in incerto divitiarum 1. Tim. 9. you love riches put them in a place assured for eternity II. If you be not poor live in riches like the poor Oftentimes place your self in thought even in that state you were born in from your mothers womb or in that state you must return unto in the earth You then will have no cause to become proud of your riches when you shall see your self encompassed with false feathers fastened together with wax which with the first rayes of the other life will scatter and flie away III. Never suffer gold and silver to predominate over you like a King but hold them under obedience like a slave All these things come from the earth and are made for the use of an earthly body What esteem can a Soul make of them unless she become terrestrial If you regard necessity you have but very little need of them if your own sensual appetites you shall never satisfie them Leave concupiscence and serve necessity IV. Live in such a manner that if you did know it to be purely and simply the will of God you should from this day be despoiled of all your wealth and nothing left you but so much as would suffice to entertain life you notwithstanding would shew this change to be acceptable to you saying with holy Job God hath given it to me God hath taken it from me his name be praised Theodoret makes mention Martyr of poverty Same 's of a very rich man a Persian by nation and a Christian by profession called Same 's from whom the King of Persia took all his plentiful possessions depriving him of gold silver garments stock revenues and retinue and not contenting himself with that gave his wife and house to a servant of this holy man further enforcing him to serve as a slave to this varlet most ungrateful and barbarous to his good Master Behold herein whither humane miseries may arrive Notwithstanding Same 's a rock of constancie was never a whit shaken having this maxime well imprinted in his heart that for accessories we must never lose the principal V. Govern your house in all frugality and modesty Make the expences which you know to be necessary and agreeable to your estate not as a possessour but as steward and know you shall be accountable Divitem te sentiant pauperes of the poors portion before God Apprehend not so much the future time either for your self or children nor afflict your self for present or passed loss Likewise when you have good success in your affairs pass over it as a wary Bee over honey not clamming your wings according to the notable sentence of S. Augustine in his Epistle to Romanian Living in August ad Romani ep 113. Non frustrà in nullis copià pennas habet apicula nectiâ— enimhaerentem this manner although you have Craesus his wealth you shall live happily poor It is said that a great Pope with all the riches which he had and dayly distributed for supply of needy mankind was thought to be poorer and as I may say more expropriated than a silly Hermit who had nothing in his Cell but a Cat he now being become a Master over his own affections The eight and twentieth SECTION Practice of Justice THat which the air is in the elementary world Necessity of Justice the sun in the celestial the soul in the intelligible justice is the same in the civil It is the air which all afflicted desire to breath the sun which dispelleth all clouds the soul which giveth life to all things The unhappiness is it is more found on the paper of Writers than in the manners of the living To be just is to be all that which an honest man may be since justice is to give every on what appertaineth to him It 's Actions are I. To subject within us the body to the soul and First Justice the soul to God For the first actions of injustice are to place passions upon Altars reason in fetters and not to search for the Kingdom of heaven but in the sway of our own private interests II. Concerning him who sits in place of magistracy to have an ardent zeal for the maintenance of lawes to bend all his endeavours to apply all the forces of his mind and courage to authorize justice to strengthen his arme against the torrent of iniquities and to put all his peculiar interests under the discharge of his employments He must have a great spirit to carry himself in that manner and especially in a world of corruptions A good and perfect justicer like unto Job is a Phenix Ages as scarcely produce Job 19. him and when he dyeth he contristates the whole world Where shall you find him who can attribute to himself this rare commendation couched Justitiâ indutus sum vestivi me sicut vistimento diademate judiâ—io meo Oculus fui caeco pes claudo Pater eram pauperum contereâ—am molas iniqui de dentibus illius auferebam praedam Helmodi Chronicon Admirable Justice without favour in the books of this worthy man I am clothed with justice as with a garment I am adorned with righteousness as with a diadem I have been an eye to the blind a foot to the lame a father of the poor I brake the jaw-bones of the unjust man took the prey out of his teeth III. Not to know the favour either of parents friends flesh or blood when there is occasion of doing an act of justice as Canutus King of Denmark did who after he had examined the process of twelve theeves and condemned them found one who said he was extracted of royal blood It is reason saith the King some grace should be done to him wherefore give him the highest gibet So the famous Zeleucus to satisfie the law pulled out one of his own eyes and the other of his son So Andronicus Commenus caused publiquely to set one of his favourite on the pillory and commanded all those who wrought mischief under the hope of his favour either to leave injustice or life So the Emperour Justine suffered one of his greatest minions to be apprehended at his own table by the Provost and thence dragged to execution IV. To abhor those who betray justice either for Peremptorium est in principe vel auram adorari munerum vel favorem quaercre personarum Cassiod Ignis devorabit tabernaculâ— corum qui munerà accipiunt Job 15. Oath of Magistrates under Justitian money revenge love or any other passion as monsters of nature murderers of mankind to hold them anathematized with the great excommunication of nature Not to admire their fortune nor in any sort to participate in their riches to become a companion in their crimes holding this undoubted that the fire of Gods judgement will devour their Tabernacles who practise these corruptions In the form of an oath exhibited under the Emperour Iustinian the Magistrates sware to maintaine
a myne wherein poor slaves are made to labour that they may hit upon the veins of gold and silver And Tertullian had the like conceit when he said The first man was clothed with skins by the hand of God to teach him he entered into the world as a slave into a myne Now as these hirelings who cease not to turn up the earth with sweat on their brows tears in their eyes and sighs in their hearts no sooner have they met with the hoped vein but they rejoyce and embrace one another for the contentment they take to see their travels crowned with some good event So after such combates such rough temptations so many calumnies so many litigious wranglings such persecutions such vexations and toils which chosen souls have undergone in the thraldom of this body when the day comes wherein they by a Isaiah 38. In laetitia egrediemini in pace deducemini montes colles cantabunâ— coram vobis laudem Apoc. 21. Absterget Deus omnem laehrymam ab oculis eorum mors ultra non erit neque luctus neque clamor neque dolor erit ultra quia prima abierunt ecce nova faciâ— omnia most happy death meet the veins of the inexhaustible treasure whereof they are to take possession they conceive most inexplicable comfort Then is the time they hear these words of honey Go confidently faithfull souls go out of those bodies go out with alacritie go out in full peace and safetie the Eternal Mountains to wit the Heavens and all the goodly companie of Angels and most blessed spirits which inhabit them will receive you with hymns of triumph Go confidently on behold God who is readie to wipe away your tears with his own fingers There shall be no more death no more tears no more clamours no more sorrows behold a state wholly new what repose what cessation of arms what peace Do you not sometimes represent unto your self these poor Christians of whom it is spoken in the acts of S. Clement men of good place banished for Acta Clement the faith who laboured in the quarreys of Chersonesus with a most extream want of water and great inconveniencies when God willing to comfort their travels caused on the top of a mountain a lamb marvellously white to appear who struck with his foot and instantly made fountains of lively water to distil What comfort what refreshment for the drowthie Psal 35. Quoniam apud tefons vitae in lumine tuo videbimus lucem multitude But what is it in comparison when a brave and faithful Christian who hath passed this life in noble and glorious actions great toyls and patience beholds the Lamb of God Omnipotent which calleth him to the eternal sources of life What a spectacle to see S. Lewis die after he had twice with a huge army passed so many seas tempests monsters arms battels for the glory of his Master What a spectacle to see S. Paul the Hermit die after he had laboured an hundred years under the habit of Religion The second condition of this death is great tranquility for there is nothing at that time in all the world able to afflict or by acts unresigned to shake a soul firmly united to its God But what say you Just men if they be rich do they not bear in this last agonie some affection to their riches and possessions Nay so far is it otherwise that they with alacrity go out of all worldly wealth as a little bird from a silver cage to soar in the fields at the first breath of the spring-tide I pray tell me that I may pronounce before you an excellent conceit of S. Clement the Roman Clemens Rom. Recognit in the third of his Recognitions If a little chicken were shut up in an egg the shell whereof were guilded and set out with curious and delicate paintings and had reason and choice given it either to remain in this precious prison or enjoy day-light with all other living creatures under Heavens vault think you it would abide in a golden shell to the prejudice of its liberty And imagine with your self what are all the brave fortunes which have so much lustre in the world they are guilded shells no way comparable to the liberty of Gods children A good rich man dieth as Abraham who says in Origen My Dives fui sed pauperi extorris patria domus nescius ipse omnium fui domus patria sciens me non incubatorem sed dispensatorem divinae largitatis God if I have been wealthy it was for the poor I went out of my house to become a house for those who stood in need of it and am perswaded that thou hast made me a Steward of thy goods to distribute them and not to brood them as the hen her eggs But if the Just man die poor he is by so much the better pleased to forsake wretched lodgings of straw and morter to go into an eternal Palace But doth it not trouble him to leave a wife children and allies He leaves all that under the royal mantle of the eternal Providence and firmly believes that he who hath care of the flowers in the field birds bees and ants will not forsake reasonable creatures so they rest in their duty But if they must suffer in this world he will make of their tribulations ladders and footstools of their glory What shall we say of the body Doth not the soul ill to leave it The body is to the soul as the shadow of the earth in the eclipse of the Moon See you not how this bright star which illuminateth our nights seemeth to be unwillingly captived in the dark but sparkleth to get aloft and free it self from earthly impressions So the faithfull soul readily untwineth it 2 Cor. 5. Scimus quoniam si terrestris domus nostra hujus habitstionis dissolvatur quod aedificationem ex Deo habemus domum non manufactam sed aeternam in caelis Job 29. 18. In nidulo meo moriar sicut Phoenix multiplicabo dies self from the body well knowing it hath a much better house in the inheritance of God which is not a manufacture of men but a monument of the hands of the great Workman Represent unto your self Job on the dung-hill a great anatomy of bones covered with a bloudy skin a body which falleth in pieces and a soul on the lips ready to issue forth as a lessee from a ruinous dwelling Think you he is troubled to leave his body Nay rather he dieth as a Phenix on the mountain of the Sun in the odours of his heroick virtues But that which maketh this death more sweet and honourable than any thing is the hope of beatitude whereof I will speak in the nineteenth Maxim Note that worldlings die here some like unto swallows others as spiders the evil rich pass away as swallows who leave no memory of them but a nest of morter and straw for such are
thereunto are more manifest as I will make it appear in the sequel of this discourse First the Scripture speaking of ambition called it Reasons and remedies Psal 18. 14. Ab alienis parce servo tuo Ambition a Forreign vice A singular description of man a forreign vice Pride in man is not in its element it always seeketh height and man is even lowness it self What is man if we consider him in his own nature without the assistance of grace but an excrement of impurity in his conception a silly creature in his birth a bag and sponge of ordures in his life a bait for worms in his death The soul is in the body as in a Chariot of glass The days are the courriers which perpetually run upon a full gallop The four wheels are vanity weakness inconstancy misery The way is of ice the goal is death and the end oftentimes is a precipice The pleasures thereof as saith Plato are winged and wholly armed with pricks and stings to leave in flying a sharp point in the heart the dolour and discontents thereof drench it in a cup full of gall and its feet are of lead never to forsake it Can then such a creature be possessed with ambition such a dung-hill nourish pride All that we behold both above and beneath Al the world teacheth us the lesson of hâ—mility on the right on the left hand in this great house of nature serves as a lesson of humility for us Heaven which circumvolveth over our heads enameled with stars created in a higher place than we the earth which we tread under our feet which serveth us for a nurse afterwards for a sepulchre the little air we breath without which we cannot live the water which in its wonder hath swallowed up wisdom and afterwards the bodies of the most knowing men of the earth as we read of Aristotle beasts whose spoils we carry about us our body which according to account hath for its portion about three thousand diseases our soul which knoweth not what shall become of her and which cannot tell whether she shall serve as an immortal fewel to those devouring flames that have no limits but eternity or no All preach to us our baseness all thunder out the terrour and affrightments of Gods judgements and amongst so many subjects of humility you O Noblemen have leisure to puff up your selves and to fill your minds with the gentle breathing blasts of imaginary honour At the least if needs you must elevate your selves if you of necessity must take a great deal of state upon you choose the best way but insensible as you are what Ambition the life of a slave do you take upon you becoming ambitious the life of a slave the life of Cain This is the second consideration which I propose of power sufficient to instruct a soul that will give never so little predominance to reason We all naturally love liberty and suppose that to be of ones self is an inestimable good Inestimabile bonum est suum esse Senec. ep 67. Misery of the ambitious Now the most captive Galley-slaves are not greater bond-men than the ambitious The slave hath a chain and a captain who proudly insulteth over him an ambitious man hath as many fetters as he hath appetites as many servitudes as pretensions as many slaveries as manners of ambition His Captain is his unguided passion which tyrannizeth over him day and night with all possible cruelty The slave practizeth and tameth himself in his own condition the ambitious is always savage he always flieth before himself and never overtaketh himself to enter into himself He is in no place because he would be every where and yet notwithstanding he is tormented every where his feaver burneth him where he is not The slave freeth himself with money the ambitious man findeth gyves of gold and silver The slave findeth no chain so straight but that it sometimes giveth him leave to sing the ambitious is never free out of himself there are nothing but objects of frenzie fire-brands of concupiscence and within himself there is not any thing but worms flames and executioners The slave findeth at least liberty in death and death which carrieth the key of all close coverts cometh lastly to unlose all the bands of his servitude an ambitious soul as soon as it is parted from the body is consorted with devils in their tortures as it imitated them very nearly in their passion What a life what a death is this Find you any comparable if not that of unfortunate Cain The Scripture saith The life of Cain Genes 4. 16. Hebr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Procep in Genes that he withdrawing himself from the sight of God did inhabit the land of instability and Procopius thereto addeth an ancient tradition that he perpetually saw certain spectres with swords of fire which brought horrible affrightments upon him Is the ambitious man better used Is not he perpetually separated from the face of God seeing as saith S. Hierom man is divided from the Divinity not by the degrees Hier. Epist ad Damas Peccantes recedunt à Deo affectuum non locorum spatiis of body but of soul which are the affections And how much more the soul is scattered in the waste emptiness of ambition which is indeed a meer vanity so much more it strayeth from this sovereign Majesty which is the onely verity Is it not in the Kingdom of inconstancy In every place where he setteth his feet there is nothing but slippery yce or downfal The saying of the Prophet is accomplished Psal 34. 6. Fiat via illorum tenebrae labricum Angelus Domini persequens eos Extream disaster in his person Let their way be made dark and slippery and the Angel of our Lord persecute them Behold all the most lamentable extremities which may be imagined in a voyage ever to go upon yce and thereon to walk in the obscure darkness of the night and to have behind you in the rere a Sergeant who hasteneth you forward and all this is found in the life of the ambitious What passage is not slippery in the favours of the world all which are feathered and full of mutable conditions What darkness is there in a wretched creature who hath no pitie at all of himself who maketh a liberty of his fetters honour of his ignominie and tropheys of his torments What Sergeant is more troublesom What spectres and what swords of fire more teribble than the pricks of this enraged passion which as much and as violently forceth man as a bull goared with a goad rusheth through some headlong precipice Where is it that the ambitious man can find place of stability and center of repose If he be in quest of honour and when is he not behold him in a whirl-pool in fire behold him in the feverish accesses of heat and cold which afford him no intermission Admit he obtain what he pretendeth unto no
Heaven you have out-run me to live hereafter in the bosom of your grand-father But I sorrow for these Cains and these Herods whose treacherously have murdered you and who wheresoever they are I assure my self do carrie pincers and executioners in their hearts They ought at least to hear respect to the ashes of their father They ought to have compassion on the tenderness of your bodies They ought somewhat to regard my age and the care I have had to breed them since the death of the King And had they concluded upon this massacre when they took you from my house they should have executed you in my arms I at the least had closed up your dying eyes with my fingers I had wiped away the bloud from your faces I had encouraged you to death I had received your last sighs in my bosom Alas my prettie creatures little did I think the kisses I gave you at your departure were to be the last I should afford in your life Pure and innocent souls departed from these bodies in an age wherein you were ignorant of sins which never approched your knowledges much less defiled your bodies Behold from those Palaces of stars and light your afflicted mother whom God hath as yet left on earth to give burial to your bodies Speaking this she caused them to be carried away that she might bestow them in the tomb of their grand-father where being her self personally arrived nature evicted a huge tide of tears from her constancy and caused her to say My most honoured Lord and husband who so cordially loved me in this life will you not open unto me your sacred tomb to entertain me near you Behold here your grand-children which I bring unto you little blossoms cut off in the tenderness of their age by the hands of their uncles your children and mine Most dear husband I account you thrice happie to have been transported into the other world before you saw these lamentable tragedies Were there nought but their respect towards you it ought to have restrained them But my sins alone have deserved this desolate old age to which God hath reserved me to make trial of the most sensible dolours which might ever fall into my imagination I will endure them as long as it shall please the Divine Providence who will draw this satisfaction from my sins and I with sorrow will waste my bodie that hath almost nothing left but the bark to place it in short time with yours The holy woman daily poured her self out in tears near to this sepulchre remaining there day and night as if she had been some shadow of the dead but in the end to divert her self from this imagination which was too full of affliction and that she might the more freely enjoy God she resolved wholly to leave the Court and to pass the rest of her days in the Citie of Tours near to the sepulcher of S. Martin There it was where she began to lead a life wholly celestial as one who seemed to have nothing to do with the bodies and conversation of the living It is true that great prosperities do not easily corrupt souls which have taken a good temper in the fear of God yet notwithstanding they wound and in some sort change them A little Bee sometimes goeth so long upon her honey that by much walking there she entangleth her wings So a soul yea one of those which are the most devout being continually soothed by a long sequel of good successes of the affairs of the world taketh some small flight out of it self and seeketh recreation in a smiling and delicate air which affordeth it nothing but objects of delight but so soon as adversitie hath given its blow it re-entereth into it self it foldeth it self within it self it tasteth it self it knoweth it self it findeth God in the bottom of its heart afflicted and perplexed with the revolutions of the world it raiseth it self above the ways of the Moon and the tracks of the Sun to that goodly Temple of Eternity where spirits live despoiled from these masses of flesh and bones which we drag along with us in this mortal life This is the way which the wise Clotilda took so soon as she was alienated from the Court and disentangled from affairs which she never had used but for obligation of conscience she entered into a sweet retirement where it seemed unto her that nature had not displayed the mountains and valleys the forrests and rivers but to make her a theater of the works of God She relished this retreat as Manna from Paradise and tasted this deep silence with incredible delight after so many confused clamours of the embroylments of Court It seemed unto her that she then spake to God face to face and that she saw all the pride of the earth much lower than her feet Her soul was whitened with her tears was purified in her desires and vapoured out all into God as it were through the limbeck of her ardent charity The holy Ladie who had heretofore loved to behold her self shine in the majesty of sumptuous attire to render her self the more acceptable to her husband more illustrious in the eyes of her people was clothed so modestly that her History telleth she was seen to be covered with course cloth She who heretofore was altogether sparkling with precious stones appeared now in the liverie of penance She who had endeavoured temperately to entertain a mortal beauty for the contentment of her dear husband was wholly wasted with mortifications of the flesh She who after so many victories of one of the most valiantest husbands that ever was had been led along triumphant in the chariot of glory conversed now with widows and orphans going as it were perpetually on foot were it not that the weakness of her body dispensed with her therein by the counsel of those who undertook the care of her health She who had seen all the services of a great Monarchy at her feet was then continually prostrate at the feet of the poor whom she served as the living Images of God She who had taken some care to mannage revenues as the sinews of State despoiled her self as it were from things most necessary for life to succour the necessities of the people She who had delighted to build goodly Palaces had not any affection but for Monasterics and Churches which she caused to be erected every where with so much liberality as her means would permit This divine woman was as the moon in eclipse which appeareth wholly dark on the side towards the earth but faileth not to be most radiant on that part wherewith she looketh towards Heaven So those who beheld this Princess with carnal eyes in such a state said she was eclipsed but God who in this retirement darted on her rays of glory through the cloud of the body caused her to see with eyes of Angels as a soul wholly invested with the Sun of justice As she was in the sweetness
