reasons when he began to think on the Christian maxims of Faith he therein beheld much terrour and abyss He came to this condition that not content with the God of his forefathers who taught him holy counsels and the universal voice of the Church he put himself upon masterie now wholly ready to shape a Divinitie on the weak idaeas of his own brain The Manichees at that time swayed in Africk who having found this spirit and seeing he might one day prove a support to their Sect they spared nothing to gain him and he being upon change it was not very hard to bring him into the snare This Sect sprang from one named Manes a Persian by birth and a servant by condition who having inherited the goods of a Mistress whom he served from a good slave which he had been had he remained in that siate became by studie an ill Philosopher and a worse Divine for mingling some old dotages of the magick of Persians with other maxims of Christianitie partly by the help of his purse partly also by an infinitie of impostures derived from his giddy spirit he made himself head of a faction protesting he was the holy Ghost His principal folly consisted in placing two Gods in the world the one good the other bad who had many strange battels The bodie as he said was the creature of the evil God and the soul a portion of the substance of the good enthraled in matter And following these principals he gave a phantastical bodie to the Saviour of the world esteeming it a thing unworthy of the Word to be personally united to the flesh which he held in the number of of things execrable Behold the cause why those who were ingulfed in this Sect made shew to abstain from meat and wine which they termed the dragons gall I do not think that ever Augustine fully consented to all the chymeraes of Manes which were innumerable but at the least he relished this Sect in the opinion it had of the original and nature of the bodie and soul and in many other articles even to the believing as himself witnesseth fables most ridiculous Great God! who thunderest upon the pride of humane spirits and draggest into the dust of the earth those that would go equal with Angels What Eclypse of understanding What abasing of courage in miserable Augustine To say that a man whose eye was so piercing doctrine so eminent and eloquence so divine after he had forsaken the helm of faith and reason became so abandoned as to make himself a partie of the Sect of a barbarous and phantastical slave who in the end for his misdeeds was flayed by the command of the King of Persia as if the skin of this man could no longer cover a soul so wicked Behold whither curiositie transporteth an exorbitant spirit Behold into what so many goodly gifts of grace and nature are dissolved Behold now the Eternal Wisdom besotteth those who forsake him to court the lying fantasies of their imagination A second obstacle went along with this extravagant A second impediment Presumption curiositie to settle him fixedly in errour which was the presumption of his own abilities an inseparable companion of heresie He that once in his brain hath deified crocodiles and dragons not onely adoreth them but will perswade others that he hath reason to set candles before them and burn incense for them It is a terrible blow when one is wounded in the head by his proper judgement whose ill never rests in the mean We come to the end of all by the strength of industrie Stones are pulled forth from the entrails of men the head is opened to make smoak issue
imitate the great S. Isidore S. Isidorus de conflictu vitiorum virtutum who the more natively to represent the horrour of vices makes them dispute against virtues putting into their mouthes all their lewd maxims Afford me the liberty that I may manifest the disorders which are at this day in the corrupt Nobility by the mouth of a Rabsaces the wicked souldier who undertaketh to give precepts to youth and dictate most pernicious counsels which shall afterward be refuted by the Christian souldier Note and behold the damnable precepts of Rabsaces the false Souldier which contain a true Satyre of the manners of the depraved Nobilitie IMagine to your self that this dangerous Master goes before the Nobilitie which seeketh after the glory of Arms and that he taketh by the hand a young man whom he sees apt for his impressions and sheweth him in stead of the true mansion of fortitude a Palace all of wind built upon quick-silver where palms and laurels grow like the fruits of Sodom which flie into ashes when we think to touch them Thereupon he thus discourseth with him wherein you shall too well know the manners and inclinations predominant in the petty Salmoneans of this Age. Sir behold you are in the Palace of valour and I am he whom you search for I purposely present my self before you to receive you with open arms and dictate precepts from my lips which shall make you to equal the glory of Caesars and Alexanders I affirm the time hath been when brave souldiers took the sword from the Altar to employ it for the honour of Altars and lived in the exercise of Arms as in the Temple of the God of hosts but these kind of actions are more found in ancient histories than in the manners of men that live at this present If thou wilt be a souldier of the time I wish First disorder of the Nobility Great impietie thee to become a petty Cyclop and know very little what God