penance performed by Ezechiel the Prophet at the Commandment of God who appointed him that he should continue laid upon one side without rising for the space of 390 days This was a most rigorous pennance but by Divine Grace accomplished by the holy Prophet If it be then so difficult to lie immoveable upon one side for so short a time as the space of one year what shall it be for a condemned sinner to lye stretched upon a bed of sire in that eternal night and sadness of hell all sorts of evils raining down upon him for a time without end or limit What Christian is there who should consider and frame a liveconceit of this but would become another man who could take delight in a momentary pleasure of this life running the danger of those eternal pains in the next who would dare to sin at the hazard of so great a punishment O how powerful a remedy were it against the disordered customs of sinners if they would but settle themselves seriously to think that Eternity hath no end O that they would think upon this one half hour in a day or but so much in a week how quickly would they amend their lives But this is a thought not to be past over in haste but leasurely pondered with attention and profound consideration meditating within our selves what Eternity is that it is that which shall never have an end never never For as that meat which is not chewed nor concocted in the stomack benefits nothing so the thought of Eternity without being well ruminated and digested will little advantage us The force of this consideration appears by an accident related by Benedictus Renatus of a certain man vain and vitious named Fulk the which Benedict Renat lib. 5. as he was given to all sorts of pleasure and delicacy would be sure not to want a soft bed and a large repose But one night his sleep failing him tossing and turning from side to side desiring every moment that day would break whilest he lay thus awake this thought came into his consideration What wouldest thou take to lye in this manner for the space of two or three years in continual darkness without conversation of friends or entertainment of thy pleasures certainly although thou shouldest lye at thy ease and upon a soft Bed as thou now doest yet the trouble would be intolerable But know that thou art not to depart so cheap out of this life thou art not to escape hence at thy own choice at the best that can happen thou art to lye languishing in thy Death-bed where thou art to pass many evil and tedious nights unless perchance thou dye suddenly which will be more and when thou leavest that Bed and dyest dost thou know what Bed shall then expect thee what Couch death hath provided for thee Thy body certainly shall lye upon the hard and cold earth and be devoured by worms but concerning the soul what shall become of it knowest thou whither it shall goe assuredly according to thy present life it shall goe to hell where a terrible Bed of fire awaits thee not for a year or two but for a whole Eternity There thou art to continue in perpetual darkness and torments where a thousand thousand millions of years are not sufficient to satisfie for one of thy unlawful pleasures There thou shalt never see nor Sun nor Heaven nor God Ay me Ay miserable me if this poor want of sleep be so ill to be endured how shall I suffer the eternal torments of hell that which now imports me is to change my course of life for in this way I now goe I am lost for ever These considerations imprinted so deep a character in his minde of Eternity that he could not quit the thought of it until he had resolved to become a Religious man but would often say with himself What doest thou here miserable man thou livest in the world and the world affords thee no comfort thou sufferest many things which thou wouldest willingly avoid and wantest others which thou wouldest as willingly enjoy Thou molestest thy self with the cares of this life and what reward attends thee for all thy trouble thou enjoyest no compleat pleasure and if thou didst it would not last Seest thou not daily those who dye and enter into Eternity O Eternity Eternity if thou beest not in Heaven wheresoever thou art even in this soft Bed thou art grievous I will therefore endeavour to assure Heaven and for a little will not lose much nor for what is temporal the eternal and so putting in execution what he had resolved upon he entered a Religious person into the order of the Cistercians §. 4. All our actions are still to be accompanied with this thought For ever For ever shall be rewarded that which I do well and that for ever punished wherein I grievously offend With this consideration shall a Christian not onely animate himself to do good works but to do them well Aelianus writes of Ismenias Lib. 1. Var. Hist ca. 21. Embassador from the Thebans unto the King of Persia that being about to deliver his Embassage and advertised that before he spake a word he was to adore the King Ismenias thinking this honour too much to be bestowed upon a barbarous Prince yet seeing no wayes to avoid it fell upon this devise He took his Ring which anciently was of great esteem as signifying the quality and authority of him that wore it and pulling it from his finger let it secretly fall at the Kings feet whilest he lay prostrate before them saying within himself Not unto thee but to this Ring If we in like manner should in all our actions propose unto our selves Eternity and wholly respect it we should finde little difficulty in any good work we went about Let us therefore fix our eyes and thoughts upon it which is to be given us for that which may be done in a moment Blessed be God who bestows upon us a reward without and for troubles so short that they scarcely have a beginning Euripides a famous Poet amongst the Greeks complained upon a time that in three whole days he had made but three Verses and those not without trouble Alcestides another Poet present answered For me one day is sufficient to make an hundred Verses and that with ease Euripides then replied It is no marvel since thy Verses are but for three dayes and mine are for ever In the same manner Zeuxis a most excellent Painter but above all measure slow being demanded why he was so tedious in his work answered I paint leasurely because I paint for ever But certainly he deceived himself for at this day there is no Picture of his to be seen and for Euripides many of his works are lost But no good work of the just shall perish Neither have we need so much as of a day to gain Eternity One act of Contrition which is made in a moment does it and in a moment
as far distant from the immensity of God as the smallest grain of sand so a thousand years are as far short of Eternity as the twinckling of an eye Wherefore Boëtius says that there is more similitude betwixt a moment of time and ten thousand years than betwixt ten thousand years and Eternity There is no expression which can sufficiently set forth the greatness of what is Eternal nor which can explicate the brevity of time and littleness of what is Temporal Wherefore David Psal 76. when he considered what had passed since God created the world until his time calls all those Ages which were already past by the name of dayes saying I thought upon the days of old And it is not much that he should call Ages dayes when in another place he sayes a thousand years in the presence of God are but as yesterday 1. Joan. 2. And St. John expresses it yet more fully when he calls all those years which were to pass betwixt his time and the end of the world whereof 1600 are already run but an hour But David when he set himself seriously to think upon Eternity which in it self is but one and as the Saints speak one day he calls it Eternal years augmenting as much as he could the conception of Eternity and diminishing that of time For the same reason the Prophet Daniel setting forth the Glory of Apostolical persons speaks in the plural number That they shall shine like Stars for perpetual Eternities it seeming unto him that the ordinary Number did not suffice to declare what Eternity was and therefore explicates it by the number of many Eternities adding for more amplification the Epithete of perpetual Dan. 12. But endeavour we never so much we declare nothing of it Let the Prophets turn themselves wholly into tongues let them call it perpetual Eternities let them call it Eternity of Eternities let them call it many dayes let them call it Ages of Ages all falls short to explicate the infinite duration which it hath Wherefore Eliu speaking of God Job 36. says his years were inestimable because no years imaginable could compare with his Eternity Betwixt a minute and 100000 years there is proportion but betwixt 100000 years and Eternity none at all Well may a quarter of an hour be compared unto a million of years but a million of years with Eternity holds no comparison in respect of which all time vanishes and disappears neither is a million of years more than a moment since neither have proportion with Eternity but in respect of it are both equal or to say better are both nothing Eccl. 11. Wherefore the Wise man said That if a man had lived many years and those all in pleasure yet ought he to remember the time of darkness and the many dayes for so he calls Eternity the which when they shall come all that is past will be found to be vanity If Cain had lived and enjoyed all the felicities of the Earth even until this day and at this instant died what should he now possess of all his delights What would remain unto him of all his dayes past Certainly no more than remained unto his brother Abel whom he murdred more than 5500 years ago equally had both their dayes disappeared and Cain had no more left of his sports and pleasures so fully and for so long a time enjoyed than Abel of his short life but more to suffer in that time of darkness and the many dayes of Eternity Eccl. 11. For if as Ecclesiasticus saith The evils of one hour make many pleasures to be forgotten and the moment wherein a man dyes bereaves him of all he did in life either for delight or appetite why shall not then the torments of Hell make him forget all the pleasures of the earth and the Eternity of evils strip him of a few and momentary pastimes If with the grief of one hour the pleasures of many years are forgotten why shall not the pleasure of one moment for which thou fallest into Hell be forgotten with the malice of many years And if the instant of thy bodily death deprive thee of all thy vain contents and entertainments past what shall be done by the eternal death of thy Soul In that instant wherein Heliogabolus dyed what continued with him of all his sports and delights Nothing At this present after so many years measured in the Eternity of Hell what now remains with him but torments upon torments griefs upon griefs pains upon pains evils upon evils and a perpetual Woe is me which shall last as long as God is God The moment wherein we dye as touching the things of this life makes all men equal He who lived long and he who died shortly he who enjoyed much and he who had but little he who was glutted with all sorts of delights and he who was fed with the bread of sorrow and vexed with all sorts of griefs and misfortunes all are now the same all are ended in death the one is not sensible of his pleasure nor the other grieved with his labours After the expiration of an hundred years in a most rigid life what felt St. Romualdus of all his austerities What the most penitent Simeon Stylites after fourscore years of a prodigious penance wherein he quitted not his hair-shirt by day or night What felt he at his death of his continual fasts and long prayers Certainly of pain no more than if he had spent all that long time in the wanton pleasures of Sardanapalus Of griefs he found nothing but of joy and glory he now does and ever shall in abundance What felt St. Clement of Ancira of his twenty eight years torments suffered by the furious rage and madness of Tyrants Certainly of Pain no more then if during that time he had enjoyed all the delights of the world but of Glory an Eternity For if the malice of one hour make the contents of an hundred years to be forgotten much more will the happiness of an Eternity blot out the remembrance of 28 years sufferance O prodigious moment of death which gives an end unto all that is Temporal which transmits and changes all things which concludes the gusts and pleasures of sinners and begins their torments which ends the labours and austerities of Saints and begins their Glory and joyes Eternal Let therefore a Christian seriously consider that the pleasures by which he sins and the mortifications by which he satisfies are equally to have an end and that the torments which he deserves by the one and the joyes which he merits by the other are equally never to have an end and let him then make election of that which shall be best for him Let him see if it be not better to work himself an eternal Crown of glory out of the sleight and momentary sufferings of this life And let not the length of life affright him for there is nothing long in respect of Eternity It was
Titus Etherius dyed in the act of lust Giachetto Saluciano and his Mistress dyed in the same venerial action and their bodies were both found conjoyned in death as their souls went joyntly to hell Upon small matters and unexpected accidents depends the success of that moment upon which depends Eternity Let every one open his eyes and assure not himself of that life which hath so many entrances for death let no man say I shall not dye to day for many have thought so and yet sodainly dyed that very hour By so inconsiderable things as we have spoken of many have dyed and thou mayest dye without any of them For a sodain death there is no need of a hair or fish bone to strangle thee nor affliction of melancholy to oppress or excess of sodain joy to surprize thee it may happen without all these exteriour causes A corrupt humour in the entrails which flyes unto the heart without any body perceiving it is sufficient to make an end of thee and it is to be admired that no more dye sodainly considering the disorders of our lives and frailties of our bodies we are not of iron or brass but of soft and delicate flesh A Clock though of hard Mettal in time wears our and hath every hour need of mending and the breaking of one wheel stops the motion of all the rest There is more artifice in a humane body than in a Clock and it is much more subtle and delicate The nerves are not of steel nor the veins of brass nor the entrails of iron How many have had their livers or spleen corcupted or displaced and have dyed sodainly no man sees what he hath within his body and such may his infirmity be that although he thinks and feels himself well yet he may dye within an hour Let us all tremble at what may happen CAP. IV. Why the end of Temporal Life is terrible DEath because it is the end of life is by Aristotle said to be the most terrible of all things terrible What would he have said if he had known it to be the beginning of Eternity and the gate through which we enter into that vast Abyss no man knowing upon what side he shall fall into that profound and bottomless depth If death be terrible for ending the business and affairs of life what is it for ushering in that instant wherein we are to give an accompt of life before that terrible and most just Judge who therefore dyed that we might use it well It is not the most terrible part of death to leave the life of this world but to give an accompt of it unto the Creatour of the world especially in such a time wherein he is to use no mercy This is a thing so terrible that it made holy Job to tremble notwithstanding he had so good an accompt to make who was so just that God himself gloried in having such a Servant The Holy Ghost testifies that he sinned not in all what he had spoken in his troubles and calamities which were sent him not as a punishment for his sins but as a trial of his patience proposing him unto us an example of vertue and constancy and he himself protests that his Conscience did not accuse him yet for all this was so fearful of the strict judgment which God passes in the end of the world that amazed at the severity of his Divine Justice he cries out in his discourse with the Lord Who will give me that thou protect and hide me in hell Dionys Rikel artic 16. de noviss whilest thy fury passes Whereupon Dionysius Rikellius affirms that that instant wherein the Judgement of God is to be given is not onely more terrible than death but more terrible than to suffer the pains of hell for some certain time and this not onely unto those who are to be damned but even unto those who are elected for heaven Since therefore Job being so just and holy quaked at the apprehensions of that Divine Judgement when it was yet far from him and when we use not to be so sensible as of things at hand without doubt when a Sinner shall in that instant perceive himself to have displeased his Redeemer and Creatour although but in small faults yet it will afflict him more than the suffering of most great pains for which St. Basil judged that it was less to suffer eternal torments Basil hom contra divites avaros than the confusion of that day and therefore pondering that reprehension given unto the rich man in the Gospel Fool this night thy Soul shall be taken from thee Whose then shall be the riches which thou hast gotten the Saint avers that this mock this taunt did exceed an eternal punishment Death is terrible for many weighty reasons and every one sufficient to cause in us a mortal fear whereof not the least is the sight of the offended Judge who is not onely Judge but Party and a most irrefragable Witness in whose visage shall then appear such a severity against the wicked that St. Austin sayes he had rather suffer all manner of torments than to behold the face of his angry Judge And St. Chrysostome saith Chrys homi 24. in Math. It were better to be struck with a thousand Thunderbolts than to behold that countenance so meek and full of sweetness estranged from us and those eyes of peace and mildness not enduring to behold us The only sight of an Image of Christ crucified Rad. in opusc in annuis Societ which appeared with wrathful and incensed eyes although in this life when the field of mercy is open was sufficient so to astonish three hundred persons who beheld it that they fell unto the ground senseless and without motion and so continued for the space of some hours How will it then amaze us when we shall behold not a dead Image but Jesus Christ himself alive not in the humility of the Cross but upon a Throne of Majesty and Seat of Justice not in a time of mercy but in the hour of vengeance not naked with pierced hands but armed against Sinners with the Sword of Justice when he shall come to judge and revenge the injuries which they have done him God is as righteous in his justice as in his mercy and as he hath allotted a time for mercy so he will for justice and as in this life the rigour of his justice is as it were repressed and suspended so in that point of death when the Sinner shall receive judgment it shall be let loose and overwhelm him A great and rapid river which should for 30 or 40 years together have its current violently stopt what a mass of waters would it collect in so long a space and if it should then be let loose with what fury would it overrun and bear down all before it and what resistance could withstand it Since then the Divine justice Dan. 7. which the Prophet Daniel compares
such a one would hardly make him conceive the brightness and beauty of the Sun much less can the glory of those things of the other world be made to appear unto us though exemplified by comparisons of the greatest beauty the world affords So ineffable blessings are contemned by a Sinner and all to make himself despicable and accursed .. § 3. After the same manner the evils and pains of this World are nothing comparable unto those which are eternal and therefore as the three hundred years enjoying of one heavenly pleasure seemed unto that Servant of God no longer than three hours so to the contrary three hours of eternal pains will appear unto the damned as three hundred years and much more since even of the temporal pains in Purgatory this notable accident is written by St. Antoninus St. Anto. 4. p. §. 4. A man of an evil life was visited by our Lord with a long infirmity to the end he might repent and reflect upon his sins which took effect But his sickness by continuance grew so grievous and tedious unto him as he often with great earnestness recommended himself unto God and besought him to deliver him from the prison of his body Whereupon an Angel appeared unto him with this choice either to continue two years sick in that manner he was and then to goe straight to Heaven or to die instantly and remain three dayes in Purgatory He was not long in his election but presently chose the latter and immediately died but had not been an hour in those pains when the same Angel appeared unto him again and after some encouragement and consolation demanded if he knew him he answered No. I am said he the Angel who brought thee that choice from Heaven either to come hither or to remain in thy infirmity for two years To whom the afflicted soul replied It is impossible thou shouldest be the Angel of the Lord for good Angels cannot lie and that Angel told me I should remain in this place but three dayes and it is now so many years that I have suffered those most bitter torments and can yet see no end of my misery Know then said the Angel that it is not yet an hour since thou left thy body and the rest of the three dayes yet remain for thee to suffer To whom the Soul replied Pray unto the Lord for me that he look not upon my ignorance in making so foolish a choice but that out of his Divine mercy he will give me leave to return once more unto life and I will not onely patiently suffer those two years but as many as it shall please him to impose upon me His Petition was granted and being restored unto life his experience of Purgatory made all the pains of his infirmity seem light unto him in so much as he endured them not onely with patience but joy Much like unto this as appears in the Chronicles of the Minorits happened unto a religious person of the Order of St. Francis Chron. S. Fran. 2. p. l. 4. c. 8. who demanded the same of God Almighty in regard of the much trouble he put his religious brebren unto as also for what he suffered himself An Angel appeared unto him and gave him his choice either of suffering one day in Purgatory or remaining a whole year longer sick as he was He made choice to die presently and had scarce been one hour in Purgatory when he began to complain of the Angel for having cozened him The Angel appeared unto him again certifying him that his body was not yet buried because there was one onely hour past since his death He gave him his choice the second time His Soul was presently reunited to the body and he rose out of his Bed to the great astonishment of all If this then pass in Purgatory it will not be less in hell and if an hour seem a year which contains above eleven thousand hours an eternity in hell will appear eleven thousand eternities O how dearly bought are the short pleasures of the senses which are paid for with so long and so innumerable torments For if pain should last no longer than the pleasure that deserved it it would seem to those who are to feel it ten thousand times longer What will it do being eternal O pains of this World infirmities griefs and troubles how ridiculous are ye compared with those which are eternal since the time which you endure is but short and it is not much that you can afflict us nay if by temporal punishments we may escape the eternal you are most happy unto us and ought to be received with a thousand welcoms CAP. II. The greatness of the eternal honour of the Just LEt us now in particular consider the greatness of those goods of the other life in which are contained Honours Riches Pleasures and all the blessings both of soul and body of each whereof we shall say something apart and will begin with that of Honour Certainly the reward of honour which shall be conferred upon the Just in the other life is to be wonderful great First in respect that amongst all the appetites of a reasonable creature that of honour is the most potent and prevalent Secondly because our Saviour exhorts us unto humility as the way by which we are to enter into glory and promiseth honours and exaltations unto the humble and there is no question but in that place of satiety remuneration and accomplishment of all that can be desired the honour of the Servants of Christ and followers of his humility shall be inexpressible of which there are many promises in holy Scripture He himself sayes That his Father will honour them in Heaven and David sings Thou hast crowned him with glory and honour and Ecclesiasticus as it is applied by the Church A Crown of Gold upon his head graven with the seal of holiness and the glory of honour Besides all the tribute which those who serve God are able to pay him is onely to laud and honour him His eternal joy happiness and all his intrinsecal perfections are so excellent that they can receive no addition onely this glory and honour as they are an exteriour good are capable of augmentation And this is that which he receives from the Saints who serve him With which God is so pleased that he pays them again in the same money and honours those who honoured him and this honour arrives at that height that Christ himself expresses it in these words Apoc. 3. He who shall overcome I will give him to sit with me in my Throne even at I have overcome and have sitten with the Father in his Throne At the greatness of which promise a Doctor being amazed cries out Bell. l. 1. de aterna felici c. 4. infine How great shall be that glory when a just Soul shall in the presence of an infinite number of Angels sit in the same Throne with Christ and shall by the
which it causes will be excessive Vide Marcel Don. in Hist Mâ—dica l. 2. c. 1. Alexander Tralianus writes of a Woman who was extremely ill onely with a false imagination that she had swallowed a Snake and was perswaded that she already felt most grievous pains by the Snakes gnawing of her entrals What will the apprehension of the truth do in those miserable wretchches when the worm of their conscience will be continually gnawing their very hearts Assaharaâ—ius writes of others who complained of the great pains they endured by whipping when no man touched a thread of their Garment Much more is that which Fulgosius recounts as an eye-witnese that being Judge in a Duel one of the Competitors made the other flye Baptist Fulgos l. 9. but instantly fell down dead himself without any other cause than an imagination that he was hurt to death for he neither received wound nor blow neither was the sign of any found upon his dead body If in this life the imagination be so powerful in men who are in health and have other diversions as to cause a sense of pain where none hurts grief where none molests and death where none kills What shall it be in Hell where there is nothing of delight to divert it where so many Devils punish and afflict with torments preserving onely life that the pain of death may live eternally And if we see some timorous people with an imaginary fear tremble and remain half dead there is no doubt but the imagination of those miserable persons joyned with the horror of the place where they are will cause a thousand pains and torments The powers of the Soul shall be those which shall suffer the greatest lashes The Will shall be tormented with an eternal abhorring and rage against it self against all creatures and against God the Creator of all and shall with an intolerable sadness anger grief and disorder of all the affections violently desire things impossible and despair of all what is good And if joy consists in the possessing of what one loves and pain in the want of that which is desired and being necessitated to what is abhorred What greater pain and torment than to be ever desiring that which shall never be enjoyed and ever abhorring that which we can never be quyt of Bern. l. 5. de Consid ad Eugen. Papam Wherefore St. Bernard sayes What thing more painful then ever to will that which shall never be and ever to will that which shall not cease to be That which he desires he shall never obtain and what he desires not eternally suffer And from hence shall spring that raging fury which David speaks of The sinner shall see and he raging he shall gnash his teeth and be consumed This rage and madness shall be augmented by the despair which shall be joyned unto it For as no man sins without injury to the Divine mercy presuming to sin in hope he may repent and be pardoned So it was fit that the Divine justice should chastise the sinner with a despair of all remedy that so he who abused the Divine benefits with a false hope might feel the punishment of a true despair This torment shall be most terrible unto the damned For as the greatest evil is eased by hope so the least is made grievous by despair Hope in afflictions is supported by two things One is the fruit which may result from suffering The other is the end and conclusion of the evil suffered But in regard the despair of the damned is of so great evils the despair it self will be a most terrible one If one suffers and reaps fruit from it 't is a comfort unto him and the grief is recompenced by the joy of the benefit thereof but when the suffering is without fruit or profit then it comes to be heavy indeed The hope of a good harvest makes the labourer with chearfulness endure the toyl of plowing and sowing but if he were certain to reap no profit every pace he moved would be grievous and irksome unto him A Day-labourer with the hope of his wages goes through the toyl of the day with great comfort But if they commanded him to work for nothing he would have no heart to work at all The holy Martyrs and Confessors of Christ what penances what rigours what martyrdomes have they willingly undergone expecting the fruit they were to draw from their patience And though in temporal afflictions this hope of recompence should fail yet the hope that they would sometime cease and have an end would afford some comfort and ease unto the sufferers But in Hell both those are wanting The damned shall neither receive reward for their sufferings nor shall their torments ever have an end Of them it is that St. John speaks They shall seek death and shall not find it Apoc. 9. They shall desire to die and death shall flye from them O let a Christian consider how great a recompence attends the least of our sufferings here in Christs service and how vain and unprofitable shall all our sufferings be hereafter One penitent knock upon the breast here may gain eternal glory There the most intense pains and torments both in soul and body cannot deserve a drop of cold water nor so much ease as to turn from one side to the other In this raging despair ends the temerarious hopes of sinners Hell is full of those who hoped they should never enter into it and full of those who despair of getting out of it They offended with a presumptuous hope they should not die in sin and that proving false are fallen into eternal desperation There is no hope can excuse the falling into so great a danger Let us therefore secure Heaven and not sin The Memory shall be another cruel Tormentor of those miserable sinners converting all they have done good or bad into torments The good because they have lost their reward The bad because they have deserved their punishments The delights also which they have enjoyed and all the happiness of this life in which they have triumphed seeing that for them they fell into this misery shall be a sharp sword which shall pierce their hearts They shall burst with grief when they shall compare the shortness of their past pleasures with the eternity of their present torments What Mathematician so learned as can perfectly set out the excess of those eternal years of the other life unto those short few and evil dayes of this What groans what sighs will they pour out when they see that those delights have hardly lasted an instant and that the pains they suffer for them shall last for ages and eternities all that is past appearing but as a dream Let us tremble now at the felicity of this life if it make such wounds in the hearts of those who have used it ill Let us tremble at all our pleasures since they may turn into Arseneck and Hemlock The miserable wretch
Third an immortal Death O Death how much less cruel art thou in taking away life than in forcing to live in so painful a manner Greg. Moral l. 9. c. 49. St. Gregory also sayes In hell there shall be unto the miserable a death without death and an end without end for their death shall ever live and their end shall ever begin Mortal sin is the greatest of all evils and consequently deserves the greatest of all punishments Because in ordinary death which takes away the use of the senses the rigour of it is not felt God ordained another kind of death in which the senses perpetually dying should perpetually feel the force of pain and should ever live in the agony of dying This David signitied when he said That death should feed on the damned for as the Flock pastures upon the grass but ends it not because it still grows green and fresh again so that death feeds upon sinners but consumes them not This death of the damned the holy Scripture calls the second death Because it succeeds the first and comprehends both that of soul and bodie And with much reason may it also be called a double death because death is then doubled when we die and feel the torment of dying which in the first death of the body we do not Even here amongst us if there should be a condition in which we might be sensible but of some part of that which death brings along with it it would be esteemed a greater evil than death it self Who doubts but if one after burial should find himself alive and sensible under the earth where he could speak with no body see nothing but darkness hear nothing but those who walked above him smell nothing but the rotten stink of their bodies cat nothing but his own flesh nor feel any thing but the earth which opprest him or the cold pavement of the Vault where he lay Who doubts not I say but that this estate were worse than to be wholly dead since life onely served to feel the pain of death For this reason the ingenious Romans when they would punish Sacriledge which is the greatest crime made use of interring the offenders alive as of the greatest punishment and therefore executed it upon their Vestal Virgins when they offended a gainst their chastity as upon Oppia and Minutia that being alive they might feel the pain and bitterness of dying And certainly Zeno the Emperour found this punishment so bitter that he devoured his own flesh by morsels What Sepulcher is more horrible than that of Hell what is eternally shut upon those who are in it whore the miserable damned remain not onely under earth but under fire having sense for nothing but to feel death darkness loathsomness pain and stink This is therefore a double death because to feel the pain of death is an evil double to that of dying Lib. 6. de Civit. ca. 12. Wherefore St. Austin said No death is greater or worse than where death dies not Besides this death of Hell may be called a double death in respect it contains both the death of sin ang the death of pain those unfortunate wretches standind condemned never to be freed from the death of sin and for ever to be tormented with the death of pain There is no greater death than that of the Soul which is sin in which the miserable are to continue whilest God is God with that infinite evil and that ugly deformity which sin draws along with it which is worse than to suffer that eternal fire which is but the punishment of it After sin what pain should there be greater than that of sin it self and for this reason in Hell in regard 't is the torment for sin it is a greater pain than death it self or the most horrible death of all Who trembles not with the onely memory that he is to die remembring that he is to cease to be that the feet whereon he walks are no more to bear him that his hands are no more to serve him nor his eyes to see Why then do we not rather tremble at the thought of Hell in respect of which the first death is no punishment but a reward a happiness and a joy there being no damned in Hell but would take that death which we here inflict for offences as an ease of his pains O how much does the Divine Justice exceed the humane since that which men give unto those whom they condemn for the greatest offences would be received by those whom God condemns as a great ease comfort and accomplishment of their desires who shall desire death and death shall flye from them for unto all their evils and miseries this as the greatest is adjoyned that neither They nor It shall shall ever die This circumstance of being eternal doth much augment the torments of Hell such being the condition of eternity as hath been already declared that it doth infinitely augment that whereunto it is annexed Let us suppose that one had but a Gnat that should sting his right hand and a Wasp at the left and that one foot should be pricked with a Thorn and the other with a Pin. If this onely were to last for ever it would be an intolerable torment What will it then be when hands feet arms head bread and entrails are to burn for all eternity The onely holding one finger in a Candle for the space of a quarter of an hour no body would be able to suffer it To be then plunged into the infernal flames for years eternal what understanding is there that is able I do not say to express in words but to frame a due conception of this torment That a torment is never to cease and that the tormented is to live for ever the onely thinking of it causes great horror What would it be to suffer it Sur. To. 7. die 14. April A certain man who had not much repentance or feeling it seems of his sins having expressed divers most heinous offences to the holy Virgin St. Lidwine the Saint replyed That she would do penance for them contenting her self that he should onely lye in his Bed one night in the same posture looking up towards Heaven without moving or turning himself all night The man very contented and joyful If my penance says he be no greater than this I shall soon have performed it But he was scarce laid down in his Bed when he had a mind to turn on one side it being a great trouble to him not to do it perswading himself that he never lay so uneasie his whole life before and said unto himself My Bed is a very good one and soft I am well in health what is wanting to me nothing else is wanting but onely to turn me from one side to the other But this what is it be quiet and sleep as thou art till morning Canst thou not then tell me what doth aile thee By this means he call'd
ever in Heaven And it is no marvel though this great thought of Eternity should make so holy a King to tremble when as the Prophet Abucâ—ch sayes the highest hills of the world bow down and quake at the ways of Eternity Damas in vita ejus The holy youth Josaphat at the representation of Eternity Hell being placed on one side and Heaven on the other remained astonished without strength not being able to raise himself in his bed as if he had been afflicted with some mortal sickness The Philosophers more barbarous and who had less light were yet daunted with the conception of it and in their Symbols made choice of things of the greatest of terror to express it some painted it in the form of a Basilisk a Serpent the most terrible of all other who kills with his onely sight there being nothing more horror then that eternity of torments whereinto we are subject to fall Conformable to this St. John Damascen represented eternal duration under the figure of a fierce Dragon which from a deep pit lay waiting with open jawes to swallow men alive Others figured it by a horrible and profound Cavern which at the entrance had four degrees one of iron another of brass the third of silver and the last of gold upon which many little Children of several sexes and ages stood playing and passing away the time without regarding the danger of falling into that bottomless dungeon This shadow they framed not only to set forth how worthy Eternity was of their fear and amazement but also to express their amazement at the folly of men who laugh and entertain themselves with the things of this life without remembring that they are to die and may then fall into the bottomless abyss of Hell Those children who were playing at the entrance of that dismal cave being no other than men in this life whose employments are but those of children and who being so near their death and therefore unto Eternity which succeeds it have neither fear nor care to leave the pleasures and vain entertainments of this world Truly it is a thing of great amazement that being in expectation of two such extreams as are eternal glory and torments without end we live as if there were neither The reason is because men set not themselves seriously to consider what Eternity is which is either hell whilest God is God or glory without end For this cause it is that they remain as setled and obstinate in their fading pleasures as if they were immortal the which was signified by these degrees of so hard Mettals But in David who seriously meditated and framed a lively conception what the eternity of years was it caused so great a fear and so awaked his spirits with care and diligence that it produced in him an extraordinary change of life in so much as he said with great resolution within himself Now I begin This is a change from the right hand of the most high Now I begin Comment in Psal 76. as Dionisius declares it to live spiritually to understand wisely to know truly perceiving the vanity of this present world and felicity of the future reputing as nothing all my life past nor all the progress I have hitherto made in perfection I will henceforth seriously take to heart with a new purpose a new fervour and a a more vehement endeavour the paths of a better life and entring the way of spiritual profit begin every day afresh And because he knew his heart to be so much changed he confessed his resolution to be miraculous saying This change is from the hand of the most high as if he had said according to the same Dionisius to have in this sort changed me out of the darkness of ignorance into the splendor of wisdom from vices unto vertues from a carnal man unto a spiritual is onely to be attributed to the ayd and most merciful assistance of God who by the knowledge of Eternity hath given so notable a conversion unto my heart This great thought of Eternity doth mightily enlighten the understanding and gives us a true and perfect knowledge of things as they are For this cause in some of the Psalms which David made with this consideration as we have already said he added this word understanding Psalm 6. or for the understanding that is to give understanding to those who meditate upon the end of this life and the eternity of the other and therefore despise the goods of the world By the experience of what happened unto his own soul the Prophet exhorts all men that they meditate with quietness and leasure upon the eternity of the two so opposite conditions which hereafter expect them that they may not only run but flie unto with profit and suffer with patience all the difficulty which attend upon vertue and therefore with great mystery promises on the part of God unto those who shall sleep between the two lots that is unto those who in the quietness of prayer shall meditate upon the eternity of glory and of hell that there shall be granted unto them the silver wings of the Dove and her shoulders of gold because the spiritual life consists not onely in the actions of our own good works but also in the patient suffering the evil works of others in lifting up our selves from the durt of this earth and and flying towards Heaven by performance of the Heroical and precious acts of vertue and not yielding unto the troubles and afflictions of this life which oppress us All which is by a lively conception of Eternity effected with great merit and perfection and for this reason did the Prophet express it by the similitude of those things which men esteem the most precious as of gold and silver But because to suffer is commonly more difficult then to do and consequently more meritorious although both be very precious for this cause he said that the shoulders should be of gold and the wings of silver This also did the Patriarch Jacob hold for so singular a good that he gave it unto his son Isachar for a blessing telling him that he should lye down betwixt the two borders that is that he should at leasure meditate upon the two extreams of happiness or misery eternal For this reason he calleth him a strong beast as having the strength of mind to overcome the difficulty of vertue to support the troubles and burdens of this life to suffer the scorns and disgraces of the world to undergo great penances and mortifications by considering the two eternal extreams which attend us And not onely amongst Saints but amongst the Philosophers did the quiet and calm consideration of Eternity produce a great love and desire of things eternal and as great contempt of all which was temporal even without looking upon those two so different extreams which Christian Religion proposes unto us Seneca complained much that he was interrupted in the meditation of Eternity into