preservation of a fool and sick man If Rom. 6. Great spirits enemies of the flesh you live according to the flesh you shall die said the Apostle to the Romans All great spirits who have a feeling of their extraction the beauty and nobility of their souls take not the necessities of life but with some shame and sorrow They regard the flesh as the prison of a spirit immortal and think to flatter it is to strangle the beâ—ter part of themselves which resteth in the understanding The Philosopher Plotinus who Plotin Porphiry upon his life was renowned as the worlds Oracle could not endure to have his picture taken saying he had trouble enough to suffer a wretched bodie without multiplying the figures thereof by the help of painting and you imagine it is a virtue of the times to adore it and afford it submissions which pass to the utmost period of servitude How much the more we profit in the libertie of God's children so much the more we proceed in disengagement from sense and enter as into the sanctuarie of souls there to consult on truths and understand reasons which vindicate us from the dregs of the world to give us passage into the societie of Angels It is a strange matter that the subtile Divine Scotus Discourse of Scotus concerning sense Scotus locis disquisit 1. indicatis thinks that to understand and know objects by sensible representations passing through the gate of our sense and striking our imagination is a punishment from original sin He finds it is a harsh subjection to make application to the bodie to derive colours odours and sounds from it which notwithstanding seemeth as innocent as the purchase of bees who suck honie out of flowers and shall we think there can be any felicitie to plunge our judgement into all the voluptuous pleasures of flesh Know we not it many times doth to the soul as the An observation of Camerarius concerning the heron heron to the faulcon He endeavoureth to flie above him and to wet his wings with his excrements to make his flight heavie and render his purpose unprofitable Alas how many times feel we the vigour of our reason enervated by the assaults of concupiscence which contracteth the like advantage from it's ordures for the enthralment of the spirit And why would we second it's violence by our weakness Instance upon the weakness and miserie in service of the body I moreover demand of you what can you hope from so punctually observing your bodie You are not a Geryon with three heads and three throats There needs but a little to fill you For though your concupiscence be infinite yet are your senses finite many times pleasure overwhelms them before they afford themselves the leisure of tasting them If you resolve so curiously to attend the search of pleasures you should desire the spirit of a horse to enjoy them with the more vigour and liberty But what sense is there to have the soul of a man and seek to be glutted with the mite of the earth as if one would feed a Phoenix with carrion on which ravens live when you have done all you can to make your self happie by diversity of worldly pleasures beasts will ever have more than you For their sensitive souls much sooner meet the height of nature and as their pleasures are free from shame so they drag not sorrow after them They are not gnawn with cares by desiring things needless they take what the elements afford them and what the industry of man manures for them know not what it is to find poisonous maladies in the most ardent pleasures sensuality may imagine But admit you were resolved to become a beast with the disciples of Epicurus yet ought you not for all that according to your own limits surpass the bruitishness of beasts And I pray tell me where is the beast which hath never so little generosity would not think it self most miserable if it were condemned to eat and drink perpetually and grow lazy in an idle life They frame themselves very willingly to the exercises nature appointed them for the service of man and a man thinks it a great Philosophy to consecrate all the parts of his bodie to sensuality no whit considering he is made for the contemplation of things Divine for the love and fruition of the first cause Avicen an excellent wit by the unhappiness of his Avicenna lib. de primâ Philosoph 9. c. 1. apud Javellum Notable saying of Avicen birth ranked in the sect of Mahomet coming to consider this false Prophet had placed the beatitude of the other life in the injoying sensual pleasures was so ashamed of it that he shrunk from his Prophet that he might not betray his reason The law saith he which Mahomet gave us considered beatitude and miserie within the limits of the bodie but there are promises and hopes of other blessings much more excellent and which cannot be conceived but by the force of a most purified understanding Which is the cause wise divines ever set their Foelicitas est conjunctio cum primâ Veritate love on the blessings of spirit without any account taken of those of sense in comparison of the felicitie we one day pretend to have in the union of our immortal spirit with the first Verity What can our worldlings answer to this Arabian Should they not blush with shame to see a man bred in the school of Epicurus gone out of it to teach us the Maxim of Christianity 4. Finally to conclude this discourse with a third Reason 3 reason although the service of the bodie were possible Tyranny of ryot and not shameful to you do you not well see it is tyrannical and that Epicurus himself wholly bent to pleasure cut off all he could from nature for this onely cause which made him think over-much care of the body was extreamly opposite to felicitie The Platonists Opinion of Platonists said our souls were of an extraction wholly celestial and sent from heaven to serve God on earth in imitation of the service Angels do to him in heaven but that many of those poor souls forgetting their original instead of going directly to the Temple of virtue stood amuzed in the house of a Magician which was the flesh that enchanted them with his charms had cast them into fetters where they were enforced to suffer a painful bondage from whence there were but two passages wisdom or death To this Synesius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Syness hym 3. made allusion in his Hymns complaining his soul from a servant of God was become a slave of matter which had bewitched it by wily practises And verily who can sufficiently express the servitude a soul suffers fast linked to flesh and which onely endeavours to dandle it hoping by this means to give true contentment to the mind First pleasures are not exposed now-adayes to all the world as the water of a
river which the other unwillingly did seeing the peril whereinto they hastened to fall They went there remaining not above six-score of five or six hundred men and having been five days on the river they landed at adventure rather constrained by night than invited by the commodiousness of place The next day they descried a squadron of about two hundred Aethiopians who came towards them which made them prepare for defence but troubled at their arms they shewing themselves peacefull enough the other by gesture and signs discovered their infinite miscries These people wholly practised in tricks of deceit and who would make benefit of this occasion let them with much ado understand they might pass along to the Kings Palace where they should be very well entertained which they attempted but approching to the Citie in arms the King of these Barbarians timorous and wicked forbade them enterance and confined them to a little wood where they remained certain days passing the time in a poor traffick of knives and trifles which they bartered for bread But this treacherous Prince who meant to catch them in the snare seeing they had some commodities sent word to Sosa he must excuse him that he denied enterance into the Citie and that two causes had put him from it The first whereof was the dearth of victual among his people and the other the fear his subjects had of the Portingales arms they never as yet being accustomed thereto But if they would deliver their weapons they should be received into his citie and his people consigned to the next towns to be well entertained This condition seemed somewhat harsh but necessity digested all They agreed with one consent to satisfie the King Eleonora onely excepted who never would consent to betray their defences in a place where they had so much need of them Behold them disarmed and separated some dispersed into several villages here and there Sosa with his wife his children and about twenty other brought to the regal Citie Scarcely was he arrived but all his company were robbed beaten with bastonadoes and used that very night like dogs whilest himself had little better entertainment For this Prince of savages took all his gold and jewels from him and drave him away as a Pyrate leaving him onely life and his poor garments As they went out of this calamity deploring their misery behold another troup of Cafres armed with javelins who set upon them and let them know they must leave their apparel if they meant not to forsake their skins They were so confoūded they neither had strength nor courage to defend themselves behold the cause why they yielded what was demanded as sheep their fleece There was none but Eleonora who preferring death before nakedness stood a long time disputing about a poor smock with these savages but in the end violence bereaved her of that which modesty sought by all means to keep The chast and honourable Lady seeing her self naked in the sight of her domesticks who cast down their eyes at the indignity of such a spectacle presently buried her self in sand up to the middle covering the rest of her body with her dissheveled hair and every moment having these words in her mouth Where is my husband then turning towards the Pilot and some of her Officers there present she said to them with a setled countenance My good friends you have hitherto afforded to my husband your Captain and to me your Mistress all the dutie may be expected from your fidelitie It is time you leave this bodie which hath alreadie paid to the earth the moitie of its tribute Go think upon saving your lives and pray for my poor soul But if any one of you return to our native Countrey be may recount to those who shall please to remember the unfortunate Eleonora to what my sins have reduced me Having spoken these words she stood immoveable in a deep silence some space of time then lifting her eyes to Heaven added My God behold the state wherein I came from my mothers womb and the condition whereunto I must quickly return on earth one part of me being already as among the dead My God I kiss and adore the rods of thy justice which so roughly though justly have chastised me Take between thy arms the soul of my most honoured husband if he be dead Take the souls of my poor children which are by my sides Take mine now on my lips and which I yield to thee as to my Lord and Father There is no place far distant from thee nor any succour impossible to thy power As she spake this Sosa her husband came having escaped out of the hands of these thieves who had robbed him and finding his wife in this state he stood by her not able to utter a word The Lady likewise spake onely with her eys which she sweetly fix'd upon him to give comfort in the violence of the insupportable afflictions But he feeling his heart wholly drenched in bitterness hastened into a wood of purpose to meet with some prey at least to feed his little childrē which were as yet by their mothers side Thence he ere long returned and found one of them already dead to which with his own hands he gave burial immediately after he went again into the forrest to hunt as he had accustomed finding no other comfort His heart was perpetually in Eleonora's where he survived more than in his own body coming to behold her once again or his last he perceived she was already deceased with his other child who died near her there being onely left two poor maids who bewailed their Lady and made the wilderness resound with their sad complaints He commanded them to retire a little aside then taking Eleonora by the hand he kissed it standing a long time with his lips fixed unto it nothing to be heard but some broken sighs That done with the help of the maids he buried her near his two children without any complaint or utterance of one word In a short space after he returned into the thickest of the forrest where it was thought he was devoured So joyning his soul at least to hers who had tied her heart to his in death with examples of her constancie THE THIRD PART OF MAXIMS Of the HOLY COURT THE DESIGN HAving in this Second Part deduced the principal Maxims which concern the direction of this present Life we enter into the other there to behold the power of death over mortal things and the immortalitie of our souls in the general dissolution of bodies We consider them in the several ways they take in their passage and then see them re-united to their bodies as in the Resurrection It is under thy eyes Eternal Wisdom and by thy favour we enter into these great labyrinths of thy Eternities therein hoping thy direction as we intend thy glorie THE THIRD PART Touching the State of the other World XV. MAXIM Of DEATH THE PROPHANE COURT THE HOLY
with so much profusion that she could not endure to lodge but in chambers full of delicious perfumes of the East she would not wash her self but in the dew of Heaven which must be preserved for her with much skill Her garments were so pompous that nothing remainned but to seek for new stuffs in Heaven for she had exhausted the treasures of earth Her viands so dainty that all the mouthes of Kings tasted none so exquisite nor would she touch her meat but with golden forks and precious stones God to punish this cursed superfluity cast her on a bed and assailed her with a maladie so hydeous so stinking and frightfull that all her nearest kin were enforced to abandon her none staying about her but a poor old woman already throughly accustomed to stench and death yet could not this proud creature part with her infamous body but with sorrow She was of those souls that Plato calleth Phylosemates which tie themselves to flesh as much as they can and after death would gladly still walk round about their flesh to find a passage into it again Know you what is to be done to die well Cut off in good time the three chains which straightly bind foolish and sensual souls For the first passage that The way how to be well provided for death concerneth earthly goods seasonably dispose of your temporal Entangle not your hands for so short a time as you are to live in great affairs perilous and uncertain which will perplex you all your life and throw you down to death Do not like evil travellers who stay to reckon and contend with their hostess when it is already fair day-light and that the guid wrangles and sweareth at them Digest your little business that you may leave no trouble in your family after death Make a Will clear and perspicuous which draweth not suits after it Preserve your self carefully from imitating that wicked man who caused all his gold and silver to be melted into one mass to set his heirs together by the ears who killed one another sprinkling the apple of discord and the object of their avarice with their bloud Say to your self I brought nothing into the world nor will carry any thing away no not the desire of it Behold one part of my goods which must be restored to such and such these are true debts that must necessarily be discharged Behold another for pious legacies Another for alms to persons needy and indigent another for my servants male and female and my poor friends who have faithfully served me They have wasted their bodies and lives to contribute all they might to my will there is no reason I should forget them Nay I desire mine enemies have some part in my will As for my children and heirs the main shall go to them they will be rich enough if they be virtuous enough Behold how the temporal should be disposed And for so much as concerneth kinred give the benediction of God to your children and all your family leave worthy examples of contempt of the world of humility of patience of charity procure a full reconciliation with your enemies entertain your friends with sage discourses which may shew you gladly accept Gods visitations that you die full of resolutions to prepare them a place and that you expect from their charity prayers and satisfactions for your negligence and remisness If needs some small tribute must be paid to nature in two or three drops of tears it is tolerable But take away these whyning countenances these petty furies these mercenary weepers who weep not knowing why nor for what they mourn As for that which toucheth the state of your body it would be a goodly thing for you to be wail it after you have had so many troubles in it Go out of it like a Tennant from a ruinous house go from it as from a prison of earth and morter Go out of it as on the sea from a rotten leaky ship to leap on the shore and care not much what will become of it after death so it be on holy land Souls well mortified speak not of flesh considering the state of sin but with horrour Yea we find in the bequests of one of the sons of S. Lewis Count of Alencon these words I will Modesty of a son of S. Lewis the Tomb that shall cover my stinking flesh exceed not the charge of fiftie livres and that which encloseth my evil heart pass not thirty livres Behold how the son of one of the greatest Kings in the world speaketh of his body and would you idolatrize yours Lastly for the third condition of a good death it The third quality of a good death must have union with God whereof our Lady giveth us a perfect example For it being well verified by Theologie that there are three unions supernatural and as it were wholly ineffable the first whereof is the sacred knot of the most holy Trinitie which tieth three persons in one same Essence the second is the tie of the Word with humane nature which subsisteth by the hypostasis of the same Word and the third the intimate conjunction of a Son-God with a Mother-Virgin I affirm the Virgin being a pure creature cannot equal either the union of the Trinity or the hypostatical union yet notwithstanding hath the highest place of all created unions as she who was united to God when she lived in the world in the most sublime and sacred manner the spirits of the most exalted Seraphins might imagine which was most divinely expressed by S. Bernard She entered into a deep abyss of divine Profundissimam divinae sapientiae penetravit abyssum quantum sine personali unione creatur◠conditio patitur luci illi inaccesibili videatur immersa D. Bernard serm in signum magnum Mater mea quà m appellatis foelicem inde foelix quia verbum Dei custodit non quia in illa Verbum caro factum est c. Aug. tract 10 in Joan. wisdom so that she was united to light inaccessible so much as a creature might be permitted not arriving to the personal union of God But saying this I not onely speak of the union she had in quality of the Mother of God being one same flesh and one same substance with her Son but of the union of contemplation devotion and submission to the will of God which alone was the center of her felicity as witnesseth S. Augustine My Mother whom you call happie hath all her happiness not so much because the Word was made man in her as for that she kept the word of God who made her and who afterward allied himself to humane nature in her womb as he would say Our Lady was more happy to have conceived God in her heart and continually kept spiritual union with him than to have once brought him forth according to flesh We cannot arrive at this sublime union of the Mother of God but howsoever at least in the last
anima pueri ejus in viscera ejus Eccles 26. 23. Exaltavit vocem ejus de terra in prophetia Tob. 4. 11. of heaven Whom shall I believe touching the verities of God but God himself And verily behold the advise God giveth us to resolve us in doubtful cases which is to follow some great and powerfull authority that may draw our spirits with a strong hand out of so many labyrinths Without it saith S. Augustine there would neither be world rest light wisdom nor religion And if a decisive authority must be chosen where shall we find one more certain than that of a Man-God whose words were prophesies life sanctity actions miracles who by ways secret and incomprehensible advanced the Cross on Capitols and gave a new face to the whole world Now without speaking at this time of the Pentateuc where the Word with his own mouth drew reasons for the immortalitie of the soul against the Sadduces I might alledge the book of Kings where the soul of a little infant returneth into its body at the words of Elias I could produce the true soul of Samuel which returneth from Limbo and speaks to King Saul as the Wiseman rendereth this apparition undoubted which I will shew I might mention the book of Tobias which distinguisheth two places for souls in the other world one of darknes and the other of lights But let us hear Ecclesiastes since Infidels will make an arrow of it against us where after the propositions of the wicked rehearsed in this book to be refuted which must be well observed the Wiseman Eccles 12. 7. decideth and concludes That the body returneth into the earth from whence it came and the spirit to God who gave it Let us hear Wisdom where it is written That the soul of the Just are in the hands of God and Sap. 3. 1. shall not be touched with the torment of death Let us hear the Prophet Daniel who saith Daniel 12. 3. The true Sages shall shine as the brightness of the firmament and that such as instruct many to justice shall be as stars for ever Lastly let us hear our Saviour who speaketh to us clearly and intelligibly in the bloud of all Martyrs Fear not those who kill the bodie and cannot kill the Mat. 10. 28. soul Here will we hold this doctrine of the immortality from his own mouth more than from any other reason he caused us to make it an Article of faith he establisheth upon it all our beatitude why should we then argue and trie new conclusions after the decision of Gods Word 5. I knew well said the wicked man this second Court would condemn me but I am not yet satisfied After nature and faith I appeal to reason I Proofs drawn out of reason will enter into the bottom of my self to know some news of my self What a madness is it to appeal from the decrees of God to reason And yet was this wretch condemned likewise by this tribunal For asking his soul whither wilt thou go What will become of thee after the death of thy body Wilt thou not accompany it in death as thou didst during life I die replieth the soul It is as impossible the light of the Sun become night and fire ice as the soul of man which is the source of life and understanding should be subject to death For from whence should this death and corruption S. Thom. l. 2. contra Gentes c. 79. proceed If thou hast never so little reason thou well seest what the great S. Thomas and all the Sages of the world said A thing cannot die and be corrupted but by one of three ways either by action of its contrary so heat cold moisture and drought corrupt our bodies by their mutual counter-buffs and continual combates or by the want of subject which serves as a basis or foundation to it so the eye dieth when its organ is corrupted or by defect of the assistance of the cause which hath influence into it so the light faileth in the air when the Sun retireth In which of these three kinds wouldest thou corrupt Substantia intellectualis patitur tantum intelligibiliter qui motus potius est perfectivus quà m corruptivus S. Thom. l. 2. contra Gentes c. 55. me Should it be by the action of the contrary I am not subject to bodily impressions but to those onely of the mind which are rather to perfect than corrupt me I am not composed of elements I am not hot cold moist nor drie I admit no contrariety But when I (a) (a) (a) Anima parvo continetur corpore continetque res maximâ—s Aenesius platonicus comprehend in my understanding white black water fire life and death I accord all contraries Death saith (b) (b) (b) Lucr. l. 1. Mors coetum dissipat ollis Lucretius is onely made for the things which have a collection of parts and I am most simple Wilt thou rin me by defect of the body I am of a nature different from body It was sometime without me and I shall be a long time without it for I depend not on it but by accident and chance I take somewhat of it as an hostess in this life but I govern it as a mistress for eternity I make use of the organs of senses but I correct senses and when they tell me the Sun is but a foot broad I prove to them by lively reasons it is much greater than the globe of the earth If I borrow fantasies from imagination I make truths of them and in matter of understanding willing and judging which is my proper profession I have properly nothing to do with bodies as the Philosopher Arist l. 2. de anima l. 2. text 21. Aristotle hath well observed saying I could not be before body but I might remain after the death of body and be separated from it as things eternal from corruptible because I have an action dis-entangled from body which is contemplation All that which is idle perisheth in nature but I have no death because not idle I make it my profession to understand to will and to love which I now exercise in a body but which doth not absolutely depend on body I make use of my senses as of my windows when they shall be no more and that the panes of my prison shall be broken I shall not for all that loose sight but shall see the more easily Behold you not how even at this present I never am more knowing than when I sink into the bottom of my self and separate my self from commerce of sense For I am a Mistress said S. Augustine who see better by my own eyes than by those of my servant Wouldest thou destroy me by the want of an influent cause Needs must God fail if I should be so defective on that part since God having created a thing never reduceth the same to nothing Material creatures are corrupted by changing themselves into