or Religion is but to swear by the one and profane the other I should fear lest this devotion may not soften thy courage which is esteemed at this day not to be of temper good enough if it have not much impietie Thy oaths shall be thy Life bruitish and infamous Sacraments thy mysteries the cabale of the wicked the table thy Altar the dishes thy Sacrifices and thou shalt account thy sword as a Deitie which thou shalt bear hanging at thy girdle without further search If needs thou must for ceremonie go to Church pass along as if thou went'st to a dancing free from apprehension of the Divine Majesty for that may make thee melancholy and when thou art there without any distinction of profane or sacred dispose thy self to laugh and geer upon all occasions which are presented for indeed we must pleasantly pass away this little ill time Thou shalt set thy self into divers postures which shall savour much of a jugler to keep the decorum of men of thy condition and if there be nothing to be talked on nor jest to be broken at least thou shalt turn thy head on every side and make thy eyes and thoughts hunt after objects which may please the sense I well know that all this taken according to the model of ancient piety is held for a great sacriledge But thou art very capable of it and if thy countenance deceive me not thou wilt never be one of those scrupulous ones who think the Churches are made for nothing but prayer Thou shalt learn in good time to lie swear forswear 2. Disorder The tongue blasphemy of and calumny slander and blaspheme for it is very ordinary Rhetorick in the mouth of our Salmoneans Go not about to search into old Histories as Charls the Eighth who hewed through the Alps conquered the Kingdom of Naples and made Constantinople with its Ottomans to tremble with the onely shadow of his name yet durst not so much as swear by his faith We are no longer in such kind of times men now are so accustomed to lie that needs must oaths mount by degrees up to the clouds to assure a truth although with extream swearing it is taken for a lie And were there no other reason of swearing but to make an able man since thou canst not be valiant with thy arm cut through confidently with thy tongue Let brags and Rodomontadoes never drie in thy mouth no more than water in huge rivers If thou 3. Disorder The abomination of duels wilt have one of the greatest virtues of the times thou must be froward and peevish and speak of nothing but duels of challenges and assignments of the place and as soon as thou shalt hear some speech of any man of valour thou must say thou much desirest one day to see him with sword in hand and that thou hast heretofore seen others over whom thou hadst great advantage Swear in good earnest that such a one hath done thee wrong but that thou wilt evict reparation from him sealed with his bloud dispute swagger tell tales make quarrels arise about a pins point press to be a second to this man and that man but ever engage others and as nimbly as thou canst draw thy pin back again from the game Believe me the whole mystery consisteth onely in setting a good face on 't If thou canst counterfeit wounds as Hereticks false miracles thou shalt not do much amiss For all valour now adays bendeth that way It sufficeth it be said thou art a man to kill or be killed bravely It is true that anciently some duels were permitted in time of war enemy against enemy and executed in the view and presence of Captains of both parts who beheld them with much solemnity So the brave Chevalier Bayard the eye and arm of French warfare slew Alphonsus de Soto-major a Spanyard in the field of battel before the eyes of both Armies who beheld this spectacle This made the souldier very confident to enter into lists with military laws in presence of his Captain against an adversary of another Nation Where shall we now adays find the like valour Of necessity night private places and ugly corners must be sought out to fight a duel yea I leave thee to consider what a goodly spectacle it would be if one from a Theater might behold the countenance of these Rodomonts most violent in words you should see them tremble wax pale quake be amazed troubled and in the end be slain like wretched swine but this is not honest we therefore must find out some scarff to cover the cowardise of these clandestine combats The more a man is ignoble cowardous or unhappy so much the more ought he seek out such kind of duels I say ignoble though I am not ignorant it hath heretofore been the trade of slaves but opinion hath made it now a way for Gentlemen Behold why those who find themselves to be of base extraction do the more fervently seek out such
