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
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
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
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
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
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
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
it not deserve And if in benefits the good will wherewith they are conferred is most to be esteemed When the benefit is infinite and the will of infinite love what shall we do If when that Traitor who murthered Henry the Fourth King of France was justly sentenced to those cruel torments wherein he died the first begotten Son of the dead King and Heir unto his Kingdom had cloathed himselt in the habit of the Murtherer and offered to be torn in pieces for him and to die that he might be freed from his torments and not only offered but actually performed it What love and thanks would the Prince deserve from that Caitiff O King of Glory and onely begotten Son of the eternal Father in as much as lay in us we were desirous to murther thy Father and to destroy his Divine essence and being and therefore were most worthy of death and eternal flames But thou wert not onely willing to die for us but effectually gavest thy blood and life with so inhumane torments for us and wert prepared to suffer more and greater for our good How shall we repay so great a love what thanks what gratitude for so immense a benefit Let us also consider What we our selves are for whom he suffered For he suffered not for himself or because it imported him he suffered not for another God nor for some new creature of a superiour nature to all those who now are not for a Seraphin who had faithfully served him for an eternity of years but for a miserable vile creature the lowest of all those which are capable of reason composed of dirt and his Enemy This should make us more grateful that God suffered so much for us who least deserved it To this may be added that he suffered thus much for us not that his suffering was necessary tor our redemption and freedom out of the slavery of sin but took upon him all these pains and torments onely to shew his love unto us and to oblige us to imitate him in the contempt of the world and all humane felicity Let us then behold our selves in this Mirrour and reform our lives Let us suffer with him who suffered so much for us Let us be thankful unto him who did us so much good and so much to his own cost Let it grieve our very souls that we have offended so good a God who suffered so many evils that we should not be evil Let us admire the Divine goodness who being the honour of Angels would for so vile a creature abase himself to the reproach of the Cross Let us love him who so truly loved us Let us put our trust in him who without asking gave us more than we durst desire Let us imitate this great example proposed unto us by the Eternal Father upon Mount Calvarie Let us compose our lives conformable unto the death of his Son our Saviour in all humility and contempt of temporal felicity that we may thereby attain the eternal that humbling our selves now he may exalt us hereafter that suffering here he may in his good time comfort us that tasting in this life what is bitter we may in the other be satiated with all sweetness and that weeping in time we may rejoyce for all eternity To which end our Saviour said unto the great Imitator of his Passion St. Francis Francis take those things that are bitter in lieu of those that are sweet if thou intendest to be happy And accordingly St. Austin Brethren Augus Ser. 11. ad fra Know that after the pleasures of this life are to follow eternal lamentations for no man can rejoyce both in this world and the next And therefore it is necessary that he who will possess the one should lose the other If thou desirest to rejoyce here know that thou shalt be banisht from thy Celestial Country but if thou shalt here weep thou shalt even at present be counted as a Citizen of Heaven And therefore our Lord said Blessed are those who weep for they shall be comforted And for this reason it is not known that our Saviour ever laught but it is certain that he often wept and for this reason chose a life of pains and troubles to shew us that that was the right way to joy and repose CAP. V. The Importance of the Eternal because God hath made himself a means for our obtaining it and hath left his most holy Body as a Pledge of it in the Blessed Sacrament ANother most potent motive to induce us to the estimation of what is Eternal and the contempt of what is Temporal is That God hath in the most holy and venerable Sacrament of his body and blood made himself a means that we might attain the one by despising the other Which holy Mystery was instituted That it might serve as a Pledge of those eternal goods and therefore the holy Church calls it a Pledge of future glory and That it might also serve us as a Viaticum whereby we might the better pass this temporal life without the superfluous use of those goods which are so dangerons unto us Our Lord bestowing this Divine bread upon us Christians as he did that of Manna heretofore unto the Hebrews And therefore as we gave a beginning unto this work with a presentation of that temporal Manna which served as a Viaticum unto the children of Israel in the wilderness so we will now finish it with the truth of this spiritual Manna of the blessed Sacrament which is a Pledge of the eternal goods and given as a Viaticum unto Christian people in the peregrination of this life Let a Christian therefore know how much it imports him to obtain the Eternal and with what earnestness his Creator desires it that having obliged us by those high endearments of his Incarnation and Passion in suffering for us so grievous and cruel a death would yet add such an excess of love as to leave himself unto us in the most blessed Sacrament as a means of our Salvation Who sees not here the infinite goodness of God since he who as God omnipotent is the beginning of all things and as the chief good of all goods and most perfect in himself is likewise their utmost end would yet for our sakes make himself a Medium which is common to the creatures and argues no perfection Our Lord glories in the Scripture that he is the beginning and end of all And with reason for this is worthy of his greatness and declares a perfection whereof only God is capable But to make himself a Medium and such a Medium as was to be used according to humane will and subject to the power and despose of man was such a complyance with our nature and such a desire of our salvation as cannot be imagined the Means of our salvation may be considered either as they are on Gods part or on Mans part for both God and Man work for mans salvation That God should serve himself
and increase Whereupon St. Austin calls it the foundation of the City of Babylon This Covetousness is seated in the affections of the soul as in its proper subject but is fed and receives nourishment from those exteriour things which we possess Wherefore wholly to extripate it two things are necessary not onely to quit this interiour thirst and gaping after riches but also that exteriour possession of them The first is to be done by the will and spirit but the second by an actual and effectual execution and forsaking them and it is for this that we are promised in this life a hundred-fold and in the next eternal felicity O how great a distance is there discovered betwixt things temporal and eternal since the onely hope of the eternal bestows more upon us even in this life then we can receive from the dominion and possession of all that is temporal Temporal goods by being enjoyed and possest are not so much as doubled but by being renounced for Christ are multiplyed a hundred-fold and hereafter conferr the Kingdom of Heaven Abundance of temporal goods as hath been already observed hinder and obstruct the pleasures and contents of this life for which we seek them and hereafter throw their possessors into hell flames so as they are not onely the occasion of eternal pain but by anticipation of many temporal inconveniences For I know not how it coms to pass the most rich are not the most contented nor yet the least necessitated It seems their goods diminish in their hands and are of less value amongst them than the poor at least ten is not worth to a rich man so much as one to a poor so as the poor who have renounced their goods for Christ finde them multiplyed a hundred-fold and the rich who forgetting their Redeemer employ themselves wholly in heaping up wealth find them as much diminished and of a hundred enjoy not one Besides the rich are so encumbered with cares dangers fears and perturbations that they know not the true contents of this life and yet run the hazard of eternal damnation in the other But to the contrary those who are poor in spirit and have forsaken their possessions for Christ are in this world filled with joy peace and comfort and in the next enjoy the Kingdom of Heaven O how happy are they who understand this and know how to change earth for heaven O how truly doth Christ call happy the poor in spirit who have left all for his sake and therefore enjoy a double happiness the one present and the other future here a hundred-fold for that which they possess not and hereafter the possession of life eternal O how happy is he who knows with the riches of the earth to purchase the treasure of glory in death and in life to receive them a hundred-fold doubled Cassian Collat. ult c. ult This according to Abbot Abraham is fully verified in religious persons who have quitted all they have upon earth to live in an estate of poverty who for one Father which they have left find a hundred in religion and for one Brother a hundred who embrace them with Christian charity for one possession a hundred possessions and for one house a hundred houses in the multitude of Monasteries founded for their Order so as there is no doubt but this reward is not onely doubled unto them a hundred-fold but multiplied to a farre greater proportion The same may be seen in other servants of God who serve him in voluntary poverty Beda de Nat. Sancti Benedic who by how much as Bede notes they have served God with more affection in renouncing their temporal goods by so much hath God stirred up the affections and liberalities of others to supply and assist them in all their wants So as they are served with the goods of all and as the Apostle sayes having nothing possess all But although this recompence should fail us yet one a hundred-fold greater then this will not fail us which is that noted by St. Jerome Lib. 3. in Math. He who for our Saviours sake leaves carnal things shall receive spirituall which in comparison and value are as if some small number were compared with a hundred We seek the goods of the earth for the ease and content of life But if this may better and with more advantage be acquired by the contempt and leaving them what can we desire more Certainly he who quits all for Christ enjoyes a hundred times more content and pleasure then he who flows in the greatest riches and abundance for according to what hath been said the goods of this life are tedious and troublesome even to life it self so the freedom from those cares and incommodities which accompany them eases the heart and makes our life more sweet and pleasant Whereupon St. Chrysostome notes That as the Children in the middest of the fiery furnace in Babylon were refresht by a cool wind and pleasant dew to those who are in poverty which the holy Scripture calls a furnace are recreated by a gentle aire from heaven and the dew of the holy Spirit and that in so high a manner as St. Bernard speaking of the Monks of Claraval sayes That they drew from their Poverty Fasts and austere Penances such joy and spiritual comfort that they were jealous and afraid least God had given them their whole and compleat reward in this world and it seemed unto them that having their heaven in this life they should lose it in that to come Whereupon it was necessary for St. Bernard to prove unto them in one of his Sermons That he did injure the grace of the holy Spirit who placed grief in what it communicated Certainly the Servants of God are highly rewarded since they receive even in this life such celestial joyes for those temporal trifles which they have quitted If one for a certain weight of Copper were to receive the like in Gold Cassian Sup. I believe he would think he had made a good bargain The like exchange they make who receive those spiritual joyes for the pleasures of the earth In Histor Cistere This is fully verified in that which happened unto Arnulphus the Cistercian who being rich noble and abounding with all which the world esteems moved by the Sermons of St. Bernard became a Monk in the Monastery of Claraval where after a holy life led in much rigour and austerity he at last became very infirm and through the great grief and pains which he suffered would often fall into faintings and sounding trances but still when he recovered from his fits would cry out It is true it is true which thou hast said O blessed Jesus And to some present who thought the extremity of pain did make him rave he would say Brethren I have spoken this in my right judgement and senses for that which our Lord promised in the Gospel That he who for his sake should leave Father Mother or Goods
as well as Subject owe to the sin of our first Parents May you then being translated hence to the embraces of your Creator experimentally finde the true difference between things temporal and eternal in the blisful vision and fruition of our great All our all-mighty all-lovely all-glorious God who is all wonders at one sight all joyes and comforts in their sourse all blessings in their center the end of all labours the reward of all services the desire of all hearts and the accomplishment of all hopes and wishes May he then be to your Majesty all this which is here briefly expressed and infinitely more which is beyond expression And may he secure all these blessings to you for ever and crown them with his glorious Attribute of Eternity This is the no less hearty then dutiful prayer of MADAM Your Majesties Most humbly devoted In Christ Jesus J. W. A Summary of the Chapters in this Book LIB I. Cap. 1. OVr Ignorance of what are the true goods and not onely of things Eternal but Temporal pa. 1. Cap. 2. How efficacious is the Consideration of Eternity for the change of our lives p. 6. Cap. 3. The memory of Eternity is of it self more efficacious than that of Death p. 12. Cap. 4. The estate of men in this life and the miserable forgetfulness which they have of Eternity p. 18. Cap. 5. What is Eternity according to St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. Dionysius p. 25. Cap. 6. What Eternity is according to Boetius and Plotinus p. 29. Cap. 7. Wherein is declared what Eternity is according to St. Bernard p. 33. Cap. 8. What it is in Eternity to have no end p. 41. Cap. 9. How Eternity is without change p. 52. Cap. 10. How Eternity is without comparison p. 60. Cap. 11. What is Time according to Aristotle and other Philosophers and the little consistence of life p. 68. Cap. 12. How short life is for which respect all things temporal are to be despised p. 74. Cap. 13. What is Time according to St. Augustine p. 82. Cap. 14. Time it the occasion of Eternity and how a Christian ought to benefit himself by it p. 89. Cap. 15. What is Time according to Plato and Plotinus and how deceitful is all that which is temporal p. 98. LIB II. Cap. 1. Of the End of Temporal Life p. 104. Cap. 2. Remarkable Conditions of the end of Temporal Life p. 121. Cap. 3. Of that moment which is the Medium betwixt Time and Eternity which being the end of Life is therefore most terrible p. 140. Cap. 4. Wherefore the End of Life is most terrible p. 147. Cap. 5. How God even in this Life passes a most rigorous Judgement p. 174. Cap. 6. Of the End of all Time p. 181. Cap. 7. How the Elements and the Heavens are to change at the end of Time p. 185. Cap. 8. How the World ought to conclude with so dreadful an End in which a general Judgement is to pass upon all that is in it p. 205. Cap. 9. Of the last day of Time p. 213. LIB III. Cap. 1. The mutability of things temporal makes them worthy of contempt p. 228. Cap. 2. How great and desperate soever our Temporal evils are yet hope may make them tolerable p. 238. Cap. 3. We ought to consider what we may come to be p. 243. Cap. 4. The Change of humane things shews clearly their vanity and how worthy they are to be contemned p. 253. Cap. 5. The baseness and disorder of Temporal things and how great a Monster men have made the World p. 261. Cap. 6. The Littleness of things Temporal p. 269. Cap. 7. How miserable a thing is this Temporal Life p. 285. Cap. 8. How little is Man whilest he is Temporal p. 309. Cap. 9. How deceitful are all things Temporal p. 319. Cap. 10. The dangers and prejudices of things Temporal p. 326. LIB IV. Cap. 1. Of the Greatness of things Eternal p. 337. Cap. 2. The Greatness of the Eternal honour of the Just p. 347. Cap. 3. The Riches of the Eternal Kingdom of Heaven p. 359. Cap. 4. The Greatness of Eternal Pleasures p. 368. Cap. 5. How happy is the Eternal Life of the Just p. 378. Cap. 6. The Excellency and Perfection of the Bodies of the Saints in the Life Eternal p. 389. Cap. 7. How we are to seek after Heaven and to preferr it before all the goods of the Earth p. 399. Cap. 8. Of Evils Eternal and especially of the great Poverty Dishonour and Ignominy of the Damned p. 411. Cap. 9. The Punishment of the Damned from the horribleness of the place into which they are banished from Heaven and made Prisoners in Hell p. 422. Cap. 10. Of the Slavery Chastisement and Pains Eternal p. 429. Cap. 11. Of Eternal Death and Punishment of Talion in the Damned p. 450. Cap. 12. The Fruit which may be drawn from the consideration of Eternal evils p. 459. Cap. 13. The infinite guilt of Mortal Sin by which we lose the felicity of Heaven and fall into eternal evils p. 467. LIB V. Cap. 1. Notable difference betwixt the Temporal and Eternal the one being the End and the other the Means Wherein also is treated of the End for which Man was created p. 487. Cap. 2. By the knowledge of our selves may be known the use of things Temporal and the little esteem we are to make of them p. 506. Cap. 3. The value of goods Eternal is made apparent unto us by the Incarnation of the Son of God p. 515. Cap. 4. The baseness of Temporal goods may likewise appear by the Passion and Death of Christ Jesus p. 524. Cap. 5. The importance of the Eternal because God hath made himself a Means for our obtaining it and hath left his most holy Body as a Pledge of it in the Blessed Sacrament p. 540. Cap. 6. Whether Temporal things are to be demanded of God And that we onely ought to aym in our prayers at goods Eternal p. 553. Cap. 7. How happy are those who renounce Temporal goods for the securing of the Eternal p. 561. Cap. 8. Many who have despised and renounced all that is Temporal p. 569. Cap. 9. The Love which we owe unto God ought so to fill our souls that it leave no place or power to love the Temporal p. 581. Faults escaped in the Print P. 8. L. 25. more R. of more P. 46. L. 28. resting R. rosting P. 65. L. 20. knowest R. knewest p. 139. L. 23. are die R. are to die P. 198. L. 27. Borosus R. Berosus P. 200. L. 29. hard R. hardness P. 232. L. 24. Persians R. Assyrians P. 232. L. 26. Assyrians R. Persians P. 338. L. 10. intention R. intension P. 416. L. 35. the depriving R. in the depriving P. 555. L. 38. know R. knew What else may be faulty the Pen may mend Moreover P. 386. L. 35. after those words any thing to maintain it you may add if you please These representations are to be understood
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
perish not for the paths of this life are full of dangers And with reason did Isidorus Clarius compare it to a narrow Bridge Isid Clar. juxt S. Greg. scarce broad enough to receive our feet under which was a Lake of black and filthy water full of serpents and of ugly and poisonous creatures which onely sustained themselves by feeding on those unfortunate people who fell from the Bridge on either side were pleasant Gardens Meadows Fountains and beautiful Buildings But as it were extream madness in him who was to pass so dangerous a Bridge to entertain himself with gazing upon those Gardens and Buildings without taking care where he set his foot so is it as great a fully in him who is to pass this transitory life to apply himself to pleasures and delights without taking care of his wayes or works To this Cesarius Arelatensis adds That the greatest danger of of this Bridge consisted towards the end where it was narrowest and this is the most streight passage of Death Let us therefore if we intend to gain Heaven look how we place our feet in this life least we misplace them in death and perish in that Eternity wherein our life is to conclude O Eternity Eternity how few there are that provide for thee O Eternity peril of perils and if we miss the mark whereat we ought to aim above all dangers whence comes it that we prepare not for thee whence comes it that we fear thee not which art to endure as long as God is God this present life is but to last a very little time our forces will fail us our senses wax dull our riches leave us the commodities of the world fly from us the want of breath make an end of us and the world at last call us out of it what then will become of us we are to be sent into a strange Countrey for a long time why do we not forecast what to do when we come thither But that we may the better see this our condition and so learn to be more cautious I will relate another Parable of the same St. John Damascen In vita Josaph There was saith he a City very great and populous whereof the Inhabitants had a Custom to elect for their King a stranger who had no knowledge of that Kingdom and Common-wealth This King for a year they suffered to do what he list but that being ended and he most secure without fear or apprehension of any thing amiss thinking he should raign as long as live they suddainly came upon him despoiled him of his royal apparel dragging him naked through the streets and banishing him into an Island far off where he came to suffer extream poverty not having wherewith to feed or cloth himself his fortune without thinking on it wholly changing into the contrary his riches into poverty his joy into sadness his dainties into hunger and his royal purple into nakedness But once it happened that he whom they elected was a prudent and a subtil man and having understood from one of his Counsellors this evil and wicked Custom of the Citizens and their notable inconstancy grew not proud and haughty with the Dignity of the Kingdom which they had conferred upon him but became careful in providing for himself that when he should be deposed and banished into that Island which he every moment expected he might not as his Predecessours perish with poverty and hunger The course he took was during his Reign to transport secretly into that Island all the Treasures of the City which were very great The year being ended the Citizens according to their Custome with his Predecessours came in an uproar to depose him of his Office and Royalty and to send him in exile into the Island whither he went without trouble having before-hand provided wherewith he might live in honour and plenty whilst the preceding Kings perish'd with want and penury This is that which passes in this world and the course which a wise man ought to take That City signifies this world foolish vain and most inconstant wherein when we think to reign we are suddenly despoiled of all we have and sent naked into our Graves when we least look for it and are most busie in enjoying and entertaining our selves with the fading and transitory pleasures of this life as if we were immortal without so much as thinking on Eternity whither we are in a short time to be banisht A Region far off and far removed from our thoughts whither we are to go naked and forsaken of all where we are to perish with an eternal death and shall only live to be tormented into a Land of the dead obscure and dark where no light enters but everlasting horrour and eternal sorrow inhabits He is therefore wise who foreseeing that he is to be despoiled of all he hath in this world provides for the next making such use of time in this life that he may finde the profit of it in Eternity and with the holy works of pennance charity and alms transports his Treasures into that Region where he is to dwell for ever Let us therefore think upon the Eternal and for it despise the Temporal and we shall gain both the one and the other The consideration of Eternity St. Gregory understood to be figured by the Store-house well furnished with precious wine into which the Spouse saith that the Bridegroom brought her and in her ordained Charity because saith he he who shall with a profound attention consider in his mind Eternity may glory in himself saying he hath ordained in me charity by which thought he shall better preserve the order of love loving himself the less and God and all things for God the more he shall not make use of the temporal things of this life not even of those which are most necessary but in order to the Eternal CAP. V. What is Eternity according to St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. Dionysius LEt us therefore begin to declare something of what is inexplicable and to frame some kind of conception of what is incomprehensible whereby Christians knowing or to speak more properly being less ignorant of what is Eternity they may have a horrour either to commit a sin or to omit an act of vertue trembling in themselves that for matters of so small value as are those of the Earth they are to lose things so great and precious as are those of Heaven Agrippina perceiving the great lavishness of her Son who poured out gold and silver as if it had been water desirous to reform his prodigality upon a time when the Emperour had commanded about a quarter of a Million to be bestowed upon some Minion of his caused that Money and as much more to be spread upon a Table and placed where he was to pass to the end that seeing with his own eyes the mighty mass of Treasure which he so wastfully mispent he might after with more discretion moderate his vast expences