a harder matter for him to preserve souls he created than to derive them from nothing He will because he engageth his Eternal word to give us this assurance yea he will because it is manifested to us by the light of nature One cannot believe a God unless he believe him just and it is impossible to think him just without the belief of an immortal soul as S. Clement reasoneth after Clemens 3. Recogn his Master the great S. Peter For what a stupdity is it to imagine this father of spirits who accommodated the most silly creatures with all the conveniencies of nature hath neglected man so far as to afford him a most lively knowledge and a most ardent thirst of immortality which principally appeareth in the most holy and worthy souls to hold a heart in torment never affording it any means to be satisfied since in all nature he never grants any inclination to any creature whatsoever but that he provideth for its accomplishment But which is more into what mind of a Tartarian can this imagination fall that a sovereign Cause most intelligent very good and Omnipotent should be pleased to burn virtue here with a slow fire to tear it among thorns to tie it on wheels afterward to equal the soul of the most virtuous man of the earth with that of murderers Sardanapaluses and Cyclopes Never should these base thoughts take possession of the heart of man if he had not villified his reason with great sins and drowned his soul in the confusion of bodie Put these prophane spirits a little upon the proof of their opinion and let them consider the reasons of Plinie of Lucretius of Panecus and Soranus they are not men who speak but hogs that grunt They tell you the soul is not seen at its passage out of the body as if the corporal eye were made to see a soul spiritual Doth one see the air the winds odours and the sphere of fire which our soul incomparably surpasseth in subtilitie They ask what doth this soul separated Plin. l. 7. c. 55. Vbi cogitatiâ— illi Quomodo visus auditus aut qued sine his bonum Quae deinde sedes Quae malum ista dementia iterari vitam worte where is its sight its hearing pleasure tast touching and what good can it have without the help of sense Spirits dulled with matter which never gave themselves leisure to find out the curious operations of the soul in the understanding and love whereupon it lives of its own wealth They curiously enquire where so many souls may abide as if hell were not big enough to contain all the Atheists Lastly they adde it is to tyrannize over a soul to make it survive after death Who sees not it is the fear they have of God's judgement causeth them to speak in this manner And are not they well worthy of all unhappiness since they so readily become the enemies of an eternal happiness Let us cut off the stream of so many other reasons and say at this present This should teach us to treat with the dead by way of much respect and most tender charity as with the living It should teach us to use our soul as an eternal substance What would it avail us to gain all the world and The care to be had of the soul loose that which God deigned to redeem by his death Let us forsake all these inferiour and frivolous thoughts which nail us to the earth and so basely fasten us to the inordinate care for our bodies Let us manure our soul let us trim it up as a plot fit to receive impressions of the divinity Let us prepare it for the great day of God which must make the separation of a part so divine from these mortal members Let all that die which may yield to death Let the contexture of humours and elements dissolve as weak works of nature But let us regard this victorious spirit which hath escaped the chains of time and laws of death Let us contemn the remainders of an age already so much tainted by corruption Let us enter into this universality of times and into the possession of Diet iste quem tanquam extremum reformidas aeterni natalis est Sen. ep 102. of eternity This day which we apprehend as the last of our life is the first of our felicities It is the birth of another eternal day which must draw aside the curtain and discover to us the secrets of nature It is the day that must produce us to these great and divine lights which we behold with the eye of faith in this vale of tears and miseries It is the day which must put us between the arms of the father after the course of a profuse life turmoyled with such storms and so many disturbances Let us daily dispose us to this passage as to the entrance into our happiness Let us not betray its honour Let us not wither up its glory Let us not deface the character which God hath given it We are at this present in the world as in the belly of nature little infants destitute of air and light which look towards and contemplate the blessed souls What a pleasure is it to go out of a dungeon so dark a prison so streight from such ordures and miseries to enter into those spacious Temples of eternal splendours where our being never shall have end our knowledge admit ignorance nor love suffer change The sixteenth EXAMPLE upon the sixteenth MAXIM Of the return of Souls GOd who boundeth Heaven and limiteth earth ordaineth also its place to each creature suitable to the nature and qualities thereof The body after death is committed to the earth from whence it came and the soul goes to the place appointed it according to its merit or demerit And as it is not lawful for the dead body to forsake the tomb to converse with the living so the soul is not permitted to go out of the lists Gods justice ordained for it to entermeddle in worldly affairs Notwithstanding as the divine power often causeth the resurrection of the dead for the confirmation of our faith so it appointeth sometimes the return of souls for proof of their immortality I would not any wise in this point favour all the shallow imaginations which entitle sottish apprehensions of the mind with the name of visions but it is undoubted there is no Country in the world nor time throughout Ages which hath not afforded some great example of apparition of spirits by known witnesses and the judgements of most eminent Mitte quoque advivus aliquâ—â— ex mortuit Scriptura lestatur De cura pro mortuis c. 15. c. c. 10. Luc 14. personages S. Augustine holds it is a doctrine grounded on Scripture experience and reason which cannot be gain-said without some note of impudence although he much deny that all the dreams we have of the dead are ever their souls which return again Such was the belief of
For if there be any it must infallibly be taken off with the file of justice The torment of purgatorie is executed with sharp transfixing pains since that imperious element which raiseth so many terrours in our world hath there the place of an officer The continuance thereof is long by certain revelations that some souls have been there many years its perseverance activity dreadful since the soul is immortal and incorruptible to its torments This made the hair stand an end on the heads of all Saints And Job 11. Semper enim quasi tumentes super me fluctus timui Deum pondus ejus ferre non potui when the great man Job all composed of innocency sanctity thought on this justice of God he conceived himself to be as a little fish crouch'd in the water that heareth all the storms rouling over its head S. Augustine grown hoary in a thousand valourous battails for defence of the Church apprehendeth purgatory the elect souls who build all in gold and silver and pretious stones fear the trial of fire and we with our edifices of stubble straw and hay walk with exalted crests as if we had all the assurances of our salvation Where are we if this torch of justice awaken us not Quis poterit habitare de vobis cum igne devorante Perhaps we have made a bargain with this fire and these punishments or that we are torment-proof not to feel them Is there any man who hath learned to abide among burning coals We are so tender so nice so impatient so the lovers of our selves that one ounce weigheth a pound with us O worldlings who shall weep over you since you know not how to bewail your selves Your bodies are dainty both by nature and education yea your souls much more you cannot endure the stinging of a bee the very sight of a Surgeons lancet affrights you and yet you daily entangle your selves in a thousand vanities a thousand courtships and a thousand worldly loves which defile your soul and must at a dear rate be discharged in the other world We know the Christians of the Indies newly converted when they felt some temptations contrary to the law of God ran to their chimney hearths and thrust their hands into the flames saying Sin soul if thou canst abide fire if not go no further Do the like touch if not in effect at least by consideration the devouring flames of Gods Justice And if they seem strange unto you engage not your self in them by your sensualities 6. From the slight apprehension we have of Purgatory Rigour of the living against the souls in Purgatory proceedeth another stupidity very unreasonable which is that we are very little careful of the souls of the dead a matter very worthy of blame for two principal reasons The first is that the providence of God which disposeth all with so great sweetness hath as it were tied the salvation of these good souls to the fervour of our prayers and would have us to be as mediatours and intercessours of their felicity which is verily one of the greatest titles of honour we can receive It is a note of Divinity to have power to oblige men faith an Ancient and Plin. l. 2. c. 7. Deus est mortali benefacere mortalem haec ad aeternam gloriam via there is no shorter way to eternal glory Now God gives us the means to oblige not mortals but immortal souls and to oblige them in a cause so great and eminent that if all the treasures and lives of the world were dissolved into one mass they could not reach to the least degree of the felicity you may procure to these faithfull souls By obliging them in this kind you gain eternal friends who will entertain no thoughts but such as may tend to render you the like and to bear you into the bosom of beatitude and yet this being most easie for you as a matter which consisteth in some prayers alms deeds and good works you neglect it Is not this a prodigious carelesness The second reason is that by such negligence we betray our soul which enclineth out of a natural propension to the sweetness and mercy we exercise even towards beasts It is the argument which the Math. 12. 11. Quis erit ex vobis homo qui habeat evem unam si ceciderit haec sabbatho in foveam manum tentabit levabit eam Her Thren De excelso misit ignem in â—ssibus meis erudivit me c. Vigilavit jugum iniquitatum mearum c. Son of God made use of If a horse an Ox a sheep fall into a ditch there is neither festival nor sabbath withholds every one who is able stretcheth out a hand and draws it forth And behold here not a beast but a soul created to the image of God irradiated with the most excellent lineaments of his beauty which is to live with Angels eternally fallen into a ditch fallen into a boyling furnace who is afflicted tormented imploreth the help of all the world and whilest we slacken to succour it hath these mournful words of Jeremie Alas God the just avenger of crimes committed against his divine Majesty hath poured fire into my bones to chastise me Behold me in the nets of justice behold me now desolate pensive and disconsolate both night and day All afflicteth me in this said abode but nothing is so irksom as the burden of mine iniquities and ingratitudes It is a yoke which surchargeth my neck like lead and pulls me down into the torments from whence I cannot go without O vos omnes qui transitis per viam attendite videte si est dolor sicut dolor meus Quoniam vindemiavit me ut locutus est Dominus in die furoris sui your charities O you my dear kindred friends and allies who pass through the Church-yard made the depositary of my bones consider and see with the eyes of faith whether there be any dolour comparable to mine since God hath cut me off on the day of his indignation with a strong and inevitable arm O ingrateful and disloyal son it is the soul of thy father which speaketh unto thee in this manner and says unto thee Son I have passed my life as the spider stil spinning ever seeking after worldly wealth perpetually exhausting my proper substance to enrich thee I lived on gall and cares that thou mightest swim in rose-water I travelled over lands and seas to build a silver bridge for thy fortune to set thee on flower-de-luces and employments of a Kingdom where is thy retribution My son I complain not my eye being shut my body was troublesom to thee in thy house and thou couldst not endure it it was a dung-hil must be yielded up to the earth but I complain that thou being well informed thy father had an immortal soul which thou mightest comfort by thy good works thou trayterously employedst the money
wisdom and authority of S. Boniface the Martyr who converted Germany sent thither by Gregory the second and who flourished about nine hundred years ago This great Apostle of the Northern parts left goodly writings to posterity being most learned and we have to this day some Epistles of his taken out of good libraries In the one and twentieth of his letters written to S. Bonifacius ep 21. Aldeburgus he makes mention of a man who was raised again to life in his time the miracle much known and verified before all the world for to prove he proceeded very fair into knowledges of the other life he advertised many men of note of most secret sins never opened to any living man and exhorted them for Gods sake to true pennance He likewise foretold the death of Ceelredus King of Mercia who reigned with much tyranny and rapine whereof he received the reward This great Prelate S. Boniface then in Germany sought to inform himself particularly of this wonder and afterward couched in the forementioned Epistle the discourse he had with this late raised man How he asked many questions concerning events happened to him in this so dangerous passage he tels the storie and relates it with tears in his eyes Alas how much other are our knowledges at the separation of the soul from the bodie than they are in this present life We here onely see through two little holes which are our two eyes the bark of objects a very little distance but the instant of death discovers unto us much other truths Represent unto your self said he a blind man who never saw any thing if some one come and take away the film giving him sight he would then behold things spoken of in a much other manner than he imagined The like happened to me for my soul leaving my body about midnight I instantly saw the whole world with the extension of its lands and seas that water it as if it had been abbreviated in a table although to say truth it was not the universe which was abbridged but the sight of the spirit dilated by disengagement from the bodie The world was all encompassed with fire which seemed to me of an excessive greatness and ready to swallow all the elements if its impetuous course had not been stayed by the measures of Gods hand At the same time I perceived our Saviour in the quality of a Judge environed with an infinite number of Angels indued with marvellous brightness and excellent beautie on the other side devils in dreadfull shapes which I cannot now well describe since my soul is returned to my body At the same instant souls newly unloosened from all parts in so prodigious numbers that I could never believe there had been so many creatures in the world Then was a rigorous examen made of crimes committed in the life past And I saw very few souls who had holily lived whilest they were as yet in this mortal flesh to fly unto heaven with palms and Crowns Others were reserved to be purged as gold in the furnace and to follow the steps of those happie warriours who had gone before them As for those who went from this life out of the state of grace and were in mortal sin it was a horrible thing to see the tyrannie with which the devils used them For I perceived in places under the earth pits which vomited fire and flames on the brinks whereof I saw those souls in such manner as we shall see some fatal birds who bewailed lamented their disasters with dreadful complaints able to rent rocks and marbles asunder Then they were thrown into precipices of fire bidding a long adieu to all pleasures without hope ever to behold the face of God nor pleasing light of the Sun or to have fruition of any other reflection but the flames of their torments I who saw these strange passages leave you to think with what terrour I expected the last sentence of my judge The evil spirits began to accuse me with all violence you would have said they had reckoned all the steps of my life so rigorously they mustered up all the slightest actions But nothing at that time was so insupportable to me as mine own conscience For the sins which I heretofore imagined to be light were presented unto me in spirit as horrid phantasms which seemed to reproch me with mine ingratitude towards God and to say I am the pleasure thou hast obeyed I am the ambition whose slave thou wast I am the avarice which was the aim of all thy actions Behold so many sins which are thy children Thou begatest them Thou so much didst love them as to prefer them before thy Saviour It is an admirable thing that I likewise saw the specter of a man whom I had heretofore wounded though yet alive He seemed to be present at this Judgement and to require of me an account of his bloud All these horrours had already engulphed me into an inconsolable sadness expecting nought at all but the stroke of thunder and sentence of my Judge at which time my good Angel disposed himself to produce some good works I had heretofore done One cannot say nor believe the comfort a soul then feels in the rememberance of virtues it exercised in the bodie Happy a thousand-fold the hands which sow alms on earth to reap them in heaven It seemed to me I saw so many stars of a favourable influence when I beheld this little good I had done with Gods grace Lastly sentence was pronounced that for instruction of many I should again return into life I must confess unto you that amongst so many troubles of mind so many fears and frights which I suffered before the decision of my affairs except devils and hell nothing so much struck me with horrour as to see my bodie for which a burial was prepared Is it possible said I to my self that to serve this carrion I so often have forsaken my God! Is it possible that to fatten this dunghil I dispised my soul That I so adored my prison and fetters as to ballance them with the Cross and nails of my Saviour Jesus For this cause I had some repugnance to reenter into this bodie which seemed to me a little hell But my soul coming back into it I remained the space of seven dayes quite stupid and so lastly strove with my self till bloud gushed from mine eyes as not having tears sufficient to bemoan my sins Behold me ready to declare and witness to all mortals by an authentike example the words of the Wiseman who saith MEMORARE NOVISSIMA TUA ET IN Eccl. 3. AETERNUM NON PECCABIS REMEMBER ALL VVILL PASSE AT THE LAST HOUR AND THOU SHALT NEVER OFFEND I beseech the Reader who peruseth these lines to put the affairs of his conscience in order and if he love any thing in the world to love it for life eternal XIX MAXIM Of Sovereign Happiness THE PROPHANE COURT THE HOLY COURT It is a
the body of it to wit to a ship because it is still in the waves of this tempestuous sea He beheld it with an eye of love and compassion seeing by his example it increased by its losses rose in its ruins and was glorified by persecutions and considered this little handful of Christians which multiplying Age after Age peopled Asia Europe and Affrica and spred through the world known and unknown taking for habitation the same limits the Sun hath in his course he perceived Nations drenched in the darkness of ignorance which having no more of man than shape were transformed at the first light of the Gospel into a life wholy celestial prophane Temples thrown down on their Gods Idols broken in a thousand peices dens of theeves full of horrour bloud and darkness purified by his doctrine and the very instruments of his dolours honoured and advanced on the top of Capitols He beheld Churches erected on all sides to his honour Monarchs and Queens who laid their Crowns and diadems at his feet with prayses sacrifices and eternal feasts On the other side he represented to himself so many Doctours knowing as Oracles and pure as Angles who were to be the trumpets of his glory so Cruciate damnate atterite patientiae nostrae probatio iniquitas vestra crudelitas illecebra est sectae plures efficimur quoties metimur a vobis sanguis Martyrum scmen est Christianorum Tertul Apoll. 50. Kingdom of Jesus many innocent Virgins who should with an immortal character inscribe on their bodies the resemblance of his own most sacred purity so many Confessours who hastened to engrave on the most hydeous rocks of the desert the omnipotency of his name the imitation of his fasts watchings abstinencies the image of his deifying conversation And lastly more than eleaven millions of Martyrs who defied all torments affronted executioners braved death and scored out with their bloud the holy paths of their glory 7. I leave you to ponder that which never can enough be thought on the repose and comfort of the soul of Jesus when he beheld in his idea's the great Kingdom which was to be brought forth in his bloud and established in his Resurrection And moreover that his Kingdom should be an eternal Empire never admitting end death nor darkness Humane wisdom being desirous to be established in Empires by vice policy and tyranny found every where scepters of glass crowns of vapours and thrones of ice which are broken scattered and dissolved into nothing under the progress of time and eye of the divine providence But the Empire of Jesus which taketh its beginning on earth and beareth its conquests into heaven hath recommended his Scepter to the bosom of eternity O what a torrent of pleasures flowed over the fair soul of our Saviour in these considerations Painters naturally love their own workmanships learned men their writings Law-makers their politick Institutions military men their victories and trophies All men in the world have a sensible joy to see their designs brought to perfection Solomon even melted with comfort in consideration of the accomplishment of the Temple of Hierusalem Justinian could not behold but with much transportation of joy the Church of S. Sophy he had built Constantine had most pleasing dreams concerning the City of Constantinople which was as his creature And what is all this but chymera's in comparison of the great work of the Church performed by the resurrection of the worlds Saviour Have not we cause to say It is Luc. 10. 21. In ipsa hora exultavit Iesus Spiritu sancto Psal 131. Ingredere in requiem tu arca sanctificationis tuae Amodò jam dicit spiritus uâ— requiescant a laboribus suis Apo. 14. 13. The comfort and fruit we should derive from the Resurrection to the imitation of our Saviour Pulvis es in pulverem reverteriâ— to thee O Jesus it is to thee the joys of the holy Spirit do appertain Joys pure celestial divine distilled from the heart of God who is the heart of eternal amities Enter into thy repose after so great a tumult of wars and battels It is time saith the Spirit of God thou rest thy Ark under the pavilion of the eternal Majesty after so many travels and effusion both of sweat and bloud 8. Let us more and more settle our selves in this noble belief which charmeth all anxieties of this life sweeteneth all rigours purifieth all intentions animateth all virtues and crowneth all merits Courage O Christians an immortality a resurrection an eternal life a life of God is gained for thee by the pains sweats and bloud of Jesus and he now inviteth thee into the society and communion of this glory What resolution wilt thon take O man of mud and morter why doest thou still bow down to the earth the back whereof thou hast bristled with so many thorns by thy sins It is not now said unto thee Thou art dust and shalt return into dust but thou art put in mind of immortality The tombs of Alexanders and Caesars all sprinckled over with lyes and gildings bear a HERE LYETH but the glorious sepulcher of our Saviour Si â—rexit non est hic HE IS NOT HERE 9. O Christian thou becomest the child of a good house if thou canst understand thy nobility How Si consurrenis is cum Christo quae sursum sunt sapite non quae super terram magnificent how happy art thou to enter into a glory which is common unto thee with God Thy country is no longer on earth forsake forsake the love of these sleight cottages these poor ant-hills which enthral so many spirits devested of those divine seeds which bud under generous breasts Behold the great globe all replenished with stars and lights which encloseth within its extent all lands and seas the great house of God where are so many brave IntelligeÌ„ces part of which are busie in the praises of the Omnipotent others circumvolve stars remaining infatigably disposed to their imployments This is the Palace which God hath conquered for thee A goodly and flourishing company laden with crowns stretch out arms to thee thou still hast thine eye upon the petty trifles of this terrestrial abode thereon to settle thy affections Enter enter O faithful soul into the folds and circuits of eternity all years are for thee all Ages are open to thee all the greatness of heaven if thou wilt be loyal to thy Master is in thine own hand O! when will that goodly day come which shall restore thee thy body to render it to God thy body no longer a mass of frail ponderous and perishable earth but an immortal agile and incorruptible body priviledged with favours and gilded with bright splendours of the body of Jesus Raise thy self faithful soul in the sufferings and travels of this life yield not to temptations and persecutions which will snatch out of thy hand so advantagious a crown All the pomp of this world all this life yea