Deum pro cujus spiritu postules pro quâ oblationes annuas reddas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gifts for ransom of the soul answerable to what Tertullian writeth that it was the custom of the ancient Church to pray for the souls of the dead yea and to make annual offerings for them We must no longer say for evasion it is Plato it is Quintilian who speaketh but confess with Aristotle when we see an universal agreement in a proposition it is not one man speaks but the mouth of heaven which uttereth this verity When S. James telleth us God must be feared and proves it by example of the divels themselves he saith not we must fear God because Daemones credunt contremiscunt the divels do so but if any despise him he is therein worse than divels Likewise when the holy Fathers produce an example of Pagans it is not to instruct us by the Pagans but to shew that to waver in the belief of things they generally held by the sentence of nature is to be worse than a Pagan 3. I say for the second argument that so often as Second proof drawn from the light of faith Vnde haec quia ita facienda sunt disputare insolentissimae insania est a truth is proved to Catholicks by the universal consent of the Church and of all Ages if any one chance to make doubt of it it is an evident sign either that he hath a giddy spirit or is malicious in religion This proposition is grounded upon the axiom of S. Augustine who in his Epistle written to Januarius assureth us that when we find the tracks of a custom generally observed throughout the whole Church it is evident that it cometh from the Apostles or those to whom God hath given full Authority in the Church and that to go about to bely or question it is to pass from folly to insolency Now so it is the truth of purgatorie is established by the opinion practice sentence and decisions of all the Church in such sort that there is not any verity of our faith more fortified How is that Begin with our France Behold the Councel of Chalons upon Saone for prayers for the dead and the truth of purgatorie Go into Spain behold that of Braga into Germany behold that of Wormes into Italy behold the sixth Councel held at Rome under Pope Symmachus into Greece behold a number of Synods collected by Martius into Affrick behold the third of Carthage Lastly behold the three Oecumenical of Lateran Florence and Trent which say the same Doth not this suffice to establish a truth in the wit of a man who hath never so little understanding Our adversaries who still bark against this verity as dogs at the moons brightness when they have said Jesus made purgation of sins and that it was said to the good thief thou shalt to day be with me in Paradise or produced some other frivolous objections have shewed all their ability I leave you a little to ponder the goodly consequences Jesus purged sins there is then no purgatorie Should not we have cause to say in the same fashion Jesus prayed for remission of our sins then we no longer stand in need of prayer or pennance and in vain is that S. Luke saith that Jesus must suffer and Luc. 24. 47. that pennance was preached in his name As the prayers of our Saviour destroy not our prayers so his satisfaction overthroweth not ours He prayed that we might pray he satisfied to give strength and merit to our satisfaction which would be dead and unprofitable were they not quickened by his bloud To what purpose is it to say the good thief went directly to Paradise without feeling purgatorie As if we should say it was necessarie for all the world to pass that way Make your self a great Saint and you shall have nothing to do with it Purge all your sins by a love so fervent that the purifying flames may not find any thing to cleanse He who hath payed ows nothing and who hath satisfied in this world shall find unrestrained freedom in the other But think you in a life which contracteth so many stains a soul may be raised in an instant above the celestial orbs to the sight of God before it have passed by those purgations which the Divine justice ordaineth to every one according to his demerits Endeavour is used to deafen your ears with piety wranglings and unprofitable disputations to make you believe purgatory is an invention of interessed Priests it seems this doctrine came into the world but within these two dayes But read the Scripture and see the Fathers who interpret it you shall find proofs to fall upon you like a cloud for confirmation of this verity When S. Paul in the first to the Corinthians third Chapter said that the day of God to wit the day of judgement be it general or particular shall be manifested by fire which shall put every ones works upon trial and that he who upon the foundations of Jesus Basil in Isa c. 1. Non exterminium minatur sed purgationem innuit Ambros Hic ostendit paenas ignis passurum shall build with wood straw or hay to wit with vain and sleight works shall be saved as by fire he clearly declared the doctrine of purgatorie unless you be more illuminated than S. Basil and S. Ambrose who have judged it so for the first saith he threateneth the soul not with destruction but purgation and the other plainly expresseth he speaks of the pains of fire which God hath appointed to purify souls And it is a poor resistance to object he said as by fire and not by fire For it is a manner of expression in Scripture which nothing diminisheth the reality of things otherwise we should say when S. John wrote in the first Chapter of his Gospel that men saw Jesus as the onely Son of God that he were onely a figure of it not a truth And when S. Paul to the Philippians second Chapter witnesseth he was found as a man we might infer he were not man See you not how these silly curiosities of words directly invade the truth When S. Matthew in the twelfth Chapter makes mention of one sin which shall never be remitted either in this world or in the other S. Bernard in his three-score sixth homily upon the Canticles mainly insisteth upon this passage and takes it as an infallible proof of our doctrine When the Evangelist himself toucheth the discourse of the prisonner which shall be put into a place from whence be shall not come until he have paid the last penny Saint Cyprian Cyprian l. 4. ep 2. says plainly It is one thing to be a long time purged for sins by the torment of fire another by the purgation which is made by the passion of Jesus Christ When in the same Authour it is spoken of divers punishments of choller handled in the fift Chapter S. Augustine in