Truly the folly and vanity of Man admits no other cure than to set before his eyes that for the small and momentary pleasure of a sin committed against the Law of God he loses and unthriftily casts away that which is to last for ever For this cause we ought to consider what it is to have no end what it is to last for ever what it is to be Eternal But who is able to declare this since Eternity is an immense Ocean whose bottom cannot be found a most obscure abyss wherein are sunk all the faculties of humane understanding an intricate Labyrinth out of which there is no issue a perpetual Present without what was or what shall be a continued Circle whose Centre is in every part and Circumference no where a great Year which ever begins and is never ended finally that which never can be comprehended yet ever ought to be pondered and thought upon But that we may say something and frame some conception of it let us see in what manner the Saints have defined it St. Gregory Nazianzen knows not what it is but only what it is not and therefore says Eternity is not time nor part of time because time and each part of time pass away but in Eternity nothing does nor ever shall pass All the torments with which a Soul enters into hell shall after millions of years past torment him as lively and entirely as at the first beginning neither shall the joyes with which the just enter into Heaven ever in the least sort diminish Time hath this property to draw along with it custome which at length lessens the sense of what at first was grievous but Eternity is ever the same ever entire in it nothing passes the pains with which the damned begin shall after a thousand ages be the same they were at first and the glory which he who is saved receives in the first instant shall ever appear fresh and new unto him Eternity hath no parts all is of a piece in it there is no diminution nor lessening And although the pleasures of this life which go along with time are of this condition that in time they lessen and that there is no delight in this world which by long enjoying becomes not troublesome and tedious and that to the contrary even griefs and and pains with continuance either grow less or are absolutely cured yet far otherwise is the web which Eternity weaves it is all uniform in it there is no joy which wearies us nor any pain which by continuance abates or becomes less sensible in so much as Eternity according to St. Dionysius Areopagita Cap. 10. de divin nomin is the immutability immortality and incorruptibility of a thing wholly and altogether existent a space which perishes not but is always subsistent after the same manner and therefore as the Wise man saith Wheresoever the tree falls there it shall for ever remain if thou shalt fall as an infernal fire-brand into the bottom of Hell there shalt thou be for ever burning whilest God is God it not being in the power of any to redeem thee thence nor in thy own so much as to turn from one side to the other Eternity is immutable because incompatible with change it is immortal because not capable of end and incorruptible because it cannot suffer diminution The evils of this life how desperate of remedy soever yet want not this comfort that they are either eased with change or ended by death or lessened by corruption But all this is wanting in eternal evils The change of pains serves for a refreshment and the infirm man how afflicted soever by turning from side to side receives some ease but eternal pains shall whilst God is God remain in the same posture force and vigour without change at all If the most pleasant and wholesome food of Manna only because continual caused vomiting and became loathsome What shall those pains which shall last for ever What torments shall they cause since they are to remain still after the same manner The Sea hath his ebbs and flows the Rivers their encreases the Planets their various Aspects the Year his four Seasons the greatest Feavers have their relaxations and the sharpest pain arriving at the height uses to decrease only eternal torments shall never suffer declination nor shall the eyes of the damned ever see a change The plain and even way which seems most easie wearies the Traveller because it wants variety What weariness shall then the ways of Eternity cause and those perpetual pains which can neither change end nor diminish The torments whereunto Cain entred now five thousand years ago are after so many ages past still the same they were at first and what they now are shall be so many ages more to come they are measured by the Eternity of God and the duration of his unhappiness by the duration of the Divine Glory whilst God lives he shall wrastle with death and shall immortally continue dying that eternal death still living and that miserable life still dying containing the worst of life and the worst of death those wretched Souls living only that they may suffer torments and dying that they may not enjoy comfort having neither the content of life nor the end of death but contrariwise for their greater torment have the pain of death and duration of life On the other part behold the happy lot of them that die in Grace their glory shall be immortal without fear of ending their happiness immutable without capacity of growing old their Crown incorruptible without danger of withering where no day shall pass without joy whose content shall be ever new and whose Glory flourish for perpetual Eternities and whose happiness shall ever be the same And that very Glory which St. Michael was six thousand years ago possest of the same he enjoys this very instant as fresh and new as the first day and shall six millions of years to come as new as now CAP. VI. What Eternity is according unto Boëtius and Plotinus LEt us now hear the Opinions of Severinus Boëtius and Plotinus two great Philosophers and the one of them no less a Divine what they conceive concerning this great Mystery and secret of Eternity Boëtius defines Eternity to be Lib. 5. de cons Philosopho A total and perfect possession of an indeterminable life which Definition although it principally belongs unto the Eternity of God yet it may-be also applied unto the Eternity of reasonable Creatures since they also enjoy a total and perfect possession of happiness in an eternal life never to end With reason he calls it a possession for the fulness it hath of joy possession being the best way of enjoying the which implies a ful Dominion of what it possesses for he who hath a thing in loan or trust may be said to enjoy it but not with that liberty as he who possesses it He says moreover that this possession is total because it is of
the place whither he is to goe How comest thou then to forget death whither thou travellest with speed and canst not though thou desirest rest one small minute by the way For time although against thy will will draw thee along with it The way of this life is not voluntary like that of Travellers but necessary like that of condemned persons from the prison unto the place of execution To death thou standest condemned whither thou art now going how canst thou laugh A Malefactor after sentence past is so surprised with the apprehension of death that he thinks of nothing but dying We are all condemned to die how come we then to rejoyce in those things which we are to leave so sodainly Who being led to the Gallows could please himself in some little flower that was given him by the way or play with the Halter which was shortly to strangle him Since then all of us even from the instant we issue out of our Mothers wombs walk condemned unto death and know not whether we shall from thence pass into hell at least we may how come we to please our selves with the flower or to say better with the hay of some short gust of our appetites since according to the Prophet all the glory of the flesh is no more than a little hay which quickly withers How come we to delight in riches which oftentimes hasten our deaths Why consider we not this when we are certain that all that we do in this life is vanity except our preparation for death In death when as there is no time nor remedy left us we shall too late perceive this truth when as all the goods of this life shall leave us by necessity which we will not now leave with merit Death is a general privation of all goods temporal an universal Pillager of all things which even despoils the body of the soul For this it is compared unto a Theef who not onely robs us of our treasure and substance but bereaves us of our lives Since therefore thou art to leave all Why doest thou load thy self in vain What Merchant knowing that so soon as he arrived unto the Ports his Ship and Goods should both be sunk would charge his Vessel with much Merchandise Arriving at death thou and all thou hast are to sink and perish why doest thou then burthen thy self with that which is not needful but rather a hinderance to thy salvation How many forbearing to throw their Goods over-board in some great Tempest have therefore both themselves and Goods been swallowed by the raging Sea How many who out of a wicked love to these Temporal riches have lost themselves in the hour of death and will not then leave their wealth when their wealth leaves them but even at that time busie their thoughts more about it than their Salvation Whereupon St. Gregory sayes That is never lost without grief which is possest with love Humbert in tract de Septemp timore Vmbertus writes of a certain man of great wealth who falling desperately sick and Plate of gold and silver to be brought before him and in this manner spake unto his Soul My Soul all this I promise thee and thou shalt enjoy it all if thou wilt not now leave my Body and greater things I will bestow upon thee rich Possessions and sumptuous Houses upon condition thou wilt yet stay with me But finding his infirmity still to encrease and no hope left of life in a great rage and fury he fell into these desperate speeches But since thou wilt not do what I desire thee nor abide with me I recommend thee unto the Devil and immediately with these words miserably expired In this story may be seen the vanity of Temporal things and the hurt he receives by them who possesses them with too much affection What greater vanity then not to profit us in a passage of the greatest necessity and importance and what greater hurt then when they cannot avail our bodies to prejudice our souls That they put an impediment to our salvation when our affections are too much set upon them were a sufficient motive not onely to contemn them but also to detest them Robertus de Licio writes that whilest he advised a sick person to make his Confession and take care of his Soul his Servants and other Domesticks went up and down the house laying hold every one of what they could the sick man taking notice of it and attending more to what They stole from him than to what He spake to him about the salvation of his Soul made deep sighs and cried out saying Wo be to me Wo be to me who have taken so much pains to gather riches and now am compelled to leave them and they snatch them from me violently before my eyes O my Riches O my Moneys O my Jewels into whose possession are you to fall and in these cries he gave up the ghost making no more account of his Soul than if he had been a Turk Vincentius Veluacensis relates also of one Vincen. in spec moral who having lent four pounds of money upon condition that at four years end they should pay him twelve he being in state of death a Priest went to him and exhorted him to confess his sins but could get no other words from the sick person than these Such a one is to pay me twelve pounds for four and having said this died immediately Much what to this purpose is a Story related by St. Bernardin of a certain Confessarius who earnestly perswading a rich man at the time of his death to a confession could get no other words from him but How sells Wool What price bears it at present and as the Priest spake unto him Sir for Gods sake leave off this discourse and have a care of your Soul the Sick man still persevered to inform himself of such things he might hope to gain by asking him Father when will the Ships come are they yet arrived for his thoughts were so wholly taken up with matters of gain and this world that he could neither speak nor think of any thing but what tended to his profit But die Priest still urging him to look to his Soul and confess all he could get from him was I cannot and in this manner died without confession This is the Salary which the goods of the earth bestow on those who serve them that if they do not leave or ruine them before their death they are then certain at least to leave them and often hazard the salvation of those that dote upon them O foolish Sons of Adam this short life Is bestowed upon us for gaining the goods of heaven which are to last eternally and we spend it in seeking those of the earth which are to perish instantly Wherefore do we not employ this short time for the purchasing eternal glory since we are to possess no more hereafter than what we provide for here Wherefore do we not
consider this Wherefore busie we our selves about Temporal things and the affairs of this life which we are instantly to leave and enter into a Region of Eternity Less are a thousand years in respect of Eternity than a quarter of an hour in respect of threescore years Why are we then negligent in that short time we are to live in acquiring that which is to endure for a world of worlds Death is a moment placed betwixt this life and the next in which we are to traffick for eternity Let us not therefore be careless but let us remember how much it imports us to die well and to that end let us endeavour to live well §. 3. Besides all this although one should die the most happy death that can be imagined yet it suffices to behold the dead Body when the Soul hath left it how ugly and noisome the miserable Carcass remains that even friends flye from it and scarce dare stay one night alone with it The nearest and most obliged Kindred procure it in all haste to be carried forth a doors and having wrapt it in some course Sheet throw it into the Grave and within two dayes forget it and he who in life could not be contained in great and sumptuous Palaces is now content with the narrow lodging of seaven foot of earth he who used to rest in rich and dainty Beds hath for his Couch the hard ground and as Isaias saith for his Mattress moths and for his Covering Worms his Pillows at best the bones of other dead persons then heaping upon him a little earth and perhaps a Gravestone they leave his flesh to be feasted on by the worms whilest his heirs triumph in his riches He who gloried in the exercise of Armes and was used to revel at Balls and Festivals is now stiffe and could his hands and feet without motion and all his senses without life He who with his power and pride trampled upon all is now trod under foot by all Consider him eight dayes dead drawn forth of his Grave how gastly and horrible a spectacle he will appear and wherein differ from a dead Dog thrown upon a Dunghil Behold then what thou pamperst a Body which shall perhaps within four dayes be eaten by loathsome vermin Whereupon doest thou found thy vain pretensions which are but Castles in the air founded upon a little earth which turning into dust the whole Fabrick falls to ground See wherein all humane greatness concludes and that the end of man is no less loathsome and miserable than his beginning Let this Consideration serve thee as it hath done many Servants of Christ to despise all things of this life Alex. Faya to 2. Joh. Major verbo Mors. Ex. 21. Alexander Faya writes that having opened the Vault wherein lay interred the Body of a principal Count they who were present perceived upon the face of the dead person a Toad of an extraordinary greatness which accompanied with many other filthy and loathsome wormes and vermin was feeding upon his flesh which caused so great a horror and amazement that they all fled The which so soon as it came unto the knowledge of the Son of that Count who was then in the flower of his age he would needs goe and behold the spectacle and looking seriously upon it he broke into these speeches These are the friends which we breed and provide for with our delicacies for these we rest upon soft Beds and lodge in gilt Chambers adorned with Tapestries and make them grow and encrease with the vanity of our dainties Were it not better to prevent them by Fasts and Penances and Austerities in our life that they may not thus insult upon us after death With this conderation quitting his fair Possessions and flying privately away accompanied onely with a lively desire of being poor for Christ which he accounted for the greatest riches he came to Rome where chastising the body with much rigour and living in the holy fear of the Lord he at last became a Collier and by his labour sustained his poor life Finally coming one day unto the City to sell his coles he fell into a grievous sickness which having endured with marvelous patience he at last delivered his most happy Soul into the hands of his Redeemer and that very instant of his death all the Bells of the City rung themselves with which Miracle the Pope and the Roman Court being marvelously astonished his Confessor related unto them all that happened and informed them both of the condition and sanctity of the dead person and there being at the same time in Rome some Gentlemen and Souldiers belonging to the same Prince who came in search of their Master and finding him deceased carried home his holy Body with much joy and reverence unto his Country The Sight of the dead Body of the Empress Donna Isabella Wife unto the Emperour Charles the fift wrought no less effect in the heart of Blessed Francesc◠de Borgia then Marquess of Lombay who being appointed to wait upon the Coarse unto Granada where it was to be interred and being to deliver it bare-faced according to custome to the end it might appear to be the same Body he caused the sheet of Lead wherein it was wrapped to be opened which immediately cast forth so horrible a stench that those who were present not able to endure it were forced to retire and withal the face appeared so foul and deformed that not any of the attendants durst take their oath that that was the Empress's Body Who sees not here the vanity of the world what is of more respect and esteem than the Bodies of great Kings and Princes whilest they live and now dead the Guards and Gentlemen which are to wait upon them flye from them Who are accounted more happy than they who have the fortune to be near their persons They are spoken unto upon the knee as if they were Gods but being dead all forsake them and even Toads Worms and Dogs dare approach and eat them A good testimony of this was Queen Jezabell whose pamperd Body adored whilest she lived was being dead ignominiously torn in pieces by Dogs But to return to our Story The Marquess remaining alone behind the rest began to consider what the Empress once was and what he now beheld her Where was the beauty of that face but become worms and putrifaction where that Majesty and gravity of countenance which made all reverence her and those people happy who beheld her but now grown so hideous that her most obliged Servants leave and abandon her Where is now the Royal Scepter but resolved into filth and corruption This consideration so changed his heart that despising what was temporal and now wholly seeking what was eternal he determined never after to serve that Lord who was mortal The very memory of the loathsomness of a dead Body may serve to make us despise the beauty of that which is living as St. Peter Damian advises
us Petrus Damianus in Gomor c. 23. saying If the subtle Enemy shall set before thee the frail beauty of the flesh send thy thoughts presently unto she Sepulcher of the Dead and let them there see what they can finde agreeable to the touch or pleasing to the sight Consider that poison which now stinks intollerably that corruption which engenders and feeds worms That dust and dry ashes was once soft and lively flesh and in its youth was subject to the like passions as thou art Consider those rigid nerves those naked teeth the disjoynted disposition of the bones and articles and that horrible dissipation of the whole Body and by this means the Monster of this deformed and confused figure will pluck from thy heart all deceits and illusions This from St. Peter Damian All this is certainly to happen unto thy self Wherefore doest thou not amend thy evil conditions this is to be thy end unto this therefore direct thy life and actions From hence spring all the errors of men that they forget the end of their lives which they ought to have still before their eyes and by it to order themselves for the complyance with their obligations With reason had the Brachmans their Sepulchers placed still open before their doors that by the memory of death they might learn to live In this sense is that Axiome of Plato most true when he sayes That Wisdom is the Meditation of Death because this wholesome thought of Death undeceives us in the vanities of the world and gives us force and vigour to better our lives Johannes Brom. in Sum. verb. Poenit num 12. Some Authors write of a certain Confessarius who when all his perswasions could not prevail with his penitent to do penance for his sins contented himself with this promise that he would suffer one of his Servants every night when he went to bed to sound these words in his ear Think that thou art to dye who having often heard this admonition and and profoundly considered it with himself he at last returned unto his Confessor well disposed to admit of such penance as should be enjoyned him The same thing happened to another who having confessed to to the Pope very hainous crimes said that he could not fast nor wear hair-shirts nor admit of any other kinds of austerity His Holiness having commended the matter to God gave him a Ring with this Poesie Memento mâ—ri Remember thou art to dye charging him that as often as he looked upon the Ring he should read those words and call death to mind Few hours after the memory hereof caused such a change in his heart that he offered to fulfil what ever penance his Holiness should please to impose upon him For this reason it seems God commanded the Prophet Jeremias that he should goe into the house of the Potter and that he should there hear his words Well might the Lord have sent his Prophet into some place more decent to receive his sacred words then where so many men were daily imployed in dirt and clay but here was the particular mysterie whereby we are given to understand that the presence of Sepulchers wherein is preserved as in the house of a Potter the clay of humane nature it was a place most proper for God to speak unto us that the memory of death might more deeply imprint his words in our hearts For this very reason the Devil strives with all his power and cunning to obstruct in us the memory of death For what other cause can be assigned why the meer suspicion of some loss or notable damage should bereave us of our sleep and that the certainty of death which of things terrible is most terrible should never trouble us CAP. II. Remarkable Conditions of the end of Temporal Life BEsides the misery wherein all the felicity of this world is to determine the end of our life hath other most remarkable conditions very worthy to be considered and by which we may perceive the goods of it to be most contemptible We will now principally speak of three First that death is most infallible certain and no way to be avoided The second that the time is most incertain because we know neitheâ— when nor how it will happen The third that it is buâ— only one and but once to be experienced so that wâ— cannot by a second death correct the errors of the firsâ— Concerning the certainty and infallibility of death it imports us much to perswade our selves of it for as it is infallible that the other life shall be without end so it is as certain that this shall have it And as the Damned are in despair to find an end in their torments so are we practically to despair that the pleasures and contents of this world are to endure for ever God hath not made a Law more inviolable than that of death For having often dispensed in other Laws and by his omnipotent power and pleasure violated as I may say divers times the rights of Nature he neither hath nor will dispense with the Law of death but hath rather dispensed with other Laws that this should stand in force and therefore hath not onely executed the sentence of death upon those who in rigour ought to dye but upon those unto whom it was no wise due In the conception of Christ our Saviour those establisht Lawes of Nature that men were not to be born but by propagation from men and breach of the Mothers integrity were dispensed with God that his Lawes should have no force in Christ working two most stupendious Miracles and infringing the Lawes of Nature that his Son might be born of a Virgin Mother was so far from exempting him from the Law of death that death not belonging to him as being Lord of the Law and wanting all sin even original by which was contracted death nay immortality and the four gifts of glory being due unto his most Holy Body as resulting from the clear vision of the Divine essence which his Soul ever enjoyed yet all this notwithstanding God would not comply with this right of Nature but rather miraculously suspended by his omnipotent Arm those gifts of glory from his Body that he might become subject unto death in so much as God observes this Law of Death with such rigour that doing Miracles that the Law of Nature should not be kept in other things he works Miracles that the Law of Death should be observed even by his own Son who deserved it not and unto whom it was in no sort due And now that the Son of God had taken upon him the redemption of Mankind for whom out of his most infinite charity it was convenient for him to dye the death of the Cross which reason failing in his most holy Mother unto whom death was not likewise due from Original sin she being priviledged according to the opinion of most Universities as well in that as many other things by her blessed Son yet would
their Angel guardians shall assist by giving testimony how often they have disswaded them from their evil courses and how rebellious and refractory they have still been to their holy inspirations The Saints also shall accuse them that they have laughed at their good counsels and shall set forth the dangers whereunto they them-themselves have been subject by their ill example The just Judge shall then immediately pronounce Sentence in favour of the good in these words of love and mercy Come you blessed of my Father possess the Kingdom which was prepared for you from the creation of the world O what joy shall then fill the Saints Abul in Mat. Jansen Sot Les l. 13. c. 22. alii Isai 30. and what spight and envy shall burst the hearts of Sinners but more when they shall hear the contrary Sentence pronounced against themselves Christ speaking unto them with that severity which was signified by the Prophet Isaiah when he said His lips were filled with indignation and his tongue was a devouring fire More terrible than fire shall be those words of the Son of God unto those miserable wretches when they shall hear him say Depart from me ye cursed into eternal fire prepared for Satan and his Angels With this Sentence they shall remain for ever overthrown and covered with eternal sorrow and confusion Ananias and Saphira were struck dead only with the hearing the angry voice of St. Peter What shall the Reprobate be in hearing the incensed voice of Christ This may appear by what happened unto St. Catharine of Sienna who being reprehended by St. Paul In vita ejus c. 24. who appeared unto her onely because she did not better employ some little parcel of time said that she had rather be disgraced before the whole World than once more to suffer what she did by that reprehension But what is this in respect of that reprehension of the Son of God in the day of vengeance for if when he was led himself to be judged he with two onely words I am overthrew the astonisht multitude of Souldiers to the ground how shall he speak when he comes to judge In vita PP l. 5. apud Rosul In the book of the lives of the Fathers composed by Severus Sulpitius and Cassianus it is written of a certain young man desirous to become a Monk whom his Mother by many reasons which she alleadged pretended to disswade but all in vain for he would by no means alter his intention defending himself still from her importunity with this answer I will save my soul I will assure my salvation it is that which most imports nic She perceiving that her modest requests prevailed nothing gave him leave to do as he pleased and he according to his resolution entred into Religion but soon began to flag and fall from his fervour and to live with much carelesness and negligence Not long after his Mother died and he himself fell into a grievous infirmity and being one day in a Trance was rapt in spirit before the Judgement Seat of God He there found his Mother and divers others expecting his condemnation She turning her eyes and seeing her Son amongst those who were to be damned seemed to remain astonisht and spake unto him in this manner Why how now Son is all come to end in this where are those words thou saidest unto me I will save nay soul was it for this thou didst enter into Religion The poor man being confounded and amazed knew not what to answer but soon after when he returned unto himself and the Lord was pleased that he recovered and escaped his infirmity and considering that this was a divine admonition he gave so great a turn that the rest of his life was wholly tears and repentance and when many wisht him that he would moderate and remit something of that rigour which might be prejudicial unto his health he would not admit of their advices but still answered I who could not endure the reprehension of my Mother how shall I in the day of judgement endure that of Christ and his Angels Let us often think of this and let not onely the angry voice of our Saviour make us tremble Raph. Columb Ser. 2. Domin in Quadr. but that terrible Sentence which shall separate the wicked from his presence Raphael Columba writes of Philip the second King of Spain that being at Mass he heard two of his Grandees who were near him in discourse about some worldly business which he then took no notice of but Mass being ended he called them with great gravity and said unto them onely these few words You two appear no more in my presence which were of that weight that the one of them died of grief and the other ever after remained stupified and amazed What shall it then be to hear the King of Heaven and Earth say Depart ye cursed and if the words of the Son of God be so much to be feared what shall be his works of justice At that instant the fire of that general burning shall invest those miserable creatures Less l. 13. c. 23. the Earth shall open and Hell shall enlarge his throat to swallow them for all eternity accomplishing the malediction of Christ and of the Psalm which saith Psal 54. Let death come upon them and let them sink alive into hell And in another place Coals of fire shall fall upon them Ps 139. and thou shalt cast them into the fire and they shall not subsist in their miseries And in another Psalm Psal 10. Snares fire and sulphur shall rain upon sinners Finally that shall be executed which was spoken by St. John That the Devil Death and Hell and all Apcc. 20. who were not written in the Book of life were cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where they shall be eternally tormented with Antichrist and his false Prophets And this is the second death bitter and eternal which comprehends both the Souls and the Bodies of them who have died the spiritual death of sin and the corporal death which is the effect of it The Just shall then rejoyce according to David Psal 57. beholding the vengeance which the Divine Justice shall take upon sinners and sing another song like that of Moses Exod. 15. when the Aegyptians were drowned in the red sea and that Song of the Lamb related by St. John Apoc. 15. Great and marvelous are thy works O Lord God omnipotent just and righteous are thy wayes King of all Eternity who will not fear thee O Lord and magnifie thy name With those and thousand other Songs of joy and jubilee they shall ascend above the Stars in a most glorious triumph until they arrive in the Empyrial Heaven where they shall be placed in thrones of glory which they shall enjoy for an eternity of eternities In the mean time the earth which was polluted for having sustained the Bodies of the damned shall be
him abhorring mankinde even unto the last gasp he commanded that his body should not be interr'd in the earth as in the common Element wherein usually were buried the bodies of others afraid lest his bones should lye near or be touched by men though dead but that they should make his Sepulcher upon the brink of the Sea that tho fury of the waves might hinder the approach of all others and that they should grave upon it this Epitaph which is related by Plutarch After my miserable life they buried me in this deep water Reader desire not to know my name The Gods confound thee This Philosopher wanted faith and charity not distinguishing betwixt the Malice of man and his Nature having reason to abhorre that and to love this Yet by these extravagant demonstrations he gave us to understand how monstrous are our passions and how worthy of hate when they are not ordered and governed by reason And certainly all Christians ought to desire the destruction of the pomp and pride of men as Timon did of their persons their superfluous gallantry their unlawful pleasures their ostentation of riches their vain titles of honour their raging envy their disordered choler their unjust revenges their unbridled passions Those ought to die and be destroyed that the men may live § 6. So many are the miseries of life that they cannot all be numbered Death which is called by Aristotle The greatest of evils is by many esteemed a lesser evil than life the many evils in this surpassing the greatness of the evil in that and therefore many have thought it better to suffer the greatest which is death than to suffer so many though lesser which are in life For this reason one calls Death The last and greatest Physician because though in it self it be the greatest evil yet it cures all others and therefore prescribes the hopes of it as an efficacious remedy and comfort in the afflictions of life But because this comfort is not relished by all the fear of death being so natural and the dangers and many waves unto it accounted amongst the many miseries of life therefore some prime Philosophers could find out no other remedy for evils than to despair of their remedy Wherefore Seneca when a great Earthquake happened in his time in Campania wherein Pompeios a famous City and divers other Towns were sunk and many people lost and the rest of the Inhabitants distracted with fear and and grief fled from their Country as if they had been banisht he advised them to return home and assured them that there was no remedy for the evils of this life and that the dangers of death were unavoidable And truly if well considered what security can there be in life when the Earth which is the Mother of the living is unfaithful to them and sprouts out miseries and deaths even of whole Cities what can be secure in the World if the World it self be not and the most solid parts of it shake If that which is onely immoveable and fixt for to sustain the living tremble with Earthquakes if what is proper to the Earth which is to be firm be unstable and betray us where shall our fears find a refuge When the roof of the house shakes we may flie into the fields but when the world shakes whither shall we goe What comfort can we have when fear cannot find a gate to flie out at Cities resist Enemies with the strength of their walls Tempests finde a sheltet in the Haven The covering of Houses defend us from rains and snows In the time of plague we may change places but from the whole Earth who can flie and therefore from dangers For this reason Seneca said Not to have a remedy may serve us as a comfort in our evils for Fear is foolish without Hope Reason banishes fear in those who are wise and in those who are not despair of remedy gives a kind of security at least takes away fear He that will fear nothing let him think that all things are to be feared See what slight things endanger us even those which sustain life lay ambushes for us Meat and drink without which we cannot live take away our lives It is not wisdom therefore to fear swallowing by an Earthquake and not to fear the falling of a tile In death all sorts of dyings are equal What imports it whether one single stone kills thee or a whole Mountain oppress thee death consists in the souls leaving of the bodies which often happens by slight accidents But Christians in all the dangers and miseries of humane life have other comforts to lay hold on which are a good conscience hope of glory conformity unto the Divine will and the imitation and example of Jesus Christ From these four he shall in life have merit in death security in both comfort and in eternity a reward Justus Lipsius being much oppressed with his last infirmity whereof he died some who were present endeavoured to comfort him with some philosophical reasons and sentences of the Stoicks wherein that most learned man was much studied as appears in his Book of the Introduction to Stoical learning unto whom he answered in this most Christian manner Vain are all those consolations and pointing unto an Image of Christ crucified said This is the true comfort and true patience And presently with a sigh which rose from the bottom of his heart said My Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ give me Christian patience This comfort we ought to have who were redeemed by so loving a Lord That considering our sins are greater than the pains of this life and that the Son of God hath suffered farre greater who wanted all sin he hath deserved to convert the miseries of this life which are occasioned by sin into instruments of satisfaction for our sins drawing health out of infirmity and an antidote out of poison We may also draw from what is said how unjust was the complaint of Theophrastus that nature had given a longer life unto many birds and beasts than unto man If our life were less troublesome he had some reason but it being so fraught with miseries he might rather think that life the happiest which was shortest Wherefore as St. Jerome said to Heliodorus it is better to die young and die well than to die old and die ill This voyage being of necessity the felicity of it consists not in being long but being prosperous and that we at last arrive in the desired Port. St. Austin sayes August in Johan that to die is to be eased of those heavy burthens which we bear in this life and that the happiness is not to leave it late in the evening of our age but that when we die they charge us not with a greater load Let a man live ten years or let him live a thousand death as St. Jerome saith gives him the title of happy or unfortunate If he live a thousand years in sorrow it is a great unhappiness
miserable end of Man saith Man is converted into no man why therefore art thou proud know that thou wert in the womb unclean seed and curdled blood exposed afterward to sin and the many miseries of this life and after death shalt be the food of worms Wherefore doest thou wax proud Dust and ashes whose conception was in sin whose birth in misery whole life in pain and whose death necessity wherefore doest thou swell and adorn thy flesh with precious things which in few dayes is to be devoured by worms and doest not rather adorn thy soul with good works which is to be presented in heaven before God and his Angels All this is spoken by St. Bernard which every man ought to take as spoken unto himself §. 2. Besides that man is a thing so poor and little and composed of so base and vile materials this littleness this vileness hath no firmness nor consistence but is a river of changes a perpetual corruption and as Secundus the Philosopher sayes Lib. 11. de Praepa Evan. c. 7. A fantasme of time whose instability is thus declared by Eusebius of Caesarea Our nature from our birth until our death is unstable and as it were fantastical which if you strive to comprehend is like water gathered in the palm of the hand the more you grasp it the more you spill it In the same manner those mutable and transitory things the more you consider them with reason the more they flye from you Things sensible being in a perpetual flux are still doing and undoing still generating and corrupting and never remain the same For as Heraclitus sayes as it is impossible to enter twice into the same river because the same water remains not but new succeeds still as the first passes so if you consider twice this mortal substance you shall not both times find it the same but with an admirable swiftness of change it is now extended now contracted but it is not well said to say Now and Now for in the same time it loses in one part and gains in another and is another thing than what it is in so much as it never rests The Embrion which is framed from seed quickly becomes an Infant from thence a Boy from thence a Young-man from thence an Old and then decrepit and so the first ages being past and corrupted by new ones which succeed it comes at last to die How ridiculous then are men to fear one death who have already died so many and are yet to die more Not onely as Heraclitus said The corruption of fire is the generation of air but this appears more plainly in our selves for from youth corrupted is engendred man and from him the old man from the boy corrupted is engendered the youth and from the infant the boy and from who was not yesterday he who is to day and of him who is to day he who shall be to morrow so as he never remains the same but in every moment we change as it were with various phantasms in one common matter For if we be still the same how come we to delight in things we did not before we now love and abhorre after another manner than formerly we now praise and dispraise other things than we did before we use other words and are moved with other affections we do not hold the same form nor pass the same judgement we did and how is it possible that without change in our selves we should thus change in our motions and affections certainly he who still changes is not the same and he who is not the same cannot be said to be but in a continual mutation slides away like water The sense is deceived with the ignorance of what is and thinks that to be which is not Where shall we then finde true being but in that onely which is eternal and knows no beginning which is incorruptible which is not changed with time Time is moveable and joyned with movable matter glides away like a current and like a vessel of generation and corruption retains nothing in so much as the first and the last that which was and that which shall be are nothing and that which seems present passes like lightning Wherefore as time is defined to be the measure of the motion of things sensible and as time never is nor can be so we may with the like reason say that things sensible do not remain nor are nor have any being All this is from Eusebius which David declared more briefly and significantly when he said That man whilest he lived in this life was an Universal vanity Wherefore St. Gregory Nazianzen said In laud. Caes that we are a dream unstable like a Spectre or Apparition which could not be laid hold on Let man therefore reflect upon all which hath been said let him behold himself in this glass let him see wherefore he presumes wherefore he afflicts himself for things of the earth which are so small in themselves and so prejudicial unto him With reason did the Prophet say In vain doth man trouble himself Upon which St. Chrysostome with great admiration speaks in this manner Chrysost in Ps 36. Man troubles himself and loses his end he troubles himself consumes and melts to nothing as if he had never been born he troubles himself and before he attains rest is overwhelmed he is inflamed like fire and is reduced to ashes like flax he mounts on high like a tempest and like dust is scattered and disappears he is kindled like a flame and vanishes like smoke he glories in his beauty like a flower and withers like hay he spreads himself as a cloud and is contracted as a drop he swells like a bubble of water and and goes out like a spark he is troubled and carries nothing about him but the filth of riches he is troubled onely to gain dirt he is troubled and dies without fruit of his vexations His are the troubles others the joyes his are the cares others the contents his are the afflictions others the fruit his are the heart-burstings others the delights his are the curses others have the respect and reverence against him the sighs and exclamations of the persecuted are sent up to Heaven and against him the tears of the poor are poured out and the riches and abundance remains with others he shall howl and be tormented in hell whilest others sing triumph and vainly consume his estate In vain do living men trouble themselves Man is he who enjoyes a life but lent him and that but for a short time Man is but a debt of death which is to be paid without delay a living Creature who is in his will and appetite untamed a mischief taught without a Master a voluntary ambush subtle in wickedness witty in iniquity prone to covetousness insatiable in the desire of what is anothers of a boasting spirit and full of insolent temerity in his words fierce but easily quailed bold but quickly mastered an