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
comes it then that a Dwarf or Pigmey in time affrights us and an armed Giant in eternity makes us not tremble how is it that eternal hell moves us not and yet we fear a temporal pain how is it we do not penance for our sins why have we not patience in our afflictions why suffer we not all that which can be suffered in this life rather than to suffer one onely torment in eternity The pains of this valley of tears being they are to have an end are not to be feared in comparison of those which shall never have it how contentedly then ought we to suffer here a little and for a short time that we may be freed from suffering much hereafter and for ever What we have considered in evils and afflictions the same is to be considered in goods and blessings If one were to enjoy all the pleasures of the senses for a thousand miriads of years but were to pass no further we ought to change them all for one onely pleasure that would last for ever Why then exchange we not one perishing pleasure of the earth which is to last but for a moment for all those immense joyes which we are to possess in Heaven for a world without end All the temporal goods of the world might well be quitted for the securing of only one that were eternal how is it then that we secure not all the eternal by forbearing now and then one which is temporal It would infinitely exceed the Dominion of the whole world so long as the world shall last to be Lord but of one little Cottage for eternity time holds no comparison with it all that is temporal how great soever being to be esteemed vile and base and all that is eternal how small soever high and precious And that we may exaggerate this consideration as much as possible the very being of God himself if it were but for a time might be quitted for some other infinitely less excellent which were eternal And shall then the covetous man satisfie himself with those poor treasures which death may quit him of to morrow and perhaps the Theef to day despising for them the eternal treasure of Heaven For certain if God should promise as to enjoy the pleasure of one onely sense for ever in the next life we ought for it to part with all the pleasures we have in this how huge a folly is it then that promising all those immense joyes of Heaven we will not for all them together part with some of those poor ones on earth The second way by which Eternity unto whatsoever it is joyned makes the good infinitely better and the bad infinitely worse is because it collects it self wholly into every instant so that in every instant it makes us sensible of all that which it is to contain in its whole duration and being to endure for an infinity it amasses as it were into every instant a whole infinity of pleasure or pain every instant being sensible both of what it contains at present what is past and what it shall contain in future So as a Doctor sayes Les de perfec divi lib. 4. c. 3. In Eternity all the good a thing can contain successively in an infinite time is recollected into one instant and made perceptible and enjoyable all at once As if all the pleasures a most delicious Banquet could afford successively by parts and that in an infinite time should be resumed all at once and all that delight should be conferred joyntly and together for eternity certainly this would make it infinitely better and of more esteem The same thing Eternity causes in evils and pains recollecting them in a certain manner into one and making them sensible all at once and although they be not all really and actually together yet it causes them to be apprehended altogether and so produces in the Soul a grief infinite and without limit Those then are truly evils which are totally and every way evils both in extension their duration having no end and in intension their being and essence having no limit or measure What afflicted person who considers this can be impatient since all the griefs of this life have both an end and limit The greatest temporal evils are but as biting of gnats in respect of the least of those which are eternal and therefore that we may escape all the eternal it is not much to suffer one temporal Let us tremble at the consideration of those two lances of Eternity those two infinities whose wounds are mortal and pierce the damned from side to side those two unsupportable rocks which overwhelm and crush whom they fall upon into pieces All that we suffer here is to be laughed at a fillip with a finger a trifle in respect of the eternal which embraces all times and with the evils of them all falls every instant upon the head of the damned §. 2. Besides what hath been already said Goods and Evils eternal have this condition that they are not onely qualified and augmented by the future but also by what is past although temporal so as the blessed Souls in Heaven not only enjoy the glory which they have in present and that which is to come but also what is past even unto those real and true goods of this life to wit their vertues and good works with the memory of which they recreate and congratulate themselves for all eternity in so much as all goods past present and to come concur in one to fill up the measure of their joy and the goods of all times even of those of this life are amassed and heaped up in their felicity How different from this are temporal goods since even those which we possess in present suffer not themselves to be entirely enjoyed here is no good which is not alloyed by some want danger or imperfection And if for the present they afford so little content much less do they for the future since the security of what we possess is so uncertain that the fear of losing it often disseasons the present gust The same fear also robbs our remembrance of the comfort of what is past since we fear to lose that most which we have formerly taken most pleasure in enjoying On all sides then the eternal goods are much more excellent unto which we ought to aspire and strive to purchase them even at the cost of all which is temporal and in this life as much as may be to imitate the same eternity the which is to be done by the practice of those three Vertues which St. Bernard recommends unto us in these words Serm. 1. in Festo Om. Sact. With Poverty of spirit with Meekness and Contrition of heart is renewed in the Soul a similitude and image of that Eternity which embraces all times For with poverty of spirit we merit the future with meekness we possess the present and with the tears of repentance recover what is past And truely he
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
much happiness he had not made use of it although the misfortune chanced without his fault But the miserable damned in hell when they shall perceive that by their own fault they have lost the occasion of so great blessings as are those of heaven it is incredible what grief and resentment shall possess them CAP. XV. What is Time according to Plato and Plotinus and how deceitful is all that which is temporal THat we may yet better understand the smalness and baseness of all which is temporal I will not pass in silence the description of Time made by Platinus a famous Philosopher amongst the Platonicks who sayes that Time is an Image or Shadow of Eternity The which is conformable unto holy Scripture not onely unto that of David when he sayes that Man passes in a figure that is in time but unto that of the Wise-man Sap. 2. who defines Time in these words Our Time is the passing of a Shadow The which is no other than the imperfect moveable and vain Image of a thing consistent and solid Job 8. Job also sayes As a shadow are our dayes upon the earth And the Prophet David elsewhere My dayes have slided away as a shadow And in many other places of Scripture the same comparison is used to signifie the swiftness of Time and the vanity of our life Neither is it without mystery that the same comparison is so often used in those sacred Writings For truly few comparisons can be found more apt and proportionable for the expressing of what is Time and Eternity than that of a Statue and the Swadow of it For as a Statue remains for many years and Ages firm stable and immoveable without encrease or diminution whilest the Shadow is in continual motion now greater now lesser So is it with Time and Eternity Eternity is firm fixed and immoveable without receiving less or more Time is ever moving and changing as the Shadow which is great in the morning less at mid-day and towards night returns to its former greatness every moment changing and moving from one side unto another In the same manner the life of man hath no instant fixt but still goes on in perpetual changes and in the greatest prosperity is for the most part shortest Aman the same day he thought to sit at the Table of King Assuerus Esth 3. 7. by whom he had been exalted above all the Princes of his Kingdom was ignominiously hang'd Jud. 13. Holofernes when he hoped to enjoy the best day of his life was miserably beheaded by a woman King Baltassar in the most solemn and celebrated day of his whole raign Dan. 5. wherein he made ostentation of his great riches and royal entertainment was slain by the Persians Act. 12. Herod when he most desired to shew his Majesty being cloathed in a rich habit of Tissue embroidered with gold and by the acclamations of the people saluted as a God was mortally struck from heaven There is nothing constant in this life The Moon hath every Moneth her changes but the life of man hath them every day every hour Now he is sick now in health now sorrowful now merry now cholerick Sinesius hym 6. now fearful in so much as Sinesius not without reason compared his life unto Euripus a Streight of the Sea which ebbs and flows seaven times in a day as the most constant which is the most just man in the world falls every day seaven times The shadow wheresoever it passes leaves no track behinde it and of the greatest personages in the world when they are once dead there remains no more than if they had never lived How many preceding Emperors in the Assyrian Monarchy were Lords of the world as well as Alexander and now we remain not onely ignorant of their Monuments but know not so much as their names And of the same great Alexander what have we at this day except the vain noise of his fame Venus Alsâ—rsus Kikâ—â—ius de noviss art 4. Let that Company of Philosophers inform us who the day following assembled at his dead Corps One of them said Yesterday the whole circumference of the world sufficed not Alexander this day two yards of ground serve his turn Another in admiration cried out Yesterday Alexander was able to redeem innumerable people from the hands of death this day he cannot free himself A third exclaims Yesterday Alexander oppressed the whole earth and this day the earth oppresses him and there is no footstep in it left by which he passed Moreover how great is the difference betwixt a Statua of Gold or Marble and the Shadow That is solid and of a precious substance and this hath no being or body In the same manner the life eternal is most precious and of great concernment the temporal vain and miserable without substance The Shadow hath no other being but to be a privation of the most excellent quality in nature and of the most beautiful thing the world produces which is the light of the Sun In the same manner this life without substance or being is a privation of our greatest happiness Wherefore Job said Job 9. His dayes fled away and his eyes saw not what was good This said he who was a Prince and possessed great riches and many Servants and a numerous Family and yet he sayes that in his life he saw not what was good which he might say with much truth because the goods of this life are not to be called such and if they were yet the pleasure of them endures so short a space as they are done before we are sensible of them and if they should continue some time yet being subject to end they are to be esteemed as if they were not The which was confessed by a certain Cavalier called Rowland Hist de S. Dom. who having been present at a Feast celebrated with great cost and bravery to the high content and satisfaction of the invited Guests at night when he returned home cried out with much bitterness of spirit Where is the Feast we had to day where is the glory of it how is this day past without leaving any tract behinde it even so shall the rest of this life pass without leaving any thing to suceed it but eternal sorrow This consideration sufficed to make him change his life and the next day to enter into Religion And as in a shadow all is obscurity so this life is full of darkness and deceit Whereupon Zacharias said That men sat in darkness and in the shadow of death Much are we deceived whilest we live in this body of death since this life although short appears long unto us and being miserable yet we are pleased and content with it and being nothing yet it seems as if it were all things and there is not any danger which men undergoe not for the love they bear it even unto the hazard of Eternity Doubtless this is the most prejudicial
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
make the poor Philosopher to forbear his dinner and not to relish one morsel of the Feast with pleasure Thou then who art no more secure of thy life than he how canst thou delight in the pleasures of the world he who every moment expects death ought no moment to delight in life This onely consideration of death according to Ricardus was sufficient to make us distaste all the pleasures of the earth A great danger or fear suffices to take away the sense of lesser joyes and what greater danger then that of Eternity Death is therefore uncertain that thou shouldest be ever certain to despise this life and dispose thy self for the other Thou art every hour in danger of death to the end that thou shouldest be every hour prepared to leave life What is death but the way unto eternity A great journey thou hast to make wherefore doest thou not provide in time and the rather because thou knowest not how soon thou mayest be forced to depart The People of God because they knew not when they were to march were for forty years which they remained in the Wilderness ever in a readiness Be thou then ever in a readiness since thou mayst perhaps depart to day Consider there is much to do in dying prepare thy self whilest thou hast time and do it well For this many years were necessary wherefore since thou knowest not whether thou shalt have one day allowed thee why doest thou not this day begin to dispose thy self If when thou makest a short journey and hast furnished and provided thy self of all things fitting yet thou commonly findest something to be forgotten how comes it to pass that for so long a journey as is the Region of Eternity thou thinkest thy self sufficiently provided when thou hast scarce begun to think of it Who is there who does not desire to have served God faithfully two years before death should take him if then thou art not secure of one why doest thou not begin Trust not in thy health or youth for death steals treacherously upon us when we least look for it for according to the saying of Christ our Redeemer it will come in an hour when it is not thought on And the Apostle said the day of the Lord would come like a theef in the night when none were aware of it and when the Master of the house was in a profound sleep Promise not thy self to morrow for thou knowest not whether death will come to night The day before the Children of Israel went forth of Egypt how many of that Kingdom young Lords and Princes of Families promised themselves to doe great matters the next day or perhaps within a year after yet none of them lived to see the morning Wisely did Messodamus who as Guido Bituricensis writes when one invited him forth the next day to dinner answered My friend why doest thou summon me for to morrow since it is many years that I durst not promise any thing for the day following every hour I look for death there is no trust to be given to strength of Body youthful years much riches or humane hopes Hear what God sayes to the Prophet Amos Amos 8. In that day the Sun shall set at midday and I will over-cast the earth with darkness in the day of light What is the setting of the Sun at midday but when men think they are in the middest of their life in the flower of their age when they hope to live many years to possess great wealth to marry rich wives to shine in the world then death comes and over-shadows the brightness of their day with a cloud of sorrow as it happened in the Story related by Alexander Faya Alex. Faya To. 2. Ladislaus King of Hungary and Bohemia sent a most solemn Embassage unto Charles King of France for the conducting home of that Kings Daughter who was espoused unto the Prince his Son The chief Embassador elected for this journey was Vdabricas Bishop of Passaw for whose Attendants were selected 200 principal men of Hungary 200 of Bohemia and other 200 of Austria all persons of eminent Birth and Nobility so richly clad and in so brave an Equipage that they appeared as so many Princes To these the Bishop added an hundred Gentlemen chosen out of his own Subjects so that they passed through France 700 Gentlemen in company most richly accoutred and for the greater Pomp and Magnificence of the Embassage there went along with them 400 beautiful Ladies in sumptuous habits and adorned with most costly jewels the Coaches which carried them were studded with gold and enchased with stones of value Besides all this were many Gifts and rich Garments of inestimable price which they brought along with them for Presents But the very day that this glorious Embassage entred Paris before they came at the place appointed for their entertainment a Curriere arrived with the news of the death of the espoused Prince Such was the grief that struck the heart of the French King with so unexpected a news as he could neither give an answer to the Embassage nor speak with the Embassadour or those who accompanied him and so they departed most sorrowful from Paris and every one returned unto his own home In this manner God knows by the means of death to fill the earth with darkness and sorrow in the day of greatest brightness as he spake by his Prophet Since then thou knowest not when thou art to dye think thou must dye to day and be ever prepared for that which may ever happen Trust in the mercies of God and imploy them incessantly but presume not to deferre thy conversion for a moment For who knows whether thou shalt ever from hence forward have time to invoke him and having invoked him whether thou shalt deserve to be heard Know that the mercy of God is not promised to those who therefore trust in him that they may sin with hope of pardon but unto those who fearing his Divine Justice cease to offend him wherefore St. Cregory says The mercies of Almighty God forget him Greg. in moral who forgets his Justice nor shall he find him merciful who does not fear him just For this it is so often repeated in Scripture That the mercy of God is for those who fear him And in one part it is said The mercy of the Lord from eternity unto eternity is upon those who fear him And in anothâ—r As the Father hath mercy on his Son so the Lord hath mercy on these who fear him In another According to the height from earth unto heaven he has corroborated his mercy upon those that fear him Finally the very Mother of mercy sayes in her Divine Canticle That the mercy of the Lord is from generation to generation upon those who fear him Thou seest then that the Divine mercy is not promised unto all and that thou shalt remain excluded from it whilest thou presumest and doest not fear his justice And
it in this manner for to conceive it as it is in it self the understanding of Angels were not sufficient Here may be applyed that which antiquity admired in two great and famous Painters Apelles went to Rhodes to see Protogenes and not finding him at home took a Pensil and drew a most subtle line charging the Servants that they should tell their Master that he who drew that line was there to seek him When Protogenes returned they told him what had happened who took the Pensil and drew a stroke of another colour through the middle of that which Apelles had drawn and going about his business commanded his Servants that if he came again they should tell him that he whom he sought for had drawn that line through the middle of his It seemed there could not be imagined a higher favour and Courtship than that of the Eternal Father to have given his onely Son and have delivered him up to death for man but through the middle of this favour the Son drew another of most excessive fineness and subtilty which is the institution of the most blessed Sacrament the which some call an Extension of the Incarnation and is a Representation of the Passion and a Character and Memorial of the Wonders of God Here truely did the Son of God draw the stroke of his infinite love and consummated all the Divine benefits not onely giving himself for our benefit and behoof but entring into our very breasts to solicit our love and affection Anacreon writes That standing at defiance with the God of love and having resisted all his arrows the God at last when he had no more to shoot shot himself and penetrating his heart and entrails compell'd him to yield What other are the benefits of our Lord God than so many arrows of love which Man resists and not rendring himself neither at the benefit of Creation Conservation Incarnation or Passion let him at last render himself at this when God shoots himself into him and enters into his very breast and bowels to solicite his love If he resist this also what judgements expect him Whereupon St. Paul sayes that he who presumes to communicate unworthily eats and drinks the judgement of God that is swallows down the whole weight of Divine justice Consider then how dreadful it shall be unto a Sinner when he shall receive a charge not onely of his own being and his own life but also of the being and life or God of the Incarnation Passion Life and Death of Christ our Redeemer who hath so often given himself unto him in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood The Murtherer who stands charged with the life of a man although it be of some wicked person yet fears to be apprehended and brought to judgement how is it then that he who is charged with the life of God trembles not O how fearful a thing is it when a vile creature shall enter into judgement with his Creatour and shall be demanded an account of the blood of Christ whose value is infinite What account can he give of such a benefit and of all the rest which he hath received even from the greatest unto the least when Christ shall say unto him those words of St. Chrisostome Chrysost hom 24. in Math. I when thou hadst no being gave thee one inspired thee with a Soul and placed thee above all things that are upon the Earth I for thee created Heaven Air Sea Earth and all things and yet am dishonoured by thee and held more vile and base than the Devil himself and yet for all this have not ceased to do thee good and bestowed upon thee innumerable benefits For thy sake being God I was content to make my self a Servant was buffetted spit upon and condemned to a punishment of Slaves and to redeem thee from death suffered the death of the Cross In Heaven I interceded for thee and from thence sent thee the Holy Ghost I invited thee unto the Kingdom of Heaven offered my self to be thy Head thy Spouse thy Garment thy House thy Root thy Food thy Drink thy Shepheard thy Brother I chose thee for the Heir of Heaven and drew thee out of darkness unto light To such excesses of love what have we to answer but to stand astonisht and confounded that we have been so ungrateful and given occasion to the Devil of one of the greatest scorns and injuries which could be put upon our Redeemer when he shall say unto him Thou createdst man for him wast born in poverty livedst in labours and diedst in pain and torments I have done nothing for him but would have drunk his blood and sought to damn him into a thousand hells and yet for all this it is I whom he strives to please and not thee Thou doest prepare for him a Crown of eternal glory I desire to torment him in hell and yet he had rather serve me without interest than thee for thy promise of so great a reward I should have been ashamed to have created and redeemed a wretch so ungrateful unto him from whom he hath received so great benefits but since he loves me better than thee let him be mine unto whom he hath so often given up himself We are not onely to give an account of these general benefits but of those which are more particular of the good examples which we have seen of the instructions which we have heard of the inspirations which have been sent us and the Sacraments which we have received we have much to do to correspond with all these Let us therefore tremble at that strict judgement let us tremble at our selves who are so careless of that for which all the care in the world is not sufficient And if it were not for the blood of Christ what would become of us but the time of benefitting our selves by that will be then past now is the time and if we shall now despise and outrage it in what case shall we be Let us not mispend the time of this life since so severe an account will be demanded of all the benefits which we have received one of which is the Time of this temporal life and the blessings of it Let us take heed what use we make of it let us not lose it since we are to answer for every part of it Sopronin Prato spirituali ca. 59. de Beato Thalilaeo This made holy Thalileus tremble and weep bitterly who being asked the cause of his tears answered This time is bestowed upon us wherein to do penance and a most strict account will be demanded of us if we despise it It is not ours for which we are to answer we are not the Lords of time let us not therefore dispose of it for our own pleasure but for the service of God whose it is This consideration were sufficient to with-draw our affection from the goods of this life and to settle it upon those which are eternal since we are
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