the first book of the sermon made on the mountain interpreteth all that of punishments in the other life When in the fourth Chapter of Tobie it is written of bread to be put upon the graves of the dead S. Chrysostom Homily thirty two upon S. Matthew referreth this passage to the custom of the ancient Church which called both the Priests and the poor purposely to pray for the dead When mention is made in the fourth of Kings of a solemn fast made for Saul Bede makes no question but it was for the quiet of his soul For S. Paul sheweth in the first to the Corinthians fifteenth Chapter that it was the custom to mortifie and macerate ones self for the dead and the second of Machabees saith it is a holy and a wholesome thing to pray for them Who knew more and who saw more in all this than the great S. Augustine who on the thirty seventh Psalm hath these words My God make me such in my life that I may not Aug. in Psal 37. Talem me reddas cui emendatorio igne non sit opus need the fire of Purgatorie after my death Hath the Roman Church hired all these so ancient Fathers to write such texts in its behalf Is it not a shame that a brainless Libertine with the eyes of a bat should mock at all these lights 4. Doubtless will some say these reasons are forcible The manner of Purgatory but I understand not where this purgatorie is and how souls are there tormented To that I answer the Church which walketh reservedly in its ordinances ever grounded on the word of God onely obligeth us to hold as an article of faith a third place for the purgation of souls which is neither Paradise nor hel As for circumstances of the place and manner Nyss de anima resurrectione Chrysost homil de Beatorum premiis Beda l. 3. hist Angl. â—9 of sensible torments it hath decryed nothing thereof as an article of our belief School Divines ordinarily set purgatorie in a subterranean place which is very probable It may also be that souls may be purged in the air in the sphear of fire and in divers parts of the elementary world according to the opinion of S. Gregory Nyssen S. Chrysostom and S. Gregory the great It dependeth on the prerogative of Gods power and the ministery of Angels As for punishments it is most certain the first consisteth Miris sed veris modis August in suspension from the sight of God a matter very dolorous to a soul which being out of the body far absented from its source is as would the globe of the earth be were it out of its place or like unto fire shut up in the bowels of mount Aetna It naturally desireth to rejoyn it self to God and the least retardation it feels from such felicitie is most sensible unto it It mourneth to be deprived from an infinite comfort when the thirst is most ardent and to see it self bereaved by its own fault yea such an one as might easily have been avoided The second is the pain of sense which is exercised by fire the great executioner of Gods justice and sometimes also by other wayes known to his providence as S. Bonaventure and holy Bede teach us If you say you cannot comprehend how a material thing worketh on a spiritual I ask of you again this soul which is in your bodie is it of any other kind than those in purgatorie And yet see you not how it daily suffereth in the bodie See you not how all the dolours of mortal flesh rebound back again by an amorous simpathy and a counter-buff wholly necessarie to the bottom of our soul And yet you ask how it can suffer Is it not true our soul containeth in it the root of understanding all sensible knowledge framed and accomplished by the help of the bodies organs Is it not true that being in the bodie it understandeth and feeleth with dependance on the bodie But separated doth it loose this root of understanding and knowledge Verily no For it then understandeth with independence on the body To speak also according to the opinion of some it may feel out of the body not onely by a knowledge naked and intellectual but experimental in some sort not unlike the understanding exercised in the bodie But there is no more corporal organ which is as the chariot of feeling What importeth it God by his power cannot he supply the organ of bodie and necessitate the soul immediately to feel the sharpness of fire as if it were still in the bodie And which is more some Divines think there would be no inconvenience to say the soul were revested by God with a bodie of air as in a sheath wherewith it should have Corink de purgatorio p. 529. the same sympathy it had before with the bodie it informed and this bodie being incorruptibly burnt as that of the damned should cause a painful quality to arise to torment it which I notwithstanding think not so probable But I rather believe the fire not being contrarie of its nature to the spirit might for all that be chosen and appointed by the singular disposition of providence to be unto the soul an afflicting sign in that it representeth to it in its flames the anger of an offended God as it shall be said