all living Creatures of so great variety all the Birds so curiously painted the Fishes so monstrous the Mettals so rich all People and Nations farthest remote certainly it would be a sight of wonderful satisfaction But what will it be to see all this whatever there is in the Earth together with all that there is in Heaven and above Heaven Some Philosophers in the discovery of a natural truth or the invention of some rare curiosity have been transported with a greater joy and content than their senses were capable of For this Aristotle spent so many sleepless nights for this Pythagoras travelled into so many strange Nations for this Crates deprived himself of all his wealth and Archimedes as Vitruvius writes never removed his thoughts night nor day from the inquisition of some Mathematical demonstration Such content he took in finding out some truth that when he eat his mind was busie in making lines and angles If he bathed and annointed himself as was the custome of those times his two fingers served him in the room of a compass to make circles in the oyl which was upon his skin He spent many dayes in finding out by his Mathematical rules how much gold would serve to gild a crown of silver that the Goldsmith might not deceive him and having found it as he was bathing in a Vessel of brass not able to contain his joy he fetcht divers skips and cried out I have found it I have found it If then the finding out of so mean a truth could so transport this great Artist what joy shall the Saints receive when the Creatour shall discover unto them those high secrets and above all that sublime mysterie of the Trinity of persons in the unity of essence This with the rest of those Divine knowledges wherewith the most simple of the Just shall be endued shall satiate their Souls with unspeakable joyes O ye wise of the World and ignorant before God why do you weary your selves in vain curiosities busie to understand and forgetful to love intent to know and slow to work Drye and barren speculation is not the way to knowledge but devout affection ardent love mortification of the senses and holy works in the service of God Labour therefore and deserve and you shall receive more knowledge in one instant than the wise of the world have obtained with all their watchings travails and experiences Aristotle for the great love he bore to knowledge held that the chief felicity of man consisted in contemplation If he found so great joy in natural speculations what shall we find in divine and the clear vision of God There shall the Memory also live representing unto us the Divine benefits and rendring eternal thanks unto the Author of all the Soul rejoycing in its own happiness to have received so great mercies for so small merits and remembring the dangers from which it hath been freed by Divine favour it shall sing the verse in the Psalm The snare is broken and we are delivered The remembrance likewise as St. Thomas teaches of the acts of vertue and good works by which Heaven was gained shall be a particular joy unto the Blessed both in respect they were a means of our happiness as also of pleasing so gracious and good a Lord. This joy which results from the memory of things past is so great as Epicurus prescribing a way to be ever joyful and pleasant advises us to preserve in memory and to think often of contents past But in Heaven we shall not onely joy in the memory of those things wherein we have pleased God in complying with his holy will and in ordering and disposing our life in his service but in the troubles also and dangers we have past The memory of a good lost without remedy causes great regret and torment and to the contrary the memory of some great evil avoided and danger escaped is most sweet and delectable The Wise-man said the memory of death was bitter as indeed it is to those who are to die but unto the Saints who have already past it and are secure in Heaven nothing can be more pleasant who now to their unspeakable joy know themselves to be free from death infirmity and danger There also shall live the Will in that true and vital life rejoycing to see all its desires accomplished with the abundance and sweet satiety of so many felicities being necessitated to love so admirable a beauty as the Soul enjoyes and possesses in God Almighty Love makes all things sweet and as it is a torment to be separated from what one loves so it is a great joy and felicity to remain with the beloved And therefore the Blessed loving God more than themselves how unspeakable a comfort must it be to enjoy God and the society of those whom they so much affect The love of the Mother makes her delight more in the sight of her own Son though foul and of worse conditions than in that of her neighbours The love then of Saints one towards another being greater than that of Mothers to their Children and every one of them being so perfect and worthy to be beloved and every one enjoying the sight of the same God how comfortable must be their conversation Sen. Ep. 6. Seneca said That the possession of what good soever was not pleasing without a Partner The possession then of the chief good mus be much more delightful with the society of such excellent companions If a man were to remain alone for many years in some beautiful Palace it would not please him so well as a Desert with company but the City of God is full of most noble Citizens who are all sharers of the same blessedness This conversation also being with wise holy and discreet personages shall much increase their joy For if one of the greatest troubles of humane life be to suffer the ill conditions follies and impertinencies of rude and ill-bred people and the greatest content to converse with sweet pious and learned friends what shall that Divine conversation be in Heaven where there is none ill conditioned none impious none froward but all peace piety love and sweetness in so much as Saint Austin sayes Aug. lib. de Spirittu anima Every one shall there rejoyce as much in the felicity of another as in his own ineffable joy and shall possess as many joyes as he shall find companions There are all things which are either requisite or delightful all riches ease and comfort Where God is nothing is wanting All there know God without errour behold him without end praise him without weariness love him without tediousness and in this love repose full of God Besides all this the Security which the will shall have in the eternal possession of this felicity is an unspeakable joy The fear that the good things which we enjoy are to end or at least may end mingles wormwood with our joyes and pleasures do not relish where there is
instead of the burning coals of that eternal fire Neither shall they be Masters so much as of that broken pot wherein to contain a little water if it might be given them Jsai 30. For as Isaias sayes There shall not remain unto them so much as the shread of a broken pot to hold a little water from the pit nor shall there be any found to give it them That rich Glutton in the Gospel accustomed to drink in Cups of Chrystal to eat in Silver and to be cloathed in Silks and curious Linnens can tell us how far this infernal poverty extends when he demanded not wines of Candie but a little cold water and that not in Cups of Gold or Chrystal but upon the fingers end of a Leper This rich and nice Glutton came to such an extremity that he would esteem it a great felicity that they would give him but one drop of water although it were from the filthy and loathsome finger of a Leper and yet this also was wanting unto him Let the rich of the World see to what poverty they are like to come if they trust in ther riches let them know that they shall be condemned to the loss of all which is good Let them reflect upon him who was accustomed to be cloathed in precious Garments to tread upon Carpets to sleep upon Down to dwell in spacious Palaces now naked thrown upon burning coals and packt up in some narrow corner of that infernal Dungeon Let us therefore fear the riches of this World and the poverty of the other §. 4. This poverty or want of all good of the damned is accompanied with a most opprobrious infamy and dishonour when by publick sentence they shall be deprived for their enormous offences of eternal glory and reprehended in the presence of Saints and Angels by the Lord of Heaven and Earth This infamy shall be so great that St. Chrysostom speaks of it in these words A most intolerable thing is Hell Chrys in Math. 24. and most horrible are the torments yet if me should place a thousand Hells before me nothing could be so horrible unto me as to be excluded from the honour of glory to be hated of Christ and to hear from him these words I know you not This infamy we may in some sort declare under the example of a mighty King who having no Heir to succeed him in his Kingdom took up a beautiful Boy at the Church door and nourished him as his Son and in his Testament commanded that if at ripe years his conditions were vertuous and sutable to his calling he should be received as lawful King and seated in his Royal Throne but if he proved vitious and unfit for Government they should punish him with infamy and send him to the Gallies The Kingdom obeyed this Command provided him excellent Masters and Tutors but he became so untoward and ill-inclined that he would learn nothing flung away his books spent his time amongst other Boyes in making houses of dirt and other childish fooleries for which his Governors corrected and chastised him and advised him of what was fitting and most imported him but all did no good onely when they reprehended him he could weep not because he repented but because they hindred his sport and the next day did the same The more he grew in age the worse he became and although they informed him of the Kings Testament and what behooved him all was to no purpose until at last after all possible care and diligence his Tutors and the whole Kingdom weary of his ill conditions in a publick Assembly declared him unworthy to raign dispoiled him of his Royal Ornaments and condemned him with infamy unto the Gallies What greater affront and ignominy can there be than this to lose a Kingdom and to be made a Gally-slave for I do not know which of these things that young man would be more sensible of More ignominious and a more lamentable Tragedy is that of a Christian condemned to Hell who was taken by God from the gates of death adopted his Son with condition that if he kept his Commandments he should raign in Heaven and if not he should be condemned to Hell Yet he forgetting these obligations without respect of his Tutors and Masters who were the holy Angels especially his Angel Guardian who failed not to instill into him holy inspirations and other learned and spiritual men who exhorted him both by their doctrine and example what was fitting for a Child of God But he neither moved by their advices nor the chastisements of Heaven by which God overthrew his vain intentions and thwarted his unlawful pleasures onely lamented his temporal losses and not his offences and at the time of his death was sentenced to be deprived of the Kingdom of Heaven and precipitated into Hell What infamy can be greater than this of the damned Soul for if it be a great infamy to suffer death by Humane Justice for some crimes committed how great an infamy will it be to be condemned by Divine Justice for a Traitor and perfidious Rebel to God Besides this bitterness of pains the damned persons shall also be eternally branded with the infamy of their offences so as they shall be scorned and scoft at by the Devils themselves and not onely Devils but all rational creatures Men and Angels shall detest them as infamous and wicked Traitors to their King God and Redeemer Jsai 13. Facies combustae vultus eorum And as fugitive Slaves are marked and cauterized with burning irons so this infamy by some special mark of ugliness and deformity shall be stamped upon their faces and bodies so as Albertus Magnus sayes so ignominious shall be the body of a Sinner that when his Soul returns to enter it it shall be amazed to behold it so horrible and shall wish it were rather in the same state as when it was half eaten up by worms CAP. IX The Punishment of the Damned from the horribleness of the place into which they are banished from Heaven and made Prisoners in Hell ANother kind of punishment of great discomfort and affliction is that of Exile which the Damned shall suffer in the highest degree For they shall be banished into the profound bowels of the Earth a place most remote from Heaven and the most calamitous of all others where they shall neither see the Sun by day nor the Stars by night where all shall be horror and darkness and therefore it was said of that condemned person Cast him forth into utter darkness forth of the City of God forth of the Heavens forth of this World where he may never more appear into that land which is called in the Book of Job A dark land Job 10. covered with the obscurity of death a land of misery and darkness where the shadow of death and no order but everlasting horror inhabits a land according to Isaias Jsai 34. of sulphur and burning pitch a land of
shall with great grief remember how often he might have gained Heaven and did it not but is now tumbled into Hell and shall say unto himself How many times might I have prayed and spent that time in play but now I pay for it How many times ought I to have fasted and left it to satisfie my greedy appetite How many times might I have given alms and spent it in sin How many times might I have pardoned my enemies and chose rather to be revenged How many times might I have frequented the Sacraments and forbore them because I would not quit the occasion of sinning There never wantted means of serving God but I never made use of it and am therefore now justly paid for all Behold accursed Caitiff that entertaining thy self in pleasures thou hast for toyes and fooleries lost Heaven If thou wouldest thou mightest have been a companion for Angels if thou wouldest thou mightest have been in eternal joy and thou hast lost all for the pleasure of a moment O accursed and wretched fool thy Redeemer courted thee with Heaven and thou despisedst him for a base trifle This was thy fault and now thou sufferest for it and since thou wouldest not be happy with God thou shalt now be eternally cursed by him and his Angels The Understanding shall torment it self with discourses of great bitterness discoursing of nothing but what may grieve it Aristotle shall not there take delight in his wisdom nor Seneca comfort himself with his Philosophy Galen shall find no remedy in his Physick nor the profoundest Scholar in his Divinity A certain Doctor of Paris appeared after death unto the Bishop of that City and gave him an account that he was damned The Bishop demanded of him if he had there any knowledge He answered That he knew nothing but onely three things The first that he was eternally damned The second that the Sentence past against him was irrevocable The third that for the vain pleasure of the world he was deprived of the vision of God And then he desired to know of the Bishop if there were any people in the world remaining The Bishop asking him the reason of that question he answered that within these few last dayes there have so many souls descended into Hell that me-thinks there should not any be left upon earth In this power of the Soul is engendered tho worm of conscience which is so often proposed unto us in holy Scripture as a most terrible torment and greater than that of fire Onely in one Sermon or rather in the Epilogue of that Sermon Christ our Redeemer three times menaces us with that Worm Marc. 9. which gnaws the consciences and tears in pieces the hearts of the Damned admonishing us as often That their worm shall never die nor their sire be quenched For as the worm which breeds in dead flesh or that which breeds in wood eats and gnaws that substance of which they are engendered so the Worm which is bred from sin is in perpetual enmity with it gnawing and devouring the heart of the sinner with raging desperate and now unprofitable grief still putting him in mind that by his own fault he lost that eternal glory which he might so easily have obtained and is now fallen into eternal torments from whence there is no redemption And certainly this resentment of the loss of Heaven shall more torment him than the fire of Hell Of an evil conscience even in this life St. Austin said Aug. in Psal 45. Quint. Declam 12. Senec. ep 97. that amongst all the tribulations of the Soul none was greater than that of a guilty conscience Even the Gentils knew this and therefore Quintilian exclaims O sad remembrance and knowledge more grievous than all torments And Seneca sayes that evil actions are whipt by the conscience of themselves that perpetual vexation and resentment brings great afflictions and torments upon the Actors that wickedness drinks up the greatest part of its own poison and is a punishment unto it self Certainly it were a great rigour if a Father should be forced to be present at the execution of his Son but more if he should be compelled to be the Hangman and yet greater if the Gallows should be placed before his own door so that he could neither go in or out without beholding that affront and contumely but far greater crueltie if they should make the guilty person to execute himself and that by cutting his body in pieces member after member or tearing off his flesh with his own teeth This is the cruelty and torment of an evil Conscience with which a sinner is racked and tortured amongst those eternal flames not being able to banish his faults from his memory nor their punishment from his thoughts The envy also which they shall bear towards those who have gained Heaven by as small matters as they have lost it shall much add to their grief Those who are hungry if they see others meaner than they feed at some splendid and plentiful Table and cannot be admitted themselves become more hungry so shall it fare with the damned who shall be more afflicted by beholding others sometimes less than themselves enjoy that eternal happiness which they through want of care are deprived of Esau though a Clown having understood that his Brother Jacob had obtained his Fathers Benediction cried out and roared like a Lion and consumed himself with resentment and horror What lamentations shall those of the damned be when they shall see that the Just have gained the Benediction of God not by any deceit or cozenage used by them but that they lost it through their own neglect Those who with opinion of merit earnestly aim at some vacant Dignity if at length they see themselves neglected and with shame put off their grief and indignation swells above measure In like manner I say shall it be with those damned wretches who will be far more afflicted by the consideration of those great goods and eternal felicities which they see themselves have lost and those to enjoy them whom they deemed far inferiour to them in merit Let us now therefore have remorse of conscience whilest we may kill the Worm lest it then bite us when it cannot die CAP. XI Of Eternal Death and the Punishment of Talion in the Damned AFter all this there shall not want in Hell the pains of Death which amongst humane punishments is the greatest That of Hell is a living Death and doth as far exceed this of earth as the substance doth a shadow The Death which men give together with death takes away the pain and sense of dying but the Eternal Death of sinners is with sense and by so much greater as it hath more of life recollecting within it self the worst of dying which is to perish and the most intolerable of life which is to suffer pain And therefore St. Bernard calls the pain of the damned a living Death and a dead Life and Pope Innocent the
to mind eternity discoursing thus with himself How comes this to pass that thou canst not red one single night it being such a torture to be still without turning thy self What would it be if thou wert to remain in one posture three or four nights Certainly it would be a death unto me Truly I should never have believed one could suffer so much in a thing so easie Wo is me How little patience have I since a thing so small and trivial grieves me so much What would it have been if the had commanded me to lye watching many weeks What would it be if I had the Collick or were tormented with the Stone or Sciatica Far greater evils than these are prepared for thee in Hell whither thou posts by running into so many sins Consider what a Couch Is prepared for thee in that abyss of misery what Feather-bed what Holland Sheets Thou shalt be cast upon burning coals stames and fulphur shall be thy Coverlets Mark well whether this Bed be for one night onely Yea nights dayes moneths and years ages and eternities thou art to remain on that side thou fallest on without having the least relief to turn thy self unto the other That fire shall never die neither shalt thou ever die to the end its torments may last eternally After an hundred years and after an hundred thousand millions of years they shall be as lively and as vigorous as at the first day See what thou doest by not fearing eternal death by making no account of eternity by setting so much of thy affection on a temporal life Thou doest not walk the right way change thy life and begin to serve thy Creatour So did this man being convinced by this discourse He amended his life And let him do the like who comes to read this Let him know that if they should tell him that he were not to stir out of a Bed of roses for twenty years space he would not be able to suffer it How will he be able to lie upon a Bed of hot burning coals in flames of sulphur for all eternity § 2. Unto all those pains shall be joyned that of Talion which is To pay with proportion so much for so much which also shall not be wanting in Hell And therefore it is said in the Ayocalyps By how much she glorified her self and lived in delights Give her so much of torment There shall the delicious person be afflicted he who contemned others be despised and the proud trampled under foot it being most convenient for the Divine Justice that the damned in hell should be punished in the same manner wherein they have here offended as may appear by this example rehearsed by Henry Gran. A young Damsel Henric. Gran. d. 9. c. 200. as to outward appearance given to Prayer Fastings Watchings and Penance and for this reason esteemed by all for a Saint She fell dangerously sick and having made her confession died Within a short time after she appeared to her Confessarius in a black and fearful shape The priest not knowing her demanded Who she was I am quoth she that one that was held by all for a Saint I am none but a most miserable wretch since I am condemned to hell fire where I shall never cease to be tormented in company of the most abject and contemptible Fiends and that for the content and satisfaction I took in my self and for the pride I had esteeming my self far above others having a base and vile conceit of all For this vice I shall live in eternal torments Though God should drie up the Sea and fill up the empty places thereof with the smallest sand that can be imagined and should permit that a little Bird should but take one grain every hundred years God's wrath and Justice would not be satisfied with the torments my Soul shall suffer until such time as the said little Bird should take out every grain of the foresaid sand For were this granted I would most willingly suffer all the time required for the performance thereof all the pains and torments of all the damned Souls in Hell with this onely proviso that at last my Soul might come to obtain salvation But there is no remedy now And therefore Father do not put your self to the trouble to pray tor me being nothing can avail me In this History we have seen Pride chastised by humiliation In tills that follows we shall see Pleasures and delightful entertainments chastised with proportionable torments Cantip. l. 2. c. 49. p. 2. Joan Major v. Infernus Exemp 6. Cantipratensis writes That in the parts of Teutonia there was a Souldier very valiant and much given to Tilting and Running at the Ring And according as he lived so he died miserably His Wife who was a devout person and of exemplar life after the death of her Husband had in an Extasie manifested unto her the miserable state of her Husbands Soul It was represented unto her as if it were still united to the Body encompassed with a multitude of Devils Whereof the Principal in her hearing gave command they should furnish their new Guest with a pair of Shoes fit for his feet which piercing them might reach to his very head Then he commanded they should put him on a Coat of Male made full of sharp points which might pierce his whole body in all parts After this a third command was that they should put him on a Helmet with a sharp nail that might pierce his head and come to be clenched below his feet Finally by his command they hung a Target about his neck so heavy that it might crush all the bones in his body All this being punctually and speedily performed the Prince of darkness told his Officers This worthy person alter he had entertained himself in Tilting and the like menages of valour was accustomed to refresh his toyled limbs with sweet Baths and then to retire to some soft Bed sporting himself afterwards with other comfortable dalliances of sensuality Give him now somewhat of those refreshments which are usual here They presently hurl'd him into a fire prepared then to ease him they placed him in a Bed red hot where a Toad waited for him of an immense size with eyes most dreadful which clipped the Souldier very close kissing and embracing him in such a rueful manner that it was the most dreadful of all the torments he had suffered and brought him even to pangs of death That good woman who by Gods appointment had seen what past in her Husband had this vision so fresh in memory all the dayes of her life and with such continual oppressions of heart that none who had known her before beholding her afterwards could otherwise imagine but that she suffered some great and extraordinary affliction Many other pains and torments proportionable to the crimes committed may be seen in the works of Wermero A Gentleman of noble Parentage Wermer Mon. Carthu in fasciculo morum an English man
to last for ever in regard he had the good fortune to save his Soul Wherefore if one onely disastrous day after the enjoying of so much felicity and greatness of the world for twenty years space is sufficient to cause a contempt of all that pomp and make the same appear as smoke not onely one year of affliction not a thousand ages but eternity in torments how will it make all humane prosperity to seem nothing else but a shadow and a dream If the sad death of one though he saves his soul shews the vanity of all humane felicities The lamentable death of one who is damned to Hell and an eternity of unspeakable misery how will it make evident that all felicity and humane greatness is nothing but smoke a shadow and nothing Let us reflect a thought upon the Emperour Heliogabolus who gave so great a scope to all his sensual appetites and was most exactly industrious in making use of time to the advantage of his pleasures What account are we to make of his two years and eight moneths raign if we give credit to Aurelius and Eutropius turning our consideration to the other Scene of his miserable death For the Pretorian Souldiers having drawn him out of a Sink or Privy where he had hid himself then haling him upon the ground they threw him into an other Sink most filthy and abominable but in regard there was not room enough for his whole body they pull'd him out again and dragging him through the great place called Circus and other publick Streets of Rome at last they cast him into the Tyber having first tied great stones about him to the end he might never appear more nor obtain interrement All this was done to the great content of the people and approbation of the Senate Who should see this nice and effeminate Prince wallowing in the Sink abused by his Souldiers and drowned in the Tyber what estimate would he frame of all his greatnese But see him now in the horrid Sink of Hell abused by the Devils and plunged into that pit of fire and brimstone where he is to suffer excessive torments for all eternity what will that short time of his Empire seem being compared I do not say with three hundred thousand millions of years but with an eternity of pains which he is to suffer causing all the past glory of his Empire and splendour of his fortunes to vanish into smoke You may look upon a Wheel of Squibs or Fireworks which whilst it moves casts forth a thousand lights and splâ—â—dours with which the beholders are much taken but all at last ends in a little smoke and burnt paper So it is Whilst the Wheel of felicities was in motion according to the stile of St. James that is to say whilst our life lasts its fortune and prosperity appeared most glorious but ceasing all comes to end in smoke and he that fares best in it becomes a firebrand of Hell Rabanus said well that when a strong fever Raban in Eccl. or some great unexpected change in his estate happens to one it makes him forget all his former contents in health and wealth his sickness and adversity taking up so the whole man as that he has no leasure to employ his thoughts upon any thing else and if perhaps any passage of his former condition chance to come to his minde it gives him no satisfaction but rather augments his pain Wherefore if even temporal evils though very short are sufficient to make former felicities of many years vanish what impression will temporal goods make in us if we employ our thoughts upon eternal evils Besides this the eternity of torments in hell which is to be suffered hereafter without profit may move us to husband the short time of this life most to our advantage and with the greatest fruit How many miserable Souls now suffer those eternal pains for not employing one day in pennance nor endeavouring to make one good confession What would a damned Soul give for one quarter of an hour out of so many dayes and years which are lost and shall not have one instant allowed him Thou who now livest and hast time lose not that which imports so much and once lost can never be redeemed Peter Reginaldus writes that an holy Religious man being in prayer heard a most lamentable voice whereupon demanding Who he was and Why he lamented it was answered I am one of the damned And thou must know That I and the rest of the damned Souls lament and bewail nothing more bitterly than to have lost time in the sins we have committed O miserable creatures who for having lost a short space of time lose an eternity of felicity They come to know too late the importance of that which they have lost and shall never come to regain it Let us now make use of time whilest we may gain eternity and let us not lose that with pleasure which cannot be recovered with grief Let us now weep for our sins with profit that we way not weep for our pains without fruit Let us hear what St. Bernard sayes Bernard Serm. 16. in Cant. Who shall give water unto my head and who shall give a fountain of tears unto mine eyes that I may prevent weeping by weeping Let us now weep in time and do penance with sorrow that our tears may be dried up and our sorrow forgotten since eternal happiness is no less efficacious to make us forget the tears and grief of this life than hell the pleasures of it Wherefore Isaias saith My former cares are forgotten Isai 65. and are hid from mine eyes Upon which words St. Jerome glosses It is the effect of mirth and confession of the true God that an eternal oblivion shall succeed precedent goiefs For if former evils shall be forgotten it is not with the oblivion of memory but with the succession of so much good according to that In the good day an oblivion of evil Lastly let us draw from the consideration of hell a perfect hatred to all mortal sin since from the evil of sin proceeds that evil of pain Terrible is the evil of sin since it cannot be satisfied even with eternal flames But this requires a larger consideration which we are now come unto CAP. XIII The infinite guilt of mortal Sin by which we lose the felicity of heaven and fall into eternal evils THe horrible and stupendious malice of mortal sin is so foul and accursed that though committed in an instant it deserves the torments of hell for all eternity and an unlawful pleasure enjoyed by a sinner but for one moment deprives and disinherits him of eternal felicity Because therefore the scope of this work is to beget such disesteem of temporal goods as for them we may not lose the eternal I thought it not besides my purpose to procure as much as I could a horror and detestation of sin which is the occasion of the loss of heaven and
evil in it self in its own nature For if there were no God or that God were not offended with it yet it were a most abominable and horrid evil the greatest of all evils and the cause of all In regard of this deformity and filthiness of sin the Philosophers judged it to be abhorred above all things Aristotle said Aristotle 3. Eth. it were better to die than to do any thing against the good of vertue And Seneca and Peregrinus with more resolution said Although I were certain that men should not know it and that God would pardon it yet I would not offend for the very filthiness of sin For this Tully said That nothing could happen unto man more horrible than a fault And even those Philosophers who denied the immortality of the Soul and the providence of God affirmed that nothing should make us to commit it And there hath not wanted some Gentils who have suffered great extremities to avoid a vicious act Plut. in Demetrio Democles as Plutarch writes chose rather to be boiled in scalding water than to consent to a filthy act With reason Hippo is celebrated amongst the Greek Matrons who chose rather to die than offend Neither was that horror less which Verturius conceived against uncleanness who suffered prison whips and rigorous torments rather than he would sin against chastity Equal to this was that of the most beautiful youth Espurina of whom Valerius Maximus and St. Ambrose write Ambl. l. 3. de Virg. That he slashed and wounded his fair face that it should not give occasion to others of offence even by desire All those were Gentils who knew not Christ crucified for man nor saw hell open for the punishment of sinners nor fled from sin because it was an offence unto God but only for the enormity and filthiness it had in it self This made them endure prisons and tortures rather than admit it What then should Christians do who know their Redeemer died to the end they should not sin and how much sin is offensive to God Certainly they ought rather to give a thousand lives and souls than once to injure their Creator by committing an offence which not onely Gentils but even Nature hath in horror which hath planted in brute beasts although they cannot sin yet a natural aversion from that which looks like sin John Marquess of Gratis desired much to have a Foal from a generous Mare which he had by her own Son but could never effect it neither would she ever admit him until deceived by cloathing him in such sort as she knew him not But when he was uncloathed and she discovered the deceit she fell into that sorrow and sadness that after she would never feed but pined her self to death The like is reported by Jovianus Pontanus of a delicate Bitch of his which he could never although he caused her to be held make to couple with her Son So foul and horrible is but the shadow and image of sin even unto brute beasts Why should not men then who are capable of reason and have an obligation unto Gods commandments say and think with St. Anselm Lib. de simil c. 19. If I should see on this part the filthiness of sin and on the other the terrour of hell and it were necessary for me to fall into one of them I would rather cast my self into hell than admit of sin For I had rather enter pure into Hell than to enjoy the Kingdom of Heaven contaminated with sin Whosoever than he be who is infected with that horrible evil of a mortal sin he cannot choose but be most miserable and wretched For as St. Chrysostome sayes Chrysost Tom. 5. Ser. 5. de ie The greatest evil is to be evil And although the Chirurgion do not cut the cankered flesh yet the ulcerated Patient will not be freed from his infirmity So although God should not punish a Sinner yet he would not be free from the evil death misery and abomination of sin And therefore St. Austin sayes Aug. To. 8. in Ps 49. Although we could cause that the day of Judgement should not come yet we ought not to live ill This monstrous deformity of sin our Lord was pleased to express by a visible Monster and that after a most strange manner as is related by Villaveus He writes Villaveus lib. 8. c. 35. that in the year 1298. Cassanus King of the Tartars with an Army of 200000 horse entring Syria made himself Master of it and brought a great terror upon all those neighbouring Countries in so much as the King of Armenia delivered him his Daughter although she were a Christian and he an Infidel to be his Wife Not long after the Queen proved with child and when her time came was delivered not of a Child but of a most horrible and deformed Monster Whereat the barbarous King being astonisht and incensed by the advise of his Council commanded that she should be put to death as an Adulteress The poor Lady grieving to die with the imputation of a sin whereof she was innocent commended her self to our Saviour and by divine inspiration desired that before her death the Thing which she had brought forth might be baptized which was granted and no sooner performed but that Monster became a most beautiful and goodly Boy and the King amazed at the miracle with many other of his Subjects became Christian acknowledging by what had happened the beauty of Grace and the deformity of Sin although that deformity proceeded not from any actual sin either mortal or venial from which the Child was free but onely from Original guilt which without the fault of his proper will descended unto him from his Parents The deformity of sin comes from the contrariety of it to reason which renders a Sinner more foul and ugly than the most horrid Monster and more dead in soul than a putrid and dead Carcase Pliny admires the force of lightning which melts the gold and silver and leaves the Purse which contained it untoucht Such is sin which kills the Soul and leaves the Body sound and entire It is a flash of lightning sent from Hell and worse than Hell it self and such leaves the Soul which it hath blasted What shall I then say of the evils which it causes I will onely say this that though it were the best thing of the world yet for the evil effects which it produces it ought to be avoided more then death It bereaves the soul of grace banishes the holy Ghost deprives it of the right of heaven despoiles man of all his merits makes him unworthy of divine protection and condemns a sinner unto eternal torments in the other world and in this to many disasters for there is neither plague warre famine nor infirmity of body whereof sin hath not been in some sort the occasion and therefore those who weep for their afflictions let them change the object of their tears and weep for the