purified in that general burning and then shall be renewed the Earth the Heavens the Stars and the Sun which shall shine seaven times more than before and the creatures which have here been violated and oppressed by the abuse of man whereof some had taken armes against him to revenge the injuries of their Creatour and others groaned under their burthen with grief and sorrow shall then rejoyce to see themselves freed from the tyranny of sin and sinners and joyful of the triumph of Christ shall put on mirth and gladness This is the end wherein all time is to determine and this the Catastrophe so fearful unto the wicked where all things temporal are to conclude Let us therefore take heed how we use them and that we may use them well let us be mindful of this last day this day of justice and calamity this day of terrour and amazement the memory whereof will serve much for the reformation of our lives Let us think of it and fear it for it is the most terrible of all things terrible and the consideration of it most profitable and available to cause in us a holy fear of God and to convert us unto him Joh. Curopol in hist apud Rad. in opusc in vitis PP Occidentis John Curopolata writes of Bogoris King of the Bulgarians a Pagan who was so much addicted to the hunting of wilde beasts that he desired to have them painted in his Palace in all their fury and fierceness and to that end commanded Methodius the Monk a skilful Painter to paint them in so horrible a manner as the very sight might make the beholders tremble The discreet Monk did it not but in place of it painted the Day of Judgement and presented it unto the King who beholding that terrible act of Justice and the coming of the Son of God to judge the World crowning and rewarding the just and punishing the wicked was much astonished at it and being after instructed left his bad life and was converted to the faith of Christ If onely then the Day of Judgement painted was so terrible what shall it be executed Almost the same happened unto St. Dositheus Anon. in Elog. Dorothei Dosithei who being a young man cokored and brought up in pleasures had not in his whole life so much as heard of the Day of Judgement until by chance he beheld a Picture in which were represented the pains of the damned at which he was much amazed and not knowing what it was was informed of it by a Matron present which he apprehended so deeply that he fell half dead upon the ground not being able to breath for fear and terrour after coming to himself he demanded what he should doe to avoid that miserable condition it was answered him by the same Matron that he should fast pray and abstain from flesh which he immediately put in execution And though many of his house and kindred endeavoured to divert and disswade him yet the holy fear of God and the dread of eternal condemnation which he might incurre remained so fixt in his memory that nothing could withdraw him from his rigorous penance and holy resolution until becoming a Monk he continued with much fruit and profit Let us therefore whiles we live ever preserve in our memory this day of terrour that we may hereafter enjoy security for the whole eternity of God THE THIRD BOOK OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWIXT THE TEMPORAL and ETERNAL CAP. I. The mutability of things temporal makes them worthy of contempt HItherto we have spoken of the shortness of time and consequently of all things temporal and of the end wherein they are to conclude Nothing is exempted from death and therefore not onely humane life but all things which follow time and even time it self at last must die Wherefore Hesichius Damas in Par. l. 1. as he is translated by St. John Damascen saith That the splendour of this world is but as withered leaves bubles of water smoke stubble a shadow and dust driven by the wind all things that are of earth being to end in earth But this is not all for besides the certainty of end they are infected with another mischief which renders them much more contemptible than that which is their instability and continual changes whereunto they are subject even whilest they are For as time it self is in a perpetual succession and mutation as being the brother and inseparable companion of Motion so it fixes this ill condition unto most of those things which pass along in it the which not onely have an end and that a short one but even during that shortness of time which they last have a thousand changes and before their end many ends and before their death many deaths each particular change which our life suffers being the death of some estate or part of if For as death is the total change of life so every change is the death of Come part Sickness is the death of health sleeping of waking sorrow of joy impatience of quiet youth of infancy and age of youth The same condition hath the universal world and all things in it for which cause they deserve so much contempt that Marcus Aurelius the Emperour wondered that there could be found a man so senseless Aur. Anton l. 6. de vita sua as to value them and therefore speaks in this manner Of that very thing which is now in doing some part is already vanisht changes and alterations continually innovate the world as that immense space of time by a perpetual flux renews it self Who therefore shall esteem those things which never subsist but pass along in this headlong and precipitate river of time is as he who sets his affection upon some little bird which passes along in the air and is no more seen Thus much from this Philosopher This very cause of the little value of things temporal proceeding from their perpetual changes together with the end whereunto they are subject is as St. Gregory notes signified unto us by that Woman in the Apocalyps Greg. l. 34. moral who had the Moon under her feet and her head adorned with twelve Stars Certainly the Moon as well as the Stars might have been placed in her Diadem but it was trod under foot by reason of the continual changes and alterations which it suffers whereby it becomes a figure of things temporal which change not onely every Moneth but every day the same day being as Euripides sayes now a Mother then a Stepmother The same was also signified by the Angel Apoc. 10. who crowned with a Rainbow descended from heaven to proclaim that all time was to end with his right foot which presses and treads more firmly he stood upon the Sea which by reason of its great unquietness is also a figure of the instability of this World And therefore with much reason did the Angel who had taught us by his voice that all time and temporal things
tears advised him to hang it upon the Gallows to supply the room of the Malefactor Such is the inconstancy of humane hearts more variable than seems possible which changing in themselves draw within their compass the rest of the hings of this World Philo considering and admiring so great vanity and change Philo. l. de Jos speaks after this manner Perhaps those things which concern the Body are they not dreams perhaps this momentary beauty does it not wither even before it flourish our health is uncertain exposed to so many infirmities a thousand griefs happening by divers occasions abate our strength and forces the quickness and vigour of our senses are corrupted by vitious humours Who then can be ignorant of the baseness of exteriour things One day often makes an end of great riches many Personages of great honour and esteem changing their fortune become infamous great Empires and Kingdoms have in a short time been ruined Of this Dionysius is a sufficient witness who thrust from his Throne from a King of Sicily became a School-master in Gorinth and taught boyes The like happened unto Craesus the most rich King of Lydia who being in hope to overthrow the Persians not onely lost his own Kingdom but fell into the power of his enemies and failed little of being burnt alive Particular persons are not onely witnesses that all humane things are dreams but Cities Nations Kingdoms Greeks and Barbarians the Isles and those who inhabit the Continent of Europe Asia the East and West nothing remains like unto it self Certainly as Philo sayes the instability of humane things makes them appear not onely a dream but as a dream of a shadow rather than of any thing solid and consistent Hom. de poenit Let us hear also what St. Chrysostome sayes and counsels us concerning the same matter All things present saith he are more frail and weak than the webs of spiders and more deceitful than dreams for as well the goods as evils have their end Since therefore we esteem things present but as a dream and we our selves to be but as in a Inn from whence we are sodainly to depart let us take care for our journey and furnish our selves with provision and a Viaticum for eternity let us cloath our selves with such garments as we may carry along with us For as no man can lay hold on his Shadow so no man retains things humane which partly in death and partly before death fly from us and run more swiftly than a rapid river To the contrary are those things which are to come which neither suffer age nor change nor are subject to revolutions but perpetually flourish and persevere in a continued felicity Take heed then of admiring those riches which remain not with their Masters but change in every instant and leap from one to another and from this to that It behooves thee to despise all those things and to esteem them as nothing Let it suffice to hear what the Apostle sayes The things that are seen are temporal but those which are not seen are eternal Things humane disappear more sodainly than a shadow CAP. II. How great and desperate soever our Temporal evils are yet hope may make them tolerable FRom this inconstancy of humane things we may extract a constancy for our selves First by despising things so frail and transitory which as we have already said is a sufficient ground for their contempt Secondly by a resolute hope and expectation of an end or change in our adversity and afflictions since nothing here below is constant but all mutable and unstable and as things sometimes change from good to evil so they may also from evil unto good And as great prosperity hath often been the occasion of greater misery so we may hope our greatest misfortunes may produce a greater happiness Wherefore as in eternal evils because immutable we want the hope of a happy condition so in temporal evils how great soever we ought not to despair which we daily see confirmed with most unexpected successes Let us therefore onely fear eternal evils which are not capable of remedy and let us not despair and afflict our selves for the temporal which hath it and imports little whether it have it or no. This is not ill exprest by that which happened unto the Roman Appius Fulgos l. 6. who being proscribed and condemned to banishment became by the treachery of his Slaves and Servants in danger of his life who out of covetousness to possess themselves of the goods and treasure which he carried along with him cast him forth into a small Shallop and sailed away with the Ship But from this misfortune sprung his deliverance For not long after the Ship sunk in which his Slaves were drowned and he himself who had perished if he had been with them escaped with this little loss and came safe into Sicily Aristomenes being taken by his enemies and cast into an obscure Dungeon was there at least by famine and unwholesomness of the place to end his dayes but in the middest of despair an unexpected accident gave him hope of delivery A Fox by chance passing through a little hole under ground entred into the Dungeon where he had made his Den which being espied by Aristomenes he laid fast hold on him with one hand and with the other enlarged the passage and voiding the loose earth as he went followed his guide who at last safely conducted him into the open field from whence he escaped in safety when his enemies thought he had been dead There is no condition of life so miserable wherein we ought to despair nay wherein we may not hope of bettering our fortunes To how many hath a seeming unlucky accident been the occasion of great preferment and a disgrace of honours Diogenes his being condemned for false money and held for an infamous person was the occasion of his receiving respect and honour from Princes Plin. l. 7. c. 50. ' Alexander the Master of the World coming to visit him Phalareus being wounded in his breast by his enemies was cured of an Imposthume held desperate by the Physicians Gal. l. de Sim. ca. 11. Galen writes of a Leper who was cured by drinking a little wine wherein a Viper was by chance drowned which the Reapers not being willing to drink themselves gave him out of compassion thinking to kill him quickly and rid him out of those grievous pains which he endured but that which they thought would be his death became his life for the drinking of the wine caused the scales and scurf of his flesh to fall and restored him to his health Benive c. 15. Benivenius testifies that he knew a Boy that was lame of both feet in such sort that he could not goe without Crutches but being struck with the plague and recovering his health he remained sound of his feet and without lameness The same Author writes of a certain Architect who had one leg shorter than
pointing with his finger simply told him That was he And wherefore replyed the Saint is this man more to be esteemed than the rest is it perhaps because he is more vertuous or is it because he is adorned with more exterior lustre and bravery is not he likewise to die as well as the most poor and unknown beggar is he not to be buried is he not as well as the rest of men to appear before the just Judge Wherefore then doest thou value those things which are to pass as if they were to last for ever Wherefore doest thou admire that which hath no consistence It were fitter for thee to place thy eyes and heart upon things eternal and incorruptible and to be enamoured of those which are not subject to change and death The same Disciple of Spiridion being now Bishop travelled one time with his Master who was then also Archbishop of Trimitunte and as they came to a certain place where the fields were very fertile and pleasant the Disciple being much taken with them began to cast within himself how he might compass an Inheritance in that good Country and lay it to his Church The Saint who understood his thoughts gave him this sweet and gentle reprehension To what purpose dear Brother doest thou trouble thy thoughts with things so vain and of so little substance Wherefore doest thou desire Land and Vineyards to labour and cultivate doest thou not know that these things are onely of an outward appearance and within are nothing or at least are worth nothing We have an Inheritance in Heaven which none can take from us There we have a house not made by the hands of men Look after those goods and begin now even before the time by the vertue of hope to enjoy them Those goods are of that condition that if you once possess them and make your self Lord of them you shall be then their eternal heir and your Inheritance shall never pass to others Let one place himself in the point of death and let him from thence on the one part behold the littleness of all things temporal which are now past and on the other the greatness of Eternity whereinto he enters which shall never pass and he shall easily discover how all the greatness and commodities of this life are for their littleness and short endurance rather worthy of laughter than admiration CAP. VII How miserable a thing is this Temporal Life LEt us also consider more particularly the substance and bulk of humane life which we so much esteem and we shall not a little wonder how so many and so great misfortunes can happen in so short a space Whereupon Phalaris the Agregentin was used to say That if a man before he was born knew what he was to suffer in life he would not be born at all For this reason some Philosophers repenting that they lived would blaspheme Nature railing at it with a thousand complaints and injuries because to the best of living things it had given so bad and wretched a life not reaching so high as to know that this was an effect of the fault of man and not a fault of Nature or Divine Providence Pliny would say That Nature was but a Stepmother to mankind and Silenus being demanded what was the greatest happiness man was capable of said Not to be born or die quickly The great Philosopher and Emperour Marcus Aurelius considering humane misery spake in this discreet manner Aurel. Anton. in sua Philosoph The warre of this life is dangerous and the end and issue of it so terrible and dreadful that I am certain that if any of the ancient should rise again and recount unto us faithfully and give us a view of his life past from the time he came out of his Mothers womb unto his last gasp the body relating at large the pains and griefs it hath suffered and the heart the alarms it hath received from fortune that all men would be amazed at a body that had endured so much and at a heart that had gained so great a victory and dissembled it I here confess freely and although to my shame yet for the profit that may redound to future ages that in the space of fifty years which I have lived I have desired to prove the utmost of all the vices and excesses of this life to see if the malice of man had any bounds and limits and I finde after long and serious inquisition that the more I eat the more is my hunger and the more I drink the greater is my thirst if I sleep much the more is my desire to sleep the more I rest the more weary and indisposed I finde my self the more I have the more I covet and the more I grasp the less I hold Finally I attain to nothing which doth not surfeit and cloy me and then presently I abhorre it and desire something else This is the judgement of Philosophers concerning the miseries of mans life The same is that of the Wiseman Eccl. 3. when he sayes All the dayes of man are full of grief and misery neither do his thoughts rest at night Stob. ser 96. With reason did Democritus say That the life of man was most miserable since those who seek for Good hardly finde it and Evil comes of it self and enters our gates unsought for insomuch as our life is alwayes exposed unto innumerable dangers injuries losses and so many infirmities that according to Pliny and many Physicians Greeks and Arabians there were more than thirty several sorts of new diseases discovered in the space of a few years and now every day they finde out others and some so cruel as they are not to be named without horrour Neither speak I onely of the infirmities but of their remedies For even griefs known and common are cured by cauterizing with fire by sawing off a member by tripanizing the scull or drawing bones from it Some have been cured with the opening the belly and drawing forth the guts Others by reason of the great malice of the disease are cured with so strange diets that the sick persons as Cornelius Celsus writes have for very thirst drunk their Urine and eaten their Plasters for raging hunger Others are prescribed to eat Snakes Mice Worms and other loathsome Vermin But above all the cure of Palaeologus the Second Emperour of Constantinople was most cruel and extravagant whose infirmity after a years continuance found no other remedy but to be continually vext and displeased his Wife and Servants who most desired his health having no wayes to restore it but by disobedience still crossing and opposing him in what he most desired a harsh cure for a Prince If remedies be so great evils what are the infirmities The sickness of Angelus Politianus was so vehement that he knockt his head against the walls That of Mecoenas so strange that he slept not nor closed his eyes in three whole years That of Antiochus so pestilential
undefiled superiour to all grief and pleasure that thou do nothing without a good end nothing feignedly or falsely and that thou regard not what another man does or has to doe Besides that all things which happen thou receive as sent from thence from whence thou thy self art derived Finally that thou attend death with a quiet and temperate minde This is from that great Philosopher CAP. X. The dangers and prejudices of things Temporal THe least evil which we receive from the goods of this world is to deceive and frustrate our hopes and he comes well off whom they forsake onely with a mock For there are many who not onely fail of what they desire but meet with what they abhorre and in place of ease and content meet with trouble and vexation and instead of life finde death and that which they most affect turns often to their destruction Absolon being very beautiful gloried in nothing more than his hair but even those became the instrument of his death and those which he daily combed as if they had been threads of gold served as a halter to hang him upon an Oak To how many have riches which they loved as their life been an occasion of death This is the calamity of the goods of the earth which the Wise-man noted when he said Eccle. 5. Another dangerous evil I beheld under the Sun riches preserved for the destruction of their owner This is the general and incurable infirmity of riches that when they are possessed with affection they turn into the ruine of their possessors either in soul or body and oftentimes in both in so much as we are not to look upon temporal goods as vain and deceitful but as Parricides and our betrayers With much reason the two great Prophets Isaias and Ezechiel compare Egypt by which is signified the world and humane prosperity unto a reed which if you lean upon it breaks and the splinters wound your hands No less brittle than a reed are temporal goods but more dangerous Besides the other faults wherewith they may be charged a very great one is the hurts they doe to life it self for whose good they are desired and are commonly not onely hurtful unto the life eternal but prejudicial even unto the temporal How many for their desire to obtain them have lost the happiness of heaven and the quiet felicity of the earth enduring before death a life of death and by their cares griefs fears troubles labours and afflictions which are caused even by the greatest abundance and felicity before they enter into the hell of the other world suffer a hell in this And therefore St. John writes in his Apocalyps Apoc. 20. that Death and Hell were cast into a lake of fire because the life of sinners of whom he speaks according to the letter is a death and hell and he sayes that this Life and this Hell shall be cast into the other hell and he who places his felicity in the goods of the earth shall pass from one death unto another and from one hell unto another Let us look upon the condition whereunto Aman was brought by his abundance of temporal fortunes into so excessive a pride that because he was denied a respect which was no wayes due unto him he lived a life of death smothering in his breast a hell of rage madness and hatred nothing in this life as he himself confest giving him ease or content What condition more like unto death and hell than this for as in hell there is a privation of all joyes and delights so oftentimes it happens in the greatest felicities upon earth The same which Aman confessed Dionysius felt when he was King of Sicily to wit that he took no content at all in the greatest delights of his Kingdom Tull. in Tuscul q. Boet. l. de consol And therefore Boetius sayes that if we could take away the veil from those who sit in Thrones are clad in Purple and compassed about with Guards of Souldiers we should see the chains in which their Souls are enthralled conformable unto which is that of Plutarch that in name onely they are Princes but in every thing else Slaves A marvelous thing it is that a man compassed about with delights pastimes and pleasures should joy in nothing and in the middest of dancing drinking feasting and dainty fair should find a hell in his heart That in hell amongst so many torments sinners should not finde comfort is no marvail at all but that in this life in the middest of felicity and affluence of all delights he should finde no satisfaction is a great mystery A great mischief than is humane prosperity that amongst all its contents it affords no room for one true one But this is Divine providence that as the Saints who despised what was temporal had in their souls in the very middest of torments a heaven of joy and pleasure as St. Lawrence who in the middest of flames found a Paradice in his heart so the Sinner who neither esteems nor loves any thing besides those of the world should also in the middest of his regalo's and delights finde a life of hell and torments anticipating that whereunto after death he is to enter and be confined So great are the cares and griefs occasioned by the goods of the earth that they oppress those who most enjoy them and shut up the door to all mirth leaving them in a sad night of sorrow This is that which was represented unto the Prophet Zacharias Zach. 5. when before that the Devils came to fetch away the Vessel wherein the woman was enclosed to be carried into a strange Region in the Land of Sanaar there to dwell for ever the mouth of it was stopt up with a talent of Lead and she imprisoned in darkness and obscurity signifying thereby that before a worldling is snatcht away by the Devils to be carried into the mournful land of hell even in this life he is hood-winked and placed in so great a darkness as he sees not one beam of the light of truth so that no content or compleat joy can ever enter into his heart § 2. The reason why the goods of this life are troublesome and incommodious even to life it self is for the many dangers they draw along with them the obligations wherein they engage us the cares which they require the fears which they cause the affronts which they occasion the straights whereunto they put us the troubles which they bring along with them the disordinate desires which accompany them and finally the evil conscience which they commonly have who most esteem them With reason did Christ our Redeemer call riches thorns because they ensnare and wound us with danger losses unquietness and fears Wherefore Job said of the rich man Job 20. Greg. l. 15. Mor. c. 12. When he shall be filled he shall be straightned he shall burn and all manner of grief shall fall upon him The which St.