in the subsequent Maxim Alas O Christians God grant we may be ignorant of this eternal and temporal fire and may rather be purged in this life than expect it in the other 5. When I come to the second point of this discourse Against the dulness of those who understand it not I cannot wonder enough at our stupidity lethargy we believe purgatorie and bely our belief by our works What may we hope in the other life living so negligently and remislely God is mercifull Behold our ordinarie saying But see we not in Scriptures the hand of God armed with fiery tempests over the infamous Cities of Sodom and Gomorrha and the bodies which sacrificed themselves in the flames of prodigious luxurie roasted and broyled under the breath of the anger of the Omnipotent See we not a whole world buried in the waters of a deluge waves of the Ocean rushing as in a citie sacked on the heads of offenders the sea becoming altogether the executioner and tomb of sinners See we not those beautifull Angels so beloved of God and so worthy of favour which also came most resplendent out of his hands lost by one thought of pride scorched and precipitated into dungeons of eternal flames Think we to be more to God than those cities replenished with an infinite number of souls than a whole world than legions of Angels Let us not flatter our selves by a presumptuous confidence of a mercy not due to a negligence so faint and dissolute The truth is no uncleanness enetreth into Paradise The truth is the eyes of the supream Judge cannot endure pollution
Lion and his body be hoary like the feathers of an eagle worn with old age I adde also to his conceit that God by these representations of four living creatures seemed to say to him O Nebuchadnezzar whilest thou didst sin onely against men I came with the slow pace of an ox to punish thy offences I suffered thee with much sweetness as a man but when thou grewest proud impious atheistical and tottering in the knowledge of the Divinity I fell upon thy crowned head as the eagle upon her prey reducing thee to a bruitish life and if thou goest forward I will pull thee in pieces as if thou hadst passed through the teeth of a Lion This makes me say that God tolerateth sins for some time which are of their own nature very enormous but as for impieties either he speedily chastiseth them in the heat of crime or reserveth them to unspeakable avengements See you not in the history of Kings how he tolerated David defiled with murder 2 Par. p. 26. 18 adultery nine whole months without taking notice of his fault But so soon as Ozias took the incensory to do an act of sacriledge and impiety behold him instantly strucken with leaprousie in the most eminent part of his body Why so Because other sins are many times committed through infirmity incitement or frailty but this which strikes at Gods jurisdiction proceeds from an advised and deliberate malice Behold the cause wherefore God maketh arrows of all wood and vengeance of all creatures to punish it according to its demerit Adde also hereunto a very remarkable proof which is that the Sovereign Judge Observation upon the chastisement of impiety though oftentimes sending his Prophets to stay the crimes of adultery of oppression of injustice and other like suffered them to pass on in an ordinary way yet when he dispatched messengers to confound idolatry and impiety which was raised in Bethel by Jeroboam Reg. 3. 13. he made them flie like eagles and impetuous storms This is verified in Jeroboam King of Israel who began to offer incense to Idols when a Prophet came out of Jerusalem and arrived as the Interpreters observe in Bethel before the incensing was finished which happened in a very short time If one ask how this man of God in less than the space of a sacrifice performed about six leagues for it was as far distant from Bethel to Jerusalem it is answered God bare him on the wings of winds because he went of purpose to destroy atheism and impiety which was hatched among the Israelites And verily being come before this sacrilegious Altar he cried out aloud to Jeroboam's face O Altar Altar listen for much better Altare Altare haec dicit Dominus c. is it to speak to these stones than to an Atheist God hath said and it shall happen an infant shall be born of the house of David called Josias who shall sacrifice the priests which now incense to Idols on their own Altars and there shall he turn their bones into dust Which was afterward performed I now demand if the celestial Father proceeded with such rigour against those who altered some ceremony of the ancient Law that he was not contented to fall speedily upon them more swift than eagles and tempests but caused bones of the dead to be taken out of sepulchers whereunto the right of nature had confined them to burn and consume them on the Altar which they had profaned what will become of those who since the venerable mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God run into horrible sins of infidelity and trample under foot the bloud of the Testament Perhaps you yet conceive not sufficiently the greatnes of this crime but I will make it appear unto you by a powerfull reason S. Denys the Dionys c. 1. de divin nominib Areopagite saith that Being is the most intimate most necessarie most universal and most perfect of all things because it containeth in eminency all perfections which are not but