fall no lower but may contemplate all above him and meditate how to raise himself by the hand of God which pulls down the proud and exalts the humble Is a man tempted with pride The consideration of Ashes will humble him Is he burned with wanton love which is a direct fire But fire cannot consume Ashes Is he persecuted with covetousness Ashes do make the greatest Leeches and Bloud-Suckers cast their Gorges Every thing gives way to this unvalued thing because God is pleased to draw the instruments of his power out of the objects of our infirmities 3. If we knew how to use rightly the meditation of death we should there find the streams of life All the world together is of no estimation to him that rightly knows the true value of a just mans death It would be necessary that they who are taken with the curiosity of Tulips should set in their Gardens a Plant called Napel which carries a flower that most perfectly resembles a Deaths head And if the other Tulips do please their senses that will instruct their reason Before our last death we should die many other deaths by forsaking all those creatures and affections which lead us to sin We should resemble those creatures sacred to the Aegyptians called Cynocephales which died piece-meal and were buried long before their death So should we burie all our concupiscences before we go to the grave and strive to live so that when death comes he should find very little business with us Aspiration O Father of all Essences who givest beginning to all things and art without end This day I take Ashes upon my head thereby professing before thee my being nothing and to do thee homage for that which I am and for that I ought to be by thy great bounties Alas O Lord my poor soul is confounded to see so many sparkles of pride and covetousness arise from this caitiffe dust which I am so little do I yet learn how to live and so late do I know how to die O God of my life and death I most humbly beseech thee so to govern the first in me and so to sweeten the last for me that if I live I may live onely for thee and if I must die that I may enter into everlasting bliss by dying in thy blessed love and favour The Gospel for Ashwednesday S. Matthew 6. Of Hypocritical Fasting WHen you fast be not as the hypocrites sad for they disfigure their faces that they may appear unto men to fast Amen I say to you that they have received their reward But thou when thou doest fast anoint thy head and wash thy face that thou appear not to men to fast but to thy Father which is in secret and thy Father which seeth in secret will repay thee Heap not up to your selves treasures on the earth where the rust and moth do corrupt and where thieves dig through and steal But heap up to your selves treasures in heaven where neither the rust nor moth doth corrupt and where thieves do not dig through nor steal For where thy treasure is there is thy heart also Moralities 1. THat man goes to Hell by the way of Paradise who fasts and afflicts his body to draw the praise of Men. Sorrow and vanity together are not able to make one Christian Act. He deserves everlasting hunger who starves himself that he may swell and burst with vain glory He stands for a spectacle to others being the murderer of himself and by sowing vanity reaps nothing but wind Our intentions must be wholly directed to God and our examples for our neighbour The Father of all virtues is not to be served with counterfeit devotions such lies are abominations in his sight and Tertullian saith they are as many adulteries 2. It imports us much to begin Lent well entering into those lists in which so many holy souls have run their course with so great strictness have been glorious before God and honourable before men The difficulty of it is apprehended onely by those who have their understandings obstructed by a violent affection to kitchen-stuffe It is no more burdensom to a couragious spirit than feathers are to a bird The chearfulness which a man brings to a good action in the beginning does half the work Let us wash our faces by confession Let us perfume our Head who is Jesus Christ by alms-deeds Fasting is a most delicious feast to the conscience when it is accompanied with pureness and charity but it breeds great thirst when it is not nourished with devotion and watered with mercy 3. What great pain is taken to get treasure what care to preserve it what fear to loose it and what sorrow when it is lost Alas is there need of so great covetousness in life to encounter with such extream nakedness in death We have not the souls of Giants nor the body of a Whale If God will have me poor must I endeavour to reverse the decrees of heaven and earth that I may become rich To whom do we trust the safety of our treasures To rust to moths and thieves were it not better we should in our infirmities depend onely on God Almighty and comfort our poverty in him who is onely rich and so carrie our souls to heaven where Jesus on the day of his Ascension did place our Sovereign good Onely Serpents and covetous men desire to sleep among treasures as Saint Clement saith But the greatest riches of the world is poverty free from Covetousness Aspiration I Seek thee O invisible God within the Abyss of thy brightness and I see thee through the vail of thy creatures Wilt thou always be hidden from me Shall I never see thy face which with a glimpse of thy splendour canst make Paradise I work in secret but I know thou art able to reward me in the light A man can lose nothing by serving thee and yet nothing is valuable to thy service for the pain it self is a sufficient recompence Thou art the food of my fastings and the cure of my infirmities What have I to do with Moles to dig the earth like them and there to hide treasures Is it not time to close the earth when thou doest open heaven and to carrie my heart where thou art since all my riches is in thee Doth not he deserve to be everlastingly poor who cannot be content with a God so rich as thou art The Gospel for the first Thursday in Lent S. Matthew 18. of the Centurions words O Lord I am not worthy ANd when he was entered into Capharnaum there came to him a Centurion beseeching him and saying Lord my boy lieth at home sick of the palsie and is sore tormented And Jesus saith to him I will come and cure him And the Centurion making answer said Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof but onely say the word and my boy shall be healed For I also am a man subject to Authority having under me
thereby bring to me the fountain of all happiness The Father hath given me to thee and I am the conquest of thy precious bloud Suffer not a soul to be taken away from thee which hath cost thee so many sweats and sufferings I am thine by so many titles that I will be no more mine own but onely to have the right of renouncing that which I am and to establish what shall be thine in this little kingdom of my heart The Gospel upon Thursday the fifth week in Lent S. John 7. Upon S. Marie Magdalen 's washing our Saviour's feet in the Pharisees house ANd one of the Pharisees desired him to eat with him And he being entered into the house of the Pharisee he sate down to meat And behold a woman that was in the Citie a sinner as she knew that he set down in the Pharisees house she brought an Alabaster box of ointment and standing behind beside his feet she began to water his feet with tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with ointment And the Pharisee that had bid him seeing it spak-within himself saying This man if he were a Prophet would know certes who and what manner of woman she is which toucheth him that she is a sinner And Jesus answering said to him Simon I have somewhat to say unto thee But he said Master say A certain Creditour had two debtours one did ow five hundred pence and the other fifty they having not wherewith to pay he forgave both whether therefore doth love him more Simon answering said I suppose that he to whom be forgave more But he said to him Thou hast judged rightly And turning to the woman he said unto Simon Doest thou see this woman I entered into thy house water to my feet thou didst not give but she with tears hath watered my feet and with her hairs hath wiped them Kiss thou gavest me not but she since I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet With oyl thou didst not anoint my head but she with ointment hath anointed my feet For the which I say to thee many sins are forgiven her because she hath loved much But to whom less is forgiven he loveth less And he said to her Thy sins are forgiven thee And they that sate together at the table began to say within themselves Who is this that also forgiveth sins And he said to the woman Thy faith hath made thee safe Go in peace Moralities 1. SAint Marie Magdalen is under the feet of Jesus Christ as is that work of Saphires mentioned in Exodus under the feet of God It is a work wrought by the right hand of the Highest the wonder of women the most happy of all lovers who made profit of sin which destroyes all who sanctified that love which so little knew the way to any sanctity This is the fountain mentioned in the Book of Esther in the vision of Mordocheus A fountain which became a river and after changes it self into the Sun which gives beams and showers at one instant She is a fountain at the Pharisees talbe she is a river in her solitary grove she is a Sun both in Paradise and in that great exaltation wherein the Catholick Church now beholds her Being now in glory she doth not yet forbear to open fountains of tears by imitation of her within the souls of repentant sinners of whom incessantly she procures the conversion Happy is that heart which is pierced with the imitation of her virtues thereby to gain some part of her crowns 2. Every thing is admirable in her conversion A sinner wounded with love cures her self by love She changes the fire of Babylon into that of Jerusalem She plucks out of her wound the venemous dart of worldly love to make large room for the arrows of Jesus which pierce her heart and at an instant make a harmony of heavenly passions within the bottom of her soul She holds the wound dearer than life and goes streight to her conquerour to desire death or increase of love 3. She appears most ingenious in her affections to provide no water wherewith to wash her Masters feet since she could draw it so fitly out of her own eyes This was the water which Jesus did thirst after when he asked of the Samaritane woman some to drink But that poor woman was so astonished that she forsook her pitcher and forgot that which Jesus asked Now the holy Magdalen brings her eyes to the Pharisees table as to vessels full of Chrystal water which was of that pure stream which comes from the holy Lamb. Heaven is wont to water the earth but here the earth waters Heaven A soul which was before black and burnt up with the fire of concupiscence provides a Fountain for the KING of highest Heaven She drawes tears from her sins to make them become the joyes of Paradise 4. She sanctifies all that which was esteemed most prophane Her hairs which were the nets wherein so many captive souls did sigh under the yoke of wanton love are now as the ensigns and standards of wicked Cupid trampled under the feet of her Conquerour Those kisses which carried the poison of a luxurious passion in her heart do now breath from her nothing but the delicacies of chastity Her pleasing odours which were before vowed to sensuality are now become the sweetest exhalations from that Amber Isle which brings an odoriferous perfume to Jesus Christ She brings with her Aromatick spices to burn her self at the Mountain of her Sun who makes himself her Priest her Advocate and Bride-man 5. She had gained the great Jubilee and was assured of it by the word of the Eternal Bishop and yet during all the rest of her life she practised upon her self a sanctified revenge and her penance never ends but with her life to confound our coldness who know so little what it is to bewail a sin She is as timorous in the assurance of her pardon as we are secure at the approch of Gods justice No body could be so patient and so constant in her love but she that had a holy emulation toward heavenly charity It is her perseverance which draws to the earth a perfect copy of that life without limit which the blessed souls enjoy in heaven It is she alone to whom eternity was then given because she had power to offer repentant frailty to Eternity it self Aspirations Upon Saint Mary Magdalens great Repentance O Jesus my Conquerour and my Sovereign Bishop thou art pleased to be satisfied of thy unworthy servant but I am not yet content with my self No no my life and penance shall end together since I have lost that which should never have been separated from my body before the separation of my soul And since I cannot enter chast into my grave I will now go repentant into an obscure and savage Cave where the Sun shall shine no more upon a head so sinfull
a King in Name onely and that the Queen signed The pernicious language of an Incendiary first in all the Declarations and did not permit that any Effigies should be stamped on the moneys but her own That of necessity he must discharge himself from the tutelage of that Imperious woman and teach her to submit to the law of Nature which allows not that Sex to command their husbands On the other side this Forger of iniquity heating two furnaces with one fagot ceased not by his complaints to set on fire the heart of the Queen telling her That she must chastise the rash young Man and retain the Sovereignty entire on her own side otherwise his unruly passions attempting to part the Crown betwixt them would take it away from them both and put all things into a confusion This was the occasion that Mary arming her heart with a manly courage would enjoy the Rights and Prerogatives of her birth and did afterwards reign in full authority 4. This young Husband who of a Subject was become The jealousie of King Henry Stuart Darley a Master could not with moderation endure his change of fortune but daily endeavoured to hold more of command than of compliance The Queen also who desired to be known the sole efficient Cause of his preferment being unwilling to lose the name of Mistress in taking that of wife did distast his importunity deferred his Coronation and did allow him but a little part in the affairs of the Kingdom She ordinarily did confer much with David Riccius her Secretary an old and a discreet man who with great honour possessed her ear and her good opinion for she cherished him rather for the necessity of her affairs than for any attractive qualities that were in him for he was but of a deformed body as they who have seen him do affirm But the calumny of the The Book of the death of the Queen of Scots printed in the year 1587. Puritans who know of every wood how to make an arrow did not forbear in their bold discourses to reflect upon the honour of Queen Mary concerning that subject although it was the most incredible and the most ridiculous thing in the world Cambden also the most sincere of all Historians of the pretended Religion and Monsieur de Castelnau have disdained to speak of it as being an out-rage which had no foundation at all of truth although the Earls of Morton and Lindsey two execrable Incendiaries who had undertaken the divorce of the Royal House following the spirit of Heresie most impudently to breathe forth the greatest lies did work a great alteration on the King in the cooling of his affections to his wife The spirit of Henrie now became furious and A spirit tormented with two great devils did perceive it self to be possessed on by two fiends The one the Jealousie of Love the other of Estate which both at one time did commit a prodigious Ravishment on his heart They made him believe that he passed for a King in fansie onely and that his Throne was no more than a meer picture whilest another was made a Partner in his bed In effect the excellent Beauties of the Queen which had given him such heats of love did now raise his jealousie to the height of those flames He was all on fire perpetually night and day and being tormented with shadows suspitions and rages with choller frenzies and with terrours he lived as on the wheel not knowing which way to turn himself His passion did suggest unto him a bloudy remedy A tragick remedy by the death of the Secretary of the Queen which was to draw the Secretary from the Cabinet of the Queen at the hour of supper and under colour of communicating some affair unto him to stab him with a ponyard in the Presence-Chamber The body being all bloudy by threescore wounds which it received fell down just at the door of his Mistress imploring Heaven and earth against those who by so black a treason had ravished his life from him in the flower of his hopes The Queen being frighted at the noise did run to the door and with his bloud received the last breathings of his soul some drops of the bloud falling on her outward garment She startled at the horrour of the sight and believed that some sprinklings of the bloud had painted on her face the opprobriousness of the act But as she made her complaint the Murderers The passion of divelish fury presented a pistol to her without any regard to the brightness of her Majesty or the bigness of her womb desiring nothing more than at one blow to destroy both the Tree and the fruit They locked her up in a chamber of the Palace taking from her all her ordinary servants and putting a Guard on her of four-score souldiers On this the Estates met and the pestilent Councel were assembled where with mouthes full of fire the Hereticks ceased not to breathe forth Rebellion Bloud and Butcheries They gave it out aloud That they ought not by halfs to do a work of so great importance and since the Queen who was a Pillar of the Papists Religion in Scotland was already shaken they ought to lay her low as the earth and utterly destroy her in giving allowance to the Libels and the Calumnies which were published against her They had attempted to have seduced the The horrible attempt of Heresie spirit of the young King promising him to put the Crown in peace upon his Head if he would maintain and support their Design to which as he shewed an inclination they began to weave an horrible conspiracy to take from him all the most eminent persons of the State and imbarque the innocence of the Queen in the common shipwrack The Earl of Murray who fled into England for having raised Arms against their Majesties returned back and came into Scotland rathers as a Triumpher than a guilty person They made him an overture of their pernicious counsels which he entertained with horrour for as yet he was unwilling that the Affairs should be carried on with such an extremity of violence wherefore in private he repaired to the Queen demanding pardon for his offences past and promising all obedience for the time to come He counselled her to recollect and rouze up her spirits and pardon the injuries passed and to take away from the Conspiratours all the apprehensions of Despair The Queen bending her spirit to the necessity of the time and her present affairs did receive him with all courtesie and told him that she was ready to perform all as he pleased She assured him that he was not ignorant that her heart was without gall having always pardoned offences even to her own destruction by her too much clemency And though she had been used by him with too much rigour for a Brother that she would not cease to cherish him and to gratifie him above all other to give him the
clarior inventus sit non id nobilitas efficit sed sanitas Petrarch l. 1. de remediis dialog 16. The souls of men different in qualities say with Petrarch If Nobilitie were not tied but to flesh and bloud it were a small matter since it is very difficult to distinguish between the bloud of Caesars and Porters Nor yet will I touch what might pertinently be disputed that the souls of men extracted from the treasures of Heaven though they be all cast in one mould and be of the same kind may notwithstanding be created by God with qualities very different as we behold in the flowers of a beautiful meadow which are of the same name and nature a very great dis-proportion in figure colour and other accidents semblably between the stars and precious stones which are of the same substance one will have a lustre more sparkling another more dull and blunted This maketh us probably believe that the souls of men when they are infused into bodies although they be essentially marked with the same stamp may have some accidental perfections one above another and that this great diversitie which we observe therein making one man appear of gold another of lead doth not onely depend on the varieties Mercur. Trismeg in Cratere sive Monade Cup of spirit of Organs Mercury Trismegistus was of this opinion when under the bark of a fable he represented souls unto us which before they entered into the bodie drank in the cup of spirit not all of them but those which happily encountred that fortunate success For he feigneth according to the inventions of his brain that God sendeth a messenger upon the earth to wit one of his Angels who placeth a large cup as big as it is to be supposed that of Semiramis was which as Aelian reporteth weighed a thousand and four-score pound and this cup is full of a celestial liquor of power to make men subtile and spiritual the messenger maketh his proclamation and saith to every soul Up soul drench thy self deeply 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and drink with all thy force in this cup of spirit Thereupon they drink some more some less which maketh a great diversitie of understandings Some wholly abstain who when they have entered into the bodie have no other share but the gifts of reason which necessarily is a prerogative of their nature but as for spirit they are deprived as being absolutely stupid and extreamly shallow It is a wonder how these ancient Sages have pleased themselves in these fabulous discourses Needeth there so much outward cover to give us this maxime that all souls have not one and the same relation to accidental qualities though as Aristotle teacheth us they are in their own essence as unchangeable as numbers in Arithmetick This diversitie of spirits presupposed one may say that great and noble men are more priviledged from the time of their birth and that with some probabilitie Double understanding So Philo hath given to Kings and Potentates a double understanding the one for the rule of themselves and the other for the government of their estates But not to sooth the Nobilitie with feeble Mens ista aurea quam de communi Deo plusquam unus hausisti Auson in panegyri Gratian and superficial reasons it behoveth they know that although one should admit this accidental diversitie in the Oeconomie of humane spirits yet would the consequence not necessarily ensue that they always thereby should be the better provided God maketh no difference of persons in this distribution There are spirits that have come into the world from among the cobwebs of a nasty cottage who have filled Ages with admiration of their greatness Others have been clothed in golden glitter and purple who have been miserably stupid and dull and although fortune doth still hold to the oar who deserve to be at the stern yea and some be at the stern who merit to be at the oar yet the providence of God doth mannage it as best pleaseth himself for certain ends which our foresight cannot penetrate with the best light What infallible motive shall we then derive to establish the obligation which tieth the Nobilitie to virtue above others since we rather seek weight of reason than colour Behold one Shamefac'dness of women which cannot well be denied by a well-rectified judgement It is that as God hath given to women I know not what instinct of shamefac'dness which enforceth them as it were with a sweet violence to the defence of their honour and this in them is so powerful a touch from Heaven that they cannot discharge themselves thereof rather they feel it in every part unless they be wretchedly insensible Plinie affirmeth the same who saith their Plin. lib. 7. bodies after death float in such posture upon the waters Pronae fluitant pudori carum parcente natura Where is the motive of virtue in the Nobilitie that they hide the nakedness from humane eyes whereof nature during life hath been so careful Even as God hath ingrafted the love of modestie upon this sex so likewise he hath affixed a spur of honour upon the spirit of Noblemen This is the pourtraict of Phidias which cannot be taken away without breaking the Minerva This is the character wherewith God will imprint virtue in them They are all naturally sensible in the points of honesty or else degenerate from their Nobilitie Behold I pray you the force and power of this spur which God hath used for the good of Nobilitie They would flie if it were possible to Heaven and penetrate the depths to avoid the least stain of dishonour What flames actually would not they go through to what breaches assaults musket-shots to what images of death which make nature to tremble with cold fear do not they expose themselves to conserve or acquire reputation The spirit of lies seeing they cannot be altered in this spur of the inseparable honour of their condition what doth he Not being able to wrest it from them he rebateth the point nay rather he rebateth the brain and makes them place the point of honour in infamie knowing very well that this is an effectual means to ruin them without discoverie A wonder They rather will become Apostates from Christianitie than from the spur of honour They meet in the field cut one anothers throat and emptie their quarrels through the channels of their bloud for that they think the thing is honourable Judge now and conclude what I am to say if they would suffer this spur to pursue that course which God hath begun in their souls perswading themselves what is most undoubted that the most ignoble act which a Gentleman can do is to serve sin would not they quickly become perfect would not they be invincible against all vices and ever in possession of virtue This argument is very strong and will admit no evasion Noble spirit thou naturally lovest honour more than thy life and therein
thou dost well Thou art a Christian if thou wilt Against such as betray their Nobilitie not renounce thy baptism and the bloud of thy Saviour Christianitie teacheth thee that the highest and most solid honour thou canst ever pretend unto is to put vice under foot and virtue over thy head why stayest thou to make resolution Unworthy that thou art if thou goest about to tie Nobilitie to flesh and bloud or to some old rotten ruins to some monuments which cover a nothing under the golden traces of an Epitaph Ridiculous that thou art if with full mouth thou vantest a paper-Nobilitie yea which is not thine as if a blind man should boast his Grand-Father had had good eyes and a stammerer that his great Grand-Father had been en excellent Oratour Miserable that thou art if after thy Ancestours have planted the French Lilies amongst the Palms of Palestine sincerely led thereto with the zeal they bare to their saith thou betrayest religion virtue and conscience by a brutish life drenched in wild passions and framest to thy self under a head of gold a foot of clay God who breatheth on the intentions of men reproveth such a Nobilitie and though these mongrels should make themselves as white as Swans God esteemeth them as black as Moors All Amos 9. Nunquid ut filii Aethiopum vos estis mihi Israel Nobilitie before this great Judge is nothing in comparison of justice and perfection Yea so it is that in Holy Writ the Nobilitie of Noe is valued Hae sunt generationes Noe. Noe vir justus erat atque perfectus Behold a marveilous manner saith Saint John Chrysostom to delineate a Genealogie The Nobilitie of Noe wherein Gen. 6. Chryst in Genes Scripture beginneth and saith Behold the Genealogie of Noe. It seemeth to make way through all the Patriarchs from whom Noe was descended It seemeth to make a rehearsal to us of all their titles and signories of their acts and atchievements and presently endeth in saying Will you know the Genealogie of Noe he was a just man and a perfect Behold all his Nobilitie On which subject S. Ambrose S. Ambr. li. de Noe arca Virtues the race of souls Probati viri genus virtutis prosapia est sicut hominum genus homines ita animarum genus virtutes hath an excellent saying Nobilitie hath no better a character than that of sanctitie the race of men are men but the race of souls are virtues Noblemen if you desire to be esteemed worthy your rank do not as the little Sea-crabs who by chance finding the shels of great fishes emptie enter into them without saying by your leave and make boasts of a borrowed habitation Cover not the giddie fantasies and illusions of a spirit drunk with self-love under a vain veil of Nobilitie Rather Notable Act of Boleslaus Cromer lib. 5. do as Boleslaus the fourth King of Poland who bearing the picture of his father hanged about his neck in a plate of gold when he was to speak or do any thing of importance he took this picture and kissing it said Dear father I wish I may not do any thing remissly unworthy of thy name Rather do as that brave Eleazar mentioned in the Nobilitie of Eleazar Book of Machabees who being assaulted with all sort of batteries blandishments menaces and torments to make him counterfeit but one sole sin against his own law he fixed his eyes upon the true point of honour upon the consideration of his Nobilitie Out alas said he to himself alone the whiteness Excellent speech of a noble man 2 Machab. 6. Caepit cogitare ingenitae nobilitatis canitiem atque à puero optimae conversationis actus of that venerable hair with which thy head is covered after it hath grown hoarie in the exercise of thy religion hath it not yet taught thee where the point of honour lies It is not enough for Eleazar not to counterfeit impietie but to profess virtue even at the price of his bloud Now God grant I may not serve as a stumbling-block to the youth of this Citie since God will make this day a Theatre of my constancie I will not belie the law of my Master I will not dishonour the School in which I was bred and brought up My soul shall flie out of this bodie wholly innocent discharged of infidelitie into the bosom of my Ancestours and the honour of my life shall be conveyed into the ashes of my Tomb. These words mixed with his bloud stopped his mouth and life with one and the same seal Behold you not a Nobilitie worthy the sight of Angels the imitation of great spirits and the admiration of the whole world The third REASON Drawn from the greatness and dignitie of Gentlemen SAint Augustine hath spoken very prudenlty discoursing Aug. Sol. 14. Nebis magna indita est necessitas justè rectéque vivendi quia cuncta facimus ante oculos judicis cuncta cernentis upon the presence of God to wit that of necessitie it behoveth us to be virtuous since we are perpetually discovered by the eyes of the great Judge before whom neither the bottomless abyss nor hell it self hath darkness enough to hide us If this exercise of the presence of God were as familiar to us as it is effectual it would be a powerful motive to cleanse all the impurities of our intentions and affections and quickly would give us leave to arrive at the top of perfection A wise Hebrew said very well Wise Counsel Ribbi in Apotheg Hebrae to extirpate sin from the earth it behoveth every one to figure himself a great eye alwayes wakeful upon our actions an ear always open to observe our words a hand indefatigably ever writing and summing up the account of our works But seeing our soul while it is in this mortal habitation folded up in flesh and bloud stirs it self but lazily to the consideration of things purely spiritual expecting the senses by which she operateth should give her the alarm God all-wife all-good serveth himself with an efficacious means to fix us in the contemplation of his presence which is the consideration of men in themselves the most perfect images of God that can be found in this great universe By how much the more we are encompassed and as it were shot through with the eyes of beholders who view serving as witnesses of our actions so much the more doth our obligation of perfection increase The greater part Maxima pars peccatorum tollitur si peccatorum testis assidat Sins committed for want of witnesses Senec. of sins are committed for want of witnesses saith very pertinently a grave ancient Writer If Venus should make a veil of clouds to cover all her favorites as fables imagined the earth would soon be filled with adulterers and quickly become a Gomorrah Nothing dismantleth vice so much as its own nakedness take the mask from it and you bereave it of the means of progression