felicity in pamparing himself here will be tormented hereafter and he who is unjustly flattered and honoured here shall be justly scornd and despised there This was well declared by St. Vincent Ferrer in a comparison of the Faulcon and the Hen. The Hen whilest she lives seeks her food in the dirt and dunghils and at best feeds now and then upon some bran or light corn The Faulcon to the contrary is cherished carried upon his Masters fist and fed with the brains of Birds and Partridges but after death they change their conditions for the Faulcon is flung upon the dunghil and the Hen served to the table of Kings As Jacob changed his hands placing his right hand upon his Grandchild who stood upon his left side and his left hand upon him who stood upon the right preferring the younger before the elder so God uses to change his hands after death and preferre the younger who are the poor and despised in this life For this Christ our Redeemer pronounces so many Woes against the rich of this world Woe be unto you rich who rejoyce in this world yee shall weep in the next Woe be unto you who are now filled you shall hunger hereafter Woe be unto them who have their heaven here it is to be feared a hell will succeed it Let us tremble at what was spoken unto the rich glutton Thou didst receive pleasure in this life and for this eternal evils succeeded thee after death changing hands with poor Lazarus who received evils in this life and after death enjoyed the pleasures of the other The rich man who wanted not abundance of precious wines in this life wanted a drop of water to cool his tongue in the next And Lazarus who here wanted the crums of bread that fell from his table was feasted with the Supper of eternal happiness The Prophet Jeremias writes that Nabuzardan carried a way the rich Captives unto Babylon Jer. 39. and left the poor in Jerusalem because the Devil carries away the slayes and lovers of riches unto Babylon which is the confusion of hell and leaves the poor in spirit in Jerusalem which is the vision of peace that they may there enjoy the clear sight of God The felicity of temporal goods blots out of our memories the greatness of the eternal it makes us forget God and the happiness of the other life it blindes those who possesse them busies them wholly in things of the Earth and gives them that means and opportunities for vices which the poor have not who either work or serve their Masters or pray Wherefore the enjoying of temporal goods is so dangerous 1 Ti. 6. that St. Paul calls Riches the Snare of the Devil And if in ail Snares there be falshood and danger how false and dangerous must be the Snares of Satan Laer. l. 9. c. 4. Even Diogenes was aware of this truth and therefore calls them a Vail of malice and perdition St. Hieron in Algas Ep. 84. St. Jerome says that anciently there were too notable Proverbs in prejudice of the Rich The first That he who was very rich could not be a good man The second That he who was rich had either been a bad man or was the heir of a bad man and admonishes us that the name of Rich in the holy Scripture is most commonly taken in an ill sense and to the contrary in a favourable that of the poore The truth is that the holy Scripture is full of Contumelies against the rich of this world and above all the Son of God who uttered most notable and feareful expressions against those who abound in temporal goods and therefore when he taught the Beatitudes he gave the first of them unto the Poor and in preaching the Woes he gave the first unto the Rich. And upon another occasion said it was impossible for the Rich to enter into the Kingdom of heaven And although he was willing to mitigate so hard a Sentence yet he said it was difficult and so difficult as might make the rich of the world to tremble for he assure us it is easier for a Camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of heaven But with God nothing is impossible From all that which hath been said may be gathered how worthy of contempt and hatred are all temporal goods since they deceive us not onely of our content in this life but of our felicity in the other and even of God himself What implacable hatred would a faithful and honest Spouse conceive against that Traitor who counterfeiting the shape and habit of her Husband should violate her Chastity how would she abhorre him when she knew the injury he had done her in a matter of that importance In the same manner are we betrayed by temporal felicity who appearing unto its in the likeness of the true happiness makes our hearts to adulterate with it and leave our lawful Spouse and true good indeed which is God For certainly there is no perfect felicity but in his service and complyance with his holy will in this life that we may enjoy him eternally in the next and therefore temporal goods which by their deceit cozen us and make us lose the eternal ought not to be loved and followed but hated as a thousand deaths THE FOURTH BOOK OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWIXT THE TEMPORAL and ETERNAL CAP. I. Of the greatness of things Eternal ALthough the littleness and baseness of things temporal be in themselves such as we have already seen yet unto him who shall consider the greatness and Majesty of the eternal whereof we now begin to treat they will appear much less and more contemptible For such is the greatness of that glory that St. Austin falls into these speeches Augus in Man If it were requisite every day to suffer torments or to remain in hell it self for some long time to the end we might behold Christ in his glory and enjoy the company of Saints were it much to suffer what is grievous and painful upon earth that we might be partakers of so great a happiness which speech of St. Austin is not to be taken as an exaggeration as neither that which is attributed to St. Jerome That it is a wonder that the stones under the feet of those who shall be damned convert not into roses as an anticipated solace of those evils which they are to suffer And that to the contrary those under the feet of them who are to be saved turn not into thorns to wound and chastise them for their sins since for so short troubles they are to receive unspeakable joyes This greatness of eternal goodness consists not onely in the eternity of their duration but in their intention also as being supreme and without limit in their excellency And therefore we ought not to think much at the suffering of a thousand years torments if for them we might obtain those blessings but for
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
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
would he be unto so merciful a benefactor He hath done no less for us but much more For if he hath not drawn us out of Hell he hath not thrown us into it as we deserved which is the greater favour Tell me if a Creditor should cast that Debtor into prison who owed him a thousand Duckets and after the enduring of much affliction at last release him or should suffer another who owed him fifty thousand Duckets to goe up and down free without touching a thread of his garment Whether of the Debtors received the greater benefit I believe thou wilt say the latter More then are we endebted unto God Almighty and therefore ought to serve him better Consider how a man would live who should be restored to life after he had been in Hell Thou shouldst live better since thou art more indebted to Almighty God Lib. 4. Dialog cap. 36. St. Gregory writes of one who though he had not been released out of Hell but onely was upon the point of damnation yet led afterwards such a life that the change was admirable The Saint sayes that a Monk called Peter who before he retired to the desert was in a trance for some time as dead and being restored to his senses made this relation That he had had a sight of Hell and that he had seen in it great chastisements and innumerable places full of fire and that he knew some who had been very powerful in the World hanging in the midst of the flames and himself being now at the brink to be cast into the same he saw on the sudden a bright shining Angel who withheld him faying Return to thy body and confider well with what care and diligence it suits with thy profession to lead thy life from hence forwards So it was that being returned to his body he treated it with such austerity of penance watches and fasts that although he should not have spoken a word his manner of life did publish sufficiently what he had seen Secondly we are taught to exercise an invincible patience in suffering the afflictions and troubles of this life that by enduring these thankfully we may escape those of the other He who shall consider the eternity of those torments which he deserves will not grumble at the pains of this short life how bitter soever There is no state or condition upon earth how necesitous how poor how miserable soever which the damned would not endure and think it an infinite happiness if they might change with it Neither is there any course of life so austere which he who had once experienced those burning flames if he might live again would not make more rigorous He who hath once deserved eternal torments let him never murmure at temporal evils let his mouth be ever stopt from complaining of the crosses or petty injuries offered him in this life who hath committed offences worthy the pains of the other From this consideration there was nothing which the Saints would not willingly suffer no penance which they would not undergoe Apoc. 14. Wherefore St. John the Evangelist after he had spoken of the smoke which ascended from the torments of the damned for a world of worlds and and that they did not rest by day nor night presently adds Here is the patience of the Saints because seeing that all the troubles of this life were temporal and the torments of the other eternal nothing that they endured seemed much unto them Chrysost To. 5. Epist 5. ad Theod. So did St. John Chrsostome and advises us to do the like bearing with patience all temporal pains whatsoever with the consideration of the eternal From the consideration of little thing saith he let us frame a conjecture of the great If thou goe into a Bath and shalt find it excessive hot think on Hell If thou art tormented with the heat think on Hell If thou art tormented with the heat of some violent Fever pass unto the consideration of those eternal flames which burn without end and think that if a Bath or Calenture so afflict thee how shalt thou endure that River of fire Homil. 2. in 1. Ep. ad Thess And further the same Saint When thou shalt see any thing great in this present life think presently of the Kingdom of Heaven and so thou shalt not value it much and when thou shalt see any thing terrible think on Hell and thou wilt laugh at it When the concupiscence or desire of any temporal thing shall afflict thee think that the delight of sin is of no estimation and that the pleasure of it is nothing For if the fear of Lawes which are enacted upon earth be of that force that they are able to deterre us from evil actions much more will the thought of things to come and that immortal chastisement of eternal pain If the fear of an Earthly King divert us from many evils how much more shall the fear of a King eternal If the fight of a dead man detain us much more shall the thought of hell and that eternal death If we often think of hell we shall never fall into it We ought also often to call to minde the evils of the next life that we may more despise the pleasures of this because temporal felicity uses often to end in eternal miserie All that is precious in the world honour wealth fame pleasure all the splendour of the Earth is but smoke and a shadow if we compare the small duration of them with the eternity of those torments in the other world Put all the Silver in the world together in one heap all the Gold all the Precious-stones Diamonds Emeralds with all other the richest Jewels all the Triumphs of the Romans all the Dainties of the Assytians c. all would deserve to be of no other value than dirt ignominy and gall if to be possessed with hazard of falling at last into the pit of Hell Let us call to mind that sentence of our blessed Saviour What will it avail a man to gain the whole world if he lose his soul If they should make us Lords and Masters I say not of great wealth but of the whole world we should not admit of it with the least hazard of being damned for ever Let one enjoy all the contents and regalo's imaginable let him be raised up to the highest pitch of honour let him triumph with all the greatness of the world All this is but a dream if after this mortal life he finds himself at length plunged into hell-fire Whosoever should consider the lamentable day in which two Sons and three Daughters and his Wife the Emperess were put to death in presence of the Emperor Mauritius and afterwards himself was bereaved of life by command of a dastardly Coward and vicious fellow no doubt but he would esteem as very vain and of no worth all the twenty years of his Raign in his powerful Empire and Majesty though his punishment was not
chief End which is God and his glory For as a Souldier when he is in health values not the Physician and his Medicines because they avail him not to the conquering of his Enemy and when he is sick or hurt cares not to put on his arms because they conduce not to the recovery of his health In the like manner we are to keep our hearts and wills free and disinterressed from any thing but that which leads to our End and Salvation The Traveller who is fixt in his determination of arriving to some certain place if he meet with two or three several wayes desires not this more than that but onely in as much as this may more readily bring him to his rest He cares not whether it be plain or hilly whether it lead to the right hand or to the left all is indifferent so it bring him whither he pretends After the like manner we are to behave our selves in the use of things temporal We are neither to love the Goods of this World nor fear the Evils of it but free from both make onely choice of that which leads to our Salvation If poverty bring thee to God imbrace it with both arms and esteem it If riches and greatness withdraw thee from him trample them under foot despise and cast them from thee as if they were poison If disgraces and neglect of men assist thee to gain Heaven rejoyce in thy affronts If honours make thee forget thy Creator abhorre them as death If pleasures distract thee from him unto whom thou owest so much deprive thy self of the contents of this life that thou mayest not lose those of the other And if grief or torments make thee know thy Redeemer receive them with all submison and willingness Wherefore thou art neither to desire or abhorre good or evil in this life but in as much as it unites or separates thee from God who is thy true and onely End This indifferency was well known unto David as he is explicated by St. Austin in that Psalm which he entitles and dedicates Unto the End where he considers himself as created by God for so high an End as to serve and enjoy him upon which supposition he utters this Sentence As are his darkness so is his light Psal 138. because we are no more to encline our affections to the lustre and splendor of this life than to the obscurity ignominy and afflictions no more to the light and prosperity than to the darkness and adversity of it and therefore the holy Father speaks in this manner In this night In this mortality of humane life men enjoy both light and darkness Light is prosperity and darkness adversity But when Christ our Saviour shall come and inhabit the Soul by Faith and shall promise another light and shall inspire and endow man with patience and shall so move him as not to be delighted with prosperity nor dejected with adversity The faithful man shall then begin to use this world with indifferency and shall not be puffed up when things succeed happily nor broken and dejected when they fall out crosly but shall bless God in all conditions Whether he abound or want Whether he be sick or in health and shall be ever ready to sing this Song I will bless the Lord at all times his praise shall be ever in my mouth Another condition of the Medium which is either the same that we have spoken of or united unto it is That we are not to enjoy the Medium but onely to use it For in enjoying the Soul rests and contents it self which is proper to the End but in the use it ayms at the attaining something further which is proper to the Medium We are therefore not to seek after any creature but in as much as it may be a Means to conduce to our End which is the Creator and he who seeks after things temporal for themselves does no less an injury unto God than to change basely his End leaving the Eternal for the Temporal and the Creator for the Creature and becomes so much a Sot and a Fool as he mistakes his true End and makes the Medium his End and submits himself to a vile Creature From whence may be understood that difference betwixt things which is noted by St. Austin and Divines that somethings are to be enjoyed and others onely made use of We are onely to enjoy the Eternal and use the Temporal onely so far as may help to save us and no further For as the same Saint saith The vicious life of man is no other than that which he uses ill and that which he enjoyes ill and to the contrary the holy and laudable life of the good is that which uses this World aright and enjoyes God aright From hence also may be resolved that doubt amongst the ancient Philosophers Which are the true goods which Controversie was also on foot amongst the faithful in David's time Wherefore he demands in one of his Psalms Quis ostendit nobis bona Who will shew us the good things This doubt is resolved and an answer is given to the question That those are the Goods which unite us unto God and those the only Evil which separate us from him Whereupon St. Austin sayes Aug. in Psalm 138. We now know no other evil than to offend God and not to obtain what he hath promised neither know we other good than to please him and attain unto what he hath promised What have we then to say unto the goods and evils of this life but to be indifferent unto either because being now drawn forth from the womb of our Mother Babylon esteeming them as indifferent we say Such is his darkness as is his light neither doth the prosperity of this life make us happy nor the adversity miserable Socrates said that the chiefest wisdom was to distinguish good from evil And Seneca knew no better rule to distinguish them than by their end and therefore sayes When thou wouldest know what thou hast to desire Sen. Ep. 71. and what to flye look upon the chief good and the end of thy whole life for unto that all which we do is to relate And so according to what we have said concludes that onely to be good which is vertuous and all other goods false and adulterate Thou art eternally so enjoy thy Creator Content thy self with this hope and place not thy joy in the Creature which is onely lawful for thee to use §. 5. But we are much to consider that the most excellent use of the Creatures for the attaining unto the Creator is the contempt of them God would have it so easie for thee to obtain thy End that thou couldest not miss the means since even the want of all things may further thee Let no man therefore complain of the necessities of life since though all things fail him the means of his salvation will not fail him for even that want may be a means
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
as in order to us or as of what the corporal senses are afterwards to enjoy Other things likewise in several passages may be left to the judicious Reader who will not be over-hasty in rejecting what a discreet and friendly interpretation may allow of THE FIRST BOOK OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWIXT THE TEMPORAL and ETERNAL CAP. I. Our Ignorance of what are the true Goods and not onely of things Eternal but Temporal TO use things aright we ought to know their Value and Estimation and we cannot give them their true value unless we know their nature and what they are which knowledge is in this world so short and imperfect that it passes not forth of it nor enters into the consideration of things Heavenly and Eternal for which we were created And it is no wonder that in Matters of Eternity being so far removed from our senses we know so little since we are ignorant even in Temporal things which we see and daily touch with our hands How can we comprehend the things of the other world when we know not those of this wherein we are and even to that stupidity can humane ignorance arrive that we know not what we presume to be best acquainted with the riches commodities honours and goods of this world with which mortal men so much converse and which they so much covet for that they covet them because they know them not Clem. Roman in Epit. Good reason had St. Peter when he taught St. Clement the Roman that the world was like a house fill'd with smoke wherein nothing could be seen cither within or without the smoke hindering the distinct sight of both After the same manner it happens unto those who live in this world they neither know what is without it nor what within it they neither know the greatness of what is eternal nor the baseness of what is temporal and being ignorant of both for want of knowledge mistake their value giving what is due unto one unto the other making that small account of things heavenly and eternal which they ought to do of things fading and transitory judging so contrary unto truth Lib. 8. mural c. 12. that as St. Gregory notes they take the banishment of this life for their home the darkness of humane wisdom for light and this wandring peregrination here for their rest and abode all which proceeds from ignorance of the truth and the small consideration of what is eternal in such manner as they qualifie what is good with the name of bad and what is bad with the name of good by reason of which confusion in humane judgment David asked of the Lord that he would give him a Master who might instruct him which is the true good saying Who shall teach us what is good The world is therefore ignorant of all things even of its own proper goods which it most enjoyes it faring with us as it did with the Children of Israel who having Manna in their sight and holding it in their hands yet knew it not but demanded What is this but unto us even that curiosity is wanting we enquire not so much as what these riches are for which mortal men hazard so many dangers of death what honours are for which mens hearts burst with envy and ambition what pleasures are for which we endanger our health and often lose our lives what the goods of the earth are which are onely enjoyed during our pilgrimage in the exile of this life and are to vanish at the entrance of the other as Manna did at the entrance of the Land of Promise With reason did Christ our Redeemer in Apocalyps call it the hidden Manna because the Hebrews holding it in their hands knew not what it was even so are the things of this life hidden unto our understandings which although we touch we know not and so confounding their value do that for things temporal which we onely ought to do for the eternal undervaluing these for the esteem of those which for themselves are worthy to be despised and contemned Hence failing in the knowledge of things we fail in their estimation and consequently in their use That which happens in this may be likewise seen in those who did eat Manna for unto some it caused a loathing and procured vomit unto others it tasted pleasantly and like the meat they most desired So great difference is there betwixt the good and ill use of things and the good use of all depends upon their knowledge Let mortal men therefore awake and open their eyes and let them know the difference betwixt what is temporal and eternal that they may give to every thing its due estimation despising that which time makes an end of and esteeming that which eternity preserves the which they ought to seek during this life and by these momentary things purchase the eternal unto which they cannot attain without the knowledge both of the one and the other because aiming at the eternal as that of greatest value they conserve the temporal although of it self of no worth and that which is corruptible and transitory they render firm and durable The Manna also which our Lord gave unto the Hebrews whilest they wandered in the Desert and was to serve them until their arrival in the Land of Promise amongst other mysterious significations which it contained one was to be a Symbol of the blessings which we enjoy in the peregrination of this life until we come to the promised land of eternal happiness For this cause it putrified and corrupted sodainly lasting but a very short time as all things of this world do onely that part of Manna which was gathered with intention to keep for the Sabbath which was a figure of glory or to preserve in the Ark to be carried into the Land of Promise corrupted not in so much as to gather the same thing with different respects made that which in it self was corruptible to be of a condition eternal Bald. apud Tibra in Exod. 15 as is well noted by Baldwin an ancient Doctor and a most learned Interpreter of the holy Scripture So much it imports to have our intentions elevated and placed upon eternity as by the use of temporal and transitory things we may gain eternal converting small things into great mutable into stable and mortal into immortal Some Philosophers who considered better the things of this life although without attention unto the eternal found in them many defects the which the most wise Emperor and Philosopher Aurelius Antoninus reduced unto three In vita sua to wit that they are little mutable and corruptible even until they arrive unto their end all which we shall find represented to life in Manna The littleness of it was such saith the holy Scripture that it was small like that which is brayed in a Mortar and reduced into powder the mutability was so notable that carrying it from the field where it was gathered into their Tents if they
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