participation of Being And if this essence be strongly rooted in all creatures so that there is none but God who can annihilate it what shall we say of the essence of the Sovereign Creatour which originally containeth all essences God to speak properly being nothing but his own essence There is no doubt but it is an excellency wholly incomprehensible Now we must necessarily infer that by how much the more a thing is excellent so much the more the crimes which assail it are punishable Behold the cause why one cannot almost find pains suitable to Atheism and impiety which resist the essence of God The horrible punishments of the wicked for the sin of Impietie I Moreover affirm if in a time when the Divinity was not yet fully published it notwithstanding inflicted fearfull punishments both on the living and dead who had before-time offended what will become of it after the publication of the Gospel and the coming of the Word Incarnate who maketh speak unto us for the confirmation of his law and word the bloud of so many millions of Martyrs who died for defence of the truth who hath opened to us on earth so many mouthes of Apostles Evangelists Doctours singular in wisdom and sanctity as there are stars in heaven who likewise gave speech to stones and marbles of those ancient Churches to instruct us in our Religion The stone shall crie out in Habac. 2. 11. Lapiâ— de pariete clamabit the midst of walls saith the Prophet Habacuc Nay I demand which is the more tolerable either to despise Joseph in the fetters of bondage or to offer him an affront on Pharaoh's royal chariot Every man of judgement will tell me there is no comparison and that he who yielded not honour to Joseph being a captive seemed not worthy punishment but to deny him honour when Pharaoh having placed him in a chariot of glory caused to be proclaimed by a Herauld of arms Abrec Abrec Let all the world bow the knee before Joseph was a crime of treason We then inferre if the Jews for having neglected Jesus Christ in bonds in opprobries in torments and the pains of the Cross were chastised with hydeous punishments to all posterity what may we expect for such as revile heaven and dishonour Jesus Christ in the chariot of his triumph after they had seen and manifestly known as by ways more than humane that he put all the glory power wisdom and sanctity of the whole universe under his feet and having now also after sixteen hundred years and more through all the parts of the habitable world both Altars and Sacrifices where he hath received services and homages of so many Myters Scepters and Crowns from wise and holy men that it would be easier to number the sands of the sea than to keep an account of them But if you still doubt the punishment of the Jews for the sin of impietie do but read Histories both divine and humane to
my discourse put any prejudice upon the virtuous and civil Amities which may be between persons of different sex who are endowed with singular and excellent virtues and who manage their affections with admirable discretion which although rarely may be done and if there be any who abuse it it is not fit by reason of blasted members to blame sound parts and suspect them of corruption nor to censure the actions of many great Saints who being obliged by duty to converse with other sex then their own have therein comported themselves with so much prudence and charinesse S. Augustine in the fourth Book of the City of God saith The Ancients had three Goddesses of Love one for the irregular another for the married and a third for Virgins We must not think the kingdome of hell perpetually swayeth upon the earth to speak with the Wise-man and that one cannot look on a woman not take in the fire of evil love How many be theâ—e who wholly are estranged from all tender and affectionate inclinations Briars and thorns are as full of courtesie as their greetings and the ice of Scythia is not more cold then their conversation How many do we find who having their spirits wholly possessed by other passions one of Ambition another of Avarice another of Revenge another of Envy another transported by the sollicitude of a suit and the turmoil of a family who think very little upon love How many other are there from whom study affairs and charges wherein they strive supereminently to transcend free their minds from all other thoughts And how many Ladies see we in the world with a countenance ever smiling of a humour chearfull and conversation most pleasing who make love to wits and spirits as Bees to flowers but have with the body no commerce at all But if this may sometimes proceed from humour by a much stronger reason we must think great souls that are powerfully possessed by the love of God which replenisheth the whole latitude of their hearts and who live in continuall exercises of prayer and mortification may converse with women for the affairs of salvation by a conversation sweetly grave and simply prudent not changing the love which they bear to the virtue of chastity It is an act of a base or maligne spirit to measure all by ones own self and to think that what he would do in a slippery occasion must be done by all such who are farre otherwise eminent in grace and virtue then are the ordinary sort of men The Authour of the theatre of Nature holdeth The Basilisk cannot be enchanted that the Basilisk alone among serpents cannot be enchanted