water though it be boyled on burning coles returneth to its natural coldness honey assumeth not the nature of wormwood the Lion playeth not the Ape nor doth the Eagle become an Ostrich to trail her wings on the ground Now the nature of the spirit how much the more noble and elate it is so much the more it ought to transfer it self to the consideration of things divine to wit from whence it cometh whither it goeth what within it self it acteth This is saith the Oracle of Roman Philosophie an infallible Senec. praef l. 1. natur quaest Hoc habet argumentum Divinitatis suae quòd illum divina delectant nec ut alieniâ— interest sed us suis mark of a divine spirit when it pleaseth it self to discourse of things divine and is entertained in these contemplations as with her familiar and peculiar affairs Judge then what indignitie it is to bury this vigour and light of the spirit which God so freely hath communicated to you in frivolous employments and petty fopperies which discolour the lustre and honour of your name What a shame it is to say this Sovereign hand hath moulded man to be the King of creatures and he betraying his nature maketh himself the Comedian the mimike stage-player Man a Stage-player of the world of all creatures acting all sorts of personages but the good and that which his own excellency is obliged unto Which verily is the same the great Tertullian Tertul. de spect c. 2. Homo omnium flagitiorum actor non tantian opus Dei verumetiam imago est tamon corpore spiritu à suo discivit institutore deplored Man is the work and image of God who having apostatized from his Creatour as well in mind as bodie maketh himself an Actour of all the evil personages in the great Comedie of the world Yet that seemeth more tolerable in persons who are not eminent either in judgement learning or spirit but Great-ones whom God hath created advantageously to transcend all others and who should live and converse among men like Angels to play the Hogs and Monkeys abasing themselves to I know not what kind of childishness of spirit and to a life corrupted with the curious delights and voluptuousness of the bodie consider I pray whether this be not a thing as unreasonable in its own nature as prodigious in the effects Secondly It is to do a great wrong to ones self to live in such fashion yea it is a meer frenzy which is not made probable to any man but by the multitude of mad men See you not very well that to employ some rich and precious instrument to a base and sordid use is an act of a man who hath lost his wits If you see a great Monarch employ his purple A great indignitie in the abuse of the spirit robe to stop an oven with and his scepter to shake hay you would crie Out upon it and yet the soul which God hath given you incomparably more precious than the purple and scepter of Kings you suffer to wallow in the filths of flesh you apply it to perpetual idle discourses to vanities quarrels and revenges Is not this wholly to abuse the gifts of Almightie God It is said Nero took delight to dig Folly of Nero. the earth with a golden spade and when there was question about cutting the Isthmus of Corinth a design which long time troubled his brain he went thither led on with musical violins holding in his Mausonii dialog de Neronâ— hand the golden spade with which he began in the sight of the whole world to break the ground a matter which seemed ridiculous to the wisest living in that Age. For my own part I find it more strange that a noble spirit should amuse it self in things frivolous and impertinent For to dig the earth with gold was to bring back gold to its course since it first sprang from the entrails of the earth but for a heavenly spirit to delve in ordures stenches and dung-hils this is it which is wholly inexcusable especially in the Nobilitie In the third place I say that such manner of proceeding Sacriledge of fair souls is manifest sacriledge for two reasons the first is it retaineth wickedly and traiterously a thing sacred for a profane use S. Augustine in an Epistle Aug. Ep. ad Lucentium that he wrote to Licentius a young man of a noble spirit which a liltle too loosely he abused in the vanities of the world presseth this argument in these terms If by chance you had found a golden Chalice in Si calicâ—â— aurâ—m invenisses in terra denares illum Ecclesiae Dei. Accepisti à Deo ingenium spiritaliter cureâ—â— ministrâ—â— inde libidinibus in illo Satanâ— propinâ—â—â—eipsum the streets you would take it from the ground and give it to the Church otherwise it would be a sacriledge God hath given you a soul all of gold so excellent it is so delicately purified and you use it as an instrument of sensuality and make of it a vessel of abomination wherein you present your soul to Satan as a sacrifice Fear you not the anger of God The other reason is You not onely with-hold a vessel consecrated to the service of the Omnipotent but you attempt upon the image of God himself This fair spirit which he hath given you as the flower and quintessence of your soul is a true character of the Divinitie and you hasten to prostitute it to publick affections Remember I pray it hath Images of Emperours how much reverenced Senec. de benof l. 3. c. 26. heretofore been held a capital crime to carrie the Emperours picture into a place undecent or uncleanly and expresly Paulus a man of eminent qualitie as one who had been Pretour was accused and prosecuted as criminal under Tiberius for that he took a chamber-pot into his hand having a ring upon his finger graved with the Emperours form And can you think it will be lawful for you to carrie not a dead figure but the living Image of your Heavenly Father into the impurities and pollutions which your exorbitant passions extrude as the scummie froth of folly Is not the blame most formidable which God by the mouth of the Prophet Ezechiel pronounceth against an ungrateful Ezech. 16. 17. Et â—ulisti â—asa decoris tui de â—uro meo atque argento meo fecisti tibi imagines masculinâ—s fornicata es in eis olcum maâ—â—â— thymiama meum posuisti eoram eiâ— soul in such manner abandoning it self Ingrateful and wicked as thou art thou then hast dared to take away the most precious vessels framed of my gold and silver to make masculine idols and so to satisfie thy fornications Thou hast caused my oyl to burn and incense to smoke before their altars What ingratitude is like to this Alas what idols are daily made of the gold and silver of God when so many brave spirits
under the false veil of courage Two things O Noblemen will make you exactly accountable before the justice of God The first to abuse this gift of courage with vanity The second to defile it with cruelty The one savours of childishness the other of barbarism What can one imagine Baseness of courage in certain Noble men more weak and childish than to have received a courage from God capable to conquer Heaven and to employ it in petty fopperies wherein the thoughts better part and the days actions are wasted to court a Ladie to gormandize a banquet nicely to quarrel upon the interpretation of a word to suck up wind to feed a fond curiositie with other affairs to buy plumes of feathers to censure mens apparel to dress himself up for dancing to play at dice to hold a racket in a Tennis-court to play the Buffon in a feast to utter a secret to forge a calumnie to envie one greater than himself to despise equals to baffle inferiours and a thousand other such like exercises which are the rust and moth of the spirit Behold into what these brave courages which should plant the Flower-deluces in the east are dissolved Is not this a shame Is any thing more punishable than so to abuse the gifts of God Is it not a goodly thing to behold in Poets a Jupiter A Jupiter painting goats on the clouds what it signifies Philost in Appolon lib. 21. cap. 10. who hath forsaken his fiery chariot and winged horses letting all go at random in the mean time to busie himself in painting upon the clouds sometimes Goats Apes and Centaurs Behold what Great men do when forsaking the duty of their charges and the obligation of their professions they vilifie themselves in inferiour actions bestowing therein a great part of their time and as it were their whole spirit Vanity would also be more tolerable were it not that it changeth into cruelty which is apparent in the beastly quarrel and bloudy duels that transform the nature of men into a brutishness absolutely savage and tyrannous We must draw iron out of Against duels the entrails of the earth to make it as it were first to blush with shame before it be ruddy with bloud to see it self employed to such a use to behold it self sharpened by the hands of men to cut and transfix men differences must be determined with the loss of life These miserable creatures sometimes for the interpretation of a word sometime through promptness of spirit provoke one another to single combat they send a letter of challenge the place of meeting is appointed they choose Godfathers as if they would make a baptism with a sacrifice of furies they procure Seconds who well see that to go upon cold bloud to hazard their lives in an unhappy combat against a man that never had offended nor known them is a sublimitie of folly notwithstanding on they go tyrannically led along by the laws of vain honour which hath no other foundation but the sottish brainsick-folly of men All of them have for the most part more outward shew than malice their hearts tremble with cold fear in the consideration of the peril to which they expose themselves yet their lips leave not to sound vain-glorious bravadoes They seek out solitary places like Sorcerers and sometime they go by Moon-shine to act this hateful outrage not seeing at all that God beholdeth them with as many eyes of vengeance as the firmament hath stars At the end Reasons of all this they think to do an act full of courage most Heroick and manly What shall we say here that this passion is a rage more than brutish which hath for inheritance the death of the bodie the eternal and irrecoverable loss of the soul the inevitable anger of God the indignation of Kings the thunder of laws the execration of the just the malediction of heaven and earth No this is not it which I now intend to speak For seeing I treat of generositie which obligeth the Nobilitie first to Almighty God who giveth it secondly to virtue which seeketh it as a most necessary instrument I must shew that in this action of duels pretended to be all courage there is nothing less than courage in it And although they were not liable to the vengeance of God for being infringers of laws both divine and human by this detestable manner of proceeding yet they would be ever greater culpable to blast and defile with this abject humour and remiss spirit the gift of courage which is particularly granted to them out of the treasury of Heaven I know not what false spectacles are clapt over the eyes of the Nobilitie by the spirit of lies forged in the shop of hell which oftentimes make them to take glass for Diamond and a Kestrel for a Faulcon Yes verily you have a certain bird in the mysterie of faulconry called the Hobby which coupleth with the race of Faulcons Goshawks and Sparhawks Yea Kestrels of Nobilitie this wretched bird doth also mix with the Saker and Lanaret she flieth after the Faulconers and hovering over the field if the dogs spring some little bird she sowceth upon it making boasts over this feeble creature seeing she hath neither heart nor resolution to grapple with the great ones Justly herein behold the model of a Gallant who maketh profession to present the letter of challenge to call others to duel he hath degenerated from true Nobilitie and real courage which is produced in goodly and great actions undertaken for the service of God and his King he hath no longer left in him ought but a little fierce rebellious spirit to peck at those whom his own temerity judgeth more weak than himself And shall then this man be taken for a man of courage O Noblemen see you not that true Duel is not an act of couage actions of courage are too high and eminent to impart their worth and honour to lackeys and horsboys Now it is so come to pass that there is not any inferiour foot-man nor petty groom of a stable that will not watch to take revenge by duel that will not endeavour to determine differences by some kind of single combat There is not any vain braggard descended from ignoble plebeyan parents under the pretence that he carrieth a pen in his ear which peradventure might be the sword and lance that his father or grand-father made boasts of upon a shread of parchment to gain 6 d. a day that striveth not to have a sword of a good temper to provoke his adversary to single combat and the more in famous he is the more audaciously he furnisheth himself out for this enterprise presupposing that this is a true means closely to cover his base condition Anciently in the wisest and most valorous Kingdom of Who entered into duels anciently the world those which engaged themselves in these duels were people gathered out of the dregs and lees of men slaves
granted you for the exercise of virtue otherwise you shall pay the losses thereof in the length of a corrupt and miserable life and your bones in old age shall be filled with the follies of youth which shall sleep with you even in your tomb and drag your souls into the bottomless precipice from whence there is no recovery The ninth REASON Which maketh it appear the Court is a life of penance AMongst the motives which the exact Masters of spiritual life propose to Religious men to invite them to perfection they set before their eyes that they are all stirred up to virtue when they already are in the arms of penance The like with just reason we may say to Courtiers the more to inflame them to fortifie themselves in great and glorious virtues to wit that arriving at Court they enter into a house of penance where they every day have a thousand occasions of suffering which is the shortest way to perfection That the Court is a place of publick penance appeareth for the reasons which I intend now to produce First Antiquity hath called penance by the word Envie as Tertullian Tertul. Apol. c. 40. Invidia Coelum tundimus hath done who saith We strike at the gates of Heaven as with the hammer of envie that is to say with penance This name hath been given either for that it doth make God as it were envied if he pardon not seeing the estate of penitents so deplorable Penance called by the name of envy Invidiam facit Deo nisi ignoscat as the most learned Bishop of Orleans hath noted in his observations upon Tertullian or for that the Latine word invidere signifieth originally not to see any thing but to turn the eye aside as from a sad object and the habit estate and condition of the penitents was heretofore so lamentable that the nice and curious averted their eyes from them and could not endure so much as onely to behold them Howsoever it be the title of envie doth excellently well agree with the Court. That is the nest where envie hatcheth her Envy of Court egs the throne where she exerciseth her Empire the Altar where she hath many sacrifices and were she banished from all the corners of the earth we then should search for her among Courtiers their life always being between the two scales of the ballance whereof the one is called envie the other miserie This is it which obligeth them to an extraordinary perfection that they may perpetually stand upon their guard and avoid the least defect This is it which if they know well how to use it doth absolutely shut up from them the gate to all excess for if envie according to the proverb will offer to shave an egge what will she not do in a meadow Secondly the ancient Canons and Doctours of Five degrees of penance among the Ancients 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Church as S. Basil observe five degrees of penance The first was called sorrow which was a state of tears and grones The second is called audience which was a degree to which penitents after an infinit number of sighs were admitted to hear the instructions and preachings of the word of God whereof they were before deprived The third humiliation which was when the penitents were admitted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to a certain part of the Mass but not at the Sacrifices for they went out before the consecration a little after the newly instructed Christians the Priest repeating over them a certain prayer during which time they made a low obeysance their face bowed to the ground The fourth degree is called consistence where the penitents had leave to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hear Mass at the full length as others but not to make any oblation nor to communicate for that was reserved to the last degree called communion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where they obtained a full reconciliation in the participation of the holy mysteries as the fore-alledged Bishop hath most excellently explicated Of these five parts of penance Courtiers for the Practise of these degrees at Court most part exercise those which are most irksom and very seldom sparticipate in the consolations of the other more sweet and benign If penitents have a degree of tears and lamentations where are sighs and groans more frequent than in Court for the many disasters which ordinarily occur in their affairs One may well apply to them that passage of Job expressed in S. Gregorie the Great The Giants or men Job 20. Gigantes gemunt sub aquis Estate of tears of the earth do groan under the waters Out alas how many times the poor miserable creatures after a world of travels pursuits and hopes which are dreams without sleep seeing themselves transported into disgrace with a furious torrent of envie sigh and mourn in an Ocean of calamities One frown of an incensed Prince is more formidable to them than the eye of a Basilisk yea more terrible than the crack of a Canon The favours they enjoy are winged and slippery all the contentment they can possibly receive in ten years will not afford so much joy to their hearts as the repulse of one sole day coming as a stroak of thunder afflicteth them and makes them give ground if they have not recourse to heavenly consolations See you not how Absalom re-established Obsacro ut videaâ— facieâ—â— Regis quod si memor est iniquitatis meae interficiat me 2 Reg. 14. in Court yet deprived of the King his fathers sight bare this disgrace with so much anziety of mind that he asked a bloudy death for his remedy What will the look of a Lion be if the onely deprivation of a favourable eye be so ill to be digested What will become of so many other contrarieties which at every turn transfix so many brave designs so well projected Where will not occasion of many most bitter sorrows be found among so divers accidents which cause us to stand at all times prepared for blows If penitents be in a state State of humilitie of humiliation wherein as other Interpreters observe they not onely humbled themselves prostrated on the earth at the Priests benediction but they lowly laid themselves under the feet of all the world where I pray are souls found born more to servitude more pliant more abased than the Courtiers They bend like the fishers angling-line they stoup they turn and wheel about to all purposes that they may arrive where they pretend They buy all their honour at the price of great submissions their scarlet at the price of sordid ambition and glory with the coyn of slavery That is it which S. Cyprian excellently well observed Behold â—e this Cyprian ad Donatum Qui amictu clariore conspicuus fulgere sibi videtur in purpura quibus hoc sordibus emit ut fulgeat Quos arragantium fastus prius pertuliâ— Quos superbâ—â—fores matutinus saluator obsedit Courtier who
enriched you enameled you with so many perfections that justly we may call you the children of admiration Be you then to mankind that which the Rainbowe is to plants leave it to the odour of a good conversation which may become natural you shall reap here below true and solid glory contentments so tasteful that a man may more easily feel them than express them and in Heaven your recompence shall be equalled to the profit which your example shall have made on earth I know not what may be produced more pressing to a generous heart to oblige him to perfection The twelfth REASON Drawn from punishment CLemens Alexandrinus observeth that the belief Clemens Alex. Stromat 5. of one God and the faith of one judgement are in the soul of man by like consequence necessary and that the Heathens in the dead obscurity of infidelity were not able to shut their eyes against this veritie There is no soul in the world so barren which by force of the light of nature conceiveth not that if there be certain rays or reflections of virtue diffused through the actions of men the same ought to be in God as in their source with a radiant lustre of supereminence Wherefore Because as Dionysius Areopagita God a great Thesis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Dionis de divin nomini c. 2. August de Trinit l. 8. c. 3. saith in the book of divine attributes God is a great Thesis which hath but one word for expression but this draweth along with it all essences verities and perfections And for the same cause S. Augustine calleth this Sovereign Majesty Bonum omnis boni Now so it is that we behold shining in men though otherwise very imperfect certain traces or draughts of Justice and we observe they are naturally addicted to the love of this virtue were it not that passion maketh them belie their hearts and betray their own nature We must then necessarily conclude that Justice is in God as water in the fountain lines in the center and beams in the Sun Justice and Mercy are the two arms of God Justice and mercy which embrace bear and govern the whole world they are the two engins of the great Archimedes which make Heaven descend upon earth and earth mount to Heaven It is the base and treble-string of this great lute of Heaven which make all the harmonies and tuneable symphonies of this Universe Now as Mercy is infinite so is Justice The divine Essence holdeth these two perfections as the two scales of the ballance always equally poized Judge hereupon O Noblemen if the favours and mercies of God are so eminent with you what part shall Justice have amongst you David who had felt the scourges cried out as in Psal 89. Quis novit potestatem irae tuae aut prae timore tuo iram tuam dinumerare Sap. 6. Horrendè citò apparebit vobis quoniam judicium durissonum his qui praesunt fiet Exiguo enim conceditur misericordia potentes autem potenter tormenta patientur Non enim subtrabet personam cujusquam Deus nec verebitur magnitudinem cujusquam a deep extasie Oh my God who can be able to know the force of thy anger Who can be able amongst so many perplexities and affrightments to recount the effects of thy indignation True it is thy Justice doth most extraordinarily appear on the rebellious heads of sinners but especially upon the Great-ones of the earth These words of the Wise-man are terrible to any that will maturely consider them You who hold the highest place amongst men and live without fear or aw of that Majestie which hath constituted you where you are know God will visit you and appear to you with speed and horrour A most rigorous judgement shall be executed on those who command over others Mercy is for the little ones and humble but if you persevere in your wicked life as being potent you shall powerfully be tormented God is not a man to sooth you to distinguish your persons and treat with you with observance of your qualities Beware The reasons why the chastisement of great men shall be most severe are clear and evident the principal whereof I will briefly here produce First by how much the more a sin is committed Knowledge of good and evil makes the sin the more foul with exact knowledge of good and ill so much the more punishable it is because it participateth the more of the venom of malice Ignorance unto many is part of their sanctitie others with open eyes run headlong to ruin Now can it be denied but that great men ordinarily being endowed with good spirits capable judgements and most happie memories and they instructed by so many Doctours both speaking and dumb should have much more light and knowledge than the ordinary sort of men Behold why degenerating it cannot be but they must needs break a thousand bonds that held them in their dutie blunt a thousand sharp points a thousand inspirations from Heaven that feelingly touch their conscience the which cannot be done without great and determinate malice which rendreth their sin the more enormous and their heads the more punishable This is the reason Divines give touching Why bad angels were punished without mercy the punishment of the Angel apostate A strange thing that God coming from Heaven upon earth to take human flesh to distend his imperial robe upon man who lay on a dung-hill drawing him out washing him guilding him over with grace the true seed of glory in the mean time left the bad Angel without mercy for a prey of punishment which shall not end no more than God himself Wherefore is this but that the Angel offended with an Ob perfectam cognitionem solutum animi impetum peccatum Angelorum incomparabiliter gravius Vide Gregor l. 4. Moral c. 9 Marvellous Justice absolute and deliberate malice as one much more illuminated and Adam suffered himself to slide into sin rather by surprizal by infirmitie by complacence to the humours of his wife as S. Augustine observeth than purposely or contemptuously Alas me thinks this horrid punishment of the contumacious Angel should make the bloud congeal in the veins of all the Great-ones of the earth who offend their Creatour with as much malice as they have knowledge Ask O Noblemen of the Divine Justice from whence it proceedeth that these evil spirits have been so roughly handled If beauty could mollifie the rigour of a Judge they were adorned with an incomparable beauty above all creatures If the excellency of nature be esteemed they were the most lively Images of the Divinity amongst all things created If the spirit contribute thereunto they penetrated by their active vivacity even from Heaven to the deepest abyss If the glory of God were in this act considerable they were creatures who could love bless and glorifie God eternally If evil had been to be prevented this great Judge saw there would arise