and a vertuous life let us set before our eyes the forgetfulness and miserable mistakes of the Sons of Adam in a matter of so great importance living as if Eternity were far off when as the Philopher sayes it is not two fingers distant and every minute threatens them What devides the Mariner from his death but the thickness of a plank What the cholerick and hasty man from Eternity but the edge of a sword what the Souldier from his end but the reach of a bullet what the Theef from the Gallows but the distance betwixt that and the Prison Finally how far is the most healthful and vigorous person distant from Eternity but as much as death is from life which often happens sodainly and ought every moment to be expected The life of Man is a dangerous passage wherein he walks upon the brink of Eternity with a certainty at last to fall into it How lives he then so wretchedly He who should walk close unto a great precipice in a path no broader then the breadth of his foot and that also full of rubs and stumbling blocks how circumspectly would he look about him and how carefully would he order his steps how then is it that being so near Eternity he is so careless and lives as if he were out of danger In Histo Barla ca. 12. in fine St. John Damascen excellently declares the fondness and mistakes of men in a most ingenious Parable wherein he naturally sets forth the state of this life A certain man saith he flying from a furious Unicorn which with his very roaring made the mountains tremble and the valleys to resound not regarding through fear which way he went chanced to fall into a molt deep pit but in his fall spreading abroad his armes to catch at something which might relieve him happened to light upon the boughs of a tree which grew out of the side of that pit whereon he seized with much joy hoping he had then both escaped the fury of the beast and the danger of his fall but looking towards the foot of the tree he perceived two great Rats the one white the other black perpetually gnawing the root of it in so much that it was now ready to fall looking afterward into the bottom of the pit he beheld a most deformed Dragon with flaming eyes gazing upon him and with open mouth awaiting his fall that he might devour him then casting his eyes unto that side of the pit where the tree grew there appeared four poisonful Aspicks shooting forth their heads to bite him Yet notwithstanding marking the leaves of the tree he might perceive some of them to distil certain drops of honey with which he was so greatly pleased that forgetting the dangers which from so many parts threatned him he employed himselt wholly in gathering and tasting drop by drop that small quantity of honey without reflecting or making further account either of the fierceness of the Unicorn above him of the horribleness of the Dragon beneath him of the poison of the Aspicks aside him or the weakness of the tree which was ready to fall and precipitate him into that horrid Dungeon In this Image we see represented the Estates of men who forgetful of the perils of this transitory life give themselves wholly over unto vain pleasures By the Unicorn is signified death which even from the hour of Man's birth follows and pursues him The Pit is the world full of evils and miseries The Tree is the course of this life The two Rats the one black the other white which gnaw it at the root are day and night which continually seconding one another go by hours and minutes consuming it The four Aspicks are the four Elements or four Humours of which we are composed the which by the excess of any one of them distemper the whole frame of our bodies and at last destroy it That horrid and fearfull Dragon is the eternity of Hell which enlarges his throat and jawes to swallow sinners The small drops of honey are the pleasures and delights of this life and so great is the diversion which they cause that men for a short and momentary content consider not the many dangers unto which they are exposed and seeing themselves encompassed on all parts by as many dangers of death as there are wayes and causes of dying which are infinite and are so many mouths and gates of Eternity yet notwithstanding solace themselves with the momentary delights of this small drop of honey which shall at last cause them to disgorge and cast up their entrals for a world without end Wonderful it is that so great a forgetfulness possesses us and a matter full of amazement that we are not moved with so great dangers How comes it about that every minute a new day of Eternity dawning upon us we carelesly pass over so many dayes and moneths Let the most strong and healthful person tell me what one year he is assured of wherein death may not assault him and push him headlong into an eternal abyss But what speak I of a year what moneth what day what hour what instant is he sure of how then can he eat how sleep in safety If one should enter into a field full of ambushes and secret traps whereon if he should chance to set his careless foot he were in danger to fall upon the points of Pikes or Halberts or into the mouth of some terrible Dragon and seeing with his own eyes that they who entred with him into the same field hourly fell into those traps and appeared no more should notwithstanding run leaping and dancing up and down without fear or apprehension of any thing amiss who would not say that man were a fool Certainly more fool art thou who seeing thy friends fall daily into the trap of Death thy neighbour swallowed up in Eternity thy brother sink into the pit of the Grave dost yet notwithstanding remain careless and secure as if the same fate did not attend thy self Although to die were a thing uncertain yet for the doubt and danger that it might happen thou oughtest to be vigilant and prepared for it What oughtest thou then to be it being so certain and that early or late thou art to enter in at the gate of Eternity A marvelous thing it is with what care men provide themselves against dangers although very uncertain If they hear that Theeves are in the way to rob and spoil the passengers no man passes that way but armed provided and many in company if they understand that the Plague begins to range what antidotes and conterpests are sought for if they fear a Famine every man in time provides himself of corn How happens it then that knowing that there is a Death a Judgment a Hell an Eternity we stand not upon our guards nor provide our selves for it Let us open our eyes and look into the perils which environ us let us take heed where we set our feet that we
bones heart and entrals but the fury of it shall search into the very soul and burn that with immortal flames The possession of its misery shall be Whole it shall be Perfect it shall be Full Whole because it shall suffer all sort of evils Perfect because it shall suffer them wholly and Full because it shall suffer in all the senses and in all the faculties that are capable of suffering This estate and life where we now are is not to last or to speak more properly this death is not to live but in the damned their death shall live as long as God shall have life and their miseries shall endure as long as God shall have glory CAP. VII Wherein is declared what Eternity is according to St. Bernard ST Bernard in another manner describes Eternity saying It is that which embraces all times past Serm. 1. in festo Omn. Sancto present and to come because no dayes no years no ages are able to fill up Eternity it is that which devours all times possible and imaginable and yet remains with a stomach unburthen'd still greedy of swallowing more It is said to embrace all time because it enjoyes all that in an instant which is to be enjoyed in all time Wherefore Marsilius Ficinus called Eternity an eternal moment and Lessius said it was both the longest and shortest of all things It was longest because it exceeded all time and lasted infinite spaces it was shortest because it contained all that in an instant which it was capable of containing in an infinite duration For as time is a fluid instant which flies and passes away insomuch as there is nothing of time in being but the present which is ever running and changing from one moment to another so Eternity is a permanent instant fixt and stable in which all things remain at once and are ever existent in the same manner and estate Before it all times pass the one succeeding the other whilest it stands present and perseveres the same unto them all Time and things temporal are like a Rapid river wherein the waves run rowling down each succeeding other in a perpetual vicissitude But Eternity is like a firm rock or like the bed of that river which remains settled and constant in the same place whilest the waters pass thorow it never to appear again In the like manner things temporal without permancy or consistency at all pass hastily in the presence of Eternity and never more return to salute the world And as the Bed of the river though standing still contains all the waters which run thorow it so Eternity embraces all times which passes by it Eternity may also be compared unto the Centre in a Circle which being indivisibly one corresponds unto the whole circumference and equally respects each particular point contained in it In the same manner Eternity corresponds unto all time and to each instant of it after a most marvelous way containing all that in present which time contains successively in a million of ages and is an instant equivalent unto an infinity of times not having one part after another but the whole extension amassed in one instant containing all that together in one moment which is extensible unto infinite distances of time For as the immensity of God contains in one point all the Divine greatness which without bound or limit is dilated over all parts real and imaginable in so much as it contains in one point as much as in a million of leagues even so Eternity recollects into one instant all the Divine duration although extended through an infinite time which also the reasonable creatures are to participate in the other life for as much as concerns their glory or pain and after such a manner as they are capable of Whence follows one thing very much to be considered that those goods unto which Eternity is annexed it makes infinitely better and that after two manners and as we may say with two infinities and contrariwise the bad it makes infinitely worse and that also after the same two manners The first in respect of the duration which it conferrs the which is infinite and every thing is to be esteemed so much the greater by how much the duration is longer The content of a day is not so great as that of a week nor is that equal to the content of a moneth or year and as the duration encreases so the value of the pleasure grows higher in so much as if it last infinitely it is infinitely to be esteemed In the like manner of pain the longer it lasts the worse it is and if it last infinitely it becomes an infinite evil which will infinitely exceed any temporal evil whatsoever though more in greatness and that in so high a degree that if it should be left to ones choice either to be thrown alive into a burning Furnace and at the same time to suffer all the infirmities and griefs which Physick knows and all the kindes of torments which Martyrs have endured and all the cruel punishments which have been executed upon the most hainous Offender and all this for the space of 200 millions of years but then to end and pass no further or to suffer a Migram or a Tooth-ach for a whole eternity certainly he ought rather to choose all those torments together for that time limited then either of these single pains for ever because although those exceed this in greatness yet this would infinitely exceed those in duration In summe if those although excessive were temporal and this though less were eternal which would infinitely encrease the malice of it there being hopes that those would at last find an end but this were without remedy I dare be bold to think that the lively apprehension of Eternity which the damned conceive is such that if it were in ones election either to be exempted from all the torments he now endures and to remain afflicted only with the Stone for an eternity or to have added unto his own particular torments all those which the rest of the damned suffer in all their senses but limited for a thousand millions of years he would choose this last for the lesser evil at least in reason he ought to choose it for although those pains were greater yet they were to have an end and this of the Stone though less was to be eternal Let now those levers and esteemers of transitory pleasures come to a reckoning with themselves If the torments of hell though so excessive were sufferable if they were only temporal nay to be chosen rather then so sleight a grief as the Stone that were eternal how happens it that they will not suffer with patience one small grief during the short time of this life in exchange of being freed from the eternal pains of hell fire during the other If a Giant in time that we may so speak hath no bulk or appearance in the presence of a Pigmey in eternity how
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
therefore well laid of St. Augustine In Ps 45. That all which hath an end is short A hundred years of penance have an end and are therefore short a thousand years a hundred thousand Millions have their end and are therefore in the appearance of what is immense but little and in respect of Eternity no more then an instant In the same manner we are to look upon a thousand years as upon an hour and for it self a long life is no more to he desired then a short since both in respect of Eternity bear the same bulk And as in respect of a solid body a thousand superficies's bear no more proportion then one all of them together being as incapable of making up the least particle of solidity as one onely so in respect of Eternity one year is not less then a thousand nor a thousand more than one And upon all time although it were a Million of ages we are to look as upon an instant and upon all which is temporal as upon a superficies which hath onely an appearance but nothing of substance neither can all time and all temporal goods together make up one onely good of Eternity If the whole earth be but a point in respect of the Heavens which are notwithstanding of a finite and limited greatness what great matter is it if all time be but as an instant in respect of Eternity which is infinite and without limit Betwixt the Earth nay betwixt the least grain of sand and the highest Heaven there is a proportion both have quantity but betwixt a thousand years and Eternity none at all and are therefore less then a point O blindness of men who are so besotted with time that in life they desire pleasure and in death a memorial and both in death and life a fame and renown for what even for a moment for an instant Wherefore desirest thou pleasure in life which to morrow is to end Wherefore desirest thou a vain memory after death which can endure no longer than the world whose end will not be long deferred And although it should yet last for a million of ages it were but short since those also must conclude and all were but as a moment in resped of Eternity As the Immensity of God is in respect of place so is Eternity in respect of time and as in respect of the immensity of God the whole Sea is no greater than a drop of water nor an atome in the air less than the whole world so in respect of Eternity a hundred thousand years and half a quarter of an hour are the same If God then should bestow upon thee this life onely for a quarter of an hour and that thou knowest likewise that the world within an hour after thy death were to end also wouldest thou spend that short time in ostentation and setting forth thy self whereby to raise a fame that might endure that short time after thy life no certainly thou wouldest busie thy self with other thoughts thou wouldest think of providing to die well and not trouble thy self in leaving a vain fame and memory which were so small a time to over-last thee Know then that thou oughtest to do the same although thou wert certain to live a hundred years and the world to endure a hundred thousand after thee For all which hath an end is short and all time in respect of Eternity is but a day an hour a moment Remember therefore the saying of St. John who said his time was in the last hour of the world although there then wanted many years all which in respect of Eternity were but as one hour So then if thou wouldest not be sollicitous of leaving a Name behind thee if the world were to continue but an hour no more oughtest thou to be now although it were to endure for many ages If thou knewest for certain that thou had'st to live a hundred years and that during that time thou shouldest have nothing to eat or sustain thy self but what thou drewest from the store and treasure of some great King and that too in the small space of an hour wouldest thou spend that hour in walking abroad in vain conversation and entertainments certainly no thou wouldest not cease from labouring and making haste to load thy self with those treasures How art thou then so careless knowing that thy Soul is to live for an eternity and that thou hast nothing to sustain it with hereafter but what thou gainest by thy merits within the space of this short life look how short a time is allowed thee to provide for Eternity How art thou then so negligent as to pass it in vain pleasures how comest thou then to laugh and not to weep rather and tear thy flesh with rigid penance and mortifications More is an hour in respect of a hundred years than a hundred thousand are in respect of Eternity And therefore if in that hour because the time appeared but short thou wouldest not be sloathful in furnishing thy self for a hundred years much less oughtest thou to be slow in those hundred years of life to provide for Eternity Consider also what a hundred years are in respect of a million and a million of years in respect of Eternity If for a hundred years spent in torments thou wert to enjoy a million of years in pleasure and content certainly thou hadst a most advantagious bargain since thou receivest ten thousand times more than thou gavest What a purchase hast thou then if not for a hundred years of pain but for a short hour spent in the mortification of some one vain pleasure thou receivest an Eternity of glory in respect of which a million of years are but as air instant See then how short is the space of this life to gain the eternal see how short is all time to merit Eternity Well did St. Augustin say August in Psal 39. For an eternal rest thou wert in reason to undergoe an eternal labour and for an eternal felicity to endure eternal pains How then can the short labours of this life seem tedious unto thee questionless there is no just Soul in Heaven nor damned in Hell that so often as he casts his eyes upon Eternity is not astonisht that so short a thing as this life should be the Key of so long a happiness in the one or misery in the other See then how cheap thou hast an Eternity of glory the which is an infinite for a finite Weigh a thousand years weigh a thousand millions in counterpoise with Eternity they weigh nothing all is bat smoak and straw there is no comparison betwixt infinite and finite betwixt what is real and what is painted Well did Plotinus say that Time wat the Image of Eternity conformable unto which David said That man passes away in an Image as if he should have said he passes away in time The same which is said of Time may be said of Goods and Evils temporal which pass along
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
world are not to affright us since they are to cease and determine By how much Eternity enobles and adds unto the greatness of those things which are eternal by so much doth Time vilifie and debase those things which are temporal and therefore as all which is eternal although it were little in it self ought to be esteemed as infinite so all which is temporal although it were infinite yet is to be esteemed as nothing because it is to end in nothing If a man were Lord of infinite worlds and possest infinite riches if they were at last to end and he to leave them they were to be valued as nothing and if all things temporal have this evil property to sail and perish they ought to have no more esteem then if they were not with good reason then is life it self to be valued as nothing since nothing is more frail nothing more perishing and in conclusion is little more than if it had no being at all Possessions Inheritances Riches Titles and other goods of fortune remain when man is gone but not his Life A little excess of cold or heat makes and end of that a sharp winde the infectious breath of a sick person a drop of poison makes it vanish in so much as no glass is so frail as it Glass without violence may last long but the life of man ends of it self glass may with care be preserved for many ages but nothing can preserve the life of man it consumes it self All this was well understood by King David who was the most powerful and happy Prince the Hebrews ever had as ruling over both the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel with all which was promised by God unto the Israelites but not until his time possessed his Dominions besides extending over many other Provinces See 1. Paralip 29. what he left him towards the building of the Temple onely so as gold rowld up and down his House and Court and he left at his death mighty treasures unto his Son Salomon Yet this so fortunate a Prince considering that his greatness was to have an end valued it as nothing and not onely esteemed his Kingdoms and treasures as a vanity but even his life it self Wherefore he sayes Thou hast put O Lord a measure unto my dayes and my substance is as nothing all my Rents all my Kingdoms all my Trophies all my Treasures all which I possess although so powerful a King all is nothing And presently adds Doubtless all is vanity all what living man is Psal 38. all his whole life is vanity and nothing that belongs to him so frail as himself Of so mean value are the things of this world although we were to enjoy them for many ages but being to end so quickly and perhaps more sodainly than we can imagine what account is to be made of them O if we could but frame a true conception of the shortness of this life how should we despise the pleasures of it This is a matter of such importance that God commanded the principal his Prophets that he should goe into the Streets and Market-places and proclaim aloud How frail and short was the life of man For the Prophet Isaiah being about to prophesie of the most high and hidden mysterie which ever God revealed unto man which is the incarnation of the eternal Word was suddenly commanded by the Lord to lift up his voice and to crie aloud unto whom the Prophet replied What is it O Lord that I must crie aloud The Lord said That all flesh is grass and all the glory of it at the flowers of the field For as the grass which is cut in the morning withers before night and as the flower is quickly faded so is the life of all flesh the beauty and splendour of it passing and withering in a day Upon which place saith St. Hierome Hieronin Comment He who shall look upon the frailty of our flesh and that every moment of an hour we increase and decrease without ever remaining in the same state and that even what we now speak dictate or write flyes away with some part of our life will not doubt to say his flesh is grass and the glory of it as the flower of the field And presently after He that was yesterday an Infant is now a Boy and will suddenly be a Youth and even until old age runs changing through uncertain conditions of lite and perceaves himself first to be an old man before he begins to admire that he is not still a Boy In another place the same Saint meditating upon the death of Nepotianus who died in the flower of his age breaks out into these complaints In Epitaph Nepot O miserable condition of humane nature Vain is all that we live without Christ all flesh is hay and all the glory of it as the flower of the field Where is now that comely visage where is now the dignity of the whole body with which as with a fair garment the beauty of the Soul was once cloathed Ay pitty the Lilly is withered by a Southern blast and the purple of the Violet turned into paleness And immediately adds Why do we not therefore consider what in time must become of us and what will we or will not cannot be far off for should our life exceed the terme of 900 years and that the dayes Mathusalam were bestowed upon us yet all this length of life once past and pass it must were nothing and betwixt him who lives but ten years and him who lives a thousand the end of life and the unavoidable necessity of death once come all is the same save onely he who lives longer departs heavier loaden with his sins This frailty therefore and brevity of humane life being so certain and evident yet our Lord would have his Prophet publish it together with the most hidden and unknown mysterie of his incarnation and the manner of the worlds redemption which even the most high Scraphins did not conceive possible and all because men will not suffer themselves to be perswaded of this truth nor practically apprehend the shortness of their life Nay seeing death seiseth upon others yet they will not believe that it shall happen unto themselves and although they hear of it hourly yet it appears unto them as a hidden mysterie which they cannot understand God therefore commanded the Prophet Isaiah that he should proclaim and publish it with a loud voice as a thing new and of great importance that it might so penetrate and link into the hearts of men Let us therefore receive this truth from God himself All flesh is grass All age is short All time flyes All life vanishes and a great multitude of years are but a great nothing Let us also hear how true this is from those who lived the longest Jux Isi l. de vita mor. Pat. c. 24. and have had the greatest experience of what it is to live Perhaps thou mayst
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 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
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
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