brought a quintal Vi. Bonfrerium in Exod. 16. it shrunk and contracted it self into the small measure of a gomer with some it diminished and with others swelled and dilated it self into a greater proportion The corruption of it was so sodain that it lasted not one day without being wholly putrified and fill'd with worms and yet notwithstanding all these qualities the enjoying and eating of it cost much toyl and labour first in gathering then grinding then in cooking and performing many other duties requisite for the use of it After the same manner the goods of this life notwithstanding all their faults and evil conditions are not obtained nor enjoyed without much travel and vexation After this all did not enjoy that quality proper to Manna which was to taste like unto that which he that eat it most desired for sinners found this taste limited and not so full and savory as others Even so we with our vices alter and diminish the natural sweetness of the things of this life as we shall see hereafter in it's due place It is true that the appearance of it was good Sept. Interp in cap. 11. Nume species illius species chrystalli for as the 70 Interpreters say it was like Christal clear and transparent The same is the condition of the goods of this life they have the splendor and an appearance but are really more brittle then glass they are variable fading and inconstant and subject to a thousand alterations they are corruptible transitory and mortal and onely by reason of their glittering we seek after them as after things great and eternal Let us then leave the appearance and painted superficies of things and look upon the substance and truth and we shall finde that what is temporal is small and what eternal is great the temporal inconstant the eternal firm the temporal short and temporal the eternal durable and in fine eternal and this onely were enough to make it more esteemed then the temporal although the temporal in all other respects did exceed it but the one being so short and mutable and the other great firm and constant the difference betwixt them can be no less Lib. 7. moral c. 12. then as St. Gregory esteemed it who sayes Immense is that which shall follow and without limit and little is all that which ends And the same Saint notes that the small knowledge and memory of eternity is the main cause of the deceiving of Mankind who have in esteem the false goods of this life and undervalue those spiritual and eternal of the other and therefore speaks in this manner Lib. 8. moral ca. 12. The thoughts of the predestinated alwayes have their intentions placed upon eternity although they possess great felicity in this life and although they be not in danger of death yet ever look upon it as present to the contrary do obstinate souls who love this temporal life as a thing permanent because they consider not how great is the eternity of that which is to come and not considering the solidity of the eternal they judge this Banishment for their Countrey this Darkness for Light and this Race for their Station for those who know not greater matters are not able to judge of the smallest We therefore will begin to draw the Curtain and from the consideration of Eternity and the loose condition of time discover the distance betwixt the goods of heaven and those of earth from whence we shall come to handle the baseness of the temporal and greatness of the eternal Wherefore as a Philosopher said of light that there was nothing more clear nor nothing more obscure the same may be said of time and eternity which being held no less perspicuous are ill understood and are no less obscure and dark then the other But we shall endeavour to make them more intelligible being assisted by the light of Faith the doctrine of Saints and wisdom of the Philosophers CAP. II. How efficacious is the consideration of Eternity for the change of our Lives THe thought of Eternity St. Augustine calls a Great thought Augus in Psal 76. Magna cogit because the memory of it is of great joy unto the Saints and no less horror unto Sinners and unto both of much profit and concernment it causes us to do great matters and shews the smalness of the fading and transitory things of this earth I will therefore from this light begin to discover the large field of the poverty trumpery and baseness of the temporal and recommend the consideration of the eternal the which we ought still to have in our thoughts as David had perpetually in his in whom whilst he was a Sinner it caused horror and confusion and being a Saint it comforted and encouraged him to be yet more holy drawing from this meditation most spiritual and incomparable profit unto his soul and therefore in his Psalms he so often repeats the memory of it not only in the body of them but almost in every passage saying for ever or eternally or world without end there being no inscription or title which he uses more frequently then this against the end or in the end because he composed them with the consideration of eternity which follows the end of this life and for more clearness adds in some of them against the end for the Octave which according to St. Augustine signifies Eternity that being the octave after the 7 dayes of the week into which all time is to resolve which 7 dayes being past there are to be no more weeks but as St. Peter sayes one onely day of perpetual Eternity In this Eternity therefore did the Prophet employ his thoughts by day and his meditations by night this forced him to send up his voice unto Heaven and to cry out unto God this made him mute and took away his speech with men this astonished him and made his pulses fail with the consideration of it this affrighted him and mingled wormwood with the pleasures of this life this made him know the littleness of all that is temporal and made him enter within himself and examine his conscience Finally this brought him to a most miraculous change of life beginning to serve the Lord with more fervor all which effects proceeding from the thoughts of Eternity are apparent in the 76 Psalm therefore sayes he amongst other things Mine eyes prevented the watches I troubled myself and spake not immediately after he gives the reason saying I thought upon the dayes of old and had in my thoughts the years of eternity and meditated on them by night with my heart This thought was the occasion of his long watches on this he meditated before the Sun was risen and on this many hours after it was set and that with so great astonishment of what Eternity was that his spirit â—â—iled him and he trembled with the lively apprehension of what it was either to perish eternally in Hell or to enjoy a blessedness for
which he was wholly absorpt his senses suspended and tied up as it were in a sweet sleep by the content which he received from that consideration Seneca Epist 22. I delighted my self sayes he amongst other things to enquire into the Eternity of Souls and believing it as a thing assuredly true I delivered up my self wholly over unto so great a hope and I was now weary of my self and despised all that remained of age though with perfect and entire health that I might pass into that immense time and into the possession of an eternal world So much could the consideration of Eternity work in this Philosopher that it made him to despise the most precious of temporal things which is life Certainly amongst Christians it ought to produce a greater effect since they not onely know that they are to live eternally but that they are either to joy or suffer eternally according unto their works and life CAP. III. The Memory of Eternity is of it self more efficacious then that of Death ANd therefore it shall much import us to frame a lively conception of Eternity and having once framed it to retain it in continual memory which of it self is more efficacious then that of Death for although both the one and the other be very profitable yet that of Eternity is far more generous strong and fruitful of good works for by it did Virgins preserve their purity Anchorits perform their austere penances and Martyrs suffered their torments the which were not comforted and encouraged in their pains by the fear of death but by the holy reverence and hope of Eternity and the love of God It is true the Philosophers who hoped not for the immortality of the other life as we do yet with the memory of death retired themselves from the vanity of the world despised its greatness composed their actions and ordered their lives according to the rules of reason and vertue Epict. c. 28. apud S. Hier. in ca. 10. Math. Whereupon Epictetus advises us alwayes to have death in our mindes so sayes he Thou shalt never have base and low thoughts and desire any thing with trouble and anxiety And Plato said that by so much man were to be esteemed wiser by how much he more seriously thought of death and for this reason he commanded his Disciples that when they went any journey they should go barefoot signifying thereby that in the way of this life we should alwayes have the end of it discovered which is death and the end of all things But Christians who believe the other life are to add unto this contemplation of death the memory of Eternity the advantages whereof are as far above it as things eternal above those which are temporal The Philosophers were so much moved with the apprehension of death because with it all things of this mortal life were to end death being the limit whereunto they might enjoy their riches honours and delights and no further others desired to die because their evils and afflictions were to die with them If then death amaze some only because it deprives them of the goods of this life which by a thousand other wayes use to fail and which of themselves even before the death of the owner are corruptible dangerous and full of cares and if others hope for death onely because it frees them from the evils of life which in themselves are short and little as all things temporal are why should not we be moved by the thought of Eternity which secures us goods great and everlasting and threatens us with evils excessive and without end Without doubt then if we rightly conceive of Eternity the memory of it is much more powerful then that of death and if of this wise men have had so great an esteem and advised others to have the same much more ought to be had of that of Eternity Zenon desirous to know an efficacious means how to compose his life bridle his carnal appetites and observe the lawes of vertue had recourse unto the Oracle which remitted him unto the memory of death saying Go to the dead consult with them and there thou shalt learn what thou demandest There seeing the dead possess nothing of what they had and that with their lives they had breathed out all their felicity he might learn not to be puffed up with pride nor to value the vanities of the world For the same cause some Philosophers did use to drink in the skulls of dead men that they might keep in continual memory that they were to die and were not to enjoy the pleasures of this life although necessary unless alloid by some such sad remembrance In like manner many great Monarchs used it as an Antidote against the blandishments of fortune that their lives might not be corrupted by their too great prosperity Philip King of Macedonia commanded a Page to tell him three times every morning Philip thou art a man putting him in mind that he was to die and leave all The Emperor Maximilian the first four years before he died commanded his Coffin to be made which he carried along with him whither soever he went which with a mute voice might tell him as much Maximilian thou art to die and leave all The Emperors also of the East amongst other Ensignes of Majesty carried in their left hand a book with leaves of gold which they called Innocency the which was full of earth and dust in signification of humane mortality and to put them in minde hereby of that ancient doom of Mankind dust thou art and into dust thou shalt return And not without much conveniency was this memorial of death in the form of a book nothing being of more instruction and learning then the memory of death being the onely School of that great truth where we may best learn to undeceive our selves With reason also was the book called Innocency For who will dare to sin that knows he is to die Neither were the Emperors of the Abissins careless herein Nicol. God lib. 1. de rebus Abiss â—a 8. for at their Coronations amongst many other Ceremonies there was brought unto them a vessel fill'd with earth and a dead mans skull advertising them in the beginning that their Raign was to have a speedy end Finally all Philosophers agreed in this that all their Philosophy was the meditation of death But without doubt the contemplation of Eternity is far beyond all Philosophy it is a greater matter and of far more astonishment for the torments of Hell to last for ever then for the greatest Empires sodainly to have an end more horrible to suffer eternal evils then to be deprived of temporal goods greater marvel that our souls are immortal then that our bodies are to die Wherefore Christians especially those who aim to be perfect are rather to endeavour in themselves a strong conception of Eternity then to stir up the fear of death whose memory ought not to be needful for the
contempt of what is temporal since the first step unto Christian perfection according to the Counsel of Christ is to renounce all that we possess of earth that being so freed from those impediments of Christian perfection we may employ our selves in the consideration and memory of that Eternity which expects us hereafter as a reward of our holy works and exercises of vertue This horrid voice Eternity Eternity is to sound often in our hearts Thou not onely art to die but being dead eternity attends thee Remember there is a Hell without end and fix it in thy memory that there is a Glory for ever This consideration That if thou shalt observe the Law of God thou shalt be eternally rewarded and if thou break it thou shalt suffer pains without end will be far more powerful with thee then to know that the goods and evils of this life are to end in death Be mindful therefore of Eternity and resound in the inmost part of thy soul Eternity Eternity For this the Church when it consecrates the Fathers of it which are Bishops puts them in minde of this most powerful and efficacious memory of Eternity bidding them think of eternal years as David did And in the assumption and consecration of Popes they burn before their eyes a small quantity of flax with these words Holy Father so passes away the glory of the world that by the sight of that short and transitory blaze he may call to minde the flames eternal And Martin the fifth for his imprese and devise took a flaming fire which in short time burnt and consumed a Popes Tiara an Imperial Diadem a Regal Crown and a Cardinals Hat to give them to understand that if they complyed not with the duties of their places they were in a short time to burn in the eternal flames of hell the memory whereof he would preserve ever present by this most profitable Symbol §. 2. The name of Isachar whose Blessing from his Father was as we have formerly said to lye down and rest betwixt the two limits of Eternity signifies him That hath a memory or The man of reward or pay The Holy Ghost by this mystery charging us with the memory of eternal rewards And the Lord to shew how precious it was in his divine esteem and how profitable for us caused this name of Isachar to be engraven in a precious Amethyst which was one of those stones worn by the High-Priest in the Rational and one of those also rcveal'd unto St. John to be of the foundation of the City of God By it saith St. Anselme is signified the memory of Eternity which is the most principal foundation in the building of all perfection Truely if we consider the properties of this stone they are so many marks and properties of the memory of Eternity and of the benefits which that soul reaps Albert. Mag. Milius Ruiz v. Cesium de Min. lib. 4. p. 2. cap. 14. sect 14. which seriously considers it The Amethyst cause Vigilancy And what requires it more then the passage betwixt the two extreams of eternal glory and eternal pains What thing in the world ought to awake us more then the danger of falling into hell fire How could that man sleep which were to pass over a narrow plank of half a foot broad which served as a bridge betwixt two most high rocks the windes impetuously blowing and he if his foot slipt certain to fall into a most vast abyss No less is the danger of this life The way by which we are to pass unto Heaven is most streight the windes of temptations violent the dangers of occasions frequent the harms by ill examples infectious and the deceits of wicked Counsellors very many How then can a Christian sleep and be careless in so evident a peril Without all doubt it is more difficult to be saved considering the depravedness of our nature and the deceitful ambushes of the Devil then for a heavy man to pass over a heady and rapid river upon a small and bruised reed They say also of the Amethyst that besides the making him watchful who carries it it frees him from evil thoughts which how can that man have who bears Eternity in his mind how can he think upon the short pleasures of his senses who considers the eternal torments due unto his soul if he shall but consent to the least mortal sin The Amethyst also resists drunkenness preserving him that wears it in his senses and judgment and there is nothing that more preserves a mans judgment in the middest of the wine of delights in this life then the memory of the other and that for the pleasure of one moment here he is not only to suffer for hours for dayes for moneths for years but for worlds and a world of worlds hereafter The Amethyst besides this preserves the wearer from the force of poison And what greater Antidote against the poison of sin then to remember Hell which he deservs and Heaven which he loses by committing it The Amethyst also quiets a man and settles his thoughts And what can be more efficacious to free us from the disturbance of this life to bridle the insolence of covetousness to repress the aspiring of ambition then to consider the blessings of Eternity which attend the humble and poor in spirit Finally the Amethyst conferrs fruitfulness and this great thought of Eternity is fruitful of holy works For who is he that considers with a lively faith that for a thing so sleight and momentary he may enjoy the reward of eternal glory and will not be animated to work all he is able and to endure and suffer what shall happen for God Almighty and his Cause O how fruitful of Heroical works is this holy thought Eternal glory expects me the Triumphs of Martyrs the Victories of Virgins the Mortifications of Confessors are the effects of this consideration O holy thought O precious Amethyst that makes vigilant and attentive the negligent and careless that gives wisdom and judgment to the most deceived that heals those who are most ulcerated and corrupted with the poison of sin that quiets and pacifies the motions and troubles of our concupiscences that makes the most tepid and barren of vertues fruitful of holy works who will not endeavour to obtain and fix thee in his Soul O that Christians would so grave thee in their heart that thou mightest never be blotted out nor removed from thence How differently would they then live to what they now do how would they shine in their works for although the memory of Hell Heaven Death and Judgment be very efficacious for the reformation of our lives yet this of Eternity is like the quintescence of them all and virtually contains the rest CAP. IV. The Estate of Men in this life and the miserable forgetfulness which they have of Eternity BEfore we come to declare the conditions of Eternity whose consideration is so necessary for the leading of a holy
we gain those joyes which shall endure without end Yet ought we to make use of this consideration of Euripides and Zeuxis and not only to do good works but to do them seriously and perfectly well since we work not for this life but for Eternity which ought ever to be in our memory The benefit which David reaped by this consideraration was a firm resolution to mend his life and change into a new man animating himself to a greater observance and a more high perfection And so in that Psalm wherein he says That he thought upon the days of old and the years of Eternity he adds immediately the effect of his Meditation saying That he was to begin a new because the change which he found in his heart he perceived was from the most powerful hand of God Wherefore considering that Eternity never ends but still begins and that it is wholly a beginning he determined with such new fervour to give a beginning to a more perfect life that he would never flagg or be dismayed in the prosecution of it willing in this to imitate Eternity the which as it is ever beginning so he would ever begin to deserve it And what great matter is it if that which we are to enjoy or suffer be ever in beginning that we should likewise be ever beginning either to deserve the one or flie the other Our reward is not to fail us and therefore there is no reason why we should fail and grow weary in our service and endeavours Our joy is ever to begin Why should not then our endeavours be ever in beginning The repose we hope for shall never have an end Why should then our deservings ever cease With this considederation St. Arsenius much profited himself making account that although he had served God many years in a most holy life yet that he did but then begin repeating often that Speech of David Now I begin Now I begin We ought never to look back upon our labours past but still to animate our selves to labour anew for God and his Service as did the Apostle St. Paul who says of himself Philip. 3. Vide Masuet in vita St. Pauli That he did forget what was past that he did inlarge his heart and mind extending it for that which was to come the which the Apostle spake in a time when he had suffered much and done such services unto God in the good of Souls as he had already laboured more than all the Apostles After he had entred into the Synagogues of Damasous and publikely preached Jesus Christ with so evident danger of his life that if he had not escaped over the walls of the City he had been cut in a thousand pieces After that in Arabia he had converted many people many in Tarsua and in Antioch After he had been rapt up into the third Heaven After that he had been elected by the Holy Ghost to be an Apostle and wrought great and prodigious Miracles After that he had past over Asia Minor all Greece and the better part of Europe converting innumerable Soules After he had distributed great Alms gathering them with much labour made long journeys and brought them unto the poor in Jerusalem After the suffering of innumerable persecutions After having been thrice stoned and once left for dead After having been often whipt and often apprehended After infinite services performed for the Church Alter all these it seemed unto him that he had suffered nothing done nothing for Christ and he forgot it all as if it had been the first day of his conversion determining still to doe more to suffer more to labour more to begin anew esteeming himself after so many labours and services to be an useless and an unprofitable servant following the counsel of our Saviour when he sayes Luk. 17. After ye have done all what I have commanded you to doe say ye are unprofitable servants and that ye have done what ye ought have done Let a man compare his labours his zeal his preaching his charity with that of the Apostle and he will find that he hath not yet begun If then the Apostle who at that time exceeded the merits of divers Saints who have dyed in great holiness and yet forgot all judging he had done nothing but turned to begin afresh we who have not yet begun wherefore shall we be weary before we begin let us ever begin anew since Eternity which we hope for is ever to be new and ever to begin Let us not glory saith Dionysius Carthusianus in the merits of our life past neither let us esteem our selves for any thing we have already done but let us bestir our selves as freshly and with as much fervour as if we did but that day begin and were that day also to dye CAP. IX How Eternity is without change THe second condition of Eternity is to be immutable and to persevere without change which the Ancients gave us to understand by many most mysterious Symbols Some figured it by painting of a Chair Isaiah 6. conformable unto which the Prophet Isaiah saith That he saw the Lord sitting on high upon a Throne setting forth in this settled posture the immutability and greatness of his Eternity And St. John in his Apocalyps often celebrates the Seat of God as representing his eternal duration More clearly the Prophet Daniel Dan. 7. unto whom God vouchsafed to appear as he was eternal whereupon he calls him the Ancient of dayes and sayes he beheld him with his hair all white and seated upon a Throne From the same consideration the Nasamâ—nes a certain People of Affrick when any amongst them was about to die caused him to sit and in that posture to expire signifying thereby the estate wherein his Soul was prefently to enter And for the same cause they interred their dead sitting giving us thereby to understand that rest and repose were not to be sought for until death when we were to enter the gates of Eternity This life is no place to sit in we are not here to stay the misery which we find in it sufficiently declares that God made it not for that purpose This life is but lent us we are not to abide in it but to walk apace unto the Mountain of Eternity It is so miserable that even it self informs us of another life wherein we shall finde rest since here we cannot meet it In Heaven all our unhappiness all our miseries are to cease there the tears of this valley are to be wiped from our eyes there our troubles are to find ease there the unquietness of our hearts is to have repose In this world no manner of life no sort of estate no condition of man no greatness of dignity no abundance of riches no felicity of fortune can ever give rest unto the possessor For this reason the Romans in the Statues which they erected to their deceased Emperors made them still sitting whereby they would signifie that all the
felicity of this world could not bestow true rest and even upon him who was the Master of it until the end of life Man is born as Job saith to labour Until death there is no rest Let us not then seek it here but let us place the chair of our joyes where it may be firm and stable and not in the unquietness and turmoyles of things temporal where death at least will certainly overthrow it Others painted Eternity in the form of a Snake to note the condition of a perpetual continuance not subject unto change but remaining still in the same estate and vigour For as this Serpent wants wings feet and hands which are the extremities of other creatures so Eternity wants an end which is the extremity of things temporal Apud Euseb l. 1. de praepar Evang c. 7. Moreover as Serpents although without feet wings or any extrinsecal organ of motion yet by their great liveliness of spirit move more swiftly then those creatures which have them so Eternity without dayes or nights or changes which are the feet and wings of time out-strips and over-go's all things that are temporal Besides Serpents enjoy such a vivacity and length of life that Philon Biblius saith they die not unless they be kill'd and that they hardly know a natural death being not subject to those changes of other creatures from youth to age and from health to sickness but preserve themselves still fresh and young by the often renewing and casting of their old skins neither have they like other creatures any determinate size of their greatness but so long as they live encrease in bigness after the manner of Eternity which hath no limit change or declination a condition of all others most to be feared by the wicked who are for ever to continue in those eternal torments without the least refreshment and without so much as the comfort of changing one torment for another St. Paulinus said of St. Martin that his rest was to change his labours and certainly to change one pain for another although not in it self much less is yet some ease But even this shall be wanting unto the damned who shall never be permitted so much change as to turn from one side to another A fearful thing that being now five thousand years past since the first damned Soul was plunged into hell that during all this time no change should afford him the least ease How many alterations have since happened in this world yet none in his most bitter torments The world hath once been destroyed by an universal deluge eight onely persons remaining alive After which all men enjoying an equal liberty the Assyrians became Tyrants over the rest and raised the first Monarchy which endured 1240 years and then not without the general uproar and turmoyl of all Asia passed unto the Medes under whom it continued 300 years Which ended it came unto the Persians and from them unto the Grecians from whom not without greater alteration then any of the former it passed unto the Romans under whom also it hath since failed Amongst all which changes and revolutions of the world none hath yet passed over that miserable and unfortunate creature Besides these alterations in government what alterations hath nature it self suffered what Islands hath the Sea swallowed up one of which as Plato reports was bigger than all Europe and Affrica And what others hath it cast up of new What buildings or to say better what Mountains hath the Earthquakes left secure many Hills have been overwhelmed or turned topsie turvie others have appeared and sprung up never known before What Cities have been sunk what Rivers dried up and others vomited forth through new Channels what Towers have not fallen what Walls not been ruin'd what Monuments not defaced how often hath the face of things changed how many revolutions have the greatest Kingdoms suffered and this miserable sinner hath in all this time not given one turn How many times hath the year renewed it self how many Springs how many Autumns past and yet he remains in that obscure night as in his first entrance into that place of torments The Sun hath compassed this elemental World a Million and 700000 times and yet this wretched Soul could never once change his posture or remove one pace since his first falling into hell Besides this what troubles what labours have been passed by those innumerable people who have lived from the beginning of the world until this present and are now all vanisht what sicknesses have been suffered what torments what griefs endured and are now all forgotten but no grief nor torment of that unfortunate Sinner hath in these 5000 years passed away or shall ever become less Ptolomy roared out with the pain of his Gout Aristarcus was grieved with his Dropsie Cambyses was afflicted with his Falling-sickness Theopompus afflicted with his Ptisick Tobias with his blindness and holy Job with his Leprosie yet those griefs had their end But all those evils which joyntly possess this miserable creature have not or ever shall have change or period They of Rabatha were sawed in the middest others thrashed to death with Flails others burnt alive in Furnaces others torn in pieces by wild Beasts Anaxarcus was pounded in a Mortar Perillus burnt in a brazen Bull. But all those pains passed away and are now no more but that damned person hath not yet made an end or to say better hath not yet begun to pass any one of his torments which 100000 years hence shall be as new and sensible unto him as they were in the beginning What desperation must then seise upon him when he sees a change in all things and in his pains and torments none for if even the pleasures of this life if continued the same convert into griefs how shall those pains which never change be suffered what spite and madness shall possess him when he shall behold the Flames of St. Lawrence the Stripes of St. Clement of Aneira the Cross of St. Andrew the Fasts of St. Hilarion the Haircloth of Simeon Stylites the Disciplines of St. Dominick all the Torments of Martyrs and Penances of Confessors now passed and turned into eternal joyes but his own pains neither to pass nor change neither any hopes left either of ending his torments or himself These are evils to be feared and not those transitory ones of the world which either change grow less or end or at least make an end of him who suffers them Let not therefore the sick person be grieved and vexed with his infirmities nor the poor man with his wants nor the afflicted with his crosses since the evils of this life are either changed with time eased by counsel and consolations or at least ended by death But this miserable wretch in Hell cannot so much as comfort himself with the hope of dying because in that multitude of torments if there were the least hope of end it would be some ease some refreshment
the goods of life being limited it bestows them with a limited and restrained hand Even life it self it gives us but by peeces and mingles as many parts of death as it gives of life The age of Infancy dies when we enter into that of Childhood that of Childhood when we become Youths that of youth when we come to the age of Manhood that when we are old and even old age it self expires when we become decrepit so that during the same life we find many deaths and yet can hardly perswade our selves that we shall die one Let us cast our eyes upon our life past let us consider what is become of our Infancy Childhood and Youth they are now dead in us In the same manner shall those ages of our life which are to come die also Neither do we onely die in the principal times of life but every hour every moment includes a kinde of death in the succession and change of things What content is there in life which quickly dies not by some succeeding sorrow what affliction of pain which is not followed by some equal or greater grief then it self why are we grieved for what is absent since it offends us being present what we desire with impatience being possest brings care and sollicitude loss grief and affliction The short time which any pleasure stayes with us it is not to be enjoyed wholly and all at once but tasted by parts so as when the second part comes we feel not the pleasure of the first lessening it self every moment and we our selves still dying with it there being no instant of life wherein death gains not ground of us The motion of the Heavens is but the swift turn of the spindle which rol's up the thread of our lives and a most fleet horse upon which death runs post after us There is no moment of life wherein death hath not equal jurisdiction and as a Philosopher saith there is no point of life which we divide not with death so as if well considered we live but one onely point and have not life but for this present instant Our years past are now vanisht and we enjoy no more of them than if we were already dead the years to come we yet live not and possess no more of them than if we were not yet born Yesterday is gone to morrow we know not what shall be of to day many hours are past and we live them not others are to come and whether we shall live them or no is uncertain so that all counts cast up we live but this present moment and in this also we are dying so that we cannot say that life is any thing but the half of an instant and an indivisible point divided betwixt it and death With reason as Zacharias said may this temporal life be called The shadow of death since under the. shadow of life death steals upon us and as at every step the body takes the shadow takes another so at every pace our life moves forward death equally advances with it And as Eternity hath this proportion that it is ever in beginning and is therefore a perpetual beginning so life is ever ending and concluding and may therefore be called a perpetual end and a continual death There is no pleasure in life which although it should last twenty continued years that can be present with us longer than an instant and that with such a counterpoise that in it death no less approaches than life is enjoyed Time is of so small a being and substance and consequently our life Phys 4. trac 7. c. 4. that as Albertus Magnus saith it hath no essence permanent and stable but only violent and successive with which not being able to detain it self in its Careere it precipitates into Eternity and like an ill mouthed horse runs headlong on and tramples under toot all it meets with and without stopping ruins what it finds before it And as we cannot perfectly enjoy the sight of some gallant Cavalier deckt with jewels and adorned with glitterring bravery who with bridle on the neck passed in a full Careere before us so are we not able perfectly to enjoy the things of this life which are still in motion and never rest one moment but run headlong on until they dash themselves in peeces upon the rock of death and perish in their end The name which the Emperour Marcus Aurelius gave unto Time Mar. Aurel Anton lib. 4. when he said that it was a furious and a raging wave did not a little express this condition of it for as such a wave sinks and overwhelms the Vessel not permitting the Merchant to enjoy the treasures with which she was laden so Time with his violence and fury ruins and drowns all that runs along in it This Philosopher considering the brevity and fleeting of Time judged a long and a short life to be the same whole opinion for our further understanding I shall here relate If some of the Gods saith he should tell thee that thou wert to die to morrow or the day after thou wouldest not except thou wert of a base and abject spirit make any account whether since the difference and distance betwixt the two dayes were so small In the same manner thou art to judge of the difference of dying to morrow and a thousand years hence Consider seriously how many Physicians who with knit brows have handled the pulses of their sick Patients are now themselves dead how many Mathematicians who gloried in foretelling the death of others how many Philosophers who have disputed subtilly of death and mortality how many famous Captains who have kill'd and destroyed a multitude of poor people how many Kings and Tyrants who with insolency have used their power over their oppressed Vassals how many Cities If I may so say have dyed as Helice Pompeios Herculanum and innumerable others Add unto these how many thou thy self hast known to die and assisted at their Exequies and that which yesterday was fish and fresh is to day laid in pickle or dust Momentary then is all time All this from this most-wise Prince CAP. XII How short Life is for which respect all things temporal are to be despised BEhold then what is Time and what thy Life and see if there can be any thing imagined more swift and more inconstant than it Compare Eternity which continues ever in the same state with Time which runs violently on and is ever changing and cousider that as Eternity gives a value and estimation unâ—â— those things which it preserves so Time disparages and takes away the value of those that end in it The least joy of Heaven is to be esteemed as infinite because it is infinite in duration and the greatest content of the earth is to be valued as nothing because it ends and concludes in nothing The least torment in hell ought to cause an immense fear because it is to last without end and the greatest pains of this
promise thy self to live a hundred years as though this were a long life Hearken then unto holy Job who lived 240 years who knew best what it was to live both in respect of his prosperity and of his great troubles and afflictions the which make life appear longer than it is What sayes he of all his years My dayes saith he are nothing Nothing he calls them although they lasted almost three ages In other places speaking of the shortness of life and declaring it with many Comparisons and Metaphors sometimes he sayes His days were more speedy than a Messenger and that they passed as a Ship under sail or as an Eagle which stoops furiously upon his prey sometimes that They were more swift than a Weavers Shuttle in one place he compares his life unto a withered leaf born up and down by the wind or unto drie stubble in another he sayes That the life of man is like the flower which springs up to day and to morrow is trodden under foot and that it flies like a shadow without ever remaining in the same state How poor a thing then is life since holy Job calls it but a shadow though then three or four times longer than at present And it is no marvel since those whose life exceeded nine hundred years who lived before the deluge and are now most of them in hell complain as the Wise man relates it in this manner Sap. 5. What hath our pride profited us or the pomp of our riches availed us all those things are passed as a shadow or as a messenger who runs post or as a ship which breaks the unquiet waves and leaves no track or path behinde it or like the bird which flies through the air and leaves no signe after her but with the noise of her wings beats the light wind and forces her self a passage without leaving any knowledge which way she made her flight or like the arrow shot at the mark which hath scarce divided the subtil Element when it closes and joyns again in such manner as it cannot be perceived which way it went Even so we were hardly born when upon a sodain we ceased to be These were the words even of those who were damned who lived more than 800 years and if they esteemed so long a life but as a shadow and in the instant when they died judged they were scarce born how canst thou think to live long in a time wherein it is much to reach the age of 60 A life then of 800 years being no more than the flirting up and down of a little Sparrow the flight of an arrow or to say better the passage of a shadow what then are fifty years unto which perhaps thou mayst attain certainly the longest tearm whereunto humane life extends was compared by Homer but unto the leaves of a tree which at most endure but a Summers season Euripides judged that too much and said that humane felicity was to be valued but as the length of a day And Demetrius Phalareus allowed it hut a moments space Plato thought it too much to give it any being at all and therefore calls it but the dream of a waking man And St. John Chrysostome yet lessens that calling it but a dream of those who sleep It seems the Saints and Philosophers could find no Symbol no comparison sufficient to express the shortness of mans life since neither a Curriere by land nor a Ship by sea nor a Bird in the air passes with that speed All these things which we have now mentionled and others though esteemed swift yet have not such equality of motion but that they sometimes slacken their pace and sometimes stand still But the impetuous course of our life by which it hastens unto death stops not so much as whilst we sleep and therefore appeared unto Philemius so swift and rapid that he said this life was no more but to be borne and die and that at our birth we issued forth of a dark Prison and at our death entred into a more sad and dreadful Sepulcher Quit from this short life the time of sleep and thou quittest from it the third part Take from it Infancy and other accidents which hinder the seuse and fruit of living and there hardly remains the half of that nothing which thou esteemest so much That which Averroes affirmed of Time when he said Aver 4. Phy. tex 13. that Time was a being diminished in it self may be well verified of Life which is in it self so little as it is but a point in respect of Eternity and yet so many parts are taken from that point Besides all this doest thou think that this peece of life which thou now enjoyest is certain thou deceivest thy self For as the Wise man says Man does not know the day of his end and therefore as fishes when they are most secure are then taken with the angle and birds with the snare so death assails us in the evil time when we least think of it Confider then how vile are all things temporal and how frail is all the glory of the world being grounded upon so feeble a foundation The goods of the earth can be no greater than is life which gives them their value and if that be so poor and short what shall they be what can the delights of man be since his life is but a dream a shadow and as the twinkling of an eye If the most long lite be so short what can be the pleasure of that moment by which is lost eternal happiness what good can be of value which is sustained by a life so contemptible and full of misery A figure of this was the Statue of Nebuchodonosor which although made of rich mettal as of gold and silver yet was founded upon feet of clay so as a little stone falling upon it overthrew it unto the earth All the greatness and riches of the world have for foundation the life of him who enjoyes them which is so frail and slippery that not a little stone but even the grain of a grape hath been able to ruine and overthrow it With reason did David say that all which is living man is universal vanity since the brevity of his lite suffices to vilifies and make vain all the goods which he is capable of enjoying Vain are the honours vain are the applauses the riches and pleasures of life which being it self so short and frail makes all things vain which depend upon it and so becomes it self a vanity of vanities and an universal vanity What account wouldest thou make of a Tower founded upon a quick-sand or what safety wouldest thou hope for in a Ship bored with holes certainly thou oughtest to give no more esteem unto the things of this world since they are founded upon a thing so unstable as this life What can all humane glory be since life which sustains it hath according to David no more consistence than smoke or according to St.