and I dare affirm there are men who have the like priviledge and have their eyes love-proof and their hearts shut up against all the assaults of concupiscence whether it proceed from singular habits of virtue or whether it be some very extraordinary gift from God Democritus voluntarily made himself Tertul. Apologeticuâ— blind by looking stedfastly on the beams of the sun to free himself from the importunities of the love of women He perhaps shut up two gates against love to open a thousand to his imagination Origen deprived himself of the distinction of sex to rebate the stings of sensuality which bred him much mischief Grace and the gift of God doth more then all the endeavours of men it forsaketh not those who by obligation of their charge and out of the necessity of their profession converse with women within all the limits and due proportions of decorum The Ecclesiasticall History assureth us that the glorious The extraordinary practice of S. Athanasius S. Athanasius seeing himself persecuted by the Arrians with rage thirsty of his bloud and not knowing whom to trust hid himself in the night-time in the house of a devout Virgin where he was long concealed and protected against the fury of his persecutours Whosoever will weigh this shall find it an extraordinary Soz. l. 5. c 6. Palladius act for the history saith the Virgin was a miracle of beauty and being not fully twenty years of age had made a vow to preserve a perpetuall virginity to God It much amazed her at first seeing the great Prelate had chosen her little habitation for the place of his retreat but he assuring her it was the will of God she enterteined him with an open heart and served him with so much purity obedience and reverence that she seemed to have lodged an Angel not a Man in her house She furnished him with all necessaries for life she washed his feet yea she borrowed Books for him with singular heed that he might entertain time in this his imprisonment Cardinall Baronius calleth this history into question and thinks it an invention of Arrius his side but there is very little apparence seeing the Arrians of that time never objected it to S. Athanasius as being a matter out of their knowledge And although this great man in his Apology hath said nothing of it where he speaketh of his flights and retreats this notwithstanding nothing at all lesseneth the truth of it since there are many things may very innocently be done by prudent men which are not necessary to be published to all the world And needs must he have had little judgement to have vaunted this accident before his enemies whereof they would have taken but too much occasion to calumniate him And as for that which Baronius saith that it onely belonged to widows to wash the feet of Saints it is true according to the ordinary proceedings of the Church and the liberty of its functions but here the question is of an outrageous persecution and of an act out of common practice and there is not any reason which can essicaciously prove this history to be invented seeing it is faithfully set down by Sozomen and Palladius two great admirers of the virtues of S. Athanasius whereof the one giveth so evident proofs that he witnesseth he had seen the same Virgin when she was seventy years old and saith this relation was confirmed to him by Priests of Alexandria I hold it more admirable then imitable and that although the Hebrew Children were once preserved in the fornace by miracle one must not therefore desperately throw himself through imprudence among coles but ever confesse the hand of God is able to safeguard those in perils who have not despaired in the peril but who by necessity become therein engaged What shall we say of S. John Chrysostome Is Lusiaca Amity of S. John Chrysostome with a Lady named Olympias there a man more austere in his life and more vehement in the matters of virtuous Amities It is a strange thing to reade the letters he writes from the place of his banishment to his dear Olympias He saluteth her with opennesse of most ardent affections he calleth her his Saint and his venerable Lady sometimes he instructs and encourageth her by sublime grave discourses addressing Epistles to
it not these poor miserable creatures desire nothing more than to give me my last Farewel and I am confident my Sister Elizabeth would not have refused me so small a courtesie seeing the Honour of my Sex demandeth that my Servants should be present I am her near kinswoman Grandchild to Henry the eight and Queen Dowager of France besides I have received the Unction of Queen of Scotland if you will not grant this courtesie to one of my quality let me have it at least for the tenderness of the heart of men On this consideration five or six of her ordinary Servants were permitted to accompany her to the place of Execution to which she now was going This Divine Queen whom France had seen to walk in such state and Triumph at the pomp of her marriage when she was followed with all the glory of that Kingdom doth now alas go with this poor train to render her neck unto the Hangman She came into the Hall hung round about with blacks and ascended the Scaffold which was covered with the same livery to accomplish this last Act of her long Tragedy What eyes of furies were not struck blind at the aspect of this face in which the dying Graces did shoot for the last light of their shining Glories