of thy life This is admirable counsel that since thou knowest thou art to dye and knowest not when that thou perform each action as if it were thy last and as if in ending it thou wert to expire thy self Above all let us endeavour to leave sin and evil inclinations to leave the cares of the earth and to elevate our whole heart and affections unto heaven and there to place our thoughts which are to be upright and setled in God Almighty A crooked tree when they cut it down falls that way it was inclined when it grew If one doe not bend towards heaven whilest he lives which way can he fall in death it is much to be feared into Hell CAP. III. Of that moment which is the medium betwixt Time and Eternity which being the end of Life is therefore most terrible WE ought then seriously to consider which is certainly a matter of great amazement all which is to passe in that moment of death for which the time of this life was onely bestowed upon us and upon which depends the eternity of the other O most dreadful point which art the end of Time and beginning of Eternity O most fearful instant which shuttest up the prefixed tearm of this life and determines the business of our Salvation O moment upon which depends Eternity how oughtest thou to be placed in our thoughts with profit that we may not hereafter when it is too late remember thee with repentance How many things are to pass in thee In the same instant life is to finish all our works to be examined and that sentence given which is to be executed for all eternity O last moment of Life O first of Eternity how terrible is the thought of thee since in thee not onely life is to be lost but to be accounted for and we then to enter into a Region which we know not In that moment I shall cease to live in that moment I shall behold my Judge who shall lay all my sins open before me with all their weight number and enormity In it I shall receive a strict charge of all the Divine benefits bestowed upon me and in it a judgment shall pass upon me either for my salvation or damnation eternal How wonderful is it that for so many matters and of so great importance there is no more time allotted than the space of an instant no place left for reply intercession of friends or appeal O fearful moment upon which so much depends O most important instant of Time and Eternity Admirable is the high wisdom of God which hath placed a point in the middest betwixt Time and Eternity unto which all the time of this life is to relate and upon which the whole Eternity of the other is to depend O moment which art neither Time nor Eternity but art the Horizon of both and dividest things Temporal from Eternal O narrow moment O most dilated point wherein so many things are to be concluded so strict an accompt is to be given and where so rigorous a Sentence as is to be pronounced is ever to stand in force A strange case that a business of eternity is to be resolved in a moment and no place allowed for the intercession of friends or our own diligence It will be then in vain to repair unto the Saints in Heaven or the Priests upon Earth those will not intercede for thee nor can these give thee absolution because the rigour of the Judge in that instant wherein thou expirest allows no further mercy Apoc. 20. St. John sayes that Heaven and Earth shall flye from the presence of the Judge Whither wilt thou then goe to what place canst thou repair being the person against whom the Process is commenced It is therefore said that Heaven and Earth shall flye away because neither the Saints of Heaven shall there favour thee with their intercession neither can the Priests of the Earth assist thee with the Sacraments of the Church There shall be place for nothing that may help thee What would then a sinner give for leave to make one poor Confession when it is too late that which would now serve thy turn and thou despisest thou wouldest then have done and canst not Provide thy self therefore in time whilest it may avail thee and deferre it not until that instant wherein nothing can do thee good Now thou mayest help thy self now the Saints will favour thee expect not that moment wherein thy own endeavours will be useless and wherein the Saints will not assist thee To the end we may frame a more lively conceit of what hath been said Lib. 1. Epist 10. I will relate a Story which St. Peter Damian rehearseth in an Epistle of his to Pope Alexander the second of that name whereof the Saint sayes it caused dread in him as often as it came to his mind Thus it was That two men going to fell wood in a Forest there issued forth a Serpent ugly and of a huge size with two heads and mouths of both open thrusting out their tongues with three points or small darts in each of them and seeming to cast out fire at his eyes set upon them One of the two men of more spirit and courage at the first assault of the Serpent struck it with his hatchet and cut off one of his heads but unfortunately let fall his hatchet The Serpent feeling himself wounded full of fury and rage took him at the disadvantage without his weapon and roled his train round about his body The miserable man cried out to his Companion for help or at least that he would give him his hatchet to defend himself or do some execution upon his enemy that was now dragging him towards his Den. But his Companion was so cowardly that he durst not any wayes succour him but affrighted and astonished fled away leaving that wretched man in the power of the Serpent which with great rage carried him to his Den without resistance or any succour at all notwithstanding the hideous out-cries and lamentations the poor Captive made This History is but a slight draught of what a Sinner will experience in the instant of the departure of his Soul out of this life when without any aid at all or hope of it he shall find himself at the mercy of the infernal Dragon who will use him with all violence imaginable St. Peter Damianus sayes he could not express the horror this sad accident caused in him insomuch that it made him tremble many times to consider what pass'd betwixt the Serpent and the man in that Den there being no body to afford any help to the poor fellow in that distress where neither his strength nor cries could any wayes avail him to decline the fury of that ugly Monster now ready to tear him in pieces Wherefore if to be void of all hopes of temporal life and to be in the power of a Serpent is a thing so dreadful what fright and astonishment
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
not to an ordinary River but to a River of fire for the greatness and severity of the rigour shall be repressed for 30 or 40 years during the life of a man what an infinity of wrath will it amass together and with what fury will it burst out upon the miserable Sinners in the point of death All this rigour and severity shall the wretched Caytif behold in the face of the offended Judge And therefore the Prophet Daniel saith that a River of fire issued from his Countenance and that his Throne was of flames and the wheels of it burning fire because all shall then be fire rigour and justice He sets forth unto us his Tribunal and Throne with wheels to signifie thereby the force and violence of his omnipotency in executing the severity of his justice all which shall appear in that moment when Sinners shall be brought into judgment when the Lord as David sayes shall speak unto them in his wrath and confound them in his fury The which is also declared by other Prophets in most terrible and threatning words Isai 56. Isaias saith The Lord will come cloathed in garments of vengeance and covered with a robe of zeal and will give unto his adversaries his indignation and his enemies shall have their turn And the Wise-man to declare it more fully saith His zeal that is his indignation shall take up arms and shall arm the creatures to revenge him of his enemies he shall put on justice as a brest-plate be shall take the bead-piece of righteous judgment and embrace the inexpugnable shield of equity and shall sharpen his wrath as a lance Osee 13. The Prophet Osee declares the same proposing the Judge unto us not onely as an enraged and armed man but a fierce and cruel Beast and therefore speaking in the person of God saith I will appear unto them in that instant at a Bear that hath been robbed of her whelps I will tear their entrails in pieces and will devour them as a Lyon There is no beast more fierce of nature than a Lyon or Bear which hath lost her young ones the which will furiously assault him she first meets with and yet God whose nature is infinite goodness would compare himself unto so savage and cruel beasts to express the terrour of his justice and rigour with which he is in that day to shew himself against Sinners The consideration of this wrought so much with Abbot Agathon when he was at the point of dying In vitis Pat. that he continued three dayes in admiration his eyes for fear and dread continually broad open without moving from one side to the other Certainly all comparisons and exaggerations fall short of what it shall be since that day is The day of wrath and calamity That is the day when the Lord shall speak aloud in lieu of the many dayes wherein he hath been silent That is the day of which he spake by his Prophet I held my peace and was mute but I will then cry out as a woman in labour That day shall take up all his justice and shall recompence for all his years of sufferance That day shall be purely of justice without mixture of mercy hope of compassion help favour or any other patronage but of our works This is signified in that which Daniel saith that the Throne and Tribunal of God was of flames and that there shall proceed from his face a river of fire because fire besides that it is the most active nimble and vehement of all the Elements is also the most pure not admitting the mixture of any thing The earth contains Mines of Mettals and Quarries of Stone the water suffers in her bosome variety of Fishes the Air multitudes of vapours and exhalations and other bodies but Fire endures nothing it melts the hardest mettals reduces stones into cinders consumes living creatures converts trees into it self in so much as it is not onely impatient of a companion but infuses its own qualities into what it meets withall and turns even what is contrary unto it into its own substance and nature it does not onely melt snow but makes it boyl and makes cold iron burn So shall it be in that day all shall be rigour and justice without mixture of mercy nay the very mercies which God hath used towards a Sinner shall then be an argument and food for his justice O man which hast now time consider in what condition thou shalt see thy self in that instant when neither the blood of Christ shed for thee nor the Son of God crucified nor the intercession of the most blessed Virgin nor the Prayers of Saints nor the Divine mercy it self shall avail thee but shall onely behold an incensed and revenging God whose mercies shall then onely serve to augment his justice Thou shalt then perceive that none will take thy part but all will be against thee The most holy Virgin who is the Mother of mercy the mercy of God himself and the blood of thy Redeemer will all be against thee and onely thy good works shall stand for thee This life once past thou art to expect no Patron no Protector but thy vertuous actions onely they shall accompany thee and when thy Angel Guardian Theophan an 20. Herac. Imper. ut habetur in tom 2. p. 2. Concil in notis ad vitam Theodori Papae and all the Saints thy Advocates shall leave thee they onely shall not forsake thee See that thou provide thy self for that day take care thou now benefit thy self by the blood of Christ for thy salvation if not it will onely serve for thy greater damnation The whole world was amazed at the manner of the condemnation of Pyrrhus the Heretick by Pope Theodâ—rus who calling a Councel at Rome and placing himself close by the body of St. Peter in the presence of the whole Assembly took the consecrated Chalice and pouring the blood of Christ into the Ink did with his own hand write the Sentence of excommunion and Anathema by which he separated Pyrrhus from the Church of Christ This dreadful manner of proceeding brought a fear upon all those who heard it Do thou then tremble unto whom it may happen that the blood of thy Redeemer shall onely serve as a Sentence of thy eternal death For so severe will the Divine justice be in that day against a Sinner that if it were needful for his condemnation to confirm the Sentence with the blood of Christ it should although once shed upon the Cross for his salvation then onely serve to his damnation and eternal reprobation If this be true as nothing can be more certain how come we to be so careless how come we to laugh and rejoyce In vitis Pat. lib. 5. With great reason an old Hermite in the Desert beholding another laugh reprehended him for it saying We are to give a strict account before the Lord of Heaven and Earth the most inflexible Judge and darest thou be
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
leave this life fully discover themselves as they are both in number and quality This is also signified unto us by the Prophet Daniel when he sayes That the Throne of the Tribunal of God was of flaming fire whose nature is not onely to burn but to enlighten and therefore in that Divine Judgment shall not onely be executed the rigour of his justice but the ugliness likewise of humane malice shall be discovered The Judge himself shall not onely appear severe and implacable but our sins shall be laid open before us and the sight of them shall make us quake and tremble with fear and astonishment especially when we shall perceive them to be manifest unto him who is both Judge and Party Wherefore it is said in one of the Psalms We are dismayed O Lord with thy wrath Psal 89. and troubled with thy fury and immediately giving the reason of that trouble he saith because thou hast set our wickedness before thee and placed them in thy sight The monstrousness of sin is now covered and we perceive it not and are not therefore much troubled but in that instant of death when the ugliness of it shall appear the very sight of it will wholly confound us Our sins now seem unto us but light and trivial and we see not half of them but in our leaving of this life we shall find them heavy grievous and unsupportable A great Beam whilest it floats upon the river a child may move and draw it from place to place and the half of it remains hidden and covered below the waters but draw it to land many men will not suffice to remove it and the whole bulk of it will be then clearly discovered so in the waters of this tempestuous and unstable life our faults appear not heavy and the half of them are conceal'd from us but this life once ended we shall then feel their weight discover their bulk and shall groan under so heavy and grievous a burthen These doubtless are the two swords which then shall mortally wound the conscience of a sinner First when he shall perceive the innumerable multitude of his sins and Then their monstrous deformity And to begin with their multitude how shall he remain amazed when he shall see a number of his actions to be sins which he never thought to be such and which is more when he shall find that to be a fault which he thought to be a laudable work For this it is said in one of the Psalms when I shall take time I will judge righteousness for many actions which in the eyes of men seem vertues will then be found vices in the sight of God If in humane judgments there be so great a difference that young men and those that follow the world often esteem that for a vertue which the wise and ancient repute as an errour how different shall be the divine judgment from that of men since the holy Ghost saith by his Prophet that the Judgments of God are a great Abyss and that his thoughts are as far distant from the thoughts of men as heaven is from earth And if spiritual men are so clear sighted that they condemn with truth what worldlings praise what shall be those Divine eyes which are able to perceive a stain in what appears Angelical purity And if as the Scripture sayes he found wickedness in the Angels what vice can remain hid in the Sons of men Our Lord himself saith by one of his Prophets I will search Jerusalem with a candle If so strict enquiry be to be made in the holy City of Jerusalem what shall be in Babylon If God shall use such rigour with the just how shall he dissemble with his enemies Then shall be brought to light the works which we have done and those which we have left undone the evil of that action which we have committed and the good of that which we have omitted Neither is there account to be taken onely of the evils which we do but of the good also which we do not well all will be strictly searcht and narrowly lookt into and must pass by many eyes The Devil as our accuser shall frame the Process of our whole life and shall accuse us of all he knows and if any thing shall escape his knowledge it shall not therefore be conceal'd for our own Conscience shall cry out and accuse us of it and least out Conscience might flatter us or be ignorant of some faults our Angel-Guardian who is now our Governor and Tutor shall then be the Fiscal and Accuser calling for Divine justice against us and shall discover what our own Souls are ignorant of And if the Devil our Conscience and Angel-Guardian shall fail in any thing as not knowing all the Judge himself who is both Party and Witness and whose Divine knowledge penetrates into the bottom of our wills shall there declare many things for vices which were here esteemed for vertues O strange way of Judgment where none denies and all accuse even the offender accuses himself and where all are Witnesses even the Judge and Party O dreadful Judgment where there is no Advocate and four Accusers the Devil thy Conscience thy Angel-Guardian and thy very Judge who will accuse thee of many things which thou thoughtest to have alleaged for thy defence O how great shall then be the confusion when that shall be found a sin which was thought a service who would have imagined but that Oza when he upheld the Ark in danger of falling had rather done a laudable action than an offence yet the Lord chastized it as a great sin with the punishment of a most disastrous death shewing thereby how different the Divine Judgments are from those of men Who would not have thought Davids numbring of his people to have been an act of policy and discretion yet God judged it an offence and punished it with an unexampled Pestilence which in so short a time destroyed threescore and ten thousand persons When Saul urged by his approaching enemies and the long delayes of Samuel offered sacrifice he thought he had done an act of the greatest vertue which is religion but God called it by the name of a grievous sin and for doing it reproved him and cast him off from being King Who would not have judged it for an act of magnanimity and clemency when Achab having conquered Benhadad King of Syria 3. Reg. c. 20. pardoned him his life and took him up to sit by him in his Royal Chariot But this which was so much esteemed and praised by men was so disagreeable unto God that he sent him word by his Prophet that he should dye for it and that he and his people should bear the punishment which was designed unto the Syrians and their King If then the Judgment of God in this life be so far different from that of man what shall it be in that most dreadful hour which God hath reserved for the executing of
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
not Masters of time and the things which are in it but are as Stewards to account for it and them Being therefore to give a reason how we have employed them for the service of God Almighty let us not without reason abuse them for our own vain gust and pleasure CAP. V. How God even in this life passes a most rigorous Judgement ALl that we have hitherto spoken concerning the rigour of the Divine Tribunal before which the Soul is at the end of life to appear and to give an account unto his Redeemer is far short of what really is to be To the end therefore that we may conceive it something better I shall here propose the severity wherewith God executes his Judgements even in this life wherein he makes use of mercy that from thence we may collect the rigour of the other where he is onely to use his Justice Ezeck 7. By the Prophet Ezekiel he speaks unto his people thus I will pour out all my rage upon thee and will accomplish my fury in thee I will judge thee according to thy wayes and will lay forth all thy wickedness against thee my eyes shall not pardon thee neither will I have mercy I will charge thee with all thy misdeeds and thy abominations shall be in the middle of thee and thou shalt know that I am the Lord which smites And presently he adds My wrath shall be upon all the people the sword without and pestilence and famine within he who is in the field shall die by the sword and they who are in the City shall be devoured by pestilence and famine and they who flye shall save themselves and shall all remain in the Mountains as the Doves of the Valleys trembling in their iniquity their hands shall be disjoynted and their knees shall resolve into water for the great fear and amazement which God in his wrath shall send vpon them But it is not much that the Lord should deal thus with sinners who have forsaken their God since even against those who are desirous to do all for his honour he proceeds with much rigour Zach. 3. Let us see how the Prophet Zacharit sets forth unto us the High-Priest who then lived the Son of Josedeck as a lively representation of the Divine Judgement whom he makes to appear before an Angel who there exercised the Office of a Judge cloathed in foul and polluted Garments in so much as the Lord calls him a Brand taken out of the fire and Satan standing by his side to accuse him If then this great Priest zealous of the glory of God stood so dejected and confused in the presence of an Angel as he appeared as a black and burnt coal of hell in unclean and sooty Garments how shall a grievous Sinner and despiser of the Divine service appear before God himself But this is more fully signified in the Apocalyps where our Saviour himself pronounced judgement against the seaven Bishops of Asia who were then all alive and most of them esteemed great Servants of God and so holy as was St. Timothy the beloved Disciple of Paul St. Polycarp St. Quadratus St. Carpus St. Sagaris all in great opinion for sanctity and holiness of life Let us first behold in what manner our Saviour Christ appeared when he came to judge them and after let us consider the rigorous charge which he laid against them For the first to signifie that nothing could be hid or concealed from him he stood in the middest of seaven Candlesticks or of seaven Lamps like the Golden Candlestick in the Temple in each of which was a lighted Candle in his hand he held seaven Stars whose beams and splendour enlightned all about him and above all his face was as the Sun at midday in his greatest force which leaves not the least atome undiscovered In such a brightness of Candles Stars and Sun there was no shadow to give us to understand that nothing how little soever can be hidden from the all-seeing eyes of our most just Judge unto whom all things will appear clearly and distinctly as they are in themselves but not content with so many arguments of the evidence which he shall have of all offences he adds That the eyes of the Judge were as flaming fire more penetrating than the eyes of Lynceus to see and search into all things and to note also the rigour and severity wherewith he looks upon offences when he comes to judge them This certainly were sufficient of it self to set forth the rigour of his justice but to make it appear yet more terrible he declares it by another figure of a two-edged Sword which he held in his mouth to denote that the rigour of his works shall be greater than those of his words although his words themselves were as cutting swords In conclusion all was so full of terrour and threatning as although it nothing concerned St. John as being none of those who were to be judged yet it caused so great a fear and amazement in him that he fell as dead upon the ground If then St. John only beholding the wrathful countenance of our Lord not against himself but others with whom also he intended to use mercy it made his feet to fail and his pulses to remain without motion how shall it fare with that sinner who shall behold him all incensed against him and that at such a time when he is onely to use his justice I believe that if the Souls of Sinners were capable of death the terrour of that fight would bereave them of a thousand lives Let us now see what was found by those eyes of fire with which Christ so narrowly examined the works of those seaven Bishops who were such as he himself vouchsafes to call them Angels Truly he found much to reprehend in them that it might be verified which was spoken in Job that he found iniquity in his Angels Who would have thought that St. Timothy of whom the Apostle was so confident and of whom he made so great esteem should deserve that God should take away his Chair and deprive him of his Church of Ephesus yet Christ found him worthy of so great a chastisement and threatens to do it if he did not amend and complains that he was fallen from his former zeal exhorting him to do penance which certainly he performed as perceiving it very necessary for him Greater faults he found in the Bishop of Pergamus as also in him of Thiatira who was St. Carpus and in like manner exhorts them both to do penance And that it may appear how different are the judgements of God from those of men although the Bishop of Sardis was held by all for a most holy man that he had gained a great opinion of vertue and that he did many good works yet Jesus Christ found he was so far from being a Saint that he remained in mortal sin O holy good God who would not tremble that he who passed amongst men for