Thomas then a little vapour which in a moment vanishes And although it should endure a thousand years yet coming to an end it were equal unto that which lasted but a day For as well the felicity of a long as a short life is but smoke and vanity since they both pass away and conclude in death Guerricus the Dominican a great Philosopher and Physician and afterwards a most famous Divine hearing them reade the sift Chapter of Genesis wherein are recounted the Sons and Descendants of Adam in these terms The whole life of Adam was 930 years and he died The life of his Son Seth was 912 years and he died and so of the rest began to think with himself that if such and so great men after so long a life ended in death it was not sate to lose more time in this world but so to secure his life that losing it here he might find it hereafter and with this thought entred into the Order of St. Dominick and became of a most religious life O what fools are men who seeing life so short endeavour to live long and not to live well Epis 22. since it is a thing most certain as Seneca observes that every man may live well but no man what age soever he attains unto can live long This folly appears more plainly by that which is said by Lactantius Laae lib. 6. divin Instit that this life being so short the goods and evils of it must be likewise short as the goods and evils of the other must be eternal and that God being pleased to make an equal distribution of both ordained that unto the short and transitory goods which we enjoy unlawfully in this life should succeed eternal evils in the next and unto those short evils which we suffer here for Gods sake eternal goods and happiness should follow in the other Wherefore Almighty God setting before us this disserence betwixt good and evil and leaving us in liberty of choosing which we please how great a folly were it for the not suffering of a few evils and those so short to lose goods so great and eternal and for the enjoying of goods so short and transitory to endure evils without end CAP. XIII What is Time according to St. Augustine LEt us also see what the great Doctor of the Church Saint Augustine thought of the nature of Time Lib. 11. Confes ca. 25. the which in that great wit and understanding of his sound so little estimation and being that after he had with much subtilty disputed what it was at length comes to conclude that he knows not what it is nay that he knows not so much as what it is not to know it The most that he can reach unto is that no time is long and that that onely may be called time which is present the which is but a moment The same is the opinion of Antoninus in his Philosophie Aur. Anton l. 2. who speaks in this mauner If thou wert to live 3000 years and 30000 more above those yet oughtest thou to remember that no man lives any other life than what he lives at present and therefore the most long and the most short space of life is the same that which is present being the same unto all although not that which is already past So as it seems there is but one only point of time and that no man can lose either that which is past or that which is to come since no man can lose what he hath not wherefore these two things ought to be preserved in memory The one that from the beginning all things keep the same form and return as it were in a circle to the same estate so as there is no difference betwixt the beholding of them for a 100 for 200 years or much more incomparable The other is that he who lives long and he who dies shortly lose the same thing being both deprived of the present of which they onely are possest and and no man loses what he hath not So much from this wise Prince why found no other substance in time but onely this present moment Cap. 14. And St. Augustine informs us further of the being of this present moment of which it cannot be affirmed so much as that it is at all These are his words If the present that it may be called time is because it is to pass into the praeterit how can it be said to be since the onely cause why it is is because it shall not be so as we cannot affirm it to have a being but in as much as it is a way into a not being Behold then whereunto thou trusts thy felicity See upon what pillar of brass thou placest thy hopes even on so slight a thing that its whole existence is in leaving to be and receives its being if it have any from its passing into nothing For what can that have which is and is not ever leaving to be with that impetuous fury that thou art not able to detain it for one small moment since even during that moment it is in a perpetual motion Let him who is in the flower of his age tell me by what power he is able to detain the years of his life but for one day or whether he can keep the pleasure which he now enjoyes but one hour from leaving him Let him endeavour to lay hold on time But it is in vain He knows not where to fasten Time hath no substance and yet runs with that violence that it will sooner hale thee after it than thou shalt be able to keep it back Wherefore the same holy Doctor speaking of life sayes That the time of life is a Careere unto death the which is so swift and mixt with so many deaths that he began to doubt whether the life of mortals were to be called a life or death and therefore thus discourses From the instant that we begin to be in this body Lib. 13. de Civ ca. 10. which is to die there is nothing operated in it but what brings on death This is effected by the mutability of lite if that may be called a lite which onely works to bring on death For there is none who is not nearer his death this year than the last to day than yesterday now than a little while agoe and all the time we live is substracted from the time of living and every day that which remains becomes less and less in so much as the time of this lite is nothing else but a Careere unto death in which no man is permitted to make stay or to march with more leasure but all are driven on with equal speed Presently after he adds For what else is daily and hourly done until death which was still a working be consummated and that time which follows death begin to be which time was then in death whilest there was a continual decay of lite From hence it follows that man was
never in lite whilest he was in this body which rather dies than lives if perhaps he be not at the same time both in life and death joyntly that is in life which he lives untill that be ended and in death which he dies who is every moment deprived of some part of life For the same reason Quintilian said That we died every moment before the time of death was come And Seneca We erre when we look upon death as upon a thing to succeed since it hath both preceded and is also to follow for all what hath been before us is death And what imports it whether thou begin not at all or end since the effect of both is not to be Every day we die and every day we lose some part of life and in our very growth our life decreases and grows less and this very day wherein we live we divide with death Our lite in the book of wisdom is compared unto the passing of a shadow which as it may be said to be a kind of night so our life may be called a kind of death For as the shadow hath some part of light some of darkness so our life hath some part of death and some of life untill it come to end in a pure and solid death And since it is to end in a not being it is very little to be regarded especially compared with eternity which hath a being constant and for ever §. 2 All as hath been said which hath an end is little since it is to end in nothing Why therefore wilt thou lose much for that which is so little that which is true for what is false and a substance for a dream Hear what St. John Chrysostome sayes Hom. 20. ad Pop. If for having a pleasant dream onely for one night a man were to be tormented a hundred years when he were awake who would desire such a dream Far greater is the difference betwixt the truth of eternity and the dream of this life betwixt the eternal years of the ether world and the transitory ones of this Less is this life in respect of the eternal than an hours dream in respect of a hundred years awake less than a drop in respect of the whole sea Forbear then some small pleasure now that thou mayst not be deprived of all pleasures hereafter suffer rather some slight trouble at present than be tormented hereafter tor all eternity For as St. Augustine sayes better is a little bitterness in the throat than an eternal torment in the bowels All which passes in time Christ our Redeemer calls a very little A very little did he call the time of his passion and all those bitter pains which he suffered in it a very little that of the Martyrdome of his Apostles endured with so many sorts of torments a little a very little is all which in this life can be suffered in respect of eternal years Tract 10. in Jo. Although as St. Augustine sayes this little because we are yet in it appears great but when it shall be ended then we shall perceive how small and contemptible it is Let us place our selves in the end of life from that prospect we shall discern how small are all things which now seem great unto us Unto a most observant and religious Father of the Company of Jesus called Christopher Caro our Lord was pleased to give this lesson that he should often consider these two things O how much and O how little That is how much is eternity without end how little is the time of this life how much is God enjoyed for ever how little the contents of this earth which we are to leave behinde us how much it is to raign with Christ how little to serve our own appetite how much is eternal glory and how little to live long in this valley of tears Wherefore Eccksiasticus said The number of the dayes of man when many are an hundred years and are reputed as a drep of water and as a grain of sand So sew are our years in the day of eternity Little will all time whatsoever appear to merit that which is eternal With reason did St. Bernard often inculcate unto his Monks that saying of St. Hierome No labour ought to appear hard no torments long by which is gained the glory of eternity Unto Jacob the seven years which he served Laban seemed short for the love he bare unto Rachel why should then the service of God for a small time seem long unto us consider whom thou servest and wherefore and mark whom Jacob served and for what Thou servest the true God and for eternal glory he served a deceitful Idolater for a frail and fading beauty Compare thy services with those of Jacob see if thou hast served God as he served Laban Gen. 31. see if thou canst say By day I was scorched with heat and by night benummed with cold sleep fled from mine eyes and in this manner I served thee twenty years It with such fidelity this Servant of God served a Pagan how oughtest thou to serve God himself If thou beest truly his servant all ought to seem little unto thee since thou servest so good a Master and for so great a reward Look how thou imployest thy years which being but few for the meriting of so great a thing as Eternity thou sufferest to pass thorow thy fingers without any profit at all Well saith St. Augustin Lib. 10. contra Faust c. 6. was the time of this life signified by the spinning of the Parcae or fatal Sisters who were feigned by the wife Ancients to spin out the thread of life Time past was that which was wound up and roled upon the spindle Time to come the Flax which remained to spin upon the Distaffe and the present that which passed betwixt the fingers for truely we know not to imploy our time in filling our hands with holy works but suffer it without reflecting to pass through our fingers in matters of no substance or profit But better did David declare this ill imployment of time when he said Psal 89. Our years did meditate or as another lection hath it Did exercis as the spiders because Spiders spin not wool or flax but the excrements of their own entrails consuming and dissembowelling themselves to weave a webb which they work with their feet of so sleight a substance that in a moment it is rent in pieces and so little profit that it serves for no other use than to catch flies The life of man is full of vain labours vexations of various thoughts plots suspitions fears and cares in which it is wholly exercised and imployed linking and weaving one care into another still troubling it self with more being scarcely freed from one employment when it entangles it self in another and all so ill ordered and composed as if they had been managed by feet instead of hands still adding labour unto labour and toyl unto toyl as
the Spider does one thread unto another first thinking how to obtain what we desire then how to keep it after how to advance and encrease it then how to defend it and lastly how to enjoy it and yet in conclusion all falls to pieces in the handling and becomes nothing What labour doth it cost the poor Spider to weave his webb passing incessantly from one part unto another and often returning unto the same place where he began consuming himself with threads drawn from his proper entrails for the forming of his Pavilion which with many journeys having placed on high and at last finisht this goodly artifice one touch of a broom defaces and brings to ground all his labour Just such are the employments of humane life of much toyl and of little profit robbing us of sleep and filling us with cares and anxieties spending the most part of our time in useless projects and vain imaginations which of themselves fall to nothing and in the end vanish without effect For which reason David said Our lives meditated as the Spiders who labour and toyl all day in making of Cobwebs so the life of man passes in the continual cares and thoughts of what he is to be what to endeavour what to obtain and all as the Wise-man sayes is vanity of vanities and affliction of spirit and for those things which concern the service of God we onely sometimes afford them our thoughts but seldom our works With much reason did Aristotle say that the hope of our life yet to come was like the dream of one who watches And Plato in the same manner calls the life past a dream of people awake For in this both humane hope and life resemble a dream that neither of them have either being or subsistence and there is no man who after a discourse within himself of his life past will not say that dreams and truths are the same thing since he possesses no more of what he once enjoyed than of what he dreamed all his delights and pleasures appearing so short unto him t hat their beginning and ending seem to be joyned together without a Medium CAP. XIV Time is the occasion of Eternity and how a Christian ought to benefit himself by it TIme although short frail and slippery yet hath one condition most precious which is to be the occasion of Eternity since by it we gain that in a small time which we are to enjoy for ever For this reason when st John said that Time is at hand the Gerek renders it Occasion is at hand because the time of this life is the occasion of gaining Eternity and that once past and overslipt there will be no remedy or hope left of obtaining the other Let us therefore endeavour to employ our time well and not lose the opportunity of so great a good whose loss is irrepairable and will be lamented with eternal but unprofitable complaints Let us consider how great is the good which occasion brings along with it and how the resentment which is usually caused by the loss of it that we may from thence know how to profit our selves by temporal occasions in order unto eternal happiness and that we may be freed from that inconsolable and fruitless repentance of the damned who have made no use of it It is a great business this of our salvation and depends wholly upon the swift time of this life which once past is irrevocable and the end of it most uncertain and therefore we ought with a hundred eyes to watch occasion that it overpass us not and with a hundred hands to lay hold on it The Ancients knowing the importance of it feigned it to be a Goddess thereby to declare the great good when timely apprehended which it brought unto mankind In Epig. Graec. whose Image they adored in this mysterious figure They placed it upon a Wheel which continually moved about it had wings at the feet to note the swiftness with which it passed the face was not seen but covered with long hair which on the forehead grew thick and bushie whereby was signified that it was hard to know when occasion happened but being present easie to lay hold on it the hinder-part of the head was bald because once past it had nothing whereby to retain it Auson in Epig. Ausonius to signifie the effect which it leaves with those who suffer it to slip from them adds that it drew behind it Metanaea that is Repentance which onely remains with those who know not how to use it Vide Joan David in lib. de occasione arrepta In Aph. Others represented Occasion with hands busied in distributing riches and precious gifts but accompanied with time in the habit of a Traveller which not with two but with four wings conducted it along to signifie the great haste with which it passed Wherefore Hippocrates with much reason calls Occasion precipitate because it runs with as great violence as he falls who throws himself headlong from a high rock Let us place in the middest of Eternity the longest time of humane life let it be a hundred two hundred or nine hundred years as long as the lite of man before the Deluge yet it will then appear but as an instant and he who shall cast his eyes upon the immensity of eternal duration will remain astonished that a thing so short so small so precipitate should be the occasion of that which is so long so great and so stable Since therefore the whole time of this life is so short for the gaining of Eternity let us resolve not to lose it especially since we have no assurance how long it will last and although we were certain to live yet a hundred years longer we ought not to spare one moment from the gaining of Eternity But being uncertain how long we are to live and perhaps shall die to morrow how can we be so careless as to let the occasion of securing our glory pass which hereafter will never be offered If a skilful Workman were commanded by some great Prince that upon pain of death he should have in readiness some excellent piece of his work against such a time as it should be called for and that although a years time were requisite to perfect it yet it might perhaps be called for sooner certainly that Artist would with all speed finish the piece the neglect being no less than the forfeit of his life Since then our life eternal consists in being furnished with the grace of God and in preserving his divine Image engraven in our souls how can we be so careless to let pass the occasion of our salvation Theophrastus and Democritus called Time a most precious expence Terence The first and most principal of all things Zenon said that There was nothing which men wanted more nor whereof they stood in greater necessity than time Pliny made that account of it that he would not so much as one moment of it should be lost
quality of temporal life that having in it self no truth or reality yet it paints and sets forth that false ware which it hath with much beauty and lustre to our perdition Wherefore Aeschylus said That it was not onely a shadow of life but also a shadow of smoak which blindes and smuts and is a thing so inconstant and vain which is also suitable to that of David when he said That his dayes vanished like smoak and grew towards an end like a shadow joyning together the shadow and smoak two things the most vain of any in the world Even Pindarus exaggerates it yet more saying That it was no shadow but the dream of a shadow and what is it else but to dream to perswade ones self that this life is long and hope for prosperity in it This certainly is the greatest deceit which is put upon man and the chief cause of all his evils that he suffers not himself to be perswaded what life is and the shortness of it For as the Shadow is nothing less than the Statua whole Shadow it is yet appears like it and is the figure of it so although this life be most short and nothing less than eternity yet it looks like it and unto us it seems as if it were eternal This is a most hurtful and costly cosenage For if life should appear what it is and not lie unto us we should not put our trust in it nor make such esteem of those goods and blessings which it promises which in themselves are so deceitful and uncertain but being as it is an image and a shadow all which it proposes unto us is but feigned and dissembled promising great happiness when it is onely full of misery and calamity although disguis'd in such manner as we know them not How contented goes the Bride unto her Marriage Bed and yet within a short time laments her unfortunate choice with what gust does the ambitious man enter upon his office which is but a Seminary of future sorrow and vexation what joy doe those riches bring along with them which in the end are to be the death of the possessor All is deceit dissimulation falshood and prejudice and yet we like frantick people are not sensible of our mischiefs Unto how many infirmities is the body of a man exposed with what imaginations is he afflicted and deceived with how many labours and toyls does he daily wrestle with what thoughts and apprehensions doth he torment himself what dangers of soul and body doth he run into what fopperies is he forced to behold what injuries to suffer what necessities and afflictions Nay such is our whole life that it seemed unto St. Bernard little less evil than that of hell Sermo de ascen Domini but onely for the hope we have of heaven Our Infancy is full of ignorance and fears our Youth of sins our Age of sorrow and our whole life of dangers There is none content with his condition but he who will die whilst he lives in so much as life cannot be good unless it must resemble death Finally as the Shadow is in such manner an image as it represents all things to the contrary so as he who shall place himself betwixt the Statua and the Shadow shall perceive that that which is upon the right hand of the Statua the Shadow represents upon the left and what it has upon the left the Shadow hath upon the right so Time is in such manner the Image of Eternity as it has all its properties to the contrary Eternity hath no end but Life and Time have a speedy one Eternity hath no change but nothing is more mutable than Time Eternity suffers no comparison by reason of its infinite greatness but Life and all the goods of it are short and little and derived from the earth which is but a point THE SECOND BOOK OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWIXT THE TEMPORAL and ETERNAL CAP. I. Of the End of Temporal Life LEt us now consider how contrary unto the conditions of Eternity are those which accompany this our miserable life Let us begin with the first Which is to be limited and subject to an end In the which two things are to be considered The End and the Manner of it which perhaps is of more misery than the end it self And truly although the end of life should fall under humane election and that it were in the power of Man to make choice how many years he would continue in life and after what manner he would then leave it and that it might conclude some other way than by death or sickness yet the consideration that it and all things temporal were to perish and at last to have an end were sufficient to make us despise it and that very thought would drown all the pleasures and contents which it could afford us For as all things are of greater or lesser esteem according to the length and shortness of their duration so life being to end be it in what manner soever is much to be disvalued A fair Vessel of Chrystal if it were as consistent and durable as Gold were more precious than Gold it self but being frail and subject to break it loses its estimation and although of it self it might last long yet being capable by some careless mischance of being broken it becomes of much less value In the same manner our life which is much more frail than glass being subject to perish by a thousand accidents and though none of them should happen could not long continue since it consumes it self must needs together with those temporal goods which attend it be most contemptible But considering that the ending of it is by the way of death infirmities and misfortunes which are the Harbingers and prepare the way for death it is to be admired that Man who knows he is to die makes account of temporal felicity seeing the misery in which the prosperity of this world and the Majesty of the greatest Monarchs are at last to finish Wherein ended King Antiochus Lord of so many Provinces 1 Machab 6. 2 Machab 9. but in a disconsolate and mortal Melancholy in a perpetual waking which with want of sleep bereft him of his judgment in a grievous torture in his belly which forced him to void his very entrails in a perpetual pain in his bones that he was not able to move And he who seemed to command the waves of the Sea and that the highest mountains of the Earth hung upon his finger ends whose Majesty was once lifted up above all humane power could not then preserve himself in his own Kingdom nor move one pace from the place where they layd him he who cloathed himself in soft Silks and pure Linnens he whose Garments were more fragrant than the most precious spices cast now such a smell from his putrified members that none could endure his presence and being yet alive his whole body swarmed with loathsome vermin his flesh dropped away by
peeces and he above all remained distracted in his wits raging with despite and madness Let us now consider Antiochus in all his pomp and glory glittering in Gold and dazling the eyes of the beholders with the splendor of his Diamonds and precious Jewels mounted upon a stately Courser commanding over numerous Armies and making the very earth tremble under him Let us then behold him in his Bed pale and wan his strength and spirits spent his loathsome body flowing with worms and corruption forsaken by his own people by reason of his pestilential and poisonous stink which infected his whole Camp and finally dying mad and in a rage Who seeing such a death would with the felicity of his life who with the condition of his misery would desire his fortune See then wherein the goods of this life conclude And as the clear and sweet waters of Jordan end in the filthy mud of the dead Sea and are swallowed up in that noysome Bitumen so the greatest splendor of this life concludes in death and those loathsome diseases which usually accompany it Act. 12. Vide Josephum Behold in what a sink of filth ended the two Herods most potent Princes Ascalonita and Agrippa This who cloathed himself in Tissue and boasted a Majesty above humane dyed devoured by worms which whilst he yet lived fed upon his corrupted and apostumated flesh flowing with horrible filth and matter Neither came the other Ascalonita to finish his dayes more happily being consumed by lice that nasty vermin by little and little bereaving him both of his life and Kingdom 3 Reg. 20. King Achab Conqueror of the King of Syria and 32 other Princes dyed wounded by a chance-arrow which pierced his body and stained his Royal Charriot with his black gore which was after licked up by hungry Dogs as it he had been some savage beast 3 Reg. 22. Neither dyed his Son Joram a more fortunate death run through the heart with a sword his body left upon the field to be devoured by birds and beasts of prey wanting in his death seaven foot of earth to cover him who in life commanded a Kingdom Who could have known Caesar who had first seen him triumph over the Conquered world and then beheld him gasping for a little breath and weltring in his own bloud which flowed from three and twenty wounds opened by so many stabs Who could believe it were the same Cyrus he who subdued the Medes conquered the Assyrian and Chaldaean Empire he who amazed the world with thirty years success of continued Victories now taken prisoner and put to an ignominious death by the Command of a Woman Who could think it were the same Alexander Plut. in ejus vita who in so short time subjugated the Persians Indians and the best part of the known world and should after behold him conquered by a Calenture feeble exhausted in body dejected in spirit dried up and parched with thirst without taste in his mouth or content in his life his eyes sunk his nose sharp his tongue cleaving to his pallat not being able to pronounce one word What an amazement is it that the heat of a poor Fever should consume the mightiest power and fortune of the world and that the greatest of temporal and humane prosperities should be drowned by the overflowing of one irregular and inordinate humour How great a Monster is Humane Life since it consists of so disproportionable parts the uncertain felicity of our whose life ending in a most certain misery How prodigious were that Monster which should have one arm of a Man and the other of an Elephant one foot of a Horse and the other of a Bear Truly the parts of this life are not much more sutable Who would marry a woman though of a comely and well proportioned body who had the head of an ugly Dragon certainly although she had a great Dowry none would covet such a Bed-fellow Wherefore then do we wed our selves unto this life which although it seems to carry along with it much content and happiness yet is in effect no less a Monster since although the body appear unto us beautiful and pleasant yet the end of it is horrible and full of misery And therefore a Philosopher said well that the end of things was their head and as men were to be known and distinguished by their faces so things by their ends and therefore who will know what life is let him look upon the end And what end of life is not full of misery Let no man flatter himself with the vigour of his health with the abundance of his riches with the splendor of his authority with the greatness of his fortune for by how much he is more fortunate by so much shall he be more miserable since his whole life is to end in misery Wherefore Agesilaus hearing the King of Persia cried up for a most fortunate and happy Prince reprehended those who extolled him saying Have patience Plutar. in ejus vita for even King Priamus whose end was so lamentable was not unfortunate at the age of the King of Persia Giving us to understand that the most happy were not to be envied whilest they lived by reason of the uncertainty of that end whereunto they are subject How many as yet appear most happy whose death will shortly discover the infelicity of their lives Plutar. in Apoph Graecis Epaminondas when they asked him who was the greatest Captain Cabrias Iphicrates or himself Answered that whilest they lived no man could judge but that the last day of their lives would deliver the Sentence and give each one their due Let no man be deceived in beholding the prosperity of a rich man let him not measure his felicity by what he sees at present but by the end wherein he shall conclude not by the sumptuousness of his Palaces not by the multitude of his Servants not by the bravery of his Apparel not by the lustre of his Dignity but let him expect the end of that which he so much admires and he shall then perceive him at best to die in his Bed dejected dismayed and strugling with the pangs and anxieties of death and if so he comes off Well otherwise wise the daggers of his enemy the teeth of some wild beast or a tyle thrown upon his head by some violent wind may serve to make an end of him when he least thinks of it This reason tells us although we had no experience of it But we see it daily confirmed by the testimony of those who are already in the gates of death and no man can better judge of life than he who stands with his back towards it Mago Dionysius Carth. de noviss Art 5. a famous Captain amongst the Carthaginians and Brother to the great Hannibal being mortally wounded confessed this truth unto his Brother saying O how great a madness is it to glory in an Eminent Command The estate of the most
powerful is subject to most impetuous storms whose end is to be sunk and overthrown O how wavering and uncertain is the height of the greatest honours false is the hope of man and vain is all his glory affected with feigned and fawning flatteries O uncertain life due unto perpetual toyl and labour what doth it now profit me to have fired so many stately and lofty buildings to have destroyed so many Cities and their people What doth it now profit me O Brother to have raised so many costly Palaces of Marble when I now die in the open field and in the sight of heaven O how many things doest thou now think of doing not knowing the bitterness of their end Thou beholdest me now dying and know that thou also shalt quickly follow me § 2. But let us forbear to look upon those several kindes of death which are incident to humane nature Let us onely consider that which is esteemed the most happy when we die not suddenly or by violence but by some infirmity which leasurely makes an end of us or by a pure resolution which naturally brings death along with it What greater misery of mans life than this that that death should be accounted happy not that it is so but because it is less miserable than others for what grief and sorrow doth not he pass who dies in this manner how do the accidents of his infirmities afflict him The heat of his Fever which scorches his entrails The thirst of his mouth which suffers him not to speak The pain of his head which hinders his attention The sadness and melancholy of his heart proceeding from the apprehension that he is to die besides other grievous accidents which are usually more in number than a humane body hath members to suffer together with remedies which are commonly no less painful than the evils themselves To this add the grief of leaving those he loves best and above all the uncertainty whither he is to goe to heaven or hell And if onely the memory of death be said to be bitter what shall be the experience Saul who was a man of great courage oncly because it was told him that the next day he was to die fell half dead upon the ground with fear For what news can be more terrible unto a sinner than that he is to die to leave all his pleasure in death and to give an account unto God for his life past If lots were to be cast whether one should have his flesh pluckt off with burning pincers or be made a King with what fear and anxiety of mind would that man expect the issue how then shall he look who in the agony of his death wrastles with Eternity and within two hours space looks for glory or torments without end What life can be counted happy if that be happy which ends with so much misery If we will not believe this let us ask him who is now passing the traunces of death what his opinion is of life Let us now enquire of him when he lies with his breast sticking forth his eyes sunk his feet dead his knees cold his visage pale his pulses without motion his breath short a Crucifix in one hand and a Taper in the other those who assist at his death bidding him say Jesus Jesus and advising him to make an Act of Contrition what will this man say his life was but by how much more prosperous by so much more vain and that all his felicity was false and deceitful since it came to conclude in such a period what would he now take for all the honours of this world Certainly I believe he would part with them at an easie rate Nay if they have been offensive to God Almighty he would give all in his power he had never enjoyed them and would willingly change them all for one Confession well made Philip the third was of this mind and would at that time have exchanged his being Monarch of all Spain and Lord of so many Kingdomes in the four parts of the world for the Porters Keyes of some poor Monastery Death is a great discoverer of truth What thou wouldest then wish to have been be now whilest it is in thy power A fool thou art if thou neglect it now when thou mayst and then wish it when it is too late He who unto the hour of his death hath enjoyed all the delights the world can give him at that hour what remains with him Nothing or if any thing a greater grief And what of all his penances and labours suffered for Christ Certainly if he had endured more than all the Martyrs he shall then feel no pain or grief of them all but much comfort Judge then if it shall not be better for thee to do that now which thou shalt then know to have been the better Consider of how little substance all temporal things will appear when thou shalt be in the light of eternal The honours which they have given thee shall be no more thine the pleasures wherein thou hast delighted can be no more thine thy riches are to be anothers See then whether the happiness of this life which is not so long as life it self be of that value that for it we should part with eternal felicity I beseech thee ponder what is life and what is death Life is the passing of a shadow short troublesome and dangerous a place which God hath given us in time for the deserving of Eternity Consider with thy self why God leads us about in the Circuit of this life when he might at the first instant have placed us in heaven Was it perhaps that we should here mispend our time like beasts and wallow in the base pleasures of our senses and daily invent new Chimera's of vain and frivolous honours No certainly it was not but that by vertuous actions we might gain heaven shew what we owe unto our Creator and in the middest of the troubles and afflictions of this life discover how loyal and faithful we are unto our God For this he placed us in the Lists that we should take his part and defend his honour for this he entred us into this Militia and Warfare for as Job sayes the life of man is a warfare upon earth that here we might fight for him and in the middest of his and our Enemies shew how true and faithful we are unto him Were it fit that a Souldier in the time of Battail should stand disarmed passing away his time at Dice upon a Drum-head and what laughter would that Roman Gladiator cause who entring into the place of Combat should set him down upon the Arena and throw away his Arms This does he who seeks his ease in this life and sets his affections upon the things of the earth not endeavouring those of heaven nor thinking upon death where he is to end A Peregrination is this life and what passenger is so besotted with the pleasures of the way that he forgets
he not exempt her from that inviolable Law of Death What inchantment than is this that Death being so certain we will not suffer our selves to understand it nor be perswaded that it is so Thou art to dye assure thy self of that An irrevocable Law is this and without remedy Thou must dye The time will come when those eyes with which thou readest this shall be burst and lose their sight those hands which thou now imployest be without sense or motion that body which thou movest from place to place with such agility shall be stiffe and cold this mouth which now discourses shall be mute without breath or spirit and this flesh which thou now pamperest shall be consumed and eaten by loathsome worms and vermin An infallible thing it is that the time will come when thou shalt be covered with earth thy body stink and rot and appear more noysome and more horrible unto the senses than a dead Dog putrified upon a Dunghil The time will come when thou shalt be forgotten as if thou hadst never been and those that passe shall walk over thee without remembring that such a man was born Consider this and perswade thy self that thou must dye as well as others that which hath happened to so many must happen also unto thee thou which art now afraid of the dead must dye thy self thou which loathest to behold an open Sepulcher where lie the half putrified bones and flesh of others must putrifie and rot thy self Think upon this seriously and reflect with thy self soberly how thou shalt look when thou art dead and this consideration will give thee a great knowledge what thy life is and make thee despise the pleasures of it Truly such is the condition of death that although to dye were onely contingent and no wise certain yet because it might happen it ought to make us very careful and sollicitous If God had at first created the world replenished with people and some one before it was known what death was had fallen sick of a pestilential Fever and should have suffered in the sight of the rest the accidents of that infirmity those violent fits of heat that scorching thirst that restless unquietness of mind and body tossing and tumbling from side to side that raging frenzie which bereaves him of his judgment and at last they should behold him pale and wan wholly disfigured strugling with death and giving the last gasp the Body after to remain stiffe cold and immoveable how would they remain astonisht with the sight of that misery which would appear much greater when after three or four dayes the Body begun to smell and corrupt to be full of worms and filth Without doubt a mortal sadness would seise upon them all and every one would fear lest some such miserable condition might happen unto himself And although God should say I will not that all shall dye I will content my self with the death of some few but should leave those uncertain whom this would suffice to make all to tremble each one would fear lest he were one of those designed for that misfortune If then in this case death being uncertain all would quake because all might dye why remain we so supinely careless since it is sure all must dye If death being doubtful cause such a terrour why do we not fear it being certain Nay though God should further say that onely one of all those in the world should dye but did not declare who that one were yet all would fear Why then doest thou not now fear when all men must infallibly dye and perhaps thou the first But if God should yet further proceed to reveal that one appointed to dye and he should notwithstanding live in that loose and careless manner as thou now doest how would the rest of the world admire his negligence and vain temerity what would they say certainly they would cry out unto him Man thou that art to turn into dust why livest thou in that loose manâ—er Man that art to be eaten by wormes why doest thou pamper thy self Man which art to appear before the Tribunal of God why doest thou not think upon the account that shall be demanded from thee Man which art to end and all things with thee why doest thou make such esteem of vanity We who are to live ever well may we build houses and provide riches because we look for no other life than this which is never to end but thou who art but in this life as a Passenger and art to leave it to morrow what hast thou to do to build houses what hast thou to doe with the cares and business's of this world Wherefore doest thou take thought for those temporal things whereof thou hast no need Care for those of the other life wherein thou art to remain for ever Thou thou art he whom God hath designed to dye why doest thou not believe it or if thou doest why doest thou laugh why doest thou rejoyce why doest thou live so much at ease in a place where thou art a Pilgrim and not to rest leave off the thoughts of the earth and consider whither thou art to goe It is not fitting for thee to live here in mirth and jollity but to retire into some solitary wilderness and there dispose thy self for that terrible traunce which expects thee Let every man therefore say within himself It is I who am to dye and resolve unto dust I have nothing to do with this world the other was made for me and I am onely to care for that in this I am onely a Passenger and am therefore to look upon the eternal whither I am going and am there to make my abode for ever Certain it is that death will come and hurry me along with him All the business therefore I have now is to dispose my self for so hard an encounter and since it is not in the power of man to free me from it I will onely serve that Lord who is able to save me in so certain and imminent a danger Much to this purpose for our undeceiving is that Story set forth by John Major Johan Major Alex. Faya tom 2. 〈◊〉 certain Souldier had served a Marquess for many years with great fidelity for which he was favoured by his Lord with a singular respect and affection The Souldier chanced to fall into his last infirmity which no sooner came unto the knowledge of the Marquess but he instantly came to visit him accompanied with divers expert Physicians and having enquired of his health and spoken many things unto him of much comfort and dearness offered himself to assist him in all things which might conduce to his health or content and wisht him boldly to demand what might be useful or available for him assuring him it should be granted without spare of cost or trouble The sick Souldier after much importunity at last intreated the favour of three things Either that he would afford him some
means to escape from death which he perceived was now ready to seise upon him Or that he would mitigate those great pains which he then suffered but for the space of one short hour Or that after he was departed this life he would procure him a good lodging though but for one night and no longer The Marquess answered that those were onely in the power of God and wished him to demand things feasible here upon earth and he would not fail to serve him Unto whom the sick Souldier replied I now too late perceive all my labour and travail to be lost and all the services which I have done you in the whole course of my life to be vain and fruitless and turning himself unto those who were present spake unto them with much feeling and tears in his eyes My Bretheren behold how vainly I have spent my time being so precious a jewel in the serving of this Master obeying his Commands with much care and great danger of my Soul which at this instant is the grief I am most sensible of See how small is his power since in all these pains which afflict me he is not able to give me ease for one hours space Wherefore I admonish you that you open your eyes in time and let my error be a warning unto you that you preserve your selves from so notable a danger and that you endeavour in this world to serve such a Lord as may not onely free you from these present perplexities and preserve you from future evils but may be able to crown you with glory in another life And if the Lord by the intercession of your prayers shall be pleased to restore my health I promise hereafter not to imploy my self in the service of so poor and impotent a Master who is not able to reward me but my whole endeavour shall be to serve him who hath power to protect me and the whole world by his Divine vertue With this great repentance he dyed leaving us an example to benefit our selves by that time which God bestows upon us here for the obtaining of eternal reward § 2. Let us now come unto the second condition which is the Uncertainty of time in the Circumstances For as it is most certain that we are to dye so it is most uncertain How we are to dye and as there is nothing more known than that death is to seise upon all so there is nothing less understood than When and in What manner Who knows whether he is to dye in his old age or in his youth if by sickness or struck by a Thunder-bolt if by grief or stabbed by Poniards if suddenly or slowly if in a City or in a Wilderness if a year hence or to day the doors of death are ever open and the enemy continually lies in ambush and when we least think of him will assault us How can a man be careless to provide for a danger which ever threatens him Let us see with what art men keep their temporal things even at such time as they run no hazard The Shepheards guard their Flocks with watchful Dogs although they believe the Wolf to be far off onely because he may come And walled Towers are kept by Garrisons in time of peace because an enemy either has or may approach them But when are we secure of death when can we say that now it will not come why do we not then provide our selves against so apparent danger In frontier Towns the Centinels watch day and night although no Enemy appears nor any assault is feared why do we not alwayes watch since we are never secure from the assaults of death He who suspected that Theeves were to enter his house would wake all night because they should at no hour find him unprovided It being then not a suspicion but an apparent certainty that death will come and we know not when why do we not alwayes watch We are in a continual danger and therefore ought to be continually prepared It is good ever to have our Accompts made with God since we know not but he may call us in such haste as we shall have no time to perfect them It is good to play a sure game and be ever in the grace of God Who would not tremble to hang over some vast precipice wherein if he fell he were certain to be dashed in a thousand pieces and that by so weak a supporter as a thread This or in truth much greater is the danger of him who is in mortal sin who hangs over hell by the thread of life a twist so delicate that not a knife but the wind and the least fit of sickness breaks it Wonderful is the danger wherein he stands who continues to the space of one Ave Maria in mortal sin Death hath time enough to shoot his arrow in the speaking a word the twinkling of an eye suffices Who can laugh and be pleased whilest he stands naked and disarmed in the middest of his Enemies Amongst as many Enemies is man as there are wayes to death which are innumerable The breaking of a vein in the body The bursting of an Imposthume in the entrails A vapour which flyes up to the head A passion which oppresses the heart A tyle which falls from a house A piercing air which enters by some narrow cranny Vn yerro de cuenta A hundred thousand other occasions open the doors unto death and are his Ministers It is not then safe for man to be disarmed and naked of the grace of God in the middest of so many adversaries and dangers of death which hourly threaten him We issue from the wombs of our Mothers as condemned persons out of prison and walk towards execution for the guilt which we have contracted by Original sin Who being led to execution would entertain himself by the way with vain conceipts and frivolous jests we are all condemned persons who go to the Gallows though by different wayes which we our selves know not Some the straight way and some-by by-paths but are all sure to meet in death Who knows whether he goe the direct way or windes about by turns whether he shall arrive there soon or stay later all that we know is that we are upon the way and are not far from thence We ought therefore still to be prepared and free from the distracting pleasures of this life for fear we fall suddenly and at unawares upon it This danger of sudden death is sufficient to make us distaste all the delights of the earth Dionysius King of Sicily that he might undeceive a young Philosopher who therefore held him to enjoy the chief felicity because he wanted nothing of his pleasure caused him one day to be placed at a Royal Table and served with all variety of splendid entertainments but over the place where he was seated caused secretly a sharp-pointed Sword to be hung directly over his head sustained only by a horses hair This danger was sufficient to