there left the sting If he slept upon roses the shadows of dead men approached to his downie bed to require an account of their bloud He scoffed at religion and feared it one while he despised sacred things and at another time they made him tremble with horrour He sought out waters of expiation to wash his sins and never opened his eyes to those which S. Peter and S. Paul presented to him His soul was torn with pincers within it self as on a perpetual scaffold of exquisite torments when it would issue out of it self it was like a wild colt coursed and chased by men and beasts or as a bull stung with a gad-flie who fain would run for himself yet still findeth himself with himself Judge O Atheists what a life this is The second cause of Atheism is the sensual love Bruitish conscience Clemens Alex. pedag Plotin apud Philo. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Irrâ—verens infrunitus animus of favours pleasures ease and delights of the world which oftentimes degenerate into the meer bruitishness of a soul which sleepeth in fat and grease so intricated and confounded in earth that it looseth all knowledge of Heaven Clemens Alexandrinus saith that it happeneth to souls which are great lovers of sensual pleasures to engross and thicken themselves in such sort that as Plotinus very learnedly writeth they live not but as a plant These spirits are much enclined to Atheism for as the Wise-man observeth after the concupiscences of the belly cometh unbrideled irreverence which serveth Eccl. 23. 6. Lev. 1. 16. Vesiculam gutturis projicies in loco quo cineres effundi solent â—â— 13. â—aturati sunt â—levaverunt â—â— suum oblâ—â—i sunt mei as a harbinger to impiety God desired not that in offering a bird as a sacrifice unto him the gorge should be presented which is the little magazin of the meat but commanded to cast it into the ashes which is to declare to us that carnal men are most uncapable of celestial things and very fit to be dragged to the dung-hil and ash-heap The more they are affected to things present so much the more yea even in deep draughts they drink down the forgetfulness of Heavenly things All those say with Esau To what use will this goodly prerogative Genes 25. Quid mihi prâ—derunt primogenita of primogeniture serve me this title of the children of God this happiness of future life If there be no sensual pleasures nor carnal contentments in Heaven I will have none They become the true disciples of Alcor Aazoara 2. Mahomet who in his Alcoran describing the Turks Paradise placeth there good water good fruits rings carcanets silken tapestrie hangings and such like All these things they would enjoy but the water which they willingly would change into wine What swine are these The third cause if not of formal Atheism at the â—â—rious conscâ—ence least of weakness and faintness in matter of faith is when a soul will proceed in matters of Religion by politick and humane ways and suffer it self greatly to be pleaâ—ed with curiositie which incessantly moveth it to draw the curtain of holy mysteries to enlighten them with the torch of reason and to behold all that passeth there Such spirits are not so malign nor stupid as the first and second notwithstanding they are weak and very ignorant since they fail in the first rule of wisdom which discovereth to us that it is an absolute folly of a discomposed judgement to be desirous to measure things divine by the rule of sense and humane experience They turmoyl themselves and bate like a hawk upon the perch and often say in their heart that which the Apostle S. Peter observeth in the person of infidels Where are these promises Where is the Pet. 2. 3. Vbi est promissio ubi est aâ—ventus ejus ex quo enim â—ermierunt patres omnia â—erseverant ab initio creaturae coming of the Son of God See you not that times revolve men come and go all things have their ordinary course and we must expect no other miracle They imagine that all the counsels of Heaven should turn and roul according to the projects of their understanding and that if God had his eye open as it is said upon the oeconomie of the world both this and that would succeed as they have contrived in their feeble brain which is a great illusion Such kind of men would willingly speak with spirits to hear them tell tales of the other life they would know as S. John Chrysostom saith what habit what clothing the Son of man weareth covered under the species of the Sacrament how the Angels are formed of what colour the devils are nothing would please them better than to talk with one really possessed to know things future to divulge predictions to behold prodigies and miracles Briefly it seemeth they have no other purpose but to believe in God by the devil Such kind of proceedings are very exorbitant and unfortunate for the reasons which I will presently produce First O you wretched souls who betake your â—easons to settle a soul Impious curiositie pulls out both its eyes selves to this way see you not that by this means you pull out the two eyes which God hath placed within your souls which are as the Sun and Moon in the firmament to wit the eye of faith and that of natural prudence You seem to your selves sharp and clear-sighted and are more blind than moles For tell me for as much as concerneth the light of nature can there be found a folly more gross and absurd than to behold men who are born and bred in Christianity as in their proper element after a thousand and a thousand witnesses of the truth of their religion which even the very marbles do speak and stones proclaim to make themselves so wise and able as to seek out other proofs than those which have won worlds to the Gospel An unworthy way to treat with God You would have a God that should give you new signs tokens to confirm you in faith a God which servilely will be captivated to please the ticklings of your curiositie Senseless men as you are this were not to have a God but a lame Idol Are you not Insuspicabilis secreti reverendaeque majestatis cognitio est deum nosse nisi deum Tert. Apol. 28 very blockish to treat with God much more wickedly than one would do with a mean man If you had passed your word to two friends you would praise him with all freeness that should rest satisfied therewith and would condemn the other whom you should find fearful inconstant and ever upon mistrust yet would you that God should favour your infidelity by extraordinary ways What apparency is there for this All curiosity is damnable Curiositie dangerous Curiositas reum efficit non peritum S. Zeno. Serm. 2. de silii gener Chrys de fato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
in the hearts of men by a presumption of their salvation Christian discipline oppressed by liberty chastity trodden underfoot by unbridled luxury the standard of rebellion advanced against the sacred persons of Kings a million of French exposed to slaughter four thousand Church-vesteries Monsieur de Sainctes in his Book of saâ—cage pillaged five hundered Churches demolished France so many times given over as a prey to strangers corruptions so strange desolations so dreadful acts so barbarous that they make the hair stand an end on the heads of all good men which have never so little understanding A stile of fire were needful or a pen of a damant steeped in bloud to express them Ah poore France France the paradise of earth eye of the world pearl of all beauties How many times by the means of this heresie hast thou seen thy bosom heretofore crowned with ears of corn and guilded with harvests all bristled with battallions How many times hast thou seen the land covered with blades and the sea with ships How many times hast thou felt the arms of thy children to encounter in thy proper entrails How many times hast thou seen flames of brothers hostility flie through thy fat and fruitful fields When hast thou not sweat in all the parts of thy bodie When have not rivers of bloud been drawn from thy veins but such bloud as was able to cement together huge bulwarks for the defence of our Countrey or to serve for seed for flower-deluces to make them grow and be advanced in the plains of Palestine and they have been sacrificed to furies Innocency seemed to afford infants shelter from the tempest yet the sword of heresie found a passage into their tender bodies Age rendred old men venerable yet would no pardon be granted to their gray haits moistined with the massacre of their children Virgins were guarded in their mothers arms as a Temple of God yet have they been dishonoured So many personages of eminent quality have served as an aim for their impiety their pains have been sport for them and their deaths a spectacle What hair would not stand an end with horrour and what eye not weep forth bloud when we speak of these disasters which your selves detest Nor can you sufficiently wonder at the crueltie of those who have taken the liberty of such barbarous outrages and so bloudy tragadies I pass over this discourse as over coles covered with ashes and would willingly be silent were it not that as it was fit to expose massacred bodies to view thereby to cure the madness of the Milesian maids so must I discover some bloudy effects in the pretended Religion to raise a horrour against it in good souls Why also have you in this time renewed so many wounds which were not well closed and for want of a little obedience so lawfully due to the most just Prince of the world do you make a civil war to exhaust France of gold and bloud after such expence and so many bloud-lettings If these acts seem so base and inhumane to you why abhor you not the sect which produced them If God curse him who is the cause of scandals were it not fit if you have some beliefe stranged from common sense rather a thousand times to stiffle it in the bottom of your conscience than to divulge it with these disturbances divisions and spoil of a Countrey which you should love as men and honour as true Children Were there some stain in the house of our Mother which never was must you therefore call her whore drag her along by the hair and carry fire to burn her house in stead of providing water to quench the flames Is it not better to become patient to sweeten the acerbities of times spare wounds on ulcered bodies or at least to be satisfied with silence in a matter where you can pretend no right of correction What was that so exorbitant which the Church commanded for which you separated your selves and took arms to defend the wranglings of our Apostataes made afterward your Apostles What Maximes have we so rough and unreasonable that they must be taken away with the sword there to plant reformation Consider a little the notable corrections and admirable policies which Arch-hereticks have invented to introduce them into the Church I will here with all sincerity recite the Maximes of the Catholick and the Pretended Maximes of the chief Sectaries of which some have afterward affrighted you and you have disavowed them as you daily do by others God making you plainly see in the inconstancy and great diversitie of your Doctrine the little confidence you should put therein The Catholick Church teacheth that God would have all the world saved as the Apostle hath expressed in the Epistle to Timothie that he desireth good 1 Tim. 2. 4. of which he is the source and that he communicates himself to all his children The Pretended say that God absolutely desires evil yea doth it willingly predestinating men without any regard some to life others to eternal damnation as if a father who had daughters should cut the throat of one most innocent and marry the other wealthily having no reason for it but his will which is most execrable impiety pronounced by the authour of this sect in the book of his Institutions and chapter 21. where he saith Men are not all created to the like condition but that life eternal is pre-ordained for some and eternal damnation for others The Catholick Church speaks of our Saviour with most profound and religious reverence The Calvin in Evang Mat. 27. Institut 2. cap. 16. Authour of the Pretended makes him inferiour to his Father calling him the second King after God and attributing ignorance to him despair on the Cross and the pains of the damned which are things most horrible The Catholick Church holdeth Jesus Christ is the onely and sole Mediatour of redemption and that there is no other name either in heaven or earth in which and by which we can be saved and for that cause she honours it all she can extending and multiplying the fruits of honour and praise not onely in his own person but in his dear friends also which are the blessed Virgin and the Saints whom we pray unto as the fruits of his Cross and take them for Mediatours of intercession grounded therein on the word of God which commandeth the friends of Job to take him for intercessour Job 42. though he were in this transitory life and not at all doubting if the soul of the evil rich man prayed unto Abraham out of hell but we on earth Luc. 16. may be permitted to call to our aid souls so faithful so much honoured by God and whose praises he reckons his own greatness We likewise reverence holy images since it is an ancient custom in the Church the marks whereof we yet behold in Tertullian who might have conversed Tertul de pudicitia c. 7. with the Disciples of the
jealous Bern. ser 24. in Cant. Quid miraris ô Cain si non respicit ad te qui ita divisuâ— es in te si manum devotioni quid animum das livori non concilias Deum tibi discors tecum non placas sed peccas si necdum fratricida jam tamen fideicida teneris Cain Thou art amazed that God regardeth not thy sacrifice seest not thou art divided and severed within thy self I shall have somewhat to doe with thy wicked sacrifice It is to much purpose to turn thy hand to an act of religion and thy heart to envy This which thou doest is not to appease God but to provoke him It is to present him with sacrifice in the one hand and a ponyard in the other said S. Bernard And truly to touch the second reason although the divelish malice of this vice cannot gain conquest over hearts to divert them yet ought the calamity it draweth along with it to beget in our souls a perpetual horrour thereof This sin is no sooner born but it hath its torments and executioners attending All that which may truly be called miserable commeth to us from envy and the hatred of our neighbour First it bereaveth us of an infinit number of blessings which we might enjoy by the means of charity Nothing is so rich as the love of God all beauties all riches all possessions are tributary thereunto Yea love in loving I know not by what kind of powerful alchymy draweth all to it-self changeth all into it-self and maketh the whole world it s own This is the discourse which S. Augustin made of it O prodigie Will you know Aug. l. quinquag homiliarum homil 15. tom 10. Congaude illi cui Deus gratiam aliquam donavit tua est Habet ille forte virginitatem ama illam tua est Tu habes forte majorem patientiam diligat te sua est ille potest satis vigilare si non invides tuum est studium ejus Tu forte potes amplius jejunare amet te suum est jejunium quia tu per charitatem in illo es ipse in te est Particeps sum emnium timentium te Psal 118. 63. Ex alienis bonis quae si di ligerâ—tis vestra saceretiâ— bona non diligenâ—o vestra facitis mala Grego in pastorâ—l an effectual means how to become in a short time rich wise fortunat and holy You have nothing to doe but to love Virginity pleaseth you and have you it not Love it in your brother and sister to whom God hath granted it it is yours This man hath more knowledge than you and you perhaps more patience than he love his knowledge and be your patience and you both shall be contented Another is more watchfull than you and you fast better than he love his watchfulness and let him love your fasting and then behold you shall become watchfull and abstinent That which I say of virginity patience knowlege industry and abstinence is also to be understood of all other blessings which we by loving make our own Such was the exercise of David who tasted the good of another as peculiar to himself he sanctified himself in all Saints he instructed himself in all the Sages he enriched himself in all the rich he participated withall the just Behold you not here the admirable Philosophy of love This being true as it is most evident consider the evils and disasters which proceed from envy So many blessings as the Sun dayly discovereth to you in so infinit numbers of creatures may by loving be yours and in not loving every happiness each prosperity of your neighbour is an iron lance in your side a thorn in your heart and a nayl in your eye Have we so few misfortuns in the world that we must seek them in the prosperity of others The earth vomiteth up miseries which dayly draw tears from our eyes sighs from our hearts and compassion for our most obdurate souls yet not content therewith insteed of searching out some lenitive for our wounds in union and charity we envy our neighbour thereby bereaving our selves of all comforts and deep drenching us in all the miseries of the world For what evil is comparable to that of envy to be perpetually like a wretched owle not able to endure the day-light of anothers prosperity to be as a ravenous vultur who flyeth from sweet savours and searcheth out carion to imitate the fly which delighteth among wounds and vlcers What a life is it to run up and down taxing the imperfections of your brethren and never Qualis est animâ— tinea in malum proprium bona convertere aliena illustrium prosperitate torquâ—ri aliorum gloriam paenam suam facere velut quosdam pectori suo carnisices admovere qui se intestinis cruciatibus lacerent secreta cordis malevolentiae vngulis pulsent Cypri de zelo livore to open an eye to the splendour of their vertue What a life is it to make the evil of another your good to have his prosperity your executioner his glory your punishment ever to bear an ill disposition in your brest to cary tallons nayls and sharp combs of iron in your own proper entrailes and never to end your sin to make thereby your torments immortal This is it which the eloquent S. Cyprian spake in these terms Although through envy some profit or parcel of good might be drawn from the subject envied by extenuating the honour or good of a neighbour with some benefit applicable to ones self yet God oftentimes permitteth that by the means of envy the glory of those who are so maligned is made more illustrious So the brothers of Ioseph in being desirous to make him a slave gave him opportunity to become a Lord over all Aegypt So the envy of Saul when he least thought of it set the crown on Davids head and affording him matter of affliction gave him occasion of triumph So Maximian the Tyrant through the jealousie of the honours attributed to Constantine contributed all that which a desperate envy could invent and a great vertue surmount He first made him Generall of an army which he sent against the Sarmatians a people extreamly furious supposing he there should loose his life The yong Prince went thither and returned victorious leading along with him the Barbarian King enchained It is added hereunto that this direful Prince excited by a most ardent frenzy in his return from this battaile engaged him in a perilous encounter with a Lyon which he purposely had caused to be let loose upon him But Constantine victorious over Lyons as well as men slew this fell beast with his own hands and impressed an incomparable opinion in the minds of his souldiers which easily gave him passage to the throne by the same degrees which were prepared for his ruin We must have an Euristheus to make up a Hercules Envy many times layeth the first stone of the
forementioned Emperour Antoninus saith the wisdom of man consisteth in three points well to behave Antonin l. 5. de vita sua himself towards God which is done by Religion with himself which is done by mortification of his passions and with men which is effected by sparing and tolerating them every where doing good and after he hath done good to have his ears prepared to hear evil IX To govern his desires within the limits of his 9. Government of pretensions capacity and modesty It is a great note of folly to attempt all things and do nothing to be turmoyled with the present and to have always the throat of an enraged concupiscence gaping after the time to come to be vexed with himself and not to be of power to repose within himself to make the steps of honour the degrees of his ruin to raise a fortune like a huge Colossus to make it fall upon his Senec. ep â—â— Contemnere omnia quivis potest omnia habere nemâ— own shoulders and to leave no other witnesses of his greatness but the prints of his fall It is a thing very difficult to have much and impossible to have all but it is so easie a matter to despise all that it consisteth in nothing but in a bare refusal X. To procure such an equality of spirit so even 10. Tranquility so regular that he scarcely feel the approach of happiness and when it is lost not to make any shew of it To behold the good of another as his own and his own as another mans To hold riches and honours as a river that glideth to day for you to morrow for another It is the nature thereof always to run gently what wrong doth it to us When prosperity laugheth on you look back upon adversity which cometh in the rere and remember you have seen tall ships lost in the harbour even as it were in jest S. Augustine pleased to repeat that verse of Virgil Mene sali placidi vultum fluctusque quietos August ep 113. alibi Ignorare jubes desirous thereby to signifie to us that we should no more confide in the prosperities of the world than to a still sea which in his over-great calm oft-times presageth the near approaching tempest Brave and valorous Captains heretofore made a Sacrifice to war in the midst of peace and in the midst of war dressed Altars to Peace to declare that in good we should live in distrust of ill and in evil in hope of good but in both the one and the other ever in equality This verily is one of the master-pieces of wisdom which God imparteth to spirits greatly resigned and who have passed through the most thin and slender searces XI To behave ones self prudently in all kind of 11. Discretion in affairs occasions to examine the tenents and utmost bounds the original progress end Never to judge till you have seen the bottom of the business and therein to carry your self so that if success cannot wait on your desires you may not justly accuse either any crooked intention or want of discretion We are masters of our wils but God hath reserved to himself the command over events XII To be always ready to depart from hence 12. Meditation of death chearfully when death shall sound the retreat Saint Chrysostom saith finely This life is a nest framed of straw Chrys hom 2. in epist Pauli ad Coloss and morter we are the little birds shall we putrifie in the stench of this filthy nest If devotion hath made us wings why are we slothful Let us bravely mount and take that flight which our Eagle tracked out unto us in the day of his Ascension Remember the quintessence of al wisdom is the meditation of death It is a business we should learn all our life time to exercise it once The faults therein committed are irreparable and the loss without recovery This consisteth in three things resignation dis-engagement and union As for resignation be not too faint-hearted nor suffer your self to be called upon to pay a debt which so many millions of men have discharged before you and which so many millions shall likewise pay after you shew to those who visit you patience in your sickness resolution at your last hour and not to desire any thing but spiritual assistances As for your departure go out of the world as the chicken out of the shell I. Dispose of your temporal goods in time by making a just clear and perspicuous will 2. Restore the goods of another 3. Pay your debts as far as you can 4. Lay open your affairs 5. Give pious legacies to charge the Altars of mercy with the last victims 6. Reconcile your self and above all things beware you carry not with you too much confidence and inordinate affection into the other world 7. Take order for the education of your children 8. Dispose of offices if you have any with an upright conscience 9. Forget not the labours of your poor servants After this disengagement draw the curtain betwixt your self and all creatures By a good confession unite your self to your Creatour by the sacred viaticum extream unction by acts of faith hope and charitie by good suffrages of the Church good admonitions good purposes good remembrances of the death of our Saviour yielding your soul up upon a Crucifix as a child who sleepeth on the breast of his nurce The eigthth SECTION The Practice of Devotion and Prayer ONe of the shortest ways to gain wisdom is to be devout Devotion is as it were the flame and lightening-flash of charitie and it is properly a prompt and affectionate vivacitie in Voluntas quâ—dam prompta tradendi se ad ea quae pertinent ad Dei famulatum S. Th. 2. 2. quaest 82. S. Dionys de divin nomin cap. 3. Prayer in mount Tabor things which concern the service of God It principally shineth in prayer and in the exercise of the works of mercy Prayer as saith the great Saint Dionysius the Areopagite is as it were a chain of silver which from heaven hangeth downward to draw man up from earth and unite him to God It is the mount Tabor where an admirable transfiguration is made of the soul into God It is the spirit which speaketh to God which poureth it self on God in conclusion it is coloured by God even as Jacobs ews did denote their burden to be of Genes 30. the same colour of which those wands were that they stedfastly beheld It is it which the Apostle pleased to say Beholding the glory of God we are transfigured Corinth 2. 3. Gloriam Domini speculantes in eandem imaginem transformamur à claritate in claritatem tanquam à Domini spiritu into the same image from brightness to brightness as by the spirit of God Prayer is the conduit of grace It is as very well S. Ephraim hath said The standard of our warfare the conservation of our peace the bridle