to conclude in a not being is already not much distant from it and so differing little from nothing ought not to be valued much more than if it were nothing But unto this necessity of ending is annexed that so notable circumstance of ending after so dreadful and terrible a manner as we have already seen I have therefore been so full in expressing of it that we may perceive by this so strange a manner of conclusion what our exorbitant malice in the abuse of the Creatures hath added unto their proper vanity for it is we who by our vices have made them of much less value than they are by their own nature so as in the condition they now stand they are much to be despised Natural delights are in themselves more pure and less hurtful than humane malice hath made them which hath rendred them more costly dangerous and difficult and therefore less pleasant for what is subject to care and danger must of necessity be mixed with trouble Honey loses its sweetness if mixed with Gall and the most generous Wine is corrupted with a little Vinegar by which may appear the errour of our appetites which striving to augment our pleasures hath lessened them and by adding inordinate relishes to what nature had simply and regularly provided hath rather invented new afflictions than contents Our gluttony is not pleased with savoury food but what we eat must be rare and costly it contents not it self with the bare taste of meat which is its proper object but seeks after smell and colour it is not Cooked if not disguised neither will that serve if not accommodated with several sorts of Spices Salt and Sugar seasons not what we eat but Musk and Amber Neither is our feeling content with the warmth of our Apparel but looks after colour fashion and expence and we are more sollicitous that it may appear neat and curious unto others than that it may decently cover and cherish our necessitated members taking occasion by the necessity of nature to nourish our vices Apparel serving rather the ambition and pride of our mindes than the nakedness of our bodies But it is not much that we content not our selves with the natural use of things since we are not pleased with nature it self but adulterate it with art not onely women but men dye their hair and counterfeit their faces and statures and the Creature to the injury of the Creatour presumes to form himself after another manner than God thought fit to make him In like manner riches are not measured out for humane necessity and conveniency but for pomp and arrogancy in the acquisition and use whereof we look not so much what suffices for life and the lawful pleasures of it as what serves for pride and ostentation wherein consuming our wealth and fortunes we lose the use of them and what was onely ordained as a remedy of our necessities by our abuse augment and make them greater Whereupon it commonly happens that rich men are most in want and great personages are more indebted and engaged than meaner people Honour and Fame are so adulterated that they are not onely desired as a reward of vertues but of vices All these abuses are the faults of the World which hath made humane life more troublesome and full of danger than it is by necessity and condition and therefore it was convenient that the World should end with trouble and confusion since the abuse of it hath been with so much shame and impudence and that it self also should be judged which hath sustained and fed the vanity and folly of man with things so base and despicable The ancient Philosophers placed vertue and the felicity of man in living according unto nature but what content and happiness can there be when all the pleasures of life are so sophisticated with art as they are wholly different from that which nature requires and what vertue can be expected from them who live according to so much malice But Christians who ought not onely to live conformable to nature but unto grace and the example of Christ make it apparent how just it is that the wicked should give an account of those things which they have used so contrary unto his divine pleasure §. 2. And so not onely those things which are spoken of in the precedent Chapter are to be of terrour and fear in the end of the World but more especially that strict account which God shall then exact from the whole Linage of man For as in the death of particular persons there is to be a particular judgement so in the death of the World a general Judgement is to pass upon all and as the most terrible thing of death is that particular reckoning so in the end of the World is that universal reckoning when God shall demand an account of his divine benefits and shall judge the abuses of them and all the sins of men making it to appear to the whole World how good and gracious he hath been towards them and how rebellious and ungrateful they have been towards him The manifestation of which truth will be of more terrour unto the wicked than all the plagues and prodigies of Earthquakes Inundations Tempests Locusts Pestilences Famines Warres Lightnings and Fire which have gone before Guigo Carth. in med Therefore Guigo Carthusianus said well that the most terrible thing of that day was the truth that should then appear against Sinners And without doubt neither those stupendious Thunders nor that furious roaring of the Sea nor any other wonder of those last times shall bring that confusion upon Sinners as to see the great reason which God had to be served and the none at all which they then had to displease him It was therefore most convenient that after the particular Judgement of each man apart there should be an universal Judgement of all together in which God should make appear the righteousness of his proceedings and give a general satisfaction of his justice even to the damned and Divils And because in the death of Man as St. Thomas notes all 3. p. 2. d. q. 59. art 5. what was his dies not for there remains his memory his Children his Works his Example his Body and many of those things in which he placed his affection it is therefore reason that all those should enter into that general Judgement with him that he may know that he is not onely to give an account of his life but of those things also which he leaves behind him The fame and memory of Man after death doth not oftentimes correspond unto the deserts of his life and it is just that this deceit should be taken off and that the vertuous whom the World made no account of should then be acknowledged for such and he who had fame and glory without merit should then change it into shame and confusion O how deceived shall the ambitious then find themselves who to the end they might leave
were to have an end shew us also by this signe that for their instability and inconstancy they were even before their end to be trodden under foot and despised But more lively is the same exprest by the same St. John Apoc. 15. Ribera Cornel when he beheld the Saints standing upon the Sea to note that whilest they lived they contemned and trampled under foot the transitory and fading things of this World and to declare it more fully he sayes the Sea was of glass then which nothing is more frail and although hard yet brittle Needs must the instability of things temporal be very great and therefore most despicable because it proceeeds from so many causes For as the Sea hath two several kinds of motion the first natural by which it riseth and falleth daily with continual ebbs and flows so as the waves when they are most quiet are yet still moving and inconstant the other violent when the waters are raised and incensed by some furious tempest in the same manner the things of this World are naturally of themselves fading and transitory and without any exteriour violence suffer a continual change and run rowling on toward their end but besides are also subject to other unthought of accidents and extraordinary violences which force nature out of her course and raise huge storms in the Sea of this life by which those things which we most esteem suffer shipwrack For as the fairest flower withers of it self yet is oftentimes before born away by the wind or perishes by some storm of hail The most exact beauties lose their lustre by age but are often before blasted by some violent Feaver The most costly Garments wear out in time if before not taken from us by the Theef The strongest and most sumptuous Palaces decay with continuance if before not ruined by Fire or Earthquakes In like manner both their own nature and extrinsecal violences deprive temporal things even of time it self and trail them along in perpetual changes leaving nothing stable Let us cast our eyes upon those things which men judge most worthy to endure Nazian in Monod Pli. l. 36. c. 8. and made them to the end they should be eternal How many changes and deaths have they suffered St. Gregory Nazienzen places the City of Thebes in Aegypt as the chiefest of those wonders which the world admired Pompâ—n Mela l. 1. c. 9. Most of the houses were of Alabaster Marble spotted with drops of gold which made them appear most splendid and magnificent Upon the walls were many pleasant Gardens Sur. in Comm. an 1517 Evag. l. 2. c. 1. which they called Horti pensiles or hanging Gardens and the Gates were no less than a hundred out of which the Prince could draw forth numerous Armies without noise or knowledge of the people Pomponius Mela writes that out of every Port there issued 10000 armed men Euseb de praepar Hieron in Dan. c. 1. Polusl 2. rerum Indic c. 68. which in the whole came to be an Army of a million Yet all this huge multitude could not secure it from a small Army conducted by a Youth who as St. Jerome writes took and destroyed it Marcus Polus writes that he passed by the City of Quinsay which contained fourscore millions of souls and Nicholas de Conti passing not many years after by the same way found the City wholly destroyed Nicol. de Com. in itin apud Ram. tom 1. and begun to be newly built after another form But yet in greater than this was the City of Ninive which according to the holy Scripture was of three dayes journey and it is now many ages since that we know not where it stood Plin. l. 6. c. 26. Sol. c. 3. No less stately but perhaps better fortified was the City of Babylon and that which was the Imperial City of the World became a Desert and a Habitation of Harpies Onocentaurs Satyrs Monsters and Devils as was foretold by the Prophets and the walls which were 200 foot in height and 50 in breadth could not defend it from time And yet the holy Scripture describes Ecbatana the chief City of Media to be more strong than that It was built by Arphaxad King of the Medes of square stone the Walls contained seventy cubits in breadth thirty cubits in height and the Towers which encompassed it were each in height a hundred cubits and yet for all this could not the Median Empire having such a head escape from rendring it self unto the Assyrians And the same Monarch who built it and made the World to tremble under him came to lose it and himself and having conquered many Nations became at last conquered and a Slave unto his enemies It is not much that Cities have suffered so many changes since Monarchies and Empires have done the same and so often hath the World changed her face as she hath changed her Monarch and Master He who had seen the World as it was in the time of the Persians would not have known it as it was in the time of the Assyrians and he who knew it in the time of the Persians would not have judged it for the same when the Greeks were Masters After in the time of the Romans it appeared with a face not known before and he who knew it then would not know it now and some years hence it will put on another form being in nothing more like it self than in its perpetual changes and alterations for which cause it hath been ever worthy of scorn and contempt and more now than ever Cyp. in Epist ad Demet since it becomes every day worse and grows old and decayes with age as St Cyprian notes in those words Thou art to know that the World is already grown old and doth not remain in that strength and vigour which it had at first This the World it self tells us and the daily declining of it into worse needs no other testimony The Winter wants the usual rains to fertilize the earth the Summer the accustomed heat to ripen the corn the Autumn is not loaden as heretofore with fruits nor the Spring glads us with the delight and pleasure of its sweet temperature out of the hollowed Mountains are drawn less pieces of marble and the exhausted Mines yield less quantities of gold and silver The Labourer is wanting in the Fields the Mariners in the Seas the Souldier in the Tents Innocency in the Market-places Justice in the Tribunals Sincerity in Friendship Skill in Arts and Discipline in Manners Necessary it is that that should decay which thus daily sinks into it self and approaches towards an end Immediately he adds This is the doom of the World This the ordinance of God all that is born must die all that increases must grow old the strong become feeble the great diminish and when diminished perish Anciently our lives extended beyond 800 or 900 years now few arrive unto an hundred We see boys grown gray and our
the other but falling from an high Tower he remained one leg as long as the other Alexander Benedictus rehearseth Alexan. Benedi lib. 3. That he knew a blind man who being wounded grievously in the head recovered his sight Rondelejus certifies that a mad woman having her head broken returned to her wits Plutarch writes of one Promeheus who had an ugly humour and swelling in his face who having spent much money upon Surgeons and Physicians to little purpose was by a wound which his Enemy by chance gave him in the same place perfectly cured the hurt leaving no blemish or deformity behind it The injuries done to Joseph by his brothers promoted him to the greatest honours of the Egyptian Empire The heap of miseries wherein holy Job was involved concluded in a double fortune and felicity Jacob flying from his Countrey with no more wealth than a walking staffe returned rich and prosperous with a numerous Family There is no drooping for unfortunate successes since they often prove the beginning of great felicities and oftentimes we may rejoyce for those evils for which we have shed tears But that we may more clearly perceive the mutability of things and the hope we may entertain even in the depth of our calamities of a better condition I shall here recount the Story of Marcus and Barbula two Roman Gentlemen Fulgosius l. 6. Marcus who was Praetor followed the Party of Brutus and being overthrown with his Generall in the Philippian fields and taken Prisoner feigned himself to be of base condition and so was bought by Barbula for a Slave who perceiving in him notwithstanding his outward appearance a deep judgement great discretion and a noble spirit began to suspect him to be something else than what hs seemed and calling him aside perswaded him to reveal who he was assuring him that although he were one of the Rebels he would not fail to procure his pardon Marcus smiling assured him he was no such man and Barbula to let him see how bootless it was to conceal who he was told him he was resolved to carry him along with him to Rome where he was certain to be discovered Marcus answered With all his heart not doubting but the great change of his habit and condition would free him from the knowledge of any but he found himself deceived for he was no sooner arrived at Rome but waiting upon his Master at the door of one of the Cousuls he was known by a Roman Citizen who immediately discovered him in secret to his Patron Barbulâ—t handled the matter so discreetly that without acquainting his counterseit Slave he went to Agrippa by whose means he obtained a pardon from Augusts who in short time became so well satisfied of Marcus that he received him amongst his most private friends Not long after Barbula following the side of Mark Anthony was taken in the Actiacan Warre and unknown was likewise bought by Marcus amongst other Slaves But so soon as it came to his knowledge that he was his ancient Master he repaired unto Augustus begged his pardon and restored him unto his liberty returning in the same manner the favour which he had received Who sees not here those secret pipes by which blessings are derived and fortune changed Marcus enjoyed the dignity of a Praetor was sodainly after a Slave than a Friend of Caesars and a redeemer of his redeemer arriving at higher preferments by his slavery and captivity than by his birth and former dignity Whilest life lasts there is no mishap without hope and affliction although we look upon things within their own limits and natural disposition come often home loaden with prosperities But if we look upon them with that divine hope which we ought to have there is no evil from whence we may not derive a good To what greater streights can one be brought than to be drawn forth to execution and held guilty by the consent of all as Susanna was but in the very way to justice God raised her up a salvation both of life and honour converting her unjust infamy into a great esteem and admiration of her vertue What remedy for Daniel when he was thrown into a Cave amongst hungry Lions but where he expected to be devoured by wild beasts he found comfort The three Children who were cast into the fiery Furnace in Babylon where there was nothing to be hoped for but death found refreshment life and content David when he was compassed in by the Souldiers of Saul despaired of safety yet escaped the danger There is no evil in this life which even with the hopes of this life may not be asswaged but with the hopes of the other who will not be comforted Let us therefor onely fear eternal evils which have neither comfort hope nor possibility of amendment CAP. III. We ought to consider what we may come to be BUt that we may as little presume upon things favourable and succesful as despair when they are averse and contrary this excellent instruction may be drawn from their inconstancy which is Not to confide at all in humane prosperity For neither Kingdome Empire Papacy nor any greatness whatsoever can secure their Owners from ruine and misfortunes and everyone ought with holy Job to confider What he may come to be There is no fortune so high unto which may not succeed a condition as low and disastrous Let the great and rich man consider that all his wealth and power may fail and he be driven to beg an alms Let the King consider he may become a Mechanick Tradesman Let the Emperor consider that even in his own Court he may be dragged forth to justice and have dirt flung in his face and be publickly executed Let the Popes confider that some of them have been forced to kiss the feet of other Popes These things seem incredible and mortals are hardly drawn to believe them But let no man wonder at the success of any since not only Kings Emperours and Popes have been condemned but Saints and such who by their holiness have wrought miracles have fallen and been danmed in hell fire Let us all therefore preserve our selves in humility let us not confide in prosperity nor presume upon our vertues though never so perfect since every man is subject to fall into those misfortunes he little thinks of Who would imagine that so opprobrious affronts could befal a Roman Emperour as happened to Andronicus whose history I shall here relate to confirm that which if grave Authors had not reported would seem incredible An. 1285. Nicetas Chroniat in annal lib. 2. Nicetas writes and others bear him witness That this Emperour in the third year of his reign was laid hold upon by his own Vassals a strong chain and collar of iron as if he had been some Mastive dog fastned about his neck his hands manacled and his feet fetter'd with heavy shackles the most ordinary sort of people taunting him with bitter scoffs buffetted him upon the face
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
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
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
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
Prosperous and the Lovers of the World who are those which for the most part people Hell The Prophet Baruch sayes Baruc. 3. Where are the Princes of the Nations which commanded over the beasts of the earth and sported with the birds of the air which store up silver and gold in which men put their trust and there is no end of their seeking who stamp and work silver who are sollicitous and their works are not found They are exterminated they have sunk down into hell Jac. 5. and others have risen in their places St. James sayes Weep you who are rich and lament the miseries which are to fall upon you St. Paul not onely threatens those who are rich but those who desire to be so saying Those who desire to be rich fall into the snare and temptation of the Devil 1 Tim. 6. and into many unprofitable and hurtful desires which drown them in death and perdition With this counterpoise then and hazard who would desire the wealth of the World since onely the desire of it is so poisonous Let those who dote upon the World hear St. Bernard Bernard in Medit. who sayes Tell me now Where are those lovers of the world who a little while agoe were here with us there is nothing remaining of them but dust and worms Mark diligently what they once were and what they now are They were men as thou now art they did eat drink laugh and pass away their times in mirth and jollity and in a moment of time sunk down into hell Here are their Bodies eaten by worms and their Souls condemned to eternal flames until united again they both shall sink together into everlasting fire that so those who were companions in sin may be also in torments and that one pain involve them who were consorts in the love of the same offence What did their vain glory profit them their short mirth their worldly power their fleshly pleasure their false riches their numerous families where is now their laughter their jests their boasting their arrogance how great shall be their sorrow when such misery shall succeed so many pleasures when from the height of humane glory they shall fall into those grievous torments and eternal ruine where according to what the Wise-man said the mighty shall be mightily punished If then those who most enjoy the World run the greatest hazard of being damned what can more induce us to the contempt of it than the consideration of so lamentable an end And what can more set forth the malice of temporal goods than to be the occasion of eternal evils If a curious built house be subject to some notable inconveniency no man will dwell in it if a couragious horse have some vitious quality no body will buy him and if a Chrystal cup have a crack it shall not be placed upon a Royal Cupboard yet the pleasures and goods of the World though subject to all those faults how are they coveted loved and sought after and in them our perdition Certainly if we should consider seriously the eternal evils which correspond to the short pleasures of this life we should have all humane felicity in horrour and trembling to see our selves in fortunes favour should flye from the world as from death The reverend and zealous Father Frier Jordan being desirous to convert a certain Cavalier to God and from the love of the world for his last remedy had recourse unto this consideration Seeing him a beautiful young man active and well disposed of body he said unto him At least Sir since God hath bellowed so comely a face and personage upon you think what pity it were they should be the food of eternal fire and burn without end The Gentleman reflected upon his advice and this consideration wrought so much with him that abhorring the world and quitting all his possessions and hopes he became poor in Christ and entred into Religion §. 2. Let us now come to the consideration of Eternal Evils that from thence we may despise all which is temporal be it good or bad The evils of Hell are truly evils and so purely such that they have no mixture of good In that place of unhappiness all is eternal sorrow and complaint and there is no room for comfort Aelian lib. 3. varia Hist c. 18. Aelian relates a History which being taken as a Parable may serve to illustrate what we are about to speak of He sayes in the utmost borders of the Meropes there is a cetrain place called Anostos which is as much to say from whence there is no return There was to be seen a great Precipice and a deep opening of the earth from whence issued two Rivers the one of Joy and the other of Sadness upon the brinks of which grew divers trees of so different fruits that those who eat of the one forgot all that might cause grief but those who eat of the other were so possessed with an unconsolable sadness that all was weeping and lamentations until they at last died with signs and shedding of tears What do those Rivers signifie but the one of them that whereof David speaks which with his current rejoyced the City of God the other that Flood of evil which enters the Prison of Hell and fills it with groans tears and despite without the least hope of comfort for there shall the door be eternally shut to all good or expectation of ease in so much as one drop of water was denied the rich Glutton from so merciful and pitiful a man as Abraham There shall not be the least good that may give ease nor shall there want a concourse of all evils which may add affliction There is no good to be found there where all goods are wanting neither can there be want of any evil where all evils whatsoever are to be found and by the want of all good and the collection of all evils every evil is augmented In the creation of the World God gave a praise to every nature saying It was good without farther exaggeration but when all were created and joyned together he said They were very good because the conjunction of many goods advances the good of each particular and in the same manner the conjunction of many evils makes all of them worse What shall Heaven then be where there is a concourse of all goods and no evils And what Hell where there are all evils and no good Certainly the one must be exceeding good and the other exceeding evil In signification of which the Lord shewed unto the Prophet Jeremias two little Baskets of Figs Jer. 24. in the one of which were excessively good ones and in the other excessively bad both in extremity He does not content himself in saying they were bad or very bad but sayes they were over-bad because they represented the miserable state of the Damned where is to be the sink of all evils without mixture of any good at all And for this
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
by birth by divine inspiration became a Cistercian Monk He entred upon this course of life and continued with such great courage that he stuck not to challenge the Devil and bid him defiance The Enemy made his Cell the field of battail Here he assaulted him first with whips then upon a certain occasion gave him such blows that the blood burst out at his mouth and nose At the noise the Monks came in and finding him half dead they carried him to his Bed where he lay for the space of three dayes without giving any signes of life In which time in the company of an Angel he descended into a very obscure place where he saw a Man seated in a Chair of fire and certain Women very beautiful thrusting into his mouth burning torches drawing them out at other parts of his body which had been the instruments of his sins The Monk being astonished at this spectacle the Angel told him This miserable wretch was a very powerful man in the world and much given to Women and for this reason the Devils in shape of Women do torment him as thou seest Pasing a little farther he beheld another whom the infernal spirits were fleaing alive and having rubbed all his body over with salt they put him to roast upon a Gridiron This man said the Angel was a great Lord so cruel to his Vassals as the Devils are now to him A little farther they met with other persons of divers states and conditions which were tormented with several kinds of torments Many Religious both men and women whose lives had been contrary to their profession Talkers Censurers of other mens lives Slaves to their bellies defiled with lust and other such like vices To these the Ministers of vengeance in shape of most ugly fellows gave many blows in such sort that they dashed out their brains and made their eyes flye out of their heads because in their works they were blind and without judgement a chastisement Prov. 19. which the Wise-man appoints for such like persons Afterwards he lifted up his eyes and beheld one fastned to a horrible Wheel turning in such a dreadful manner that the Monk here was almost besides himself That thou seest is terrible said the Angel but far more terrible will be what thou shalt now see At the instant the Wheel began to run from alost down to the most profound depths with such horrid joggs and with such noise as if all the World Earth Heaven and all were breaking in pieces At this so sudden and direful accident all the Prisoners and Goalers of Hell brake out into great cries cursing and damning him that came in the Wheel This man said the Angel is Judas the Apostle who betrayed his Master and as long as he shall raign in glory which shall be world without end so long shall this miserable wretch lye thus tormented With these Representations God hath given us to understand the proportion his Justice observes in his chastisements to make us form some lively apprehension of the greatness of those pains they being indeed far greater than what ever we can conceive by all the rigour imaginable exhibited to the senses And in regard what enters by the senses prevails more with us for this reason he represents unto us the torments of the soul sutably to those so horrible to our senses as is to dash out the brains and make the brains flye out of the head For though it be true that this effect is not wrought indeed yet the torments inflicted upon the damned Souls are without companion greater then it would be for a man in this life to be so beaten about the head till his brains and eyes flew out Let us therefore fear the Divine justice and let us understand that in those parts of the body we offend God Almighty with greater delight we shall be sure to be punished with greater torment And here may be given this further instruction that as these and many such like stories related for more variety of discourse in this Treatise oblige us not to a full and absolute belief of them so they desire the favour of so much credit at least as is allowed to Livy Justine or other Chronicle-writers especially the Recorders of these being such as are no less grave and wise and acknowledge moreover a greater obligation of conscience not to wrong the World with lies or empty relations taken up upon the account of frivolous reports especially in matters of such concernment And as we think it not amiss to make use as occasion serves of profane Examples and Authorities in confirmation of what we usually either speak or write so without all doubt the same use of Sacred and Ecclesiastical occurrences may be no less available in such matters as these CAP. XII The fruit which may be drawn front the consideration of Eternal Evils ALl which hath been said of the pains in Hell is far short of that which really they are There is great difference betwixt the knowledge we have by relation and that which we learn by experience The Machabees knew that the Temple of the Lord was already prophaned deserted and destroyed They had heard of it and lamented it but when they saw with their eyes the Sanctuary lye desolate the Altar prophaned and the Gates burnt there was then no measure in their tears They tore their garments cast ashes upon their heads threw themselves upon the ground and their complaints ascended as high as Heaven If then the relation and discourse of the pains of Hell makes us tremble what shall be the sight and experience This notwithstanding the consideration of what hath been said may help us to form some conception of the terrour and horrour of that place of eternal sorrow Let us as St. Bernard sayes descend into Hell whilest we live that we may not descend thither when we are dead Let us draw some fruit from thence during our lives from whence nothing but torment is to be had after death The principal fruits which may be drawn from that consideration are these In the first place an ardent love and sincere gratitude towards our Creator that having so often deserved Hell he hath not yet suffered us to fall into it How many be there now in Hell who for their first mortal sin and onely for that one have been sent thither and we notwithstanding the innumerable sins which we have committed are yet spared What did God find in us that he should use a mercy towards us for so many sins which he did not afford to others for so few Why are we not then more grateful for so many benefits which we have no wayes deserved How grateful would a damned person be if God should free him from those flames wherein he is tormented and place him in the same condition we now are What a life would he lead what penance would he undergoe what austerity would not appear a pleasure unto him and how grateful