where I beseech thee is the fear of his justice when knowing that thou mayest dye to day thou deferrest thy conversion for so many years so as thy vices may be rather said to leave thee than thou them Mark what St. Augustin sayes Repentance in death is very dangerous for in the holy Scripture there is but one onely found to wit the good Theef who had true repentance in his end There is one found that none should despair and but one that none should presume For in a sound man repentance is sound in an infirm man infirm and in a dead man dead Many deal with God as King Dionysius did with the Statue of Apollo from which when he took his Cloak of massie gold he said This Cloak is good neither for Summer nor Winter for Summer it is too heavy for Winter too cold So some can find no time for the service of God Almighty In youth they say It is too early and that we ought to allow that age its time of freedom and pleasure that when they are old they will seriously think of vertue and amendment of life that the vigour of youth is not to he enfeebled with the austerities of penance which renders us infirm and useless the rest of our succeeding lives But arriving at old age if by chance they attain it they have then many excuses and pretend that they want health and strength to perform their penances After this manner they would deceive God Almighty but they remain deceived themselves To the Apostle St. James this manner of speech seemed not well To morrow we will goe to such a City and there we will stay a year because we know not what shall be to morrow If then in temporal things it be not good to say I will do this to morrow what shall it be in procuring the salvation of our Souls to say Ten or twenty years hence when I am old which who knows whether ever shall be I will then serve God and repent to what purpose deferre we that untill tomorrow which imports so much to be done to day especially since it absolutely imports and perhaps will not be to morrow if not to day Aug. Confes In this error was St. Augustine as he himself confesses I felt my self saith he detained and I often repeated these words Miserable man Until when until when To morrow and to morrow And why is there not to day an end of ' my lewd life This I said and wept with most bitter contrition of my heart § 3. To this Uncertainty of death is to be added the Third Condition of being onely one and onely once to be tryed so as the error of dying ill cannot be amended by dying well another time God gave unto Man his senses and other parts of his body doubled he gave him two eyes that if one failed he might serve himself of the other he gave him two ears that if one grew deaf he might supply the defect by the other he gave him two hands that if one were lost yet he might not wholly be disabled but of deaths he gave but one and if that one miscarry all is ruin'd A terrible case that the thing which most imports us which is to dye hath neither tryal experience or remedy it is but onely once to be acted and that in an instant and upon that instant all Eternity depends in which if we fail the error is never to be amended Plutarch writes of Lamachus the Centurion that reprehending a Souldier for some error committed in warre the Souldier promised him he would do so no more Unto whom the discreet Centurion replyed Thou sayest well for in warre the mischief which follows the first error is so great that thou canst not erre twice And if in warre you cannot erre twice in death you ought not to erre once the error being wholly irrepairable If an ignorant Peasant who had never drawn a Bow should be commanded to shoot at at a mark far distant upon condition that if he hit it he should be highly rewarded with many brave and rich gifts but if he mist it and that at the first shoot he should be burnt alive in what streights would this poor man find himself how perplexed that he should be forced upon a thing of that difficulty wherein he had no skill and that the failing should cost him so dear as his life but especially that it was only once to be essayed without possibility of repairing the first fault by a second trial This is our case I know not how we are so jocund We have never dyed we have no experience or skill in a thing of so great difficulty we are onely once to dye and in that all is at stake either eternity of torments in hell or of happiness in heaven how live we then so careless and forgetful of dying well since for it we were born and are but once to try it This action is the most important of all our life the which is to pass in the presence of God and Angels upon it depends all eternity and if mist without repair or amendment Those human actions which may be repeated if one miss the other may hit and that which is lost in one may be regained in another If a rich Merchant has this year a Ship sunk in the Ocean another may arrive the next loaden with such riches as may recompence the loss of the former And if a great Oratour miscarry in his declamation and lose his credit he may with another recover it but if we once fail in death the loss is never to be restored That which is but onely one is worthy of more care and esteem because the loss of it is irrepairable Let us then value the time of this life since there is no other given us wherein to gain Eternity Let us esteem that time wherein we may practice a precious death or to say better both a precious life and death learning in life how to dye It was well said by a pious Doctor If those who are to execute some office or perform some matter of importance or if it be but of pleasure as to dance or play at Tennis yet study first before they come to do it why should we not then study the art of dying which to do well is an action more dfficult and important than all others If a man were obliged to leap some great and desperate leap upon condition that if he performed it well he should be made Master of a wealthy Kingdom but if ill he should be chained to an Oar and made a perpetual Galley-slave Without all doubt this man would use much diligence in preparing himself for so hazardous an undertaking and would often practice before an action of so great consequence from which he expected so different fortunes How far more different are those which we expect from so great a leap as is that from life to death since the Kingdoms of Earth
compared with that of Heaven are trash and rubbish and the tugging at an Oar in the Gallies compared with Hell a Glory When the leap is great and dangerous he who is to leap it uses to fetch his Careere backwards that he may leap further and with greater force We therefore knowing the danger of the leap from life to death that we may perform it better ought to fetch our Careere far back even from the beginning of our short life and from our first use of reason from which we shall know that the life we live is mortal that at the end of it we have a great debt to pay and that we are to discharge both use and principal when we least think of it St. John Eleemosynarius relates that anciently when they crowned an Emperour the principal Architects presented him with some peeces of several sorts of Marble wishing him to make choice of such as best pleased him for his Sepulcher giving him thereby to understand that his Reign was to last so short a time that it was convenient for him immediately to begin his Tomb that it might be finished before his life were ended and that withal he could not govern well his Vassals unless he first governed himself by the memory of death The others present were also admonished by this mystery that so soon as reason began to command and have Dominion in us that it was then time to provide for death and that in the preparation for our end consisted the good government and perfection of life A perfect life saith St. Gregory is the meditation of death Greg. moral 12. and he enjoyes a perfect life who imployes it in the study of death he lives well who learns how to dye well and he that knows not that knows nothing all Sciences besides profit him but little What did all that he had studied and all which he knew profit the great Aristotle nothing which he himself confest being near his death For when his Disciples besought him that having in his life time bestowed upon them so many fair Lessons and wise Sentences he would leave them one at his death This was his answer I entred this life in poverty I lived in misery and dye in ignorance of that which most imports me to know He said well for he had never studied how to dye Many Disciples hath Aristotle in those Sciences which he knew and many which follow his opinions but many more who imitate him in the ignorance he had of death Let us husband Time in which we may gain Eternity which being once lost we shall lose both the Time of this life and the Eternity of the other How many millions are now in Hell who whilest they were in this world dispised time and would now be content to suffer thousands of years all the torments of the damned for the redemption but of one instant in which they might by repentance recover the eternal life of glory which is now lost without remedy and yet thou casts away not onely instants but hours dayes and years Consider what a damned person would give for some part of that time which thou losest and take heed that thou hereafter when there shall be no repair of that time which thou now so lavishly mispendest be not thy self in the same grief and bitterness O fools as many as seek vain etertainments to pass away the time as though time would stand still if they found not divertisements to make it pass The time of this life flyes and over-runs thee and thou layest not up for the other Consider how thou mayest by Time gain Eternity look not then upon the loss of it as upon the loss of Time but of Etenity Time as saith Nazienzen is the Market or Fair of Eternity Endeavour then whilest it lasts to get a good bargain for this life once past there is no more occasion of traffick the time appointed for storing up is but short and the gain and profit is eternal Hear what a Heathen teaches thee who knew not this great good that by Time might be purchased Eternity and yet he sayes in this manner Nature did not bestow Time upon us with such liberality Seneca Epist 118. as that the least particle of it might be cast away Consider how much Time is lost even to the most diligent some part the care of our health takes from us some that of our friends some our necessary occasions some our publick affairs imploy sleep divides life with us Of this then so short and rapid time which remains what doth it profit us to spend the greater part in vain Lib. de brevitate vitae The same Author advises us also that we strive to overcome the swiftness of time with our diligence in well using and imploying it If this be Seneca's counsel who had not the help of faith and was ignorant that in an instant of time might be gained an eternity of Glory what ought we to do who have the light of heaven the knowledge of eternal happiness and the threats of eternal torments Let us live ever dying and let us think every instant to be our last so shall we not lose this time which is so precious and by which we may gain what is eternal Let us call to mind what is said by St. John Climacus Climac gra 6. The present day is not well past unless we esteem it to be the last of our life He is a good man who every hour expects death but he is a Saint that every hour desires it At least let us behave our selves as mortals and let us believe we are so shewing by our works that we know we are to dye Let us ask that of God which was prayed for by David Lord let me know the fewness of my dayes It is apparent that we are to dye it is apparent that we know not when it is apparent that we are dye but once but it is much more available as St. Ambrose notes when God saith it and we discourse it in our selves Let us therefore practically perswade our selves of this truth and let not that time slip from betwixt our hands which once past will never return Let us blush at the counsel of a Heathen Marcus Aurelius the Emperour who advises us to proceed alwayes constantly in vertuous actions Anton. lib. 2. in princip Reflect sayes he upon the end of that time which is assigned thee the which if thou shalt not spend in procuring the peace of thy mind whilest thou livest it will pass away and never return unto thee being dead every hour apply thy mind to mark seriously what thou takest in hand and doe it accurately with fortitude as becomes a Roman with an unfeigned gravity humanity liberality justice and in the mean time withdraw thy mind from all other thoughts which thou shalt easily doe if thou shalt so perform each action without the mixture of vain glory as if it were the last
merry How dare that Sinner laugh since that instant will come wherein it will not profit him to weep why does he not now with tears ask pardon for his sins when after death he cannot obtain it There shall be then no mercy no remedy no protection from God or man no defence but what each man hath from his own works Let us then endeavour they may be good ones since we have nothing in the other life to trust to but them The rich man shall not then have multitudes of Servants to set forth his greatness and authority nor well-feed Lawyers to defend his process onely his good works shall bestead him and they onely shall defend him and in that instant when even the mercy of God shall fail him and the blood of Christ shall not appease the Divine justice onely his good works shall not fail him then when their treasures which have been heaped up in this world and guarded with so much care shall fail their Masters their alms bestowed on the poor shall not fail them there when their Children Kindred Friends and Servants shall all fail them the Strangers which they have lodged the Sick which they have visited in the Hospitals and the needy which they have succoured shall not fail them The rich man is to leave his wealth behind him without knowing who shall possess it 〈◊〉 his good works shall goe along with him and they onely when nothing else can shall avail him neither shall Christ who is the Judge of the living and the dead at that time admit of other Patrons or Advocates Let us then take heed we turn not those against us which are onely at that dreadful time to bestead us It is to be admired how many dare do ill in the presence of that Judge with whom nothing can prevail but doing well and the wonder is much the greater that we dare with our evil works offend him who is to judge them The Theef is not so impudent as to rob his neighbour if the Magistrate look on but would be held a fool if he should rob or offend the Magistrate himself in his own house How dares then this poor thing of man injure the very person of his most upright and just Judge before whom it is most certain he shall appear to his face in his own house in so high a manner as to preferre the Devil his and our greatest enemy before him How great was the malice of the Jews when they judged it fitter that Barabbas should live than the Son of God Let the Sinner then consider his own insolence who judges it better to please the Devil than Christ his Redeemer Every one who sins makes as it were a Judgment and passes a Sentence in favour of Satan against Jesus Christ Of this unjust Judgment of man the Son of God who is most unjustly sentenced by a Sinner will at the last day take a most strict and severe account Let him expect from his own injustice how great is to be the Divine justice against him Let a Christian therefore consider that he hath not now his own but the cause of Christ in hand Let him take heed how he works since all his actions are to be viewed and reviewed by his Redeemer An Artist who knew his work was to appear before some King or to be examined by some great Master in the same art would strive to give it the greatest perfection of his skill Since therefore all our works are to appear before the King of Heaven and the chief Master of vertues Jesus Christ let us endeavour that they may be perfect and compleat and the rather because he is not to examine them for curiositie but to pass upon us a Sentence either of condemnation or eternal happiness Let us then call to mind that we are to give an account unto God Almighty and let us therefore take heed what we doe let us weep for what is amiss let us forsake our sins and strive to do vertuous actions let us look upon our selves as guilty offenders and let us stand in perpetual fear of the Judge as Abbot Amno advises us of whom it is reported in the Book of the lives of Fathers translated by Pelagius the Cardinal In vitis Pat. lib. 5. That being demanded by a young Monk what he should doe that might most profit him answered Entertain the same thoughts with the Malefactors in prison who are still enquiring Where is the Judge When will he come every hour expecting their punishment and weeping for their misdemeanors In this manner ought the Christian ever to be in fear and anxietie still reprehending himself and saying Ay me wretch that I am how shall I appear before the Tribunal of Christ how shall I be able to give an account of all my actions If thou shalt always have these thoughts thou mayest be saved and shalt not fail of obtaining what thou demandest towards thy salvation and all will be little enough Climac gra 6. St. John Climacus writes of a certain Monk who had lived long with small fervour and edification who falling into a grievous infirmity wherein he remained some space without sense or feeling was during that time brought before the Tribunal of God and from thence returned unto life wherein he continued ever after in that fear and astonishment that he caused the door of his little Cell which was so small and narrow that he had scarce room to move in it to be stopt up there remained as it were inclosed in prison the space of twelve years during which time he never spake with any nor fed upon other than bread and water but sat ever meditating upon what he had seen in that rapture wherein his thoughts were so intent as he never moved his eyes from the place where they were fixed but persevering still in his silence and astonishment could not contain the tears from abundantly flowing down his aged face At last saith the Saint his death now drawing near we broke open the door and entred into his Cell and having asked him in all humility that he would say something unto us of instruction all we could obtain from him was this Pardon me Fathers He who knew what it were truly and with his whole heart to think upon death would never have the boldness to sin The rigour of Divine Judgment which is to pass after death occasioned in this Monk so great change and penitence of life § 2. The second cause of the terribleness of death which is the laying open of all wherein we have offended in this life ANother thing of great horror is to happen in the end of life which shall make that hour wherein the Soul expires most horrible unto sinners and That is the sight of their own sins whose deformity and multitude shall then clearly and distinctly appear unto them and although now we remain in ignorance of many and see the guilt of none they shall then when we
his Divine justice Then all shall be laid open and confusion shall cover the sinner with the multitude of his offences How shall he blush to see himself in the presence of the King of Heaven in so foul and squalid garments A man is said to remain confounded when either the issue of things fall out contrary to what he hoped and looked for or when he comes off with indignity or disparagement where he expected honour and reward how confounded then shall a sinner be when those works of his which he thought vertues shall be found vices imagining he hath done service shall perceive he hath offended and hoping for a reward shall meet with punishment If a man when he is to speak with some great Prince desire to be decently and well clad how will he be out of countenance to appear before him dirty and half naked How shall then a sinner be ashamed to see himself before the Lord of all naked of good works be dirtied and defiled with abominable and horrid crimes for besides the Multitude of sins whereof his whole life shall be full the Hainousness of them shall be also laid open before him and he shall tremble at the sight of that which he now thinks but a trivial fault For then shall he see clearly the ugliness of sin the dissonancy of it unto reason the deformity it causes in the Soul the injury it does unto the Lord of the world his ingratitude to the blood of Christ the prejudice it brings unto himself hell into which he falls and eternal glory which he loses The least of these were sufficient to cover his heart with sadness and inconsolable grief but altogether what amazement and confusion shall they cause especially when he shall perceive that not only mortal but even venial sins produce an ugliness in the Soul beyond all the corporal deformities which can be imagined If the sight of onely one Devil be so horrible that many Servants of God have said that they would rather suffer all the torments of this life than behold him for one moment all his deformity proceeding but from one onely mortal sin which he committed for before the Devils were by nature most excellent and beautiful in what condition shall a sinner be who shall not only behold all Devils in all their ugliness but shall see himself perhaps more ugly than many of them having as many deformities as he hath committed mortal and venial sins Let him therefore avoid them now for all are to come to light and he must account for all even until the last farthing Neither is this account to be made in gross onely for the greatest and most apparent sins but even for the least and smallest What Lord is so strict with his Steward that he demands an account for trifles for the tagg of a point nor suffers him to pass a half-penny without informing him how it was spent In humane Tribunals the Judge takes no notice of small matters but in the Courts of Divine Judicature nothing passes the least things are as diligently lookt into as the greater A confirmation of this is a story written by divers Authors Joh. Major Judic exem 8. ex collec That there were two Religious persons of holy and laudable conversation who did mutually love one another with great affection one of them chanced to die and after death appeared unto the other being then in prayer in poor and torn garments and with a most sorrowful and dejected countenance he who was alive demanded of him what was the cause of his appearing in that sad manner to whom he answered repeating it three times No man will believe No man will believe No man will believe Being urged to declare further what he would say he proceeded thus No man can imagine how strict God is in taking his accompts and with what rigour he chastises sinners In saying this he vanished By that which hath happened to many Servants of God even before their departure out of this life may be seen the rigour with which this account shall be taken after death Climac gr 7. St. John Climacus writes of a certain Monk who being very desirous to live in solitude and quiet after he had exercised himself many years in the labours of a Monastical life and obtained the grace of tears and fasting with many other priviledges of vertue he built a Cell at the foot of that Mountain where Elias in time past saw that sacred and divine Vision This reverend Father being of so great austerity desired yet to live a more strict and penitent life and therefore passed from thence into a place called Sides which belonged to the Anchorite Monks who live in great perfection and retirement and having lived a long time with much rigour in that place which was far remote from all humane consolation and distant 70 miles from any dwelling or habitation of men at last he came to have a desire to return to his first Cell in that sacred Mountain where remained in his absence for the keeping of it two most religious Disciples of his of the land of Palestine Some short time after his return he fell into an infirmity and died The day before his death sodainly he became much astonished and amazed and keeping still his eyes open he lookt gastly about him sometime on the one side of the Bed and then on the other as if he saw some who demanded an accompt from him of something which was past unto whom he answered in the hearing of all who were present saying sometime So it is truly but for this I have fasted so many years Other-whiles he said Certainly it is not so thou lyest I never did it At other times It is true I did so but wept for it and so many times ministred for it unto the necessity of my neighbour Other times Thou accusest me truly I have nothing to say but God is merciful And certainly that invisible and strict inquisition was fearful and horrible unto those who were present Ay miserable me saith the Saint What will become of me sinner since so great a follower of a solitary and retired life knew not what to answer He who had lived forty years a Monk and obtained the grace of tears and as some affirmed unto me had in the Desert fed a hungry Leopard which meekly repaired unto him for food yet for all this sanctity at his departure out of this life so strict an accompt was demanded of him as he left us uncertain what was his judgement and what the sentence and determination of his cause We read in the Chronicles of the Minorites Chronic. S. Franc. 2. p. lib. 4. c. 35. that a Novice of the Order of St. Francis being now almost out of himself struggling with death cryed out with a terrible voice saying Wo is me O that I never had been born A little after he said I am heartily sorry And not long after he replyed Put
for him see whereunto thou art obliged For this onely benefit thou oughtest not to move hand nor foot but for the service of so good and gracious a God A labourer who plants a tree hath right unto the fruit and God who created thee hath right unto thy works which are the fruits of man For this reason at the Garment of the High-Priest which represented the benefit of our Creation were hung many Pomgranates which are the noblest fruit of trees and bears a Crown to signifie that the good fruits of holy works which we ought to produce are to be crowned with a perfect and pure intention See then if thou canst do more for God for God could do no more for thee than to create thee for so high and eminent an end as is the possession of himself being no wayes due unto thy feeble and frail nature It being then so great a benefit to have created thee it is yet a greater to have preserved and suffered thee untill this instant without casting thee into a thousand hells for thy sins and offences This grace of conservation our Saviour noted when he said that he compassed and enclosed his Vineyard which was for the preservation of it See then what thy Creatour in this matter of conservation could have done more than he hath done for thee since being his enemy he hath preserved thee as his friend From how many for one onely fault committed hath he withdrawn his preservation and suffered them to die in that sin for which they are now in hell some of them if they had been pardoned would have proved more grateful than thou Behold how many Angels for their first offence he threw head-long down from heaven and expected them no longer and yet still expects thee See if he could do more for thee and see what thou art to do for him Consider that thou owest him for preserving thee as much as for creating thee preservation being a continued creation and more for preserving and suffering thee although his enemy In thy creation although thou didst not deserve a being yet thou demerited it not but in thy preservation thou hast deserved the contrary which is to be forsaken and abandoned But above all what is said is the benefit which thou receivest by the Incarnation of the Son of God which Christ signified when he said that the Lord of the Vineyard sent his Son See if God could have done more for his own salvation than he did for thine sending into the world his onely begotten Son to be incarnated for thee A greater work than this could not be done by the omnipotent arm of God Consider that he did not this for the Angels and yet did it for thee see if then thou canst comply with the love thou owest him with being less than a Seraphin in thy affection Consider likewise that it being in his power to redeem thee by making himself an Angel and onely interceding for thee yet he would not deprive thy nature of this honour but made himself a Man see if he could do more for thy good By making himself an Angel he might have honoured the Angelical nature and have likewise benefited thee but he would not but making himself a Man conferred both the honour and profit upon thee And if it be true which some Doctors say that God having proposed unto the Angels that they were to adore a Man who was also to be God and to be exalted above all their Hierarchies and that because they would not subject themselves unto an inferiour nature they therefore fell and became disobedient see what thou owest unto God for this so singular a favour who would make himself a Man that thou shouldest not be lost although with the loss of so many Angels better than thee Behold from whence he drew thee by this benefit which was from sin and hell and at such a time when thy miserable condition was desperate of all other remedy behold unto what he exalted thee to his grace and â—he inheritance of the Kingdom of Heaven Behold in what manner and with what singular love and affection he did it even to his own loss and prejudice and as the Apostle saith by annihilating as it were himself that he might exalt thee taking upon him thy nature when it was not needful onely that he might conferre an honour upon thee which he would not upon the Angels See what God could do more for thee and see that thou mayest do much more for him and doest not Of the benefit of our redemption by the death and passion of Christ the Lord himself was not forgetful but signified it unto us even before he died saying That the Son whom the Lord of the Vineyard sent was slain in the pretense What could the Son of God do more for thee than die and shed his blood for thy benefit especially when it was not needful for thy redemption In the rigour of justice it was necessary that God should be incarnate or make himself an Angel to redeem thee but to suffer and die not at all But such was his infinite love as he would needs suffer and not with an ordinary death but would die so ignominiously as it seems he could not suffer more Set before thy eyes Christ crucified upon Mount Calvarie see if a Man more infamous be possible or imaginable executed publickly between two Theeves as a Traitor and an Heretick for broaching false Doctrine and making himself King as a Traitor unto Caesar Two crimes so infamous as they not onely defame the person who commits them but stain and infect his whole Stock and Linage Behold in what poverty he died if greater can be thought on to the end thou mayest see if it were possible he should doe more for thee than what he did Whilest he lived he had not whereon to repose his head but yet had cloathes wherewith to cover decently his nakedness but when he died even his garments failed him neither found he one drop of water to refresh his sacred lips even the earth refused him wanting whereon to rest his reverend feet Behold with what grief and pains he expired since from head to foot he was but one continued wound his feet and hands were pierced with nails and his head with thorns All was a high expression of an excessive love and to do for thee what he could see then what thou oughtest to doe and suffer for him who died and suffered for thee what he could and could do what he would After all these benefits consider his giving himself unto thee for food and sustenance in the most holy Sacrament the which was noted by Christ when he said That the Lord of the Vineyard built a Press for the Wine in which he gave his most precious blood It seems that the persons of the most holy Trinity were in competition and strove amongst themselves who should most oblige Man with their benefits and favours Let us express
since he hath employed his omnipotency for our good and profit let us employ our forces and faculties for his glory and service CAP. VI. Of the End of all Time BEsides the end of the particular time of this life the universal end of all time is much to be considered that since humane ambition passes the limits of this life and desires honour and a famous memory after it Man may know that after this death there is another death to follow in which his memory shall also die and vanish away as smoke After that we have finisht the time of this life the end of all time is to succeed which is to give a period unto all which we leave behind us Let man therefore know that those things which he leaves behind for his memory after death are as vain as those which he enjoyed in life Let him raise proud Mausoleums Let him erect Statues of Marble Let him build populous Cities Let him leave a numerous Kindred Let him write learned Books Let him stamp his Name in brass and fix his Memory with a thousand nails All must have an end his Cities shall sink his Statues fall his Family and Linage perish his Books be burned his Memory be defaced and all shall end because all time must end It much imports us to perswade our selves of this truth that we may not be deceived in the things of this world That not only our pleasures and delights are to end in death but our memories at the farthest are to end with Time And since all are to conclude all are to be despised as vain and perishing Cicero although immoderately desirous of fame and honour Cieer in Ep. ad Luc. as appears by a large Epistle of his written unto a friend wherein he earnestly entreats him to write the conspiracy of Cataline which was discovered by himself in a Volume apart and that he would allow something in it unto their ancient friendships and Publish it in his life time that he might enjoy the glory of it whilest he lived yet when he came to consider that the world was to end in Time he perceived that no glory could be immortal and therefore sayes By reason of deluges and burnings of the earth In Somn. Scip. which muâ—â— of necessity happen within a certain time we cannot attain glory not so much as durable for any long time much less eternal In this world no memory can be immortal since Time and the World it self are mortal and the time will come when time shall be no more But this truth is like the memory of death which by how much it is more important by so much men think lest of it and practically do not believe it But God that his divine providence and care might not be wanting hath also in this taken order that a matter of so great concernment should be published with all solemnity first by his Son after by his Apostles and then by Angels Apoc. 10. And therefore St. John writes in his Apocalyps that he saw an Angel of great might and power who descended from heaven having a Cloud for his Garment and his head covered with a Rainbow his face shining as the Sun and his feet as pillars of fire with the right foot treading upon the Sea and with the left upon the Earth sending forth a great and terrible voice as the roaring of a Lyon which was answered by seaven thunders with other most dreadful noises and presently this prodigious Angel lifts up his hand towards Heaven But wherefore all this Ceremony wherefore this strange equipage wherefore this horrid voice and thunder all was to proclaim the death of Time and to perswade us more of the infallibility of it he continued it with a solemn Oath conceived in a Set form of most authentique words listing up his hand towards Heaven and swearing by him that lives for ever and ever who created Heaven and Earth and all which is in it There shall be mo more time With what could this truth be more confirmed than by the Oath of so great and powerful and an Angel The greatness and solemnity of the Oath gives us to understand the weight and gravity of the thing affirmed both in respect of it self and the importance of us to know it If the death of a Monarch or Prince of some corner of the world prognosticated by an Eclipse or Comet cause a fear and amazement in the beholders what shall the death of the whole World and with it all things temporal and of Time it self foretold by an Angel with so prodigious an apparition and so dreadful a noise produce in them who seriously consider it For us also this thought is most convenient whereby to cause in us a contempt of all things temporal Let us therefore be practically perswaded that not onely this life shall end but that there shall be also an end of Time Time shall bereave Man of this life and Time shall bereave the World of his whose end shall be no less horrible than that of Man but how much the whole World and the whole Race of mankind exceeds one particular person by so much shall the universal end surpass in terrour the particular end of this life For this cause the Prophecies which foretell the end of the World are so dreadful that if they were not dictated by the holy Spirit of God they would be thought incredible Christ therefore our Saviour having uttered some of them unto his Disciples because they seemed to exceed all that could be imagined in the conclusion confirmed them with that manner of Oath or Asseveration which he commonly used in matters of greatest importance Math. 13. Luc. 21. Amen which is By my verity or verily I say unto you that the world shall not end before all these things are fulfilled Heaven and earth shall fail but my words shall not fail Let us believe then that Time shall end and that the World shall die and that if we may so say a most horrible and disastrous death let us believe it since the Angels and the Lord of Angels have sworn it If it be so then that those memorials of men which seemed immortal must at last end since the whole Race of man is to end let us only strive to be preserved in the eternal memory of him who hath no end and let us no less despise to remain in the fading memory of men who are to die than to enjoy the pleasures of our senses which are to perish As the hoarding up of riches upon earth is but a deceit of Avarice so the desire of eternizing our memory is an errour of Ambition The covetous man must then leave his wealth when he leaves his life if the Theef in the mean time do not take it from him and fame and renown must end with the World if envy or oblivion deface it not before All that is to end is vain this World therefore and all which
is esteemed in it is vain all is vanity of vanities Let us onely aim and aspire unto the eternal because the just onely as the Prophet sayes shall remain in the eternal memory of God The memory of man is as men themselves frail and perishing What man ambitious of a perpetual memory would not rather choose to be esteemed by ten men who were to live a hundred years than by a thousand who were to die immediately after him Let us therefore desire to be in the memory of God whose life is eternity Our memory amongst men can last no longer than men themselves which shall all die like us and there can be no memory immortal amongst those who are mortal It is therefore very expedient that the end of the World should be accompanied by the universal Judgement of all men wherein shall be revealed their most secret and hidden thoughts and anions That the murtherer who hath slain his neighbour lest he should discover his wickedness may not hope that therefore it shall remain conceal'd and That no man should be bold to sin for want of witnesses since the whole World shall then know that which if any but himself had known here would have burst his heart with shame and sorrow CAP. VII How the Elements and the Heavens are to change at the end of Time LEt us now look upon the strange manner of the end of the World which being so terrible gives us to understand the vanity and deceit of all things in it and the great abuse of them by man for questionless were it not for the great malice and wickedness which raigns in the World the period of it would not be so horrible and disastrous Lib. recognit S. Clement the Roman writes that he learned of St. Peter the Apostle that God had appointed a day from all eternity wherein the Army of Vengeance should with all its forces and as we may say in ranged battail fight with the Army of Sin which day is usually called in the holy Scripture The day of the Lord in which battail the Army of Vengeance shall prevail and shall at once extirpate and make an end both of Sin and the World wherein it hath so long raigned And certainly if the terrour of that day shall equal the multitude and hainousness of sins we need not wonder at what the sacred Scripture and holy Fathers have foretold of it But as it is usual in war res to skirmish and make inrodes before the day of battel so before that dreadful day wherein all punishments are to encounter with all offences the Lord shall from divers parts send forth several calamities which shall be fore-runners of that great day of battel and shall like light Horse-men scoure the Campania which St. John in the Apocalyps signified by those Horse-men which he saw sally forth upon divers-coloured horses one red another black and the third pale so the Lord shall before that day send Plagues Famine Warres Earthquakes Droughts Inundations Deluges and if those miseries do now so much afflict us what shall they then doe when God shall add unto them his utmost force and power when all Creatures shall arm against Sinners and the Zeal of divine justice shall be their Captain-general which the Wise-man declares in these words Sap. 5. His zeal shall take up arms and shall arm the creatures to revenge him of his enemies he shall put on Justice as a breast-plate and righteous Judgement as a helmet and he shall take Equity as a buckler and shall sharpen his Wrath as a lance and the circuit of the earth shall fight for him Thunderbolts shall be sent from the clouds as from a well-shooting how and shall nit fail to hit the mark and Hail shall be sent full of stormy wrath The Waters of the sea shall threaten them the Rivers shall combat furiously a most strong Wind shall rise against them and shall divide them as a whirle-wind Very dreadful are those words although they contain but the Warre which three of the Elements are to make against Sinners but not onely Fire Air and Water but Earth also and Heaven as it appears in other places of Scripture shall fall upon them and confound them for all creatures shall express their fury in that day and shall rise against man and if the clouds shall discharge thunderbolts and stones upon their heads the Heavens shall shoot no less balls than Stars which as Christ sayes shall fall from thence If Hail no bigger than little stones falling but from the clouds destroy the fields and sometimes kills the lesser sort of cattle what shall pieces of Stars do falling from the Firmament or some upper Region It is no amplification which the Gospel uses when it sayes That men shall wither with fear of what shall fall upon the whole frame of nature for as in Man which is called the Lesser world when he is to die the humours which are as the Elements are troubled and out of order his eyes which are as the Sun and Moon are darkned his other senses which are as the lesser stars fall away his reason which is as the celestial vertues is off the hinges so in the death of the greater World before it dissolve and expire the Sun shall be turned into darkness the Moon into blood the Stars shall fall and the whole World shall tremble with a horrid noise If the Sun Moon and other celestial bodies which are held incorruptible shall suffer such changes what shall be done with those frail and corruptible Elements of Earth Air and Water If this inferiour World do as the Philosophers say depend upon the Heavens those celestial bodies being altered and broken in pieces in what estate must the lower Elements remain when the Vertues of Heaven shall faulter and the wandring Stars shall lose their way and fail to observe their order How shall the Air be troubled with violent and sudden Whirle-winds dark Tempests horrible Thunders and furious flashes of Lightning and how shall the Earth tremble with dreadful Earth-quakes opening her self with a thousand mouthes and casting forth as it were whole Volcanies of fire and sulphur and not content to overthrow the loftiest Towers shall swallow up high Mountains and bury whole Cities in her entrails How shall the Sea then rage mounting his proud waves above the clouds as if they meant to overwhelm the whole Earth and shall certainly drown a great part of it The roaring of the Ocean shall astonish those who are far distant from the Sea and inhabit in the middest of the firm land wherefore Christ our Saviour said Luc. 21. that there should be in the Earth afflictions of Nations for the confusion of the noise of the Sea What shall men do in this general perturbation of Nature they shall remain amazed and pale as death What comfort shall they have they shall stand gazing one upon another and every one shall conceive a new fear by beholding in