and onions of Aegypt May we not affirm that they lead no other life but of a mushrome Ought we not al the night before to make our hearts sparkle in good desires and jaculatory prayers when we go to the bed of our celestial bridegroom Endeavour then to awaken and cherish your desire with a thousand aspirations and elevations of heart and have always in your mouth some good words which may be the pledges and earnest-penies of your intentions Behold the first leaf of the lilie The second is called purity I speak not of that Second leaf of the lilie puritie which concerneth the purging of mortal sins by confession which is wholly necessary and cannot be omitted without sacriledge I speak of purity more subtile and fine which consisteth in faith affections and intentions You ought first to have a singular What ought to be the faith of a good communicants faith and a most worthy and serious understanding of the mysterie not onely in believing what the Church teacheth us of this Sacrament either of the reality of the precious body of our Saviour or of transubstantiation but to believe it sincerely clearly firmly without curiosity restriction or hesitation not as those who convinced and as it were confounded with reason do in some sort believe and upon the least occasion repent in their faithless heart what they have believed make to themselves a faith floating and racking up and down like clouds under the breath of the winds When you go to receive the Blessed Sacrament you must do as Abraham did in his Sacrifice hold the bond-men and ass which are your senses at the foot of the hill and let your will and understanding ascend lightened with the torch of faith even to the height to sink it self down into those resplendent nights of the wisdom of Heaven For purity of intention which is the character of Intention our actions I would have nothing side-ways nor bearing upon any byass I will not that you communicate for some humane respect some civil decencie or to please those whose favour you desire nor for some trifling vanity and sometimes hypocrisie or other ends and aims which are far estranged from the ways of God You must communicate with intention to unite your self to God your beginning to whiten and guild your self with his sights to enkindle your self the more in his love to retain the memory of that Sacrifice which he offered on mount Calvarie that is to say of his most venerable passion to appease the anger of God for as many sins as are committed to implore the assistance of Heaven for the necessities of the Church as well for the living as dead to obtain for your self and persons of whom mention is made some victory over temptations some new virtues some temporal grace in as much as shall concern the spiritual state Briefly for thanksgiving for the benefits which we receive from his Divine Majesty both in general and particular Purity of affections consisteth principally in two Purity of affection points To banish from your heart all animosities revenges quarrels punctillioes and readily to reconcile your self before you come to the Altar The other is to free your self not onely from affections dishonest and unlawful but also a little exorbitant which one may have to any creature whatsoever It is convenient your heart be then as a chrystal-vial filled with clear water wherein the least moat of uncleanness may be seen It is to put Adonis in the Adonis in the crib of Bethleem crib of Bethleem which heretofore the infidels did when we communicate still retaining impure passions with a deliberate purpose Germanus Patriarch of Constantinople in his Theory Germ. Patriarch in Theoriâ saith the pixe which is the vessel and resting-place where the Blessed Sacrament is put is called Ciborium as one would say the Ark of lights to teach us that at the onely sight of this Sacrament we must dispel all thoughts of darkness which have possessed our soul And for the better obtaining this purity it is good to practice some devotions in the eve of receiving as mortification of tongue by retirement and silence as abstinence or some other exercise of humility or work of mercy When the day cometh Exod. 5. What ought to be done on the day of Communion run to this heavenly Manna in the morning Amuze not your self too much in decking and accommodating your body nor in scattering and disordering your mind in vain cares and sollicitudes but keep the vessel of your heart as a well stopped pot to pour it out at the table of your spouse It is at the instant of receiving that you must imitate the Seraphins of Third and fourth leaf of the lilly Imitation of Seraphins Isaiah 6. the Prophet Isaiah to hold all your wings still but onely two which are humility and charity These are the two wings on which you ought to poyze your self at your pleasure First grounding all in reverence before the eyes of this ineffable Majesty abasing your self even to the center of your nothing treading under foot all presumptions vanities follies by a most perfect humility of spirit Secondly to Moving wings stir up lively and ardent affections with all the endeavour of your heart and if that suffice not offer all to God in the union of his onely Son and merits of the most Blessed Virgin Mary To cherish the affections of these holy virtues you must have your prayers meditations and considerations upon the Blessed Sacrament well prepared and digested with variety that you may still hold your devotion in breath as Exod. 3. Considerations for Communion Moses before the burning bush Solve calceamentum de pedibus tuis locus in quo stas terra sanctaest Reg. 44. The Hostess of Eâ—izeus I. To represent Moses in the bush burning seized with a holy fire who heard these words Put off thy shoes take away thy sensual affections the land here is holy yea it is the Holy of Holies This is the noble fire which enflameth Angels in heaven and pure souls on earth which is enchased within the species of the Sacrament What ought you then to do II. To represent unto your self that your soul is as the Hostess of the Prophet Elizeus the good Shunamite who prepareth her heart as a lodging for the King of Prophets thanksgiving as a table humility for a seat and charity for a candle lighted III. To represent to your self that it is a Ruth Ruth 2. 8 9. Vnde mihi hoc uâ— invenirem gratiam ante oâ—ulos tuos â—osse me digâ—areris peregrinam mulieâ—em who accounted it a great favour to be esteemed by Booz and to have leave to glean in the fields after his harvest men and acknowledging with gratitude so small a benefit she said with her face prostrated on the earth From whence cometh this favour which I have gained in your presence From whence proceedeth that
light and Article 3 assistance of the holy Ghost that he would be pleased to direct this act to his glory and that you have framed to your self a lively thought of the presence of God and that actually you may meditate to select the points and articles proposed sweetly attentively affectionately and not to want matter for every point it is good to weigh the causes the effects the tenents and utmost limits of the mystery we meditate on As in the first point of the knowledge of your self Seven ways to dilate ones self in meditating in abundance upon sundry thoughts contained in this third article What man is according to nature A reasonable creature intelligent capable of the knowledge of God Who made it God himself He would that his Divine hands saith S. Basil should serve him as a womb What are the essential parts thereof A soul a body an understanding a memory a will What are the accidentals A general mass of so many little parcels as have their names and entertainments O the powerful hand which hath composed such a master-piece Where was it made In the earth and not in Heaven to teach him humility And to what end made To praise God and serve him and to save himself in praising and serving him Who hath concurred to its creation God Hath he made use of Angels No He would attribute the honour of such a work to himself And how did he make it He was not content with one single word as in the creation of the world but he put his hand thereto to shew it was a more supream effect of his power And when did he make him After other creatures to prepare the world for him as a cradle as a Temple as a Hall to banquet in and such like things You see these circumstances who what where what help wherefore when and how in every subject of what kind soever will lead you along The second manner to dilate your self when you meditate history is to represent the divers persons with their words actions and passions As in the mysterie of the Resurrection The souldiers shivering for fear the Person of our Saviour all enlightened with splendour saying Courage I have overcome all power is given to me in Heaven and earth I come to wipe away your tears to make your faces bright-shining to put you into possession of an eternal felicity and such like things On the other side Magdalene who seeketh her Master and not content to behold the Angels speaketh these words which Origen prompteth her All these goodly comforters Onerosi sunt mihi omnes consolatores quaero Creatorem ideò mihi gravis est ad videndum omnis creatura Ego non quaero Angelos sed etam qui secit me Angelos are burdensome to me I seek the Creatour and therefore I cannot see any creature without anxietie I seek not Angels but him who hath made both me and Angels The third to represent things to your self by certain images figures and similitudes as Hermas cited in the Bibliothec of the Fathers who meditating on the joy of worldlings imagined to himself a delicious meadow enameled all over with flowers where certain fat and plump sheep cropped the grasse and skipped to and fro with many jumps in the delights thereof And in an instant this meadow became vast plain drie lean parched and barren and the same sheep appeared starven scabbie and full of botches a rude surly shepherd driving them to feed among thorns and brambles Afterward he applied all that to the voluptuous and made to himself a perfect representation of their life to avoid their unhappiness The fourth to extend your self by comparing of one thing to another as did Saint Gregorie Nazianzen S. Gregory in his Hymns meditating upon the love of God Tell me confidently O my soul what thou desirest for I will please thee Thou wouldst perhaps have Gyges his enchanted ring to gain a kingdom Thou wouldst have all that which is in thy hand changed into gold the desire of the fabulous Mydas Thou wouldst covet palaces stuffed with gold and silver rich possessions curiosities boundless honours Poor distracted man dost thou not see thy God is all that and above all that and incomparably more than that Thy God is the true riches the true glory the true repose without him all thy blessings would be curses and with him all thy afflictions may be turned into felicities The fifth to make sometimes a dialogue God and the intellectual creatures sensible insensible enterchangeably speaking as did S. Aug. meditating upon Aug. Solil 31 Circuibam omnia quaerens te propter omnia derelinquens me Interrogavi terram si esset Deus dixit mihi quòd non Tu quis es unde hoc tale animal Domine Deus meus unde nisi â—â—u the perfections of God He went wheeling round about the world and asked in heaven in earth sea and depths addressing himself to every one in particular Are you God And these creatures answered No those have lyed who deified us And after he had run all over the world he entereth into himself and saith to himself Who art thou From whence cometh this creature my Lord and my God from whence but from thee By these ladder-steps he mounteth to the knowledge of his Creatour and plungeth himself in the abysses The sixth to make sometimes a gradation ascending from degree to degree as in meditating on these words of S. John God so loved the world that he Joann 3. Sic Deus dilexit mundum ut filium suum unigenitum daret gave his onely-begotten Son If God should onely appoint a bird to bring the news of thy salvation would it not seem to thee to deserve many thanks But what if a reasonable creature What if a man endowed with all manner of excellencies What if an Angel What if an Archangel a cherubin a Seraphin What if all the angels and all the blessed spirits But all these in comparison of his Son are but as a little drop of water to the vast Ocean And he hath given thee his Son O prodigie O superabundance of love The seventh easie and fruitfull is to ponder that which you meditate on with application to your self attentively considering the actions and words of our Saviour to form ours To examin carefully your deportments and see how oftentimes they wander from this rule of perfection to repeal them to square them to level them as much as you can according to the model which is set before your eyes After the discussion of every point the lights follow 4 Article of the manner of meditation in the fourth place which are maxims and conclusions drawn from the discourse we have made As if we have meditated upon the knowledge of our selves to derive this fruit from thence That we have nothing of our selves but ignorance weakness Lights vanity misery That we are wholly Gods That it is a
fourth SECTION Practice of temperance TEmperance taken in general is a virtue which S. Thom. 2. 2. quaest 141. represseth the appetites of concupiscence in things that please the senses especially of touch and Temperance the first tribute of sanctitie tast The temperance of touching consisteth in chastitie that of tasting is properly abstinence and sobrietie It is the first virtue which God seems to have required of man from the worlds in fancie the first tribute of sanctitie and innocencie which our first parents could not leave without loosing themselves and all posteritie A virtue which is the horizon that separateth vegetative man from the intellectual A virtue which raiseth us from the earth and bringrth us near to heaven A virtue which makes a noble soul shine in a mortal bodie as a torch of odoriferous wood in a Christaline watch-tower On the contrarie a bodie surcharged with kitchin-repletion holdeth the soul as one would a smoking snuff of a candle in a greasie lantern The acts of this virtue are I. In refection to have no other rule but necessitie Refection of bodie S. Aug. Conf. 1. 31. Hoc me docuisti ut quemadmodum medicamenta sic alimenta sumpturus accedam no other aym but the glory of God and entertainment of the bodie for the service of the soul Saint Augustine after his conversion came to meals as himself saith as into an infirmarie to take a medicine II. To take all the necessities of bodie as the Aegyptian dog doth the water of Nilus running thereby saving himself from superfluous excesse To take them as the souldiers of Gedeon drank at the fountain in the hollow palms of their hands cheerfully not prostrating themselves on the ground or as the dove taketh grains of corn pecking her meat up with her bill and turning her eye to heaven III. To eat and drink with all civilitie decencie discretion and seeing we must use this necessarie trade of a beast to do it at least like a man IV. To abstain from prohibited meats in times limited by the Church exactly to observe fasts devoutly ordained by the same authoritie and practiced by our Ancestours not becoming nicely curious nor repining at Lenten abstinencies To prescribe also a law to your self of some fasts of devotion upon certain dayes of the week and especially friday as many noble personages have done and daily do Gallen that great Physitian advised to Fast of Gallen Joann Sarisâ— Policr lib. 8. make a fast from ten days to ten in the manner of a physical prescription affirming it was an excellent mean to defend ones self from great and dangerous maladies V. To be very sober in drinking to take little wine and mingle it well Drunkenness saith Saint Ambrose is a superfluous creature in the world It S. Ambros de Elia Jejun A drunkard what is the scorn of nature it is an old shoe soaked in water A man is no longer a man but a bottle perpetually filled and emptied He lives like a But which doth nothing but leak and roul up and down and when the head thereof is knocked out you find nothing there but lees and dregs wine is a familiar or spirit which possesseth him and is the milk of Venus which nourisheth his concupiscence All his life is an enterlude and drunkennesse his tomb All men truely great are sober It is utterly to degenerate from Nobilitie to be addicted to this infamous vice You who serve Kings who are in their Royal seats Vae qui potentes estis ad bibendum as the Sun in the heavens remember your selves that heretofore in the Sacrifice of the sun hony was offered not wine VI. To be very temperate in the quantitie of viands Phylocorus Histor lib. 12. For it is a very great shame to make ones self as it were a living sepulchre of all sorts of butcheries and build to your self a tomb of fat with excesse in eating as did the wretched Dionysius spoken of by Aelian who had grooms of his chamber about his bed ever readie night and day to prick him with needles with distances between lest his fat conspiring with sleep should suffocate him On the other side it is dangerous to destroy your stomach by scrupulous and extraordinarie observations of your own inventing which may put you into a course of providing pain for your self and attendance for others VI. Not to be so curious in the choice of delicate meats but to take them indifferently according to your quality and profession It may happen that a Noble man feeding on a curious dish with sobriety may observe temper and another cracking his guts with beans fall into a nasty superfluity of gourmandise The virtue of temperance is not so much in the matter as the manner It is written that a great Roman Lord being retired into the deserts of Egypt to attend contemplation was one day visited by an Aeyptian Monk who had all his life time been a gross peasant bred among cows and cattle and had an iron stomack which in excessive quantity devoured the most sordid and despicable meats This man much scandalized to see the Roman Monk feed on that which seemed delicate to him and to drink a little wine at his repast forsook his Cell with small account of his host and much presumption of his own temper when the other miraculously penetrating into his thoughts reprehended him and he at that time easily acknowledged himself very short of his perfection whom he despised VIII Not to have your mind employed on sauces Shameful law of the Sybarites and kitchin-cookeries as those lasy Sybarites who made such account of a new kind of broth found out that by an express law they permitted the authour thereof to enjoy it alone one whole year before the invention should be communicated to any other IX Not to enlarge your thoughts upon viands Strang greediness with a greediness and profusion of spirit as if one would swallow the sea and fishes therein as Epicharmus writeth of a certain gentleman who bowed his whole body in eating crashed his teeth made a noise with his chaps blew his nose rubbed his ears made a certain sound in his throat all his body went a long with it A true mediocrity of feeding is to be neither too greedy and gluttonous nor too abstinent or transported but modest in your countenance prompt to help prudent to see what is done and to prevent want in others It would ill become Notable distraction a Noble man so to abstract his spirits at the table as those good religious men of whom it is recorded in the history of the Anchorets of Aegypt that they took capon for cabbadge They were at Theophilus the Patriarch of Constantinoples table and did eat like mad men thinking they still had been in their Monastery It happened the Bishop carving to the eldest of them gave him the wing of a capon and courteously said unto him Father eat hereof
doth not this capon seem good meat to you He comming as it were out of a trance How is this capon then Sir I pray you pardon us for we took it for cabbage else verily none of us had touched it X. Not to out-run the hours of repast through impatience not to be so addicted to serve our curiosities and delights that thereby we leave not a good dinner to do a good work Is it not a shameful thing of one Hugucchio who lost two towns as Hugucchio lost two cities for a dinner Jovius relateth for fear he should loose a good meal so that it being at the same instant in his power to give order for a revolt which was plotted he rather chose to sit out his dinner and by this means forsook a fair opportunity XI To content ones self with a little upon occasion as the young Theodosius who thought he had made a good meal when he had eaten certain fops of bread steeped in water within the Cell of an Hermit The wise Hebrews have a proverb which saith Man is known by three things by anger by his purse by his glass It is a note of a well mortified spirit Man known by 3. things when complaints are never made of wants that happen in service for the mouth XII To speak willingly of sobriety yea even in a feast like the Persians or frame some other honest discourse which may give refection to the soul while the body taketh his and beg perpetually of God to deliver us from the necessities of the body and that he weaken in us these base concupiscences of the flesh that we may preserve for him this his tabernacle in all purity The five and twentieth SECTION Practice of Modesty MOdesty is a branch of temperance a goodly Modesty is important and eminent virtue which seemeth as it were to incorporat our soul and make her visible in her actions whose office is to guid the motions gestures words mirth habit gate and garb and all that which appertaineth to the exteriour ornament of the body Her actions are I. To govern the tongue to speak truth in time To speak what and place roundly and freely without deceit palliation boasts impostures detractions II. Never to have a bitter and furious silence prying into anothers words nor to use a tattle unmannerly clamorous and tiresome catching the word out of another mans mouth as little chickens do who snatch bits one from another It was the comparison which father Gontery of happy memory used III. Not to be magistral with a counterfeited gravity nor riotous haughty fierce rude no buffon nor loud laugher A fool saith the wiseman crackleth in laughing as thorns in the fire IV. Not to have your tongue either of too high Tone of voice or low a tone but moderat distinct in sweet honest ordinary intelligible accents V. To have the composition of your countenance Countenance pleasing gratious modest without crabbedness or affectation the carriage of your body native comely free from extraordinary gestures Not to have a giddy head like a linnet always shaking no wrinkled brow nor crumpled nose no perplexed visage nor eyes wandring wanton or proud VI. The apparel neither superfluous fantastik nor Habit. dissolute without too much affecting new fashions nor peremtorily out of your own conceit tying your self to the old but to attend your own condition and remain in the lists of the modesty which is most practised by the wisest Above all let women beware they set not to sale to carnal eyes that nakedness of their breasts which may serve for baits for sin The Scripture saith Whosoever shall cause sparkles of fire to flie into another mans corn shall be acountable for all the dammage which the flames shall make VII To acquire modesty it is good to represent Means to acquire modesty to your self often before your eyes our Saviour conversing upon earth and to pray him he will give us a soul pure and radiant like a star which impresseth his rays upon the body as the Sun on a cloud in and through all to edifie our neighbour The six and twentieth SECTION Practice of prudence and carriage in conversation HAve you observed a fish in the natural history Isidore Uranoscope which the Grecians call Uranoscopus as one would say the beholder of heaven This admirable creature contrary to the nature of others hath but one eye which is as it were a vertical point fixed directly in the top of his head ever elevated and perpetually open to discover so many labyrinths of snares and treacheries as commonly are in the sea Some will say it is Tobias his fish a notable creature which not onely contributeth his gall to illuminate the eyes of the body but his example to enlighten the eyes of the mind It is a true Hierogliph of prudence which telleth us we should at this day converse in the world as in a sea full of monsters tempests rocks perils surprises and that we must have the eye of prudence throughly awakened and purified to preserve and maintain it among so many hazards This prudence in a word according to S. Bernard S. Bernard serm de Vâ—lico is nothing els but the knowledge of good and evil which sheweth how we should demean our selves and the ways we should tread in the course of our life and affairs It is one of the principal virtues because Importance of prudence all our actions depend on it Yea prudence holdeth them as it were enfolded in the plaits of her robe and unfoldeth them according to place time persons occasions which to know is to know all It is said a French King enquiring one day of a man who was held in great reputation of wisdom after divers instructions to govern himself and guide his Kingdom this wise man took a fair large sheet of paper and for an infinite number of precepts which others use to produce upon this subject he onely wrot this word Modus Measure or Mean All wisdom reduced to one word thereby inferring that the whole mysterie of our wisdom and felicity consisteth in doing things with grace fashion and measure and that is it which prudence teacheth We speak not here in particular of the Religious oeconomical military politike monarchical but in general of the direction of life in ordinary conversation For that seemeth annexed to the virtue of modesty Imagine to your self that prudence as antiquity hath presented it unto us Prudence a hand sprinckled with eyes Five fingers of prudence in their Hierogliphs is a hand enchased with eyes which hath five remarkeable fingers wherein all discreet actions are contained These five fingers are memory understanding circumspection fore-sight execution which is to say that for the practice of this virtue I. A good memory is necessary to remember things Memory passed as well what one hath read in books as those which are observed by proper experience for that much