As soon as she was sate in a chair prepared for that purpose one Beal did read the Command and the outragious Sentence of her death which she heard very peaceably suppressing all the strugglings of Nature to abandon her self to Grace in the imitation of her Saviour At last Fletcher the Dean of Peterborough one of her evil Counsellours did present himself before her and made a Pedantical Discourse on the condition of the life passed the life present and the life to come undertaking according to his power to pervert her in this her last conflict This was the most sensible to her of all her afflictions at the last minute of her life to hear the studied speech of an impertinent and audacious Minister wherefore she oftentimes interrupted him and besought him not to importune her assuring him that she was confirmed in the saith of the ancient Catholick and Roman Church and was ready to shed her last bloud for it Nevertheless this infamous Doctour did not cease to persecute her with his Remonstrances unto the shades of Death She looked round about the Hall if she could discover her Confessor to demand of him the absolution of her sins but he was so busie that he could not be found A poor Maid belonging to her having thrust her self with all her force into the Croud as soon as she was got through them and beheld her Mistress between two Hang-men did break forth into a loud crie which troubled those who were about the Queen to assist her But the Queen who had a spirit present on all occasions made a sign unto her with her hand that she should hold her peace if she had not a mind to be forced thence The Lords then made a semblance as if they would pray for her but she thanked them heartily for their good will saying that it would be taken as a crime to communicate in prayers with them Then turning to the multitude who were about three hundred persons she thus expressed her self It is a new spectacle to behold a Queen brought to die upon a Scaffold I have not learned to undress to unveil my self and to put off the Royal Ornaments in so great a Companie and to have two Hang-men in the place of the Grooms of my Chamber But we must submit to what Heaven is pleased to have done and obey the Decrees of the Divine Providence I protest before the face of the living God that I never attempted against the Life or Estate of my Cousin neither have I committed any thing worthie of this usage If it be imputed to my Religion I esteem my self most happie to shed even the last drop of my life for it I put all my confidence in him whom I see represented in this Cross which I hold in my hand and I promise and assure my self that this temporal Death suffered for his Name shall be a beginning to me of eternal Life with the Angels and most happie Souls who shall receive my bloud and represent it before the face of God in the Remission of all my Offences There was now a floud in every eye and amongst all her Enemies there were not above four who were able to contain their tears The Hang-man clothed in black velvet fell down on his knees and did demand her pardon which she most willingly granted and not to him onely but to all her persecutours After these words she kneeled down her self praying aloud in Latin and invoked the most holy Mother of God and the triumphant Company of Saints to assist her She repeated her most servent prayers for the Church for her Kingdom for France for her Son for her cruel murtherers for England for her Judges and for her Executioner recommending into the hands of the Saviour of the world her spirit purified as well by love as by affliction The last words of her Pravers were these As thy arms Lord Jesus were stretched forth on the Cross so receive me into the stretched forth arms of thy mercie She uncessantly kissed a Crucifix which she had in her hand whereat one that stood by being offended at the honour which she gave unto the Cross told her That she should carry it in her heart to whom she suddenly made answer Both in my heart and in my hand After this she disposed her self to the Block The Executioner would have taken off her Gown but she repelled him and desired that that office might be performed for her by her own maids who approched to her to prepare her for the stroke of Death And she her self did accommodate them in it as diligently as she could and laid open her neck and throat more white than Alabaster and too much alas discovered for so lamentable a Subject This being done she signed her own Attendants with the sign of the Cross kissing them and with a short smile did bid them farewel to shew that she died as comfortably as constantly making no more resistance than the flower doth against the hand that doth gather it Those poor creatures did weep most bitterly and with their sighs and sobs could have cleaved the rocks when the Queen reproved them saying Nay What do you mean Have I answered for your constancie and that your grief should not be importunate and do you suffer your selves to be thus transported with lamentation when I am going to exchange a temporal Kingdom full of miserie for an everlasting Empire filled with fellcitie It was discovered that she had a Cross about her of great value which she intended to have bestowed on one of her nearest friends promising the Executioner to recompence him some other way but this enemy of the Cross did force it from her to satisfie