hills to hide them within their Caverns But all this is rather to be imagined then expressed and the very thought of it is enough to make us tremble The creatures now groan to see themselves abused by man in contempt of his and their Creator but they shall then shake off their yoaks and shall revenge themselves of the agrievances which they suffer under him and the injuries he hath done unto the Creator of all The violences of the Elements and disturbances of Nature which have and may happen hereafter are nothing in respect of those which shall be in the last dayes the which St. Augustine sayes shall be much more horrible and dreadful than those which are past And if those single and alone were so terrible as we have already seen what shall they be when they come all together and from all parts when the whole world shall rebel against man when all shall be confusion when Summer shall be changed into Winter and Winter into Summer and no creature shall keep the prefixed law with them who have not observed the Law of their Creatour that so they may revenge both God and themselves §. 3. But that this most fearful alteration of the creatures which shall happen may be yet more apparent we will specifie some of them out of the Apocalyps of St. John Very dreadful is that which he mentions in the eighth Chapter of hail and fire with a rain of blood so general and in such abundance that it shall destroy the third part of the Earth of trees and green herbs How horrible an amazement shall so general a rain cause amongst men But it is not so to end For immediately shall appear in the Air a huge mountain of fire which shall fall all at once into the Sea and dividing it self into several bodies shall burn the third part of the Fishes the third part of Ships and of what else shall be in the Ocean The like effect shall proceed from a flame or prodigious Comet which falling into the Rivers and Fountains and there dividing it self into several parts shall turn the waters bitter as wormwood and make them so pestilential as they shall infect those who drink them and many shall die with their taste An Angel shall then smite the Sun Moon and Stars Apoc. 9. and deprive them of a third part of their light But mote horrible than all is that which follows that after so many calamities the bottomless pit which is hell shall burst open and out of his profound throat belch forth so thick a smoke as shall wholly darken the Sun and Air from which smoke shall sally forth a multitude of deformed Locusts which in great swarms shall disperse themselves over the face of the whole earth and leaving the fields herbs and what is sown fall upon such men as have been unfaithful unto God and shall for five moneths torment them with greater rage than Scorpions Some Doctors understanding those Locusts according unto the Letter Lessius de Perf. div l. 13. c. 18. Cornel. in Apoc. that they shall be a certain kind of true Locusts but of a strange figure and fierceness others that they shall be Devils of hell in the shape of Locusts and it is no marvel that in the destruction of the world Devils shall appear in visible forms since in the destruction of Babylon they appeared in divers figures of beasts as was prophesied by Isaias But after what manner soever St. John sayes that this Plague shall be so cruel Isa c. 34. 13. that men shall seek death and shall not find it and shall desire to die and death shall flye from them Many other plagues shall happen in those last dayes For as before that God drowned the Aegyptians and delivered his people he sent such plagues upon Aegypt as are recorded in Exodus so before the general destruction of Sinners in that universal Deluge and Sea of fire which shall cover the whole Earth and out of which the Saints are to escape free so much greater plagues shall proceed as the whole World is greater than Aegypt For not onely the Rivers and Fountains shall then ce turned into blood but the whole Sea shall be converted into a most black gore The Lord shall also in those days send horrible botches and sores upon men and the Sun shall scorch them in that manner as they shall lose their senses and some of the wicked shall turn against God and blaspheme as if they were already in hell The Earth also shall tremble and that not being the greatest which is recounted in the sixth Chapter of the Apocalyps yet the Apostle relates such things of it as are able to strike a fear and amazement into those who hear it His words are these There was a great Earthquake Apoc. 6. and the Sun became as sackcloth and the Moon at blood the Stars fell from Heaven as a Fig-tree cast off its green siggs when it it shaken by a violent wind The Heavens were folded up as a book or as a roll of parchment and all Mountains and Islands moved from their places I leave unto the consideration of every one what shall then become of those who remain alive in that conflict St. John sayes that Kings and Princes the Rich and Strong Slaves and Free-men shall hide themselves in Caves and Rocks and shall say unto the Mountains and Hills Fall upon us and cover us And the same S. John sayes further that there shall be yet a greater Earthquake which shall be the greatest that ever happened since the foundation of the World was laid in which the Islands shall sink and the Mountains shall be made even with the Plains Horrible lightnings and thunders shall affright the Inhabitants of the Earth and hailstones shall fall of the weight of a Talent which is of 5 Arrobas an Hebrew Talent weighing 125 Roman pounds This Plague joyned with so strange an Earth-quake how shall it astonish those who are then alive § 4. But how shall it then fare with Sinners when after all shall come that general fire so often foretold in holy Scripture which shall either fall from Heaven Vide P. Grana De novissi Alb. Mag. in comp or asseend out of Hell or according to Albertus Magnus proceed from both and shall devour and consume all it meets with Whither shall the miserable flye when that River of flames or to say better that Innundation and Deluge of fire shall so encompass them as no place of surety shall be left where nothing can avail but a holy life when all besides shall perish in that universal ruine of the whole World What shall it then profit the wordlings to have rich Vessels of gold and silver curious Embroideries precious Tapestries pleasant Gardens sumptuous Palaces and all what the world now esteems when they shall with their own eyes behold their costly Moveables burnt their rich and curious pieces of Gold melted and their
that lie had lost his wits but he never had them perfecter since he laught at human greatness and now perceived how ridiculous a thing is that which we call felicity and in his heart rightly esteemed it as it is a vanity of vanities I believe the same judgement which this King gave of the vanity of temporal things would if it had been askt been given by the Emperour Andronicus when naked and his head shaved like a Slave he was infamously dragged thorow the Streets of Constantinople What was then his Imperial Diadem what his Throne and Majesty what his Ornaments of gold and silver All was vanity and a vanity of vanities Neither would this have been denied by Vitellius when they threw dirt in his face and haled him into the Market-place to be executed What were then the Spectacles of the Amphitheater and Games of the Circus the Signiory of the World but vanity of vanities and universal vanity The same would Craesus have preached from the flames the Tyrant Bajazet from his Cage King Bolislaus from his Kitchen and Dionysius from his School If alive they would have said this upon the sight onely of the instability of this life what would they now say upon the experience of eternity whereinto they are entred Let us take the opinion of those Princes which are damned what they now think of the Majesty which they enjoyed in this life Vanity they will say it was a smoke a dream a shadow And without doubt those Kings which are now in heaven in possession of those eternal joyes will say the same That all felicity here below is poor scarce and short and vanity of vanities and worse if it have been an occasion of sin But it is not needful to call witnesses from the other life since the vanity of this is so evident that he who shall set himself to consider the greatness of this World shall perceive that by how much it is more glorious by so much it is more vain What greater Majesty than that of the Roman Empire Let us call to mind what happened in that Scarce was the election of a Roman Emperour known before they who chose him or some more subtle or powerful than they had murthered him An although they studied nothing more than to preserve themselves in the Imperial dignity yet few there were that could effect it Amongst nineteen or twenty Emperours which passed betwixt Antoninus the Philosopher and Claudius the second not one escaped a violent death besides many other Tyrants who took the names of Emperours as in Galienus his time thirty usurped that title and murthered one another in so much as he who called himself an Emperour was almost certain to die a violent death so as the greatest felicity of the world was tyed to the greatest mishap And it is to be wondered that any though almost forced would accept the Diadem But such is the folly of men that having before their eyes so many lamentable examples they gape after those glories which hardly last from morning until night Some of them had scarce been saluted Emperours when they were cut in pieces Aurelianus was one of those who exhibited the most glorious triumph that ever Rome beheld where were shewed An infinite number of Captives from the three parts of the World Many rare beasts as Tygers Lions Ounces Elephants Dromidaries A mighty quantity of Arms taken from the conquered Enemies Three most sumptuous Chariots one of the King of Palmerins another of the Persians and a third of the Goths Two who called themselves Emperours and the great Queen Cenobia adorned with most precious jewels and rich pearls and fettered in chains of gold He himself entred in a triumphal Chariot taken from the King of Gothes drawn by Stags immediately followed by the conquering Army richly armed crowned with Laurel and carrying Palms in their hands Never Emperour arrived at such a height of glory But how long lasted it A short time after he was stabbed with poniards having hardly time to take notice of his greatness much less to enjoy it By how many steps and strange ways did Aelias Pertinax in his old age climb unto the Imperial Throne and lost it before it was known in the Empire that he commanded it He was the Son of a Slave and first a Merchant by which he became a good accomptant then he studied Grammar and became a Schoolmaster after that a Lawyer and having learned to defend causes was made an Advocate but not prospering by these courses he listed himself a Souldier Neither seemed he in that to thrive much better for being arrived to the dignity of a Centurion he was cashiered with infamy But he quitted it not so for returning unto the same trade in process of time he became a Senatour shortly after Consul then President of Syria at last when he expected the Hangman to take away his life he was saluted Emperour by those Souldiers who then came fresh from the slaughter of Commodus They entring his house by night he told them he was the man whom the Tyrant had sent them to murther but they presented him the Scepter and Diadem which he accepted although then 70 years of age and after had scarce warmed the Imperial Seat having onely raigned three Moneths when he was cut in pieces in a time he least suspected it being so beloved esteemed and praised by the Romans that every one would have spent a thousand lives to have saved his yet notwithstanding a few Souldiers passed publickly through the middest of the City and in the sight of all stabbed an Emperour so beloved and honoured of the people and returned back without any so much as questioning them when those of one street so few were the murtherers had been sufficient to have killed them with stones Who sees not here the inconstancy and vanity of humane things as well in the life as unexpected death of this Prince by how many changes and windings did he climbe unto the top of the Imperial greatness and how sodainly without any stop or turn at all was he tumbled headlong down how long was his fortune in growing and how quickly cut seaventy years of a prosperous life ended in the counterfeit felicity of three Moneths and the unhappy death of an hour Then all is vanity of vanities since that which costs so much lasts so little and death in less than one hour overthrows the fortune of seaventy years §. 2. If the felicity of this life did onely end when life ends yet that were sufficient to undervalue it but it often ends before it and sometimes changes into disgraces and mishaps so as with our own eyes we often behold an end of our greatest fortunes Let us not therefore trust in life because it may fail whilest the goods of it remain and let us as little trust in them because they may likewise fail whilest it continues Let this instability of things undeceive us and let us seriously consider their
at least mortifie our affections for what is promised us hereafter and because it is most agreeable to God and profitable for our selves as may appear by this story related by Glycas Glycas ex eo Rad. in Aula Sancta cap. 12. A certain Anchorite had lived forty years in the desert retired wholly from the world and applying himself with great observance of his profession to the salvation of his Soul A desire at last entred into his minde to know who in the world was equal to himself in mortification Whereupon he besought God to reveal it unto him and it pleased his Divine Majesty to grant his request and it was answered him from heaven that the Emperour Theodâ—sius notwithstanding that he was Master of the greatest glory of the World yet was neither inferiour unto him in humility nor in overcoming himself The Hermite with this answer moved by God repaired unto the Court where he found easie access unto the courteous and religious Emperour unto whom the Servants of God and such as were famous for sanctity of life were alwayes welcome Not long after he found means to speak unto him and know his holy exercises At first he onely acquainted him with common vertues That he gave large Alms That he wore hair-cloth That he fasted often That he observed conjugal chastity and That he caused justice to be exactly observed These vertues seemed well unto the Hermit especially in such a person but yet judged all this to be short of himself who had done those things with greater perfection For he had renounced all and given all he possessed for Christ which was more than to give almes he never knew woman in his life which was more than to observe conjugal chastity he never did injury or injustice unto any which was more than to cause it to be kept to others his hair-cloth and fasts from all sorts of dainties were continual which was more than to abstain some dayes from flesh Wherefore altogether unsatisfied he further importuned the Emperour beseeching him to conceal nothing from him That it was the Divine will that he should acquaint him with what he did and that therefore he was sent unto him from God The Emperour thus urged said unto him Know then that when I assist at the horse-courses and spectacles in the Circus where my presence is required I so withdraw my minde from those vanities that though my eyes be open I see them not The Hermit remained astonisht at so particular a mortification in so great an Emperour and perceived that Scepters and Purple could not hinder a devout Prince from mortification of his affections and meriting much with God Almighty Theodosius further added Know also that I sustain my self by my labour for I transcribe certain parchments into a fair hand which being sold the price payes for my food With this example of poverty amongst so much riches and temperance in the middest of so great dainties the Hermit was wholly amazed and learned that abstinence from ease and pleasures of this life was that which made this religious Prince so gracious and acceptable unto our Lord. Finally so perverse are the delights of the World that though lawful yet they hinder much our spiritual proficiency and if unlawful are the total ruine of our Souls § 4. What shall we then say of the Royal and Imperial dignity which seems in humane judgement to embrace all the happiness of the World Honours Riches Pleasures all are contained in it But how small is a Kingdom since the whole Earth in respect of the Heavens is no bigger than a point and certainly neither Honours Riches or Pleasures are greater or more secure than we have described them Let us hear St. Chrysostome speak of the Emperours of his time Hom. 66. ad pop Look not upon the Crown saith he but upon that tempest of cares which accompany it Fix not thy eyes upon the purple but upon the mind of the King more sad and dark than the purple it self The Diadem doth not more encompass his head than cares and suspicions his soul Look not at the Squadions of his Guard but at the Armies of molestations which attend him for nothing can be so full of cares as the Palaces of Kings Every day they expect not one death but many nor can it be said how often in the night their hearts tremble with some sodain fright and their souls almost seem to forsake their bodies and this in the time of peace But when a warre is kindled what life so miserable as theirs how many dangers happen unto them even from their Friends and Subjects The floor of the Royal Palace is drowned in the blood of their Kindred If I shall mention those which have happened heretofore and now of late thou wilt easily know them This suspecting his Wife tied her naked in the mountains and left her to be devoured by wild beasts after she had been a Mother of divers Kings What a life had that man it being impossible he should execute such a revenge unless his sick heart had been eaten and consumed with jealousie This put to death his onely Son This killed himself being taken by the Tyrant This murthered his Nephew after he had made him his companion in the Empire This his Brother who died by poison and his innocent Son ended his life onely for what he might have been Of those Princes which followed one of them was with his Slaves and Chariots miserably burnt alive and it is not possible for words to express the calamities which he was forced to endure And he which now raigns hath he not since he was crowned suffered many troubles dangers griefs and treasons but in Heaven it is not so After this manner St. Chrysostome paints forth the greatest fortune of the World the Imperial Majesty which must needs be little since it is so unhappy that it suffers not to enjoy those frail goods of the earth in security but makes the possessors oftentimes perish before them But it is far otherwise in Heaven the Palace and House of God where the just without mixture or counterpoise of misery are to enjoy those goods eternal as we shall see in its proper place Lastly let us learn from hence not to admire the greatness of this World nor to desire the benefit of it Which lesson was well taught by St. Spiridion unto his Disciple who accompanying him one time unto the Court of the Emperour suffered himself to be transported with those things which he beheld The greatness and lustre of the Court The rich Garments Jewels Pearls and precious Stones dazled the eyes of the raw and unexperienced youth but above all the sight of the Emperour seated in his Imperial Throne with so much splendour and greatness almost drew him besides himself St. Spiridion willing one day to correct his errour asked him as if he had not known it Which of those were the Emperour His Disciple not reaching his intention
day known and practised they were ignorant Nothing is now secure since poison hath been given even in the shaking of hands when men were to be reconciled and made friends Onely in the sense of hearing it hath not yet found a door to enter all the rest of the senses it hath mastered with the smell of a Rose with the sight of a Letter with the touch of a Thread with the taste of a Grape death hath found an entrance There is nothing brings more misery upon man than his passions with which he pardons not himself The proud man grieves and consumes for the felicity of another The envious dies to see a happy man live The covetous man loses his sleep for what he hath no need of The impatient man tears his bowels for that which imports not and The cholerick man ruins himself for what no way concerns him How many for not conquering one passion have lost their fortunes their quiet and their lives both temporal and eternal Witness Aman who desirng more reverence than was due to him lost his honour wealth and life and ended on a Gibbet The ambition of Absolon rested not until it left him hang'd in a tree by the hair of his head In the same manner the disordinate love of Amnon which made him first sick and pale and distempered him more than a burning fever at last cost him his life Unto many their unmortified passions have been like cruel Hangmen which have sodainly bereaved them of their lives Dubravius l. 2. hist Bohem an 1418. Dubravius writes that Wenceslaus King of Bohemia entred into so great fury against a Courtier of his for not giving him timely advice of an Uproar raised by Lisca in Prague that he was like to have kill'd him with his own hands but being witheld from defiling his Royal Majesty with the blood of his Vassal he fell into an Apoplexie and died immediately Aurel. Vict. in Epitome vitae Nervae The death of Nerva was likewise upon a sodain anger And Pliny writes of Diodorus Cromus that he sodainly died of shame for that he was not able to answer a question proposed by Estibon Through Fear Grief Joy and Love many have died I will onely relate here a lamentable story written by Paulus Jovius Jovius l. 39. hist sui temporis A certain married man had lived long in adultery with so great scandal that the Bishop of the City excommunicated both him and his Paramour if they accompanied any more together The man was so besotted with his passion that contemning the Command of the Bishop he went secretly one day to see his Mistress who having repented of what was past entertained him with harsh language reprehended his impudency and commanded him to depart her presence and never more to see her But he still continuing in his madness began to call her ungrateful and unworthy and in a rage clasping his hands together and lifting up his eyes towards heaven as if it were to complain of her unkindness fell down stark dead and in a moment lost both his life temporal and eternal and his body was not suffered to be interred in hallowed earth If then our disordered passions be so hurtful unto our own lives how dangerous and prejudicial are they unto the lives of others Certainly if all other misfortunes were wanting those were sufficient which are caused by humane-passions There is much to be suffered from the conditions of men ill language displeasing correspondencies wilful injuries and perverse dispositions All man is misery and cause of miseries Who is so happy to content all and be envied of none who is so general a well-doer that no body complains of him who so liberal that finds not some ungrateful who so esteemed that some murmurers do not despise him The Athenians found fault with their Simonides because he talked too loud The Thebans accused Panniculus that he spit too much The Lacedaemonians noted in Lycurgus that he went hanging down his head The Romans thought Scipio slept too much and that he snorted too high The Vticans were scandalized at Cato's eating too fast on both sides at once They held Pompey for rude and ill-bred because he scratched his head with one finger The Carthaginians spake ill of Hannibal because he went open-breasted with his stomack bare Others laughed at Julius Caesar because he was ill girt There is none so upright in whom envy or extravagant conditions will not find something to reprehend The greatest miseries are those which men by their unbridled affections bring upon themselves Whence proceeded that notable saying of Ecclesiastes Eccl. c. 4. which far exceeded all that hath been spoken by Philosophers concerning humane misery I praised saith he the dead before the living I judged him more happy than either who was not born nor had seen the evils which are done under the Sun For there is nothing which offends humane nature more than the follies and impertinencies of men and the hatreds injustices violences and inhumanities caused by their irregular passions Whereupon some Philosophers seeing humane nature governed by passion and not by reason wholly abhorred it Amongst whom Timon of Athens was the principal beginner and most earnest Professor of that Sect for he did not only call himself the capital Enemy of Mankind but confirmed his words by his actions for he neither conversed nor dwelt with men but lived in the Desert amongst wild beasts remote from Neighbourhood or Towns neither would he be visited by any nor discourse with any but an Athenian Captain called Alcibiades and that not for friendship or affection but because he hoped and foresaw as indeed it happened afterwards that he would one day be the ruine of his Country and the destruction of a multitude of men Neither was he onely content with this aversion from men but studied and invented all ways possible to destroy them He caused Gallowses to be made in his Gardens wherein such as were desperate and weary of life might conveniently hang themselves and having occasion some years after to make use of his Garden for the enlarging of his House he would not pull down his Gallowses until he had called the people together to hear his Oration assuring them that he had something new and of importance to speak unto them The people who having been long acquainted with his humour expecting something that was extraordinary willingly assembled to hear him to whom he spake in this manner O Athenians you are not ignorant that many have made themselves away in my Gardens I have now occasion to dispose of them otherwise and therefore fore thought good to tell you that if any of you have a mind to hang your selves that you do it quickly And so without more words with this loving offer concluded his Speech and returned to his own house where he ended his life in the same opinion ever philosophying of the misery of man And when the pangs of death came upon
but greater if he live them ill though with content and therefore supposing so many miseries we cannot complain of God for having given us a short life but of our selves for having made it a bad one Ambr. Ser. quadrages Finally as St. Ambrose sayes Our life being compassed with so many miseries as that death seems rather a shelter for evils than a punishment God was pleased that it should be short that the vexations and misfortunes of it which cannot be counterpoised with any joyes of the earth might be more supportable At least if this life with so many miseries do not displease us yet let the eternal with all her felicities content us better and let us not endeavour less for the immortal life of heaven than we doe for this mortal one of earth And therefore as St. Austin sayes Augus trac 5. in Johan hom 57. If thou run a hundred miles for this life how many oughtest thou to run for the eternal and if thou make such speed to obtain a few dayes and uncertain how oughtest thou to run for life eternal CAP. VIII How little is man whilest he is temporal IF we consider the greatest thing in nature which is Man we shall see how little he is whilest he is temporal What is man saith Seneca a frail vessel broken with the least motion a most weak body naked by nature and unarmed necessitous of Mothers help subject to the injuries of fortune impatient of cold and labour composed of things infirm and fluid and those very things without which we cannot live as smell taste watching meat and drink are mortal unto us The wise Solon did not answer more favourably when they demanded of him Anton. in Mel. Stob. Ser. 96. what was Man He is saith he a corruption in his birth a beast in his life and food for worms when he is dead Aristotle being asked the same question answered That Man was an Idea of weakness Dionys Rikel de noviss arti 15. a spoil of time a game of fortune an image of inconstancy a ballance of envy and calamity and the rest is of flegme and choler Secundus the Philosopher being also demanded the same by Adrian the Emperour answered That Man was an incorporated understanding a phantasm of time a looker upon life a slave of death a travelling passenger a guest of place a toyling soul a habitation for a short time And St. Bernard saith That Man in this time of mortality is but a beast of carriage And the same Saint in another place sayes What is Man but a vessel of dung and in his meditations he adds If thou markest what he voids at his mouth and nose and at the other sinks of his body thou hast not in all thy life beheld a more noisome dunghill In the same part he saith Man is no other thing but unclean seed a sack of dung a food for worms Innocen de Contempla mundi lib. 1. c. 1. More fully Innocent the Pope I have considered saith he with tears what Man was made of what he is and what he shall be He was made of earth and conceived in sin and born for punishment He does things evil which are not lawful things filthy which are not decent and things vain which are not expedient He shall be the food of fire meat for worms and a mass of corruption O vile indignity of humane condition O unworthy condition of humane baseness Behold the plants and trees They produce flowers and leaves and fruit and thou nothing but nits lice and worms They furnish us with oyl wine and balsom thou affords nothing but flegme dung and urine Those send forth a fragrant odour and thou abominable stink Such as is the tree such is the fruit A good tree cannot bring forth bad fruit and what is man but a tree reverst This is the saying of this holy Pope And such is man even in his youth and best time But if he reach old age which is esteemed as a felicity the same Innocentius adds His heart is afflicted his head shakes his spirits languish his breath smells his face wrinkles his stature bends his eyes wax dimme his joynts quake his nose runs his hands tremble his hair falls his teeth rot his ears grow deaf Neither is he more changed in body than in mind An old man is easily displeased hardly pacified believes quickly long before disabused is greedy covetous peevish froward still complaining quick in talking slow in hearing admires what 's past contemns what 's present sighs grieves languishes and is alwayes infirm It may also appear what Man is by the stuff whereof he is made The first man God made of Clay mixing together the vilest and grossest Elements The rest of men who have succeeded have been made of a matter more loathsome and unclean and worse is that wherewith they are nourisht in their Mothers wombs and their birth is accompanied with shame grief and pollution which Pliny considering speaks in this manner It is a compassion nay a shame to think of the original of the proudest of living creatures which is man who often is abortive by the smell of a newly extinguisht candle From such beginnings sprung our Tyrants from hence the butcherly minde of those cruel Hangmen Thou which gloriest in the strength of body thou which embracest the gifts of fortune and thinkest not thy self her Servant but her Son and Darling thou who settest thy mind wholly upon victories thou who pufft up with success holdest thy self a God see how thou mightest have perished even before thou wert with so little a thing as a snuff of a candle and mayest yet with a smaller matter prickt with the little tooth of an Adder or like Anacreon the Poet choked with the stone of a grape or like Fabius the Roman Senatour suffocated with a hair in a draught of milk Thus farre Pliny who not onely admired the baseness of the nature of man but the easiness of his end Consider also wherein Man ends Man whilest he lives saith Pope Innocent engenders lice and vermin Lib. 3. c. 1. when he is dead grubs and worms whilest he lives affords nothing but dung and vomits when he is dead stink and rottenness alive he feeds but one man but dead a multitude of worms What thing more noisome than a humane Carcase what more horrible than a dead Man he whose embraces were most acceptable when he was alive even his sight is troublesome when he is dead What do riches banquets or delights profit us they shall not free us from death they shall not defend us from the worms they shall not take away our stink and ill savour He who even now was seated in a glorious Throne is now flung into an obscure Tomb he who lately feasted in a sumptuous Sala is now feasted upon by worms in a dark Sepulcher All this is from this contemplative Pope Bernard c. 3. Meditat. St. Bernard also considering this
danger But this Celestial happiness being eternal neither shall nor can end diminish or be endangered but with this security adds a new joy unto those others of the Saints §. 2. Besides the Powers of the Soul the Senses also shall live nourished with the food of most proportionable and delightful objects The eyes shall ever be recreated with the sight of the most glorious and beautiful Bodies of the Saints One Sun suffices to chear up the whole World What joy then shall one of the Blessed conceive in beholding as many Suns as there are Saints and in seeing himself one of them when his hands feet and the rest of his members shall all forth beams clearer than the Sun at midday how shall he be transported in beholding the Body of the holy Virgin our most blessed Lady more beautiful and resplendent than the light of all the Saints together When Saint Dionysius Arcopagita beheld her in a mortal Body she seemed unto him as if she had been in glory With what joy then and gladness shall we look upon her in Heaven clad with immortality Hester 2. Of Hester the holy Scripture tells us that she was incomparably beautiful and of most rare features ravishing the eyes of all and exceedingly amiable With how fat greater excellency will the Queen of Heaven appear full of all graces and priviledges of beauty in the happy state of glory But above all with what content and admiration shall we behold the glorious Body of Christ our Redeemer in comparison of whose splendor that of all the Saints shall be as darkness from whose wounds shall issue forth raies of a particular brightness The tormented members also of the Martyrs and the mortified parts of the Confessors shall flourish with a singular beauty and splendour Besides all this the glory and greatness of the Empyrial Heaven and the lustre of that Celestial City shall infinitely delight the blessed Citizens The ears shall be fill'd with most harmonious songs and musick as may be gathered from many places of the Apocalyps and if the Harp of David delighted Saul so much as it asswaged the fury of his passions cast forth the Devils and treed him of that melancholy whereof the wicked spirit made use and that the Lyre of Orpheus wrought such wonders both with men and beasts what shall the harmony of Heaven do The devout Virgin Donna Sancha Carillo being sick and ready to die with excessive pain Roa l. 1. c. 10. in ejus vita with the hearing of musick from Heaven was freed from her grief and remained sound and healthy St. Bonaventure writes of St. Francis that whilest an Angel touched his Instrument it seemed unto him that he was already in glory What delight then will it be not onely to hear the voice of one Instrument played upon by an Angel but also the voices of thousands of Angels together with the admirable melody of musical Instruments The singing of one little Bird only ravished an holy Monk for the space of three hundred years when as he perswaded himself they being past that there were no more than three hours past What sweetness will it be to heat so many heavenly Musicians those millions of Angels so many men which will be sounding forth their Alleluja's which holy Tobie mentioned and those Virgins singing a new song which none but they could sing Surius writes in the life of St. Nichalas Tolentine that for fix moneths before his death he heard every night a little before Mattins most melodious musick of Angels in which he had a taste of that sweetness which God had prepared for him in his glory and such joy and comfort he received by hearing it that he was wholly transported desiring nothing more than to be freed from his Body to enjoy it The same desired St. Austin when he said Aug. c. 25. med that all the employments all the entertainments of the Courtiers in Heaven consisted in praises of the Divine Majesty without end without weariness or trouble Happy were I and for ever happy if after death I might deserve to hear the melody of those songs which the Citizens of that Celestial habitation and the squadrons of those blessed spirits sing in praise of the eternal King This is that sweet musick which St. John heard in the Apocalyps when the Inhabitants of Heaven sang Let all the world bless thee O Lord To thee be given all honour and dominion for a world of worlds Amen The smell shall be feasted with the odour which issues from those beautiful Bodies more sweet than Musk or Amber and from the whole Heaven more fragrant than Jesemins or Roses Greg. l. 4. dialog c. 16. Hom. 38. in Evang. Turonen li. 7. histo Fran. St. Gregory the Great writes that Christ our Redeemer appearing unto Tarsilla his Sister cast forth so delicious a smell and fragrancy that it well appeared it could not proceed but from the Author of all sweetness St. Gregory of Tours writing of the holy Abbot St. Sylvius sayes that when he was dead there was so great sadness in the Monastery for the loss of him that our Lord was pleased to command that he should be restored to life again The Saint obeyed though with great resentment of what he left and whither he returned He bewailed his banishment with a fresh and lively memory of that Celestial Country where he had seen himself a little before with so great advantage The Monks pressed him very hard to declare unto them something of of what he had seen He told them I my dear Bretheren mounted up to the land of the living where I had the Sun Moon and Starres for my footstool with greater splendour and beauty than if it had been paved with silver and gold being placed in the seat deputed for me I was replenished with an odour of so singular sweetness that it alone hath been sufficient to banish all appetites or desires of the things of this life in so much that I neither desired to eat nor drink any thing to maintain it Baron To. 9. an 716 Baronius reports of one who raised from death amongst other things recounted That he had seen a most delightful place where an infinite number of most beautiful persons did recreate themselves and that there issued from them a most fragrant and miraculous sweetness and this the Angels told him was the Paradise of the Sons of God Greg. l. 4. Dial. The like is reported also by St. Gregory of a certain Souldier Neither is it much that glorious Bodies should breath out so sweet a smell since even in this valley of misery the Bodies of Saints without life or soul have sent forth a most admirable fragrancy St. Gregory the Great writes that at the instant Greg. 4. Dial. c. 14. when Sr. Servius died all who were present were filled with a most incomparable sweetness St. Jerome reports the like of St. Hilarion that ten moneths after his death
reason it is not a sufficient expression to say they are evils but they are to be tearmed evils excessively great No man will admire this who knows the grievousness of a mortal sin for committing of which as he is a man he deserves hell and as he is Christian according to St. Austin a new hell that is an Infidel merits one hell and a Christian two who knowing Christ incarnate and crucified for him durst yet sin and offend him Sin is an excessive evil because it is an infinite evil and therefore it is not too much if it be chatized with infinite evils It is an evil which is greater than the whole collection of all other evils and for this reason 't is not too much rigour that the sinner should be chastized with the collection of all evils together Those who wonder at the terribleness of eternal pains know not the terribleness of sin Whereupon St. Austin sayes Aug. lib. 21. c. 12. Therefore the eternal pains seem hard and injust unto humane apprehension because in the weakness of our natural understanding the sense of that eternal wisdom is wanting by which might be perceived the great malice of the first prevatication If then for that first sin committed when Christ had not yet died for man eternal damnation was not thought too much what shall it be when we know that our Redeemer was so gracious as to give his life because we should not sin From the necessity of so costly and precious a Medecine may be collected the greatness of the infirmity I say the greatness and danger of a disease is known by the extraordinary remedies which are applyed unto it and by the things which are sought out for the cure and without which the malady would be without remedy We may therefore gather the infinite malice of a mortal sin because there was no other means sufficient but one so extraordinary as was God to become Man and give his own life for Man dying a death so shameful and painful as he did offering a price so great as was the excessive worth and infinite price of his merits and passion Sin is an injurie against God and as the injurie increases according to the greatness and worth of the person offended so God being infinite the injury becomes of infinite malice and as God is a good which includes all goods so a mortal sin which is an injury done unto him is a mischief which exceeds all evils and ought to be punished with all pains and torments § 3. Let us now consider the several sorts of pains in Hell and the greatness of them In the Roman Laws according to Tully and Albertus Magnus we find mentioned eight several kindes of punishments Alber. Mag. l. 7. Comp. Theolog. c. 22. which are The punishment of Loss when one is mulcted in his goods The punishment of Infamy Banishment Imprisonment Slavery Whipping Death and the punishment of Talion To these may be reduced all the rest and we shall find the Divine Justice to exercise them all upon those who have despised his mercy and injured his infinite bounty and goodness In the first place there is the pain of Loss and that so rigorous that the depriving the damned Soul of one onely thing they take from him all good things For they deprive him of God in whom they are all comprised This is the greatest pain that can be imagined O how miserable and poor must the damned Soul be who hath lost God for all eternity He who is condemned by humane Laws to the loss of his goods may if he live gain others at least in another Kingdom if he flye thither but he who is deprived of God where shall he find another God and who can flye from Hell God is the greatest good and it is therefore the greatest evil to be deprived of him Because as St. John Damascen sayes evil is the privation of good and that is to be esteemed the greatest evil which is a privation of the greatest good which is God and must certainly therefore cause more grief and resentment in the Damned than all the torments and punishments of Hell besides And in regard there is in Hell an eternal privation of God who is the chief Good the pain of Loss whereby one is deprived for ever of the greatest of all goods this privation will cause the greatest pain and torment If the burning of a hand cause an insufferable pain by reason that the excessive heat deprives the Body of its natural temper and good constitution which is but a poor and short good how shall he be tormented who is deprived and eternally separated from so great a Good as is God If a bone displaced or out of joynt causeth intolerable grief because it is deprived of his due state and place what shall it cause in a rational creature to lye eternally separated from God who is the chief end for which he was created Chrys 24. in Math. Tom. 2. fol. 82 p. 2. St. Chrysostome gives us some understanding of this grief when he sayes He who burns in Hell loses also the Kingdom of Heaven which is certainly a greater punishment than that torment of flames I know many who are afraid of Hell but I dare confidently say that the amission of glory is far more bitter than all those pains which are to be suffered in Hell And no wonder that this cannot be exprest in words since we know not well the happiness of those divine rewards by the want of which we ought also to measure the infelicity of their loss but we shall then without doubt learn when we are taught by sad experience Then our eyes shall be opened then the vail shall be taken away then shall the wicked perceive to their greater grief and confusion the difference betwixt that eternal and chief good and the frail and transitory pleasures of this life If St. Chrysostome says this of the loss of the reward of eternal happiness that it is a greater evil than the torment of hell fire what shall the loss of God be not onely as our Good but also for as much that in himself he is the chief Good of which the damned are to be deprived for all eternity Moreover this condemnation of a Sinner unto the loss of God and all which is good shall extend so far that he shall be deprived even of the hope of what is good and shall be left for ever in that profound poverty and necessity without expectation of remedy or relief What greater want can any one have than to want all things and even hope of obtaining any thing We are amazed at the poverty of holy Job who from a Prince and a rich man came to lye upon a dunghil having nothing left but a piece of a broken pot to scrape away the putrifaction from his sores But even this shall fail the damned who would take it for a great Regalo to have a dunghil for their bed
added to their other torments Hell is the Prison of God a most rigorous Prison horrid and stinking wherein so many millions of men shall for ever lye fettered in chains for chains or something answerable unto them shall not there be wanting Whereupon St. Austin sayes and is followed by the Schoolmen Aug. l. 1. de Civit. Cap. 10. that the malign spirits shall be fastned to fire or certain fiery bodies from which the pain which they receive shall be incredible being thereby deprived of their natural liberty V. Less de Perfec Divin l. 13. c. 30. as it were fettered with manicles and bolts so as they are not able to remove from that place of mishap and misery It were a great torment to have burning irons cast upon our hands and feet but this and much more shall be in Hell where those fiery bodies which are to serve instead of shackles and fetters are as grave Doctors affirm to be of terrible forms proportionable unto their offences and shall with their very sight affright them Besides the bodies of the Damned after the final Judgement past shall be so streightned and crowded together in that infernal Dungeon that the holy Scripture compares them to grapes in the Wine-press which press one another until they burst Most inhumane was that torment inflicted upon three Fathers of the Society of Jesus by their Enemies at Mastrick They put certain rings of iron stuck full of sharp points of needles about their arms and feet in such manner as they could not move without pricking and wounding themselves Then they compassed them about with fire to the end that standing still they might be burnt alive and if they stirred the sharp points pierced their flesh with more intolerable pains than the fire What shall then be that torment of the Damned where they shall eternally burn without dying and without possibility of removing from the place designed them where whatsoever they touch shall be fire and sulphur into which their bodies shall at the latter day be plunged as their souls at present swim in the middle of that lake or pond of fire as the Scripture calls it like fishes in the Sea which enters into their very substance more than the water into the mouth nose and ears of him who is drowned Neither shall unsavoury smells so proper unto Prisons be wanting in that infernal Dungeon For first that fire of sulphur being pent in without vent or respiration shall send forth a most poisonous sent and if a match of brimstone be so offensive here what shall such a mass of that stuffe be in Hell Secondly the bodies of the damned shall cast forth a most horrible stench of themselves and that more or less according to the quality of their sins It happened in Lions that a Sexton entring into a certain Vault where the body of a man not long before dead lay yet uncovered there issued forth so pestilential a smell that the dead man killed the living If one mans body then cause such a stink what shall proceed from a million of bodies which though alive for their further evil yet are dead in the second death besides as hath been said all the uncleanness and filth of the World when it is purified must fall into that eternal Sink which shall infinitely encrease this noisome quality Paulus Jovius writes that the Enemy of mankind Actiolinus the Tyrant had many Prisons full of torments misery and ill smells insomuch as men took it for a happiness rather to die than to be imprisoned because being loaden with irons afflicted with hunger and poisoned with the pestilential smell of those who died in Prison and were not suffered to be removed they came to end in a slow but most cruel death The Messenians also had a most horrible Prison under earth full of stench and horror into which offenders were let down with a cord never after to see the light But what are these Prisons to that of Hell in respect of which they may be esteemed as Paradises full of Jessemy and Lillies Victor Afric l. 2. de Persec Vandal Victor Africanus relating the torments which the Arian Vandals inflicted upon the holy Martyrs accounts the stench and noisomness of the Prison to be the most hidious and unsufferable of all the rest There were saith he in one Prison 4996 Martyrs which was so straight and narrow that they flung the holy Confessors into it one upon another who stood like swarms of Locusts or to speak more piously like precious grains of Wheat In this want of room they had not place to comply with the necessities of nature but were forced to ease themselves where they stood which caused so horrid a savour as exceeded all the rest of their afflictions One time saith the Author giving a good summe of money to the Moors we had leave whilest the Vandals slept to see them and at our entrance sunk up to the knees in that filth and loathsomness It seems that the stink of Hell could not be more lively expressed than in the uncleanness and stench of this Prison but without doubt all this was but a rough draught and a dead image of that which shall be there in respect whereof this here was Perfume and Amber If one were cast into some deep dongeon without cloathes exposed to the inclemency of the cold and moysture of the place where he should not see the light of Heaven should have nothing to feed on but once a day some little peece of hard barley bread and that he were to continue there six yeares without speaking or seeing of any body and not to sleep on other bed but the cold ground what a misery were this one week of that habitation would appeare longer than a hundred years Yet compare this with what shall be in that banishment and prison of Hell and you shall finde the miserable life of that man to be a happiness There in all his troubles he should not meet with any to scoff and jest at his misfortunes none to torment and whip him but in Hell he shall finde both The Devils shall not cease to deride whip and cruelly torment him There should be no horrid fights no fearefull noyses of howlings groanings and lamentations In hell the eyes and eares of the damned shall never be free from such affrights There should be no flames of fire to scorch him In hell they shall burn into his very bowels There he might move and walk In hell not stirr a foot There he may breath the ayr without stink In hell he shall suck in nothing but flames stink and sulphur There he might hope for coming forth In hell there is no remedy no redemption There that little peece of hard bread would every day seem a dainty But in hell in Millions of yeares his eyes shall not behold a crum of bread nor a drop of water but he shall eternally rage with a dog-like hunger and a burning thirst