miserie that he may be heard of his God And certainly for him who is in the condition of a penitent and to demand mercy it is not seemly to use superfluities to imploy himself in vanities to take delight in the world enjoy the Creatures and seek after greatness And although it were lawful in the integrity of nature when man was free from the corruption of sin to use the Creatures with more libertie yet being now fallen it is no wayes tolerable but let him look upon himself as one guilty who hath offended his God and is in fine a miserable man The Philosophers who considered nature not as it was by sin but as it ought to be in it self measured there vertues by that rule and therefore knew not the vertue of humility nor used that of penance And the vertues of Magnanimity Constancy and Magnificence they extended so far that many actions which the Stoicks and Peripateticks called vertuous may be esteemed vicious But the horribleness of sin and the weakness of humane nature being now discovered the estate of things is changed and humilitie ought still to reign both in our souls and bodies and many acts of other vertues esteemed by them are to be corrected We are to choose different Mediums for the advancing our End from those of the Philosophers both because the ends we aym at are not the same and because we know our selves to be in a far other condition then they imagined The End proposed by the Philosophers was meerly natural to wit the Happiness and felicity of this life The estate of humane nature they conceived to be free and uncontaminated by sin and that it had suffcient force of it self to do good In all this they were deceived and it is not therefore strange if for the obtaining of their ends they taught wayes distinct from those of Christians who know their end to be supernatural to wit the happiness not of this but of the other life who know also their estate of nature not to be free and entire as it was at first but corrupted and defaced by sin and that of it self it hath neither force nor efficacy to execute any thing that is good unless assisted by the grace and mercy of God It is therefore no marvail if Chrisitians who know themselves their end and condition make use of such Vetues and Mediums as the Philosophers knew not Neither is it much that the Philosophers took some vertuous acts for vices since they mistook many vices for vertues Aristotle the Prince of natural and moral Philosophers knew not Humility voluntary Povertie and Penance to be vertues but rather condemned the last to be a kind of insensibility and one of those vices contrary to the vertue of temperance The Stoicks also held Pity and Commiseration for a vice But since the Gospel of Christ these are become the most necessary and recommended vertues and the most apt and ready means for the obtaining of our salvation These three vertues in which consists the contempt of all things temporal Aristotle knew not because he knew not himself By Humilitie Honours are despised by Poverty Riches and by Penance the Pleasures and Regaloes of the world And therefore he who will make the right and profitable use of things temporal for the gaining of eternity must as a sinner humble himself and do penance must not employ himself and the time of his life in gathering and heaping up riches which are so farre from being goods that to innumerable persons they have shut up the gates of the true and real goods which are onely the eternal unto which we are wholly to aspire not trusting in our own forces but in the mercy and passion of Jesus Christ CAP. III. The value of goods eternal is made apparent unto us by the Incarnation of the Son of God BUt above all which hath been said the incomparable difference betwixt things Temporal and Eternal is made most apparent unto us by the Incarnation and passion of Jesus Christ The gaining of eternity is a matter of so high concernement that the Son of God to the end we might obtain it was incarnate and made man and that we might despise things temporal is also of so great importance that for it it was convenient that Christ our Redeemer should suffer and die I know not what can raise in us a higher conception of the greatness of the one and baseness of the other then these high and stupendious acts of God Almighty And therefore though briefly we will say something of them both beginning with that admirable and great mystery of the Incarnation Great is all that which is eternal and so much imports us that rather than we should lose it God wrought a work of that height and love as amazed the Angels In which we will consider four things The greatness of the work The manner of putting it in execution The evils from which it frees us and The good we gain by it For the first which is the Greatness of the work we are to suppose the estate of man as he then stood which was the most miserable infamous and wretched condition that could be imagined He was become a slave so the Devil polluted with sin condemned unto eternal punnishment enemy to God and without hope of remedy For even the highest Seraphins could not imagin that without prejudice to the Justice of God it was possible for man to be redeemed from that miserable and ignominious estate For although all the men in the world should suffer a thousand deaths and all the orders of holy Angels in heaven should offer themselves in sacrifice and should suffer eternal torments in hell all would not satisfy for one mortal sin All created remedies were then impossible and although God should have created some more excellent and holy creature than the most high Seraphins yet that and they were insufficient to appease the divine justice incensed against man what remedy then where none was to be had what hope when all was despaire Certainly from what was or could be created it was impossible and from the Creator it was not known to be possible and if it was known to be possible who could hope that the offended party ty should satisfie for the offence committed against himself that the Creditor should pay what the debtor ought What hope then of remedy when all hope failed both from Heaven and Earth The onely remedy and that onely known to God was that God without prejudice to his justice might cover man with his mercy but that much to the cost of God himself and the greatest work whereunto his power and wisdome could extend But who could think he would imploy so great a work for his Enemy that he would let up the rest of his omnipotency for him who was a Traytor to his Lord Onely this way remained for God to make himself man the most great and stupendious work possible or imaginable But who could believe
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
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
it is a kind of impudence to use God as a Medium for the obtaining of that which does or may separate us from him who is our chief and utmost end Guigo Cathusianus sayes Guigo Carthus in Medit. that he who prayes for temporal things uses God Almighty as the Spouse does her Husband when she desires him to bring her with his own hands some vile slave with whom she may adulterate So we desiring temporal goods encrease our affection to the things of the earth which make us forget the love of our Creator and praying for them pray for the instruments and occasions of offending him Let us not commit this treason against our Lord God but let us ask what may redound to his glory and our own profit which is only that which is spiritual and eternal to wit his grace his knowledge the imitation of his Son the contempt of the world and what is conformable to his holy will This we may safely ask and this he will certainly give us because it is for our true good And therefore in the prayer which our Lord himself hath taught us when we have said Thy will be done we proceed in a bolder manner and say in an imparative way Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses having then a kinde of certainty of obtaining when we have first conformed our prayers to the divine will and it is then as Origen notes a singular confidence we have in God to command what we pray for The third error in our petitions for temporal goods is that we pray for things vain without substance or profit for such is all temporal greatness and felicity short vain inconstant transitory and unworthy the heart of man which ought wholly to fix upon the eternal and trample the rest under foot like that mysterious woman in the Apocalyps who was surrounded and penetrated by the Sun which filled the heart and bowels but trod the Moon under her feet the Sun which is perfectly circular being a Symbol of eternity and the Moon which is defective and mutable a figure of the temporal The Sun hath its own proper light the Moon none but what she borrows from the Sun In the same manner the eternal is a good in it self and desirable for it self the temporal hath no good at all but what it acquires by being a means of obtaining the eternal All humane felicity is but vanity smoke thorns deceit and misery With what face can a Christian demand such stuff from God Almighty and such is all humane prosperity in Gods acceptance Chrysos hom 79. in Mat. Out of which consideration St. Chrysostome speaks in this manner A Roman Judge will not understand thy allegations unless thou speak unto him in the Roman tongue In the like manner Christ will not hear thee unless thou speak unto him in his own language and thy mouth be conformable unto his In the language of our Redeemer riches are thorns honours smoke and pleasures vipers and therefore he who prays for things of this nature prayes but for so many evils And as there is no Father that if his Son instead of bread demand a Scorpion will give it him so God to those whom he loves and holds as Children when they ask him temporal goods denies them because he sees they are not good for them For this reason the honour demanded by the Wife of Zebedaeus for her two sons was denyed by our Saviour with this answer That they knew not what they asked demanding that for a good which was not and in room of the honour which they desired in a temporal Kingdom he gave them Martyrdom which they thought not of which conduced to real and eternal happiness Let us learn therefore How and for What to pray that we erre not in a matter of such importance For if the error be so much greater by now much the matter in which it falls is of greater moment an error in matter of prayer must be most great especially having a divine precept and an infallible promiss that if we demand what is necessary for our Salvation in his name we shall not fail of obtaining it Let us not therefore ask that in the name of our Saviour for which he would not die but that which he bought for us with his precious blood and life which is the blessings of heaven and our eternal felicity For this let us sigh for this let us pray and let us reflect how great and faulty a carelesness it is not to pray ever for that which imports us so much as heaven and for which only we have a certain promise to be heard and not for other things which the world esteems and time consumes CAP. VII How happy are those who renounce Temporal goods for the securing of the Eternal IF all which hath been said suffice not to make us despise the goods of the earth for the gaining of those blessings we hope for in heaven and if neither the example nor remonstrances of our Saviour will serve to make us esteem the Eternal and contemn the Temporal but that we will for all this preferre the one though little and base because present before the other though great and immense because to come Yet let our present interest and the word and promise of the Son of God move us which certainly if seriously weighed will not onely perswade us to despise but totally to renounce the goods of the world as many of the Philosophers have done that they might more freely enjoy the pleasures and commodities of this life and many Saints for the hopes they have had of the other Let us here call to mind what was said by the Saviour of the world Mat. 19. Whosoever shall leave father or mother or brothers or sisters or house or land for my sake shall in this life receive a hundred-fold and after death life eternal In which words we are to consider the greatness of the promise and the importance of that for which so great things are promised Without doubt it must be of high concernment to renounce our temporal goods since the Son of God invites us to it with so great promises and if it be convenient to renounce them as things poysonous and hurtful to us we can have no excuse for not despising them or at least if we do not despise them yet we can have no reason to love and prefer them before the eternal Much and extremely much it will concern us to despise that which is convenient for us to leave and as much to pluck from our hearts the affection of those things which are not fit for us to possess Neither is it much to say that it is advantagious for us to renounce these temporal things since St. Bonaventure judged it necessary and therefore according to the Apostle sayes That the root of all evil is avarice from which and from pride which accompanies it all sins have their birth food
France There she taught her Brother how to order a Dairy milk Cows and make Cheeses and after found a way to have him received into a certain Grange of the Cistercians where he performed this office to such satisfaction of the Monks that in a short time he was admitted amongst them a Lay-Brother His Sister Matilda seeing him thus placed said one day unto him Brother certainly a great reward attends us from the Lord for having thus left our Parents and our Country for the love of him But we shall receive a far greater if for the short time of our lives we deprive our selves even of this content of seeing one another and that we so give our selves over to that Divine and Soveraign Majesty that we meet no more until we meet in Heaven where we shall see and converse one with another in true and eternal comfort Here the Brother fell a weeping apprehending this as the greatest difficulty he had hitherto encountred in the whole course of his life But at last he master'd it and they both parted never to see one another more upon earth The holy Virgin went unto a certain Town nine miles distant where she lived retired in a little Cottage and sustained her self wholly by the labour of her hands admitting neither present nor alms Her Bed was the ground or little better she eat upon her knees and in that posture spent many hours in prayer wherein she often was so rapt from her senses that she neither heard the noise of thunder nor perceived the flashes of lightning Alexander was never known whilest he lived But St. Matilda was nine years before her death and therefore attempted often to have left the place but was so strictly watched she could not She wrought many miracles both during her life and after death A certain Monk sick of an Imposthume in his breast offered up his prayers at the Tomb of Alexander and to him the Servant of God appeared more resplendent than the Sun adorned with two most beautiful Crowns The one of which he wore upon his head The other he carried in his hand And being demanded of the Monk what those two Crowns signified he answered This which I bear in my hands is given me for that temporal Kingdom which I forsook upon earth The other of my head is that which is commonly given to all the Saints of Heaven And that thou mayest give credit to what thou hast seen in this Vision thou shalt find thy self according to thy faith cured of thy infirmity In this manner God honours those who humble themselves for his glory CAP. IX The love which we owe unto God ought so to fill our Souls that it leave no place or power to love the Temporal WE have already produced sufficient motives and reasons to breed in us a contempt of the things of this world and to wean our affections from them as well for being in themselves vile transitory mutable little and dangerous as for that the Son of God hath done and suffered so much to the end we should despise them I will onely now add for the conclusion of this matter That though they were of some real worth or value as they are not yet for all this we ought not to love them since so great is that love and affection which is due from us unto God that it ought so fully to fill and possess our hearts that it leave no room for any other affection than it self For if it were commanded in the Law when men had not the obligation which we now have the Son of God not having then died for our redemption that we should love him with all our heart all our soul and all our powers how are we to love him when our debt is so much greater and that we have a further knowledge of his divine goodness If then there ought to be no place for any love but his how can we now turn our eyes unto the creature or set our hearts upon it when a million of hearts are not sufficient for our Creator There is no one Title for which God is amiable but upon that title we owe him a thousand wills a thousand loves and all what we are or can be What do we then owe him for all together Consider his benefits his love his goodness and thou shalt see that though thou hadst as many hearts as there are sands upon the Sea-shore or atoms in the Air all were not capable of that great love which is due unto him How canst thou then divide this one heart which thou hast amongst so many creatures Consider also the multitude and greatness of his divine blessings and deal but with God as one man doth with another If we say of humane benefits that gifts break rocks how comes it that divine benefits do not move a heart of flesh Prov. 22. And if as Salomon sayes Those who give gifts steal the hearts of the receivers how comes it that God robs not thee of thy soul who not onely gives thee gifts but himself for a gift Consider the benefits thou didst receive in thy Creation They were as many as thou hast members of thy body or faculties of thy soul Consider those of thy Conservation Thou hast received as many as there are distinct natures in Heaven and in Earth The Elements Stars and the whole world were created for thy preservation without which thou couldest not subsist Look upon the benefits of thy Redemption They are as many as are the evils of Hell from which they have freed thee Look upon those of thy Justification they are as many as the Sacraments which Christ hath instituted and the examples which he hath left thee Think what thou owest him for having made thee a Christian pardoned thee so often and given thee still fresh grace to renew thee All these and a thousand other benefits and obligations demand and sue for thy love And not onely these benefits from God but even those from men cry out unto thee to love him For there is no benefit which thou receivest from man but comes from God On all parts then and for all things thou art obliged to love God for it is he who does thee good in all and is worth unto thee more than all How comes it then that since he hath done all this for us we yet think not what we are to do for him nor how we shall express our thankfulness for such and so great benefits David was troubled with this care when he said What shall I return unto the Lord for all which he hath given me And yet the Lord had not then given him the Body and blood of his Son nor had his Son then been born or died for him Since then he hath done all this for us why doe we not study how we may be grateful for such infinite and unspeakable mercies But what can we return which we have not received Let us deliver him back our
bis life shall lose it and he who hates it in this world shall gain it for ever Hence it comes that we are now no more to look upon our selves as upon a thing of our own but onely Gods depending both in our spiritual and corporal being from that infinite Ocean of being and perfection Hence the Soul finding it self now free and unfetter'd flyes unto God with all its forces and affections not finding any thing to love and please it but in him in whom the beauty and perfections of all creatures are contained with infinite advantages When one hath once arrived unto this estate how dissonant and various soever his works be the end which he pretends is still the same and he ever obtains what he pretends if shutting his eyes to all creatures as if they were not he looks at nothing but God and how to please his Divine goodness and that onely for it self It may be that looking at the particular ends of each work our actions may be in several conditions sometimes they are in beginning sometimes in the middest sometimes in the end and oftentimes by impediments and cross accidents which happen they acquire not what they aim at but look upon the intention of him who works and they are still in their end For in what condition soever the work be he who does it with this intention onely to please God is ever in his end which no bad success or contradiction can hinder According to this which hath been said it is a great matter by Divine light to have arrived at this knowledge That all goods and gifts descend from above and that there is an infinite power goodness wisdom mercy and beauty from whence these properties which are here below participated by the creatures with such limitation are derived It is a great matter to have discovered the Sun by his rayes and guiding our selves by the stream to have arrived at the Fountains head or to have found the Centre where the multiplicity of created perfections meet and unite in one There our love shall rest as having nothing further to seek And this is to love God with all the heart all the soul all the mindâ— and all the powers And as those who arrive at this happy state have no other care no other thought than to doe the will of God here upon earth with the same perfection it is done in heaven So they have no other desires than by leaving earth to enter heaven there by sulfilling wholly the Divine will to supply what was defective upon earth Nothing detains them here but the will of God they have nothing begun which is not ended they are ever prepared all their business is dispatched like those servants who are alwayes expecting their Lord and still ready to open the door when he shall call Let us then prepare our selves by withdrawing our love from all which is temporal and created and placing it upon our Creator who is eternal let us love him not with a delicate and an effeminate love but with a strong and manly affection such a one as will support any weight overcome any difficulty and despise any interest rather than be separated from our beloved break his Laws or offend him though never so lightly Let this Love be strong as death that it may look death in the face and not flye from it which when it suffers it conquers Let thy fire be so enkindled that if whole rivers of tribulations fall upon it they may be but like drops of water falling upon a forge which the flame drinks up and consumes and is not quenched but quickned by them Be above thy self and above all that is below And if the world offer thee all it is Mistress of to despoil thee of this love tread it under thy feet and despise it as nothing To this love it belongs To accommodate ones self to poverty Not to repine at hunger nakedness cold or heat who as companions goe along with it To suffer injuries meekly To bear sickness and infirmities patiently Not to be dismayed in persecutions To endure temptations with longanimity To bear the burthens of our neighbours chearfully Not to be tired with their thwart conditions Not to be angry at their neglects nor overcome by their ingratitude In spiritual drynesses not to leave our ordinary devotions and in consolations and spiritual gusts not to forbear our obligations Finally that we may say with St. Paul Rom. 8. Who shall separate us from the charity of Christ tribulation or distress or famine or nakedness or danger or persecution or the sword I am sure that neither death nor life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers neither things present nor things to come neither might nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. FINIS