some their lives St. Bernard explicating the 90. Psalm reports that a certain religious person being ready to die beheld two Devils in that horrid and ugly shape that he cried out as if he had been distracted Cursed be the hour that I entred into Religion and then holding his peace not long after with a quiet and appeased voice and countenance he said Nay rather blessed be the time that I became of this Order and ever blessed be the Mother of Christ whom I have alwayes loved from my heart And then turning to those who were in prayer he said unto them Marvel not at the turbation of my spirit for two Devils appeared unto me in that monstrous and horrid form that if there were here a fire of sulphur and melted mettal which were to last unto the day of Judgement I would sooner pass through the middest of it than turn again to behold them If then two Devils caused such amazement what shall the sight of legions doe each exceeding other in deformity If the Devil be so ugly and terrible in this life what shall he be in his proper place of damnation and especially so many together Many are affrighted very much passing onely through a Church-yard onely for fear of seeing a phantasm in what a fright will be a miserable damned soul which shall see so many and of so horrid shapes St Gregory reflecting on that which is spoken in the book of Job Job 10. That in Hell shall inhabit everlasting horror sayes in this manner How can there be fear where there is so much grief We grieve for a present evil and fear for that which is to come and he who is arrived at the utmost of misery hath nothing more to fear and not to fear is a kind of good and no good can happen in Hell He answers That as death perpetually killing the damned leaves them alive that they may die living so pain torments them and in such manner affrights them that they are still in fear of greater succeeding pains Their fight also shall be tormented with beholding the punishment of their friends and kindred Egesippus writes that Alexander the Son of Hircanus resolving to punish certain persons with exemplary rigour caused 800 to be crucified and whilest they were yet alive caused their wives and children to be murthered before their eyes that so they might die not one but many deaths This rigour shall not be wanting in Hell where Fathers shall see their Sons and Brothers their Brothers tormented The Torment of the eyes shall be also very great in regard that those that have given others scandal and made others fall into sin shall see themselves and those others in that Abyss of torments To the sight of these dreadful and grievous apparitions shall be added that nocturnal horrour and fearful darkness of the place Nicholas de Lira sayes In Exod. 10. sayes that therefore the darkness of Aegypt was said to be horrible because there the Aegyptians beheld fearful figures and phantasms which terrified them In the like manner in that infernal darkness the eyes shall be tormented with the monstrous and enormous figures of the wicked spirits which shall appear much more dreadful by reason of the obscurity and sadness of that eternal night The Hearing shall not onely be afflicted by an intolerable pain caused by that ever burning and penetrating fire but also with the fearful and amazing noises of thunders roarings howlings clamours groans curses and blasphemies Sylla being Dictator caused six thousand persons to be enclosed in the Circus and then appointing the Senate to meet in a Temple close by where he intended to speak unto them about his own affairs to strike the greater terror into them and make them know he was their Master he gave order that so soon as he began his oration the Souldiers should kill this multitude of people which was effected Upon which were heard such lamentations outcries groans clashing of Armour and blows of those merciless homicides that the Senatours could not hear a word but stood amazed with terror of so horrid a fact Such shall be the harmony of Hell when the ears shall be deafned with the cries and complaints of the damned What confusion and horrour shall it breed to hear all lament all complain all curse and blaspheme through the bitterness of the torments which they suffer Sur. in ejus vita 14. Apr. St. Lidwin being in an extasie saw a place so dreadful made of black stone and of such a depth that it would fright one to look into it The Saint heard there within most fearful groans cries and howlings noise and horrible knocking as it were of hammers wherewith those within were tormented She was so astonished to hear this that if all the noise and lamentations of the world were joyned together it would be of no trouble in respect of it The Angel told her That was the habitation of the damned And demanding of her whither she had any desire to see it she said No she would not see it because only hearing what there was done caused her an unsufferable grief The Smell also shall be tormented with a most pestilential stench Horrible was that torment used by Mezentius to tye a living body to a dead and there to leave them until the infection and putrified exhalations of the dead had killed the living What can be more abominable than for a living man to have his mouth laid close to that of a dead one full of grubs and worms where the living must receive all those pestilential vapours breathed forth from a corrupted carcass and suffer such loathsomness and abominable steneh But what is this in respect of Hell when each body of the damned is more loathsome and unsavoury than a million of dead dogs and all these pressed and crowded together in so streight a compass Isaias in respect of their stench calls them dead bodies Isai 34. when he sayes The stench of their carcasses shall ascend And St. Bonaventure goes so far as to say that if one onely body of the damned were brought into this world it were sufficient to infect the whole earth Neither shall the Devils send forth a better smell For although they are spirits yet those fiery bodies unto which they are fastned and confined shall be of a most pestilential savour And in this manner a Devil who had appeared unto him being put to flight by St. Martin left such an horrible stench behind him that the Saint deemed himself to be already in hell and said unto himself If one onely Devil having been here hath caused this what will all the Devils together and damned men doe Libel de provid num 3. In the Book of the Doctrine of the Fathers it is written that a pious Damsel being carried by an Angel to see Hell she saw her own Mother there put into a Cauldron of boiling pitch up to the neck and great numbers of vermin swarming
in it of a most intolerable stench What shall I then say of the Tongue which is the instrument of so many wayes of sinning flattery lying murmuring calumniating gluttony and drunkenness who can express that bitterness which the miserable shall suffer greater than that of wormwood or aloes insomuch as the Scripture sayes The gall of dragons shall be their wine and they shall taste the poison of Asps for all eternity Unto which shall be joyned an intolerable thirst and dog-like hunger conformable unto which David said They shall suffer hunger as dogs Quintilian sayes Quintil. Declam â—2 That Famine is the most pressing of all necessities and most deformed of all evils that Plagues and Warres are happinesses in respect of it If then a Famine of eight dayes be the worst of temporal evils what shall that Famine be which is eternal Let our Epicures and Belly-Gods hear what the Son of God prophesies Luc. 6. Wo unto you who are full for you shall be an hungred and with such an hunger as shall be eternal If the other evils of this world as Quintilian affirms may be esteemed not much in comparison of hunger even in this temporal life what will they be in respect of the hunger of the life to come Hunger in this life does bring men to such extremities that not onely they come to desire to eat Dogs Cats Rats and Mice Snakes Toads Leather Dung and eat them in effect but also Mothers come to eat their own Children and men the flesh of their own arms as it fell out to Zeno the Emperour If hunger be so horrible a mischief in this life how will it afflict the damned in the other without all doubt the damned would rather tear themselves in pieces than suffer it Neither shall thirst torment them less The sense of Touching as it is the most extended sense of all the rest so shall it be the most tormented in that burning fire Bar. ad an 191. We are amazed to think of the inhumanity of Phalaris who roasted men alive in his brasen Bull. This was a toy in respect of that fire of Hell which penetrates the very entrails of the body without consuming them The burning of a finger only does cause so great a torment that it is unsufferable but far greater were it to burn the whole arm and far greater were it besides the arms to burn the leggs and far more violent torment would it be to burn the whole body This torment is so great that it cannot be expressed in words since it includes or comprises as many torments as the body of man hath joints sinews arteries c. and especially being caused by that so penetrating and true fire of which St. Austin sayes that this temporal fire is but a painted fire in respect of that in Hell in so much that the fire of Hell does exceed ours by so many degrees as a thing in life and reality exceeds the same in a picture In conformity to what is here said venerable Peter Cluniacensis writes and when we read such like stories from the representations therein contained we are to raise our thoughts to the substance therein represented This venerable man then writes That a wicked Priest being ready to give up the ghost there appeared unto him two fiery Devils who brought with them a Frying-pan in which they told him they would fry him in Hell and a drop of hot liquor then falling out of the Frying-pan upon his hand in a moment burnt him to the very bones in the sight of all that were present who remained astonished to see the efficacy and violence of that infernal fire Whereupon Nicholas of Nice sayes that if there were a fire made of all the wood in the world it would not be able to cause so much torment as the least spark of Hell-fire Caesarius does also write Caesar l. 12. mirac c. 23. That Theodosius Bishop of Mastrick had a Servant by name Eberbach who in a raging fit of anger gave himself to the Devil upon condition he would help him to take revenge upon his Enemies Some years after this man fell grievously sick of a disease that brought him to the point of death and being now dead in all mens judgement his soul was cast into a sea of fire where he remained suffering until such time as an Angel of Heaven came unto him and said Behold what they are to suffer that serve the Devil But if so great a mercy should be shewed unto thee as to grant thee longer life wouldst thou not spend it in doing penance for thy sins He replyed There can be nothing so hard or painful which I would not undergoe to escape this torment Then the Lord used that mercy to him as to let him return to the use of life and senses and rising off the Biere where he was already placed to be carried to burial all that were present were astonished at him who at the same instant began a course of life of most austere and rigorous penance He went bare-foot upon thorns and briars store of blood issuing from the wounds received He lived onely on bread and water and that in a very small quantity What money he had he gave to the poor There were many who wondering at the rigour of his penance endeavoured to moderate the excess of his fervour and austerities to whom he answered Wonder not hereat for I have suffered torments of a far different kind and if you had been there you would frame a far different apprehension of them And for to explicate the excessive torment that fire caused he said That if all the trees in the world were put in one heap and set on fire I would rather burn there till the day of judgement than suffer onely for the space of one hour that fire which I have experienced Now what a miserable unhappiness will it be to burn in those flames of Hell not onely for one hour but till the day of Judgement yea even for all eternity and world without end Who would not esteem it an hideous torment if he were to be burnt alive an hundred times and his torment were to last every time for an hours space with what compassionate eyes would all the world look upon such a miserable wretch Nevertheless without all doubt any of the damned in Hell would receive this as a great happiness to end his torments with those hundred times burning For what comparison is there betwixt an hundred hours burning with some space of time betwixt every hour and to burn an hundred years of continual torment And what comparison will there be betwixt burning for an hundred years space and to be burning without interruption as long as God is God Let a Christian who hath ever committed a mortal sin consider this and let him see what can be difficult sharp and intolerable since thereby he deserved to be cast into Hell and let him see whether he think any
he is issues forth of himself and is communicated unto man Who is not amazed that the same Divinity which the eternal Father communicates unto the eternal Word who is God as he is should after an admirable manner be communicated unto human nature which was enemy unto him O Sea of divine goodness that thus powrest forth thy self to do good without regarding unto whom O Ocean of bounty that thus overflowest in benefits even towards thine enemies This work is likewise infinitly good because with goodness it overcoms an infinitly malice and frees him who was so evil that he deserved an infinit punishment It is infinitly good because it sets forth God with an infinit desire to pardon and do good even unto the greatest Traytour and who least deserved it It shewes him also infinitly good and compleat in all vertue and perfection that rather then to fail the least jot in his Justice he would take upon him that which was due unto a most unjust and accursed offender and humbled himself unto death that he who was condemned to die should not perish eternally I know not any thing that can set forth God as a more exact and perfect pattern of all vertue then a work of so much Justice and Mercy Who would not be amazed at the goodness and piety of a great Emperour who having a desire to pardon a notorious Traytour should rather then abate one jot of his inflexible justice take upon him the habit and shape of that Traytour and die publiqnely in the market place that the offender might be spared This did God taking upon him the form of a Servant and dying upon the Cross to free condemned man from eternal death O God every way most perfect and good which art so scrupulous in thy justice and so indulgent in thy mercy rigorous with thy self that thou mightest be merciful with us O God infinitly good infinitly holy infinitely exact and perfect in all Let the Angels praise thee for all thy perfections since all are transcendent and infinitely good §. 3. To this maybe added the excellent Manner by which a work every way so excellently good was performed and with what love and desire of thy benefit it was wrought From whence could a work of so much goodness issue but from a furnace of love in the divine brest And if by the effect we may know the cause that love which made God resolve upon a work so admirable strange and high could not be other then immense in it self for since the work was infinitly good it could not proceed but from an infinite love nor that love but from an infinite being Besides this it was a great prerogative and honour to humane nature that God should rather make himself a man than an Angel With being an Angel he might have freed Man and honoured the Angels communicated his divine goodness unto the Creatures and done a work of infinite bounty and favour This notwithstanding he was so passionate a lover of man and if I may so say so fond of humane nature that he would not onely oblige man by redeeming him but in the manner of his redemption he would not only that Man should be redeemed but that he should be redeemed by a Man and so would not onely give the remedy but conferre also the honour upon our nature Neither was he content in honouring man more than Angels but would redeem him and not the Angels This was a demonstration of his affection unto Man beyond all expression that not pardoning the Angels who were of a more excellent and supream being then ours he yet took pitie of us and not of them and would do that for us which he did not for them Unto this add that when Man sinned and the whole stock of mankind was ruin'd there remained no just man to commiserate and intercede for him But when the Angels fell there remained thousands rightious who might pitie those of their own nature and be sensible of their loss and yet he would do this for Man and not for Angels The time also when this great work of mercy was put in execution shews not a little the sweetness of God Almighty to our nature It was in a time when mankind was most forgetful of God when men strove to make themselves adored for Gods and those who could not attain unto it themselves adored other men worse then devils Then did God think of making himself Man and for Man who would make himself God This was a love indeed to do most for us then when we most offended him But let us see what good we received by this great work Certainly if we had received no good at all it was much to free us from those evils whereunto we were plunged to deliver us from the ignominy of Sin from the slavery of the Devil and from the horrour of Hell To free us from these evils without any other benefit might be held an infinite good And though there had been no evils to be freed from nor goods to be bestowed upon us yet the honour which our nature received in having God to become one of us was an incomparable blessing But joyning to this honour our deliverance from those horrid and desperate evils what happiness may be compared to ours Justin writes that Alexander the Great beholding Lysimachus wounded in the head and that he lost much blood took his Diadem and bound it about his temples to stay his bleeding This was a great favour from so mighty a Prince as well in the care he took of him as in the manner taking the Ensigne of Majesty from his own head and giving it to his vassal But Lysimachus had not injuried Alexander he had served him faithfully and received that wound in his quarrel Neither did Alexander give him his Diadem for ever but suffer'd him onely to wear it upon that present occasion But the mortal wound of sin was not received by man in defence of God or in his quarrel but in rebellion against him Yet God vouchsafes to cure the Traytor honors him with his own Diadem which is his Divinitie communicating it upon him not for a short space and then to take it from him but bâ—stowing it upon him for all eternity What a bounty is this unto an enemy that in freeing him from such a miserie crowns him with so great happiness But if to all this we shall add those other blessings which he bestows upon us giving us his grace adopting us the Sons of God and making us Heirs of heaven how infinitly will our obligations increase since we are not onely freed from so great evils but enriched with unspeakable benefits and our nature honoured by his favours above that of Angels All is marvailous all is great all is transcendent in this unspeakable goodness The work it self is transcendent the manner and love by which it was performed is transcendent The evils from which it frees us are eternal the rewards which
it prepares for us are eternal whose greatness though it were not otherwise to be known might in this sufficiently appear that to free us from so many evils and crown us with so many goods it was necessary that he who was eternal should make himself temporal and should execute this great and stupendious work so much to his own loss CAP. IV. The baseness of Temporal goods may likewise appear by the Passion and Death of Christ Jesus THe greatness of eternal goods and evils is by the Incarnation of the Son of God made more apparent unto us then the Sun beams since for the freeing us from the one and gaining for us the other it was necessary so great a work should be performed and that God judged not his whole omnipotency ill imployed that man might gain eternity Yet doth not this great work so forcibly demonstrate unto us the baseness of things temporal and the contempt which is due unto them as the Passion and Death of the Son of God which was another work of his love an other excess of his affection another tenderness of our Creator and a most high expression of his good will towards us wherein we shall see how worthy to be despised are all the goods of the Earth since to the end we might contemn them the Son of God would not onely deprive himself of them but to the contrary embraced all the evils and incommodities this life was capable of Behold then how the Saviour of the world disesteemed temporal things since he calls the best of them and those which men most covet but thorns and to the contrary that which the world most hates and abhorrs he qualifies with the name of blessings favouring so much the Poor who want all things that he calls them blessed and sayes Of them is the Kingdom of heaven And of the Rich who enjoy the goods of the earth he sayes It is harder for them to enter into heaven then for a Camel to pass the eye of a needle And to perswade us yet more he not onely in words but in actions chose the afflictions and despised the prosperity of this life and to that end would suffer in all things as much as could be suffered In honour by being reputed infamous In riches by being despoyled of all even to his proper garments In his pleasures by being a spectacle of sorrow and afflicted in each particular part of his most sacred body This we ought to consider seriously that we may imitate him in that contempt of all things temporal which he principally exprest in his bitter death and passion This he would have us still to keep in memory as conducing much to our spiritual profit as an example which he left us and as a testimony of the love he bore us leaving his life for us and dying for us a publick death full of so many deaths and torments Zcnophon in Cyro lib. 3. Tigranes King of Armenia together with his Queen being prisoners unto Cyrus and one day admited to dine with him Cyrus demanded of Tigranes What he would give for the liberty of his wife to whom Tigranes answered That he would not onely give his Kingdom but his life and blood The woman not long after requited this expression of her husband For being both restored to their former condition One demanded of the Queene What she thought of the Majesty and Greatness of Cyrus to whom she answered Certainly I thought not on him nor fixt mine eyes on any but him who valued me so much as he doubted not to give his life for my ransom If this Lady were so grateful onely for the expression of her husbands affections that she looked upon nothing but him and neither admired nor desired the greatness of the Persians What ought the Spouse of Christ to do who not onely sees the love and affection of the King of Heaven but his deeds not his willingness to die but his actual dying a most horrid and cruel death for her ransom and redemption Certainly she ought not to place her eyes or thoughts upon any thing but Christ crucified for her Sabinus also extolls the loyalty and love of Vlysses to his Wife Penelope in regard that Circe and Calypso promising him immortality upon condition that he should forget Penelope and remain with them he utterly refused it not to be wanting to the love and affection he owed unto his Spouse who did also repay it him with great love and affection Let a Soul consider what great love and duty it owes to its Spouse Christ Jesus who being immortal did not onely become mortal but died also a most ignominious death Let us consider whether it be reasonable it should forget such an excessive love and whether it be fit it should ever be not remembring the same and not thankful for all eternity hazarding to lose the fruits of the passion of its Redeemer and Spouse Christ Jesus Upon this let thy Soul meditate day and night and the spiritual benefits which she will reap from thence will be innumerable Albertus Magnus used to say Lud. de Ponte P. 4. in introduc That the Soul profited more by one holy thought of the Passion of Christ than by reciting every day the whole Psalter by fasting all the year in bread and water or chastizing the Body even to the effusion of blood One day amongst others when Christ appeared unto St. Gertrude to confirm her in that devotion she had to his Passion he said unto her behold Daughter if in a few hours which I hung upon the Cross I so enobled it that the whole world hath ever since had it in reverence how shall I exalt that Soul in whose heart and memory I have continued many years Certainly it cannot be exprest what favour devout Souls obtain from Heaven in thinking often upon God and those pains by which he gained tor us eternal blessings and taught us to despise things temporal and transitory But that we may yet reap more profit by the holy remembrance of our Saviours passion we are to consider that Christ took upon him all our sins and being to satisfy the Father for them would do it by the way of suffering for which it was convenient that there should be a proportion betwixt the greatness of his pains and the greatness of our sins And certainly as our sins were without bound or limit so the pains of his torments were above all comparison shewing us by the greatness of those injuries he received in his passion the greatness of those injuries we did unto God by our inordinate pleasures We may also gather by the greatness of those pains and torments which were inflicted upon him by the Jews and Hangmen the greatness of those which he inflicted upon himself for certainly those pains which he took upon himself were not inferior to those he received from others But who can explicate the pains which our Saviour wounded by the grief he conceived at
our offences took upon himself For such is the malice of a mortal sin that if we did but know it as it is our hearts would burst with grief and we could not suffer it and live and therefore many have been known to die sodainly by the violent apprehension of their sins Vincent Serm. 6. Post invocavit Fra. Francisco Diego en la Hist de la Prov. de Aragon l. 2. c. 6. St. Vincentius Ferrerius writes of a certain light woman who going to a Sermon deckt and adorned in all bravery when she heard the Preacher with great zeal and fervour set out the hainousness of the sin of dishonesty she with meer grief and compunction fell dead in the place and a voice was heard she was in heaven The same St. Vincent being in Zamora two condemned persons were led forth to be burnt for their filthiness The Saint drawing neer to them so laid open the deformity of their sin that they both died of grief in the way to execution Another time the same Saint hearing the Confession of an incestuous person so moved him to contrition that he died at his feet If then the grievousness of sin be so great as the grief of it brings death upon them who truely apprehend it what shall we think of the grief of Christ who perfectly knew the hainousness of sin and took upon him all the sins of the world and grieved for every one of them as if he himself had committed it Who can declare or imagine the grievousness of his resentment when he saw his Father whose honour he desired and endeavourd even from his very bowels to be injured after so many and so horrid manners Suar. in 3. p. to 2. disput 33 sec. 2. Grave Divines affirm that the grief which Christ suffered for sins of men was more vehement and intense then all other griefs what objects soever they have or can have by ordinary power either in Man or Angels which afflictions he suffered all his life and therefore one of the Psalms sayes he was in labours from his youth which another Lection reades He was agonizing and exhaling his soul It was a custom among the Jewes that hearing any to blaspheme or injure God they tore their garments in signe of grief What grief did then the Son of God endure for all the blasphemies and injuries committed by the whole world against his Eternal Father Certainly he tore not his Garments but his Body and powred forth his sacred blood at a thousand fountains before he subjected it to the power of his Enemies revenging the sins against his Father upon his own person and tormenting himself for our sins before he was tormented by others Such was the zeal of the glory of God which burnt in his breast that he would not pardon himself to the end he might obtain pardon for Man If the zeal of Phinees was so great that beholding two persons commit a sin he could not contain himself from revenging it even with their deaths If that of Elias took away the lives of so many false Prophets and Moses purpled his hands in the blond of his People causing so many thousands of them to be slain What shall be the zeal of Christ at the sight of the sins of all the world how vehement his desire that God should be revenged and since he would revenge them upon himself what grief and anguish did he endure for the sins of the whole world Certainly no words can possibly express it But not contented with those he gave himself he would subject himself also to those which he received from others which certainly were no small ones but such as were proportionable to his burning zeal and therefore beyond utterance painful and severe Yet those though rigorous and great were short of that interiour grief which he took upon himself for those were inflicted by the rage and madness of the Jews but these by his own zeal and charity and therefore by how much his love was greater than the hatred and malice of his enemies by so much greater was the grief of his heart than that of his senses and than those pains which he suffered in his sacred body But it is fit we should also often reflect upon the greatness of those which were more particularly suffered for our Example that we may thence learn to despise the goods of the earth which we see charged with so many evils and avoid all sorts of sins since our sweet Saviour took their punishments upon himself in so high a degree §. 2. Wherefore as Christ our Redeemer suffered for the sin of Man which is totally evil in it self and all the Circumstances as we have already discoursed so his Passion was likewise every way most grievous and painful as we shall perceive in observing those seaven Circumstances noted by Tully First behold who it is that suffers It is he who deserves it least He who is Innocency it self He who is a Person as holy as the holy Spirit of God He who is the offended Party yet suffers for the offender He who is Lord of all He whom the Seraphins acknowledge and adore He who hath done innumerable benefits for his very enemies Our Father who created us and made us of nothing A man most delicate for the vivacity of his spirits and the perfection of his temper All this must needs augment his grief as being a Person of such Worth and innocence as he deserved it least and of so temperate and perfect a complexion as he felt it most This Circumstance of the Person who suffered is recommended to our consideration by the Apostle when he sayes Heb. 12. Think upon him who sustained such contradiction from sinners against himself For he it is who now sits at the right hand of the Father who died betwixt two Theeves Think who it is that was allowed no place on earth but hung upon a tree in the air It is He who is to judge the living and the dead Think who it is who suffered upon the Cross it is He who is life eternal Think who it is who permitted himself to be apprehended whipt crucified it is He who made the earth to tremble and caused fire to issue out of the Sanctuary and consume those who obeyed not his holy Word and Law The second Circumstance is what it was he suffered Certainly more than was ever suffered by man injuries affronts inhumane and cruel torments He suffered sutably to his infinite charity and that burning thirst he had to suffer for Man So excessive were his pains that the Rocks clove in sunder in their presence the Mountains sunk the Elements trembled the Heavens cloathed themselves in mourning the Sun and Moon were darkned and the Angels of Peace wept So great they were that the very apprehension of them made the Son of God sweat drops of blood so many in number that it is held to by known by Revelation they were ninety seaven
Crucifix Neither are the Elements left free from such representations Alfonso the first Portugal beheld in the air an Escucheon with the five wounds And the Emperour Constantine the principal Instrument of the Passion the Cross which hath also divers other times appeared But what more gratious and loving demonstration of the memorie which he desires we should still preserve of his torments then the wounds which he hath imprinted upon the persons of many of his servants Blos li. 15. c. 3. Tritem in Crim. ad an 1500. Surius 14. Aprilis Mosc in vita S. Clarae For besides St. Francis who was marked with the most evident signes of his favour the like were received by St. Gertrude and St. Lucia of Ferrara And what more express memorial of the passion of our Redeemer then the heart of St. Clara of Monte Falco in which was found the Image of Christ crucified the Pillar Whip Lance and other instruments of the Passion We should never make an end if we should recount all those several wayes by which Christ our Saviour hath represented unto us his death and passion to the end we should ever have it present and fixt in our memorie But above all the most blessed Sacrament in which divine mystery the lively representation of his death is as often repeated as his holy body is consecrated in the whole world was a great demonstration of his infinite love towards mankind Wherein he gives us to understand that he desires not onely once but a million of times to die for us and that though he cannot now return again to be crucified by reason of the impassibility of his glorifyed body yet his divine charity hath found a way after an unbloody and impassible manner to repeat the Sacrifice of the Cross and the fruit of our redemption How great a gratitude do we owe our Saviour for so infinite an expression of his good will towards us and how can we be grateful it forgetful of so profitable and advantageous a benefit Let not then his Passion depart from our thoughts but let us rather depart from our pleasures and despise all humane felicity since we behold the Lord of the world in such humility Moreover this most blessed Sacrament is not onely a Memorial of the Passion of Jesus Christ but of the Incarnation and wonderful works of God and not onely brings into our memory what Christ did when he suffered for us but what the Eternal Word did when he became flesh for us that immense God unto whom the whole Globe of the Earth serves but as a footstool descending from Heaven and so far lessening himself as to cover that infinite Majesty under the form of a Servant of which this Divine Sacrament is a most excellent and lively representation For in it also the God of Heaven being already incarnate and made man descends from Heaven and vails himself under the accidents of a little bread and wine and there is as it were annihilated for us and become nothing Besides as in the Eucharist we receive Christ crucified so in it also we receive the Word incarnate insomuch as these two great wonders of God the Passion and Incarnation are not onely represented but as it were multiplied unto us in this blessed Sacrament which was a high thought of God and according to what he said by his Prophet David Psal 39. Thou hast made thy wonders many O Lord And there is none who is like unto thee in thy cogitations Here God made his wonders that is his Passion and Incarnation many repeating and as it were multiplying them in this blessed Sacrament Which was a most high thought of him who is the supreme Wisdom nor could it enter into any understanding but that of the Divinity that that which was so extraordinary and so far above the reach of all created capacities as the Son of God to be sacrificed and the eternal Word to descend from Heaven and be made man should become so ordinary and familiar as we daily see it in the use of this Divine Mysterie But God did not onely here make his wonders many but made them great as the same David cries out How magnified are thy works O Lord Psal 91. Thy cogitations are most profound For although the works of the Passion and Incarnation are so great yet they are as it were enlarged and made greater by this holy Sacrament The greatness of the work of the Incarnation consisted in this that God abased himself and was made man and the greatness of that of the Passion in that he humbled himself unto death But in this Sacrament he abases and humbles himself yet lower becoming food for man which is less than to be man or to die which is natural unto man Besides this the general fruit of the Incarnation and Passion is after a most admirable manner particularly applyed in this blessed Sacrament to every one which receives it worthily The Death and Passion of Christ upon Mount Calvarie was no doubt a great work of God but in this Mysterie we behold the same Death Passion and Sacrifice after an unbloody and impassible manner which is certainly the greater miracle and expresses more the Divine power The Incarnation likewise when the Eternal Word entred into the womb of a Virgin was a great work of God but in this Mysterie it is in a certain manner extended and made greater and is therefore called an extension of the Incarnation our Lord here entring into the breast of every Christian and uniting himself unto him These are the marvails of the Law of Grace concerning which the Prophet Isaias said unto the Lord Isai 64. When thou shalt do wonders we shall not sustain them Thou hast descended and the mountains melted at thy presence From the beginning they have not heard nor understood with their ears neither hath the eye seen O God besides thee what thou hast prepared for those who expect thee The Prophet speaks of those wondrous works which were to be seen at the coming of the Messias which wore to be such as the world had never heard of nor had ever entred into any thought but that of God and therefore the Apostle alleadging this place saith That the eye hath not seen nor the ear hath heard neither hath it entred into the heart of man what God hath prepared for those who love him Since over and above those two stupendious wonders of taking flesh and dying for us he hath given himself as food unto those Souls who remain in his grace and love him which is so great and marvailous a work as onely God could think of it and besides God none And as onely God can truly value it so it is not in the power of man sufficiently to acknowledge it No humane heart being able to support the weight of such an obligation and the greatness of the Divine love which shines forth in this wonder of wonders Tertul. li. de Patien cap.
will it cause when a Sinner in the instant of Gods judgment shall see himself delivered over into the power of the infernal Dragon without all hopes of ever escaping from him who will seize upon a Soul and carry her to the abyss of hell Let us call to mind with dread that which the holy Prophet feared and said of the Devil God grant he lay not hold on my soul like a Lion when there will be none that will set me at liberty or relieve me O what a lamentable thing will it be for one to see himself in the power of Lucifer not onely abandoned by Men but also by the Angels and by the Queen of Men and Angels and even of God himself Father of all mercies Let us provide our selves in time for that which is to be done in a moment on which depends our Eternity O moment in which all time is lost if a Soul doth lose it self in it and remains lost for ever how much doest thou avail us Thou givest an assurance to all the good works of this life and causest an oblivion of all the pleasures and delights thereof to the end that Man may not wholly give himself over to them since they will then be of no benefit to him and persevere in vertue since it will not secure him unless he persevere in it to the last §. 2. How can men be careless seeing so important a business as is the salvation of their Souls to depend upon an instant wherein no new diligence nor preparations will avail them Since therefore we know not when that moment will be let us not be any moment unprovided this is a business not to be one point of time neglected since that point may be our damnation What will a hundred years spent with great penance and austerity in the service of God profit us if in the end of all those years we shall commit some grievous sin and death shall seise upon us before repentance Let no man secure himself in his past vertues but continue them until the end since if he die not in grace all is lost and if he doe what matters it to have lived a thousand years in the greatest troubles and afflictions this world could lay upon him O moment in which the just shall forget all his labours and shall rest assured of all his vertues O moment in which the pains of a Sinner begin and all his pleasures end O moment which art certain to be uncertain when to be and most certain never to be again for thou art onely once and what is in thee determined can never be revoked in another moment O moment how worthy art thou to be now fixed in our memory In vit PP l. 5. p. 565. apud Rot that we may not hereafter meet thee to our eternal mine and perdition Let us imitate the Abbot Elias who was accustomed to say That three things especially made him tremble The first when his Soul was to be pluckt out of his Body the second when it was to appear before God to receive judgment and the third when sentence was to be pronounced How terrible then is this moment wherein all these three things so terrible are to pass Let a Christian often whilest he lives place himself in that instant from whence let him behold on one part the time of his life which he is to leave and on the other the eternity whereunto he enters and let him consider what remains unto him of that and what he hopes for in this How short in that point of death did those near-hand a thousand years which Mathusala lived appear unto him and how long one day in Eternity In that instant a thousand years of life shall appear unto the Sinner no more than one hour and one hour of torments shall appear a thousand years Behold thy life from this Watch-tower from this Horizon and measure it with the eternal and thou shalt find it to be of no bulk nor extension Sec how little of it remains in thy hands and that there is no escaping from the hands of Eternity O dreadful moment which cuts off the thread of Time and begins the web of Eternity let us in time provide for this moment that we may not lose Eternity This is that precious pearl for which we ought to give all that we have or are Let it ever be in our memory let us ever be sollicitous of it since it may every day come upon us Eternity depends upon death death upon life and life upon a thread which may either be broken cut or burnt and that even when we most hope and most endeavour to prolong it A good testimony of this is that which Paulus Aemilius recounts of Charles King of Navarre Paulus Aemilius l. 9. Aâ—cidita anno 1387. who having much decayed and weakned his bodily forces by excess of lust unto which he was without measure addicted the Physicians for his cure commanded Linnens steeped in Aqua vitae to be wrapped close about his naked body He who sewed them having nothing in readiness to cut the thread made use of a candle which was at hand to burn it but the thread being wet in those spirits took fire with such speed as it fired the Linnen and before it could be prevented burnt the body of the King in that manner as he immediately dyed Upon a natural thread depended the life of this Prince which concluded in so disastrous a death and no doubt but the thread of life is as easily cut as that of flax time is required for the one but the other is broken in an instant and there are more causes of ending our life than are of breaking the smallest twist Our life is never secure and therefore we ought ever to fear that instant which gives an end to Time and beginning unto Eternity Wonderful are the wayes which death finds out and most poor and contemptible those things upon which life depends It hangs not only upon a thread but sometime upon so small a thing as a hair So Fabius a Roman Senatour was choaked with a hair which he swallowed in a draught of milk No door is shut to death it enters where air cannot enter and encounters us in the very actions of life Small things are able to deprive us of so great a good Valer. Max. lib. 6. A little grain of a grape took away the life of Anacreon and a Pear which Drusus Pompeius was playing with fell into his mouth and choaked him The affections also of the Soul and the pleasures of the Body become the high way unto death Homer dyed of grief and Sophocles of an excess of joy Dionysius was kill'd with the good news of a victory which he obtained Aurelianus dyed dancing when he married the Daughter of Domiâ—ian the Emperour Thales Milesius beholding the sports in the Theater dyed of thirst Vid. Andream Eborensem de morte non vulgari and Cornelius Gallus and