as never being without a woman but since experience daily teacheth there are of them excellently governed we must not impute to the condition of sex that which proceeds from the vice of depraved nature Though the Scripture condemn evil women yet it bestoweth so great elogies on the virtuous that they are able to dazle calumny and enlighten virtue One while woman is called A Lamp which shineth on a holy candlestick Lucerna splendens super candelabrum sanctum Eccles 26. Erat lucerna ardens lucens Joan. 5. 55. a title onely given to persons eminent as it was said of Saint John Baptist He was a burning and resplendent lamp The body of this Lamp is the rib created by the hand of a great Work-man the soul is the fire of it virtue the light grace the oyl devotion the match and nourishment and marriage the holy candlestick whereinto it is put Another while she is called a Sun As a Sun said the Wise-man rising in the world from the palace of God Whereby he Sicut sol oriens mundo in altissimis Dei would have us to understand that a Mary should so near approch to the Divinity that she was to possess the highest place above Angels Thrones Virtues and all Intelligences Sometime the same Scripture to declare the rank a virtuous woman holds in the world presenteth unto us a ballance in one scale a woman and in the other all the riches of the world and woman is the weightiest A chaste woman is a Gratia super gratiam omnis penderatio non est digna continentis animae grace above all graces admitting no comparison And besides holy Writ replenished with the virtues and remarkable acts of famous women the Wise-man seems also to have undertaken as a task the praise of women in the panegerick of the one and thirtieth chapter of the Proverbs There he compareth woman to a ship carrying victual from a far distant countrey desirous to signifie that she is laden as much with virtues as a ship with merchandize Do you seek for devotion in her a most estimable ornament of souls Behold how the great Saint Augustine by singularity calleth this sex the devout sex Their first mother as I told you was created in terrestrial Paradise and they are perpetually at the gates of celestial Paradise either praying or hearkening to the word of God Were there not women who accompanied our Saviour with his holy Mother in so many painful pilgrimages succouring his necessities according to their abilities And is it not a prodigie that on the day of that bloudy and dolorous passion which shook the pillars of Heaven and made the Apostles flie women were found who followed the Son of God with heart affection presence tears sighs even to the foot of the Cross terrours of arms fury of souldiers earth rent in sunder with sorrow and Heaven wholly covered with darkness unable to force affrightment into these souls to stop the current of their holy undertakings Besides they have done so many services to the Church yea so many wonders that not onely Cities but whole Kingdoms have many times been converted and brought to the knowledge of God by the means of women Desire you prudence in them Behold a poor Thecuite who treateth with King David of Absaloms reconciliation with such dexterity that she obtained whatsoever she asked See in the History of Esther how by the treachery of Aman swords were drawn out of scabbards to be thrust into the throats of an infinite number of poor innocents throughout all the Provinces of the Kingdom at which time God raised a young captive an Esther who so well knew how to temper the spirit of this harsh and haughty King that she made him open his eare to innocency and shut them up from flattery and cruelty withhold the wings of thunder already shot over the heads of those poor Citizens and turn them against the guilty If you among them seek for justice the history of the ancient Gauls will shew you that anciently they decided differences among people and often staid arms ready to encounter planting the Temple of peace in the midst of furies and liberty of arms Yea God himself for the government of his people was pleased to make use of a Debora whom Erat Deboâ—a pro Prophetis Jud. 4. the Hebrews called by the name of a Bee for her wisdom valour and industrie You will perhaps think strength is wanting in this Tugloria Hierusalem tu â—â—titia Iâ—rael â—u honorisicentia populi nostri quia fecisâ—i virilièr Judith 15. sex Behold Judith who consecrated her victorious hand to the defence of her countrey and slaying Holofernes defeated a whole Armie spread over Judea and surging on every side like a furious deluge And if you will thereunto adde the histories of later times see a shepheardess a simple maid commonly called Ieanne la Pucille who opposed herself as a wall for the defence of this Kingdom against English arms with such military prowess that she seemed to bear fire bloud war and victory in her hands Let us then no longer say that woman is the seminary of evils happening in marriage but rather that they are vices which proceed from both when the husband and wife take the liberty of doing ill The first disorder is that such matches are almost never made but for covetousness We do not well to call this an iron Age it is all composed of gold and silver Heretofore marriages were made Si uxorari oportel sit amor in causâ Hieron in ep ad Ruffin for love which caused them to be of a lasting condition and to be indissoluble but now adays avarice alone predominateth We thought love was the most powerfull Archer of the world to transfix a heart but avarice is found to confront him Had a maid now all that which fools use to couch in their writings the brows of Juno the eyes of Venus the hands of Miuerva and feet of Thetis if she be Oculos suo â—statuerunt declinare in terram not rich were she Pandora her self if she bring not where withal to guild the hand of her husband it is no match for him And from hence it comes that marriage is not as it were marriage but a mercenary traffick a fare a market where reasonable creatures are sold like bruit beasts Ancient laws testifie that heretofore nothing was given with maids in marriage but their apparrel mean enough I warrant you It was for men who sought them to endow them This is practised still in the new world to wit in China It is a treasure there to have many daughters men buy them with large sums of money which they give to the parents that breed them now they purchase men and with huge portions buy their bondage This makes their parents hair to wax grisly and impoverisheth families which fear to be over-burdened with daughters because one cannot be rid of them nor drive them
misery of the world the waking aiery fantasies fleeting fires which shine not but to extinguish your selves and in being put out to bereave us of light leaving us the evil savour and sorrow of loosing it This Prince so accomplished that nature seemed to have framed him to be the object of thoughts the love of hearts the admiration of souls this Prince in whom was stored all the glory of the Royal house of the Asmoneans this Prince who was to marry the Miter with the Diadem and raise all the hopes of a lost race behold him by a most treasonable practise smothered in the water in an age in a beauty in an innocency which made this accident as full of pitie as it was unfurnished of remedies Vpon this news the whole City of Jerusalem was Sorrow upon this death in as great a confusion as if Nebuchadnezzar returning from the other world had been at the gates thereof In every place there was nothing to be seen but tears groans horrour astonishment yellings representations of death You would have said that every house bare their first-born to buryal as was seen heretofore to happen among the Aegyptians But above all Alexandra the disconsolate mother afflicted herself with uncurable sorrow sometime she wept prostrated on the body of her son and sought in his eclipsed eyes and dead lips the remnant of her life Sometime she rouled her eyes like a distracted lunatike calling for fire sword halters and precipices to find in them the catastrophe of life The sad Mariamne although infinitly patient had much ado to resist the impetuous violences of an incomparable sorrow She loved this brother of hers most dearly as her true image as the pledg-bearer of her heart as the hope of her house all rent in pieces All confounded as she was the good daughter reflected on the wound of her mother and stayed near the corps of her brother as if she had been the shadow of the same body Then turning herself to God she said to him with an affectionate heart My God behold me presently in Singular resignation that estate wherein I have nothing more to stand in fear of but your justice nothing more to hope but your mercie He for whom I feared for whom I hoped all that which one may fear or hope in the revolution of worldly occurrents is taken from me by a secret judgement of your providence ever to be adored by my obedient will although not to be penetrated at all by the weakness of my thoughts If I yet among so many acerbities suck some sweetness out of the world in the presence of delicious objects of which you have bereaved me behold me wholly weaned hereafter I will find therein nothing but wormwood to the end that renouncing the comforts of the earth I may learn to tast those which are proper to your children Behold how fair and reposed souls draw honey from the rock and convert all into merit yea even their tears The impatient like Alexandra afflict themselves without comfort torment themselves without remedy and many times become desperate without remission What shall we say Herod himself in this sad consort Extream hypocrisie of Herod of sorrow would needs play his part He maketh externally appear in a dissembled hypocrisie all the symptoms of a true sorrow He detesteth play he accuseth fortune he complaineth Heaven had sinisterly envied him an object on which he desired much to make all the love and respect appear he bare to the Royal bloud from whence he greatly derived his advancement He most ceremoniously goeth to visit the Queen and her mother and when he findeth them weeping about this dead body scalding tears flowed from his eyes whether it were he had them at command to make his dissimulation the more great or whether he verily had at that time some resentment of grief beholding on one side this little blossom so cruelly cropped under the sythe of death and so many celestial beauties which had for limit and horizon the instant of their birth and on the other side considering these poor Queens drenched in a sea of sorrow which had force to draw tears from rocks This trayterous creature had yet some humanity in him and I could well believe that nature had at this time wrung these tears by violence from his barbarous cruelty notwithstanding he feigned willingness to stop his passion with māliness afterwards turning himself to the Ladies he said He was not come so suddenly to wipe away their tears which had but too much cause to be shed as for himself he had enough to do to command his own Nature must be suffered to have her sway time must have his and would apply a plaister to this sorrow That he would perform for the memorie of the dead whatsoever an onely son might expect from a passionate father and a puissant King that hereafter he would be true son of Alexandra true husband and true brother of Mariamne since God was pleased to redouble these obligations in him by the loss they had suffered O the powerfull tyranny of the appetite of revenge Tyranny of revenge Alexandra whom one might have thought would burst into contumelies and reproches as well knowing Herod what face soever he set upon the matter was Authour and plotter of this death held herself constantly in the degrees of dissimulation not shewing to the King any discontent on her part and all for the hope she had to be opportunely revenged in time and place Herod retiring thought he had acted his part well free from any suspition of offence seeing Alexandra spake not a word who heretofore too frequently accustomed to complain in far less occasions To apply the last lenitive he caused the funerals of the dead to be celebrated with such pomp and magnificence that nothing could be added thereunto as well in the order of the equipage as in the curiosity of the perfumes with which the body was embalmed and the magnificent furnitures of sepulchre The most simple and ignorant supposed all this proceeded from a real and sincere affection but the wisest said they were the tears of the crocodile that Herod could not cordially deplore his death which had taken a straw out of his eye and put him in full possession of the Kingdom of Judea Alexandra Herod accused joyning the passion of her sorrow to her resolution of revenge immediately after the obsequies faileth not to give notice to Queen Cleopatra of all that had passed with so pathetical a letter that every word seemed to be steeped in tears of bloud Cleopatra who was apt enough for these impressions suddenly takes fire and affecteth the affair with that ardour she would her own cause she rowseth up her whole Court she storms she perpetually filleth Mark Anthonie's ears crying out it was a thing insupportable to see a stranger hold a scepter to which he could pretend no right to massacre the heir with so much barbarous cruelty to
to declare him Successour in his Empire Pulcheria married him onely under the title of wedlock with mutual consent of both parties to keep virginity This woman was made to govern men and Empires She was already fifty years old and had mannaged the State about thirty seven Behold she beginneth a new reign with the best man of the world who onely had the name of a husband and in effect served and respected her with as much regard and humility as if he had been her own son She could not in the world have made a better choice This great man was naturally enclined to piety justice compassion towards the necessities of mankind He was very valiant for he Marvellous accident of Martianâ—s had all his life time been bred among arms and during his Empire no barbarous Nation durst stir so much was he feared It was a wonder by what byass God led him directly to the height of worldly honours He was of base extraction a Thracian born of a good wit and a body very robustious which made him find a sweetness in war He going to Philippolis to be enrolled in the list of souldiers by chance it happened he found a dead body upon the way newly massacred This good man who was very compassionate had pitie thereon and approched to give it burial but this charity was like to have cost him his life for being busily employed to enterre this body one laid hold on his throat as if he had been the murderer and that he made this grave for no other intention but to bury his own guilt The poor man defendeth himself in his innocency as well as he could but conjectures prevail beyond his defence He was now under the sword of the executioner when by good hap the homicide was produced who had done the deed convicted by his own confession This man thrust his head into the place of the innocent and Martianus brought his away to behold it one day glitter under the rubies and diamonds of the Imperial Crown This was not without long trials of his ability which transferred him from degree to degree through all the hazards of a long and painfull warfare He was then mature in years in account one of the greatest Captains of the Empire Behold why Pulcheria could not be deceived in her choice This good husband who held his wife as a Saint was wholly directed by her counsels and she daily purified his soul in religion and policie He became in short time so brave and perfect in this school that he was accounted one of the most accomplished Emperours who had born the scepter since Constantine God well shewed his Good success of Martianus love and faithfull protection towards Martianus when in the second year of his Empire he diverted the furious Attila from the East who even now roared over the Citie of Constantinople as a thunder-stroke before it brake in shivers This Attila was a Scythian a great Captain who promised to himself the Empire of the world and for that cause had taken the field with an Army of 700000. men composed of strange and hydeous Nations who had gone out of their countrey like a scum of the earth ranging themselves under the conduct of Attila for the great experience he had in the mannage of arms He notwithstanding was a little man harsh violent his breast large his head great the eye of a Pismeer his nose flat his beard close shaved beginning already to wax grisled He walked with so much state as if he thought the earth had been unworthy to bear him and â—â—ough meerly barbarous the desire of honour so possessed him that being one day at Milan and seeing pictures where the Roman Emperours were represented who had Scythians his Countrey-men cast at their feet was so enraged that instantly he sent for a painter and caused himself to be drawn in a very eminent golden throne and clothed in royal robes and the Emperours of Rome and Constantinople bearing bags on their shoulders filled with crowns then made them to be poured at his feet alluding hereby to the vast sums of money he in good earnest extorted from the Empire and which Theodosius gave him afterwards to divert the course of his arms thinking that speedily to dispatch such an enemy out of his territories it was onely fit to make for him a bridge of silver This man seemed created to shake the pillars of the earth and for that cause made himself to be called The scourge of God There was no infant so little in the arms of the nurse who hearing Attilas named did not think he saw a wolf He considering that Martianus a most valiant man at that time swayed the Eastern Empire durst not come near but hastened to fall upon the West where Valentinian the Younger reigned son of Honorius cousin of Theodosius and Pulcheria a wanton and dissolute Prince as you shall understand in the course of this history loosing his life and Empire by his sensuality So it was that Attila attempting first upon the Gaules found work enough for the Romanes French and Gothes not unlike dogs who after they have worried one another rally themselves together to resist the wolf by a common consent heartened each other under the conduct of Aetius Moroneus and Thyerry against this Barbarian and having given him battel defeated one part of his army in the Catalonian plains but he failed not to pack a way creeping along like a great serpent which loaden with redoubled blows given by peasants hath received a maim in his body and notwithstanding saved his head God who derideth the proud and in his Amphitheater is pleased to make not Lions to fight with bulls but the weakness of the earth against the most insolent greatness reserved the conquest of this monster to Religious persons and women It is a wonder he coming to Rome as to the period and butt of his ambitions all enflamed with great desires in this clattering of harness and loud noise of Armies all the world trembling under the scourge the brave Pope S. Leo went out to seek him and preached so well unto him that being come thither as a lion he returned as a lamb for Attila entertained him with marvellous respect So had he done before to S. Lupus Bishop of Troyes granting him whatsoever he could desire All his Captains were much amazed for among other titles this Hun had the name of being inexorable to suppliants and it then being curiously asked of him who made him at that time loose his furie he confessed he saw a venerable person by Leo's side it was the great Saint Peter who threatned him with death if he condescended not to what the good Pope desired of him Attila then leaveth Italie and passeth into Sclavonia without being wished for again but by one sole woman Alas who would believe it Honoria sister of the Emperour cousin germane to Pulcheria fell in love with this monster I know not what
man and a deserving and believe God will not fail to give you what shall be most behooffull Our great King Robert made one day upon this occasion an observation for ever to be remembred noted by Glaber an ancient Authour He saith that a certain Abbot having presented the King with a goodly horse in imitation of those who fish in giving and cast out one gift as a hook to draw another hoped this horse would run so well for his Master as to bring him home a Bishoprick But the good King seeing the sinister intention of this man sent him to the Church commanding him to return with his Crozier which he quickly did proposing to himself in his mind an augmentation of livings as his avarice had represented to him But as soon as the King espied him afar off Hold down that Crozier saith he you are unworthy of it since you think to have it from a man To the which he obeyed though much ashamed and was as one dropped out of the clouds Our Robert endowed with a natural goodness was not willing he should too long suffer this disgrace but commanded the Crozier to be put into the right hand of the image of our Saviour which stood directly upon the Altar then turning himself to the Abbot Take saith he your Crozier and learn that it is he there that gives it you I would not have you so much as give thanks to a mortal man but that you freely use it as the honour of your charge requireth What a King What a lesson As for the other rock which concerneth the use of goods God forbid when you come to maturity of age that you employ the patrimony of Jesus the sweat and bloud of the faithfull in good chear excess and play to fatten beasts or men worse than beasts who live but on the sins of others to raise unto your self a heap of anger in the day of judgements God forbid the buildings of an Abbey should fall to decay the Altars become naked the images of Saints shivered in pieces the lamps and lights be eclipsed the walls weep and spiders there spin their webs rats run up and down and Religious men famish that Priests there should present themselves before the Altar with ridiculous habits which tast of a Tavern whilest I know not what little neece drags silk at her heels at the charge of the Crucifix My God! who will bring back to us a Guy the Gross that flourished in the time of S. Lewis I would kiss his ashes and put them were it possible over Myters and Crowns (g) (g) (g) Vita Clemen 4. apud Alphonsum Ciaconium This great personage first a Proctor married and father of two daughters his wife dying was made Priest from a Priest Bishop of Puy from thence Archbishop of Narbone afterward Cardinal and lastly Pope It was expected that his two daughters which he left to the world should become great Princesses but the good Pope made one Religious with a pension of thirty pounds and married the other giving her for full dower three hundred pounds in marriage to a nephew-Priest who promised himself many titles Myters and Croziers of three Prebends he possessed he took two away commanding him to content himself with one alone and by his letters signifying it was not reason his advancement to the Papacy which gave him cause of terrour and tears should minister matter unto his of pride and riot This act of simplicity is a thousand times more admirable than if he had made his daughters Queens of Antioch and turned all his house into gold Behold the prudence of S. Augustine of whom Possidius (h) (h) (h) Nec suos consanguineos in suâ vitâ ac morte more vulgi tractavit quibus dum adhuc superesset id si opus fuit quod caeteris erogavit non ut divitias haberent sed ut non egerent aut mimès egerent Possidius de S. Aug. writeth He used his own kindred as the rest of the faithfull giving to them if the case so required not to enrich them but to free them from necessity or at least to make them live in the less penurie To what purpose should you be prodigal of an estate whereof you are but a steward (i) (i) (i) Non cui propriae sunt sed communes Ecclesiae facultates Prosper lib. 1. de vitâ contemplativâ cap. 6. Sacerdotes bonorum Ecclesiae non possessores sed dispensatores sunt Aug. Ep. 50. One part thereof is due to the Ministers of the Altar another part to the poor (k) (k) (k) Mendici Dei sumus ut cognoscat ille mendicos suos cognoscamus nos nostros Aug. serm 5. de verbo Domini and a third part to the fabrick If there be any magnificence in the Church it belongs to the publick particulars should be satisfied with modestie Why should you pass into the other world charged with crimes and debts drawing the malediction of Heaven and earth on your heads The sixth SECTION The third quality of a good Prelate which is Puritie of life YOur third attire is of white linnen which signifieth the Angelical purity you should observe from your most tender years to carry it with you to the Altar The Prophet Isaiah (a) (a) (a) Mundamini qui fortis vasa Domini Isaiah 52. telleth they should have their vessels very clean who are chosen to bear the vessels of God And for this purpose all the Saints advise us to avoid the daily and familiar conversation of women who are manifest snares of chastitie (b) (b) (b) Verè continentes assiduas mulierum etiam probarum familiaritates fugit S. Ephrem de temperantiâ Non potest cum Deo toto corde habitare qui faminarum accessibus copulatur Faemina conscientiam secum pariter habitantis exâ—rit Hieron ad Nepotianum Believe me it is one of the most important points of your carriage A Prelate abiding within the limits of this purity would appear in the commerce with men as if he came from a Quire of Angels But as soon as he falleth into a licentious life he forsaketh the dignity of his character and goeth out from the throne of Majesty as the unfortunate Babylonian King to feed on hay among beasts The night discovereth not more stars in the Heavens than it openeth eyes on the earth to observe his most secret pleasures ears to hearken to his deportment and mouths to divulge them through all Provinces He is looked on as a strange bird that is newly gone out of his element and God permits that having sold his soul for hogs-draff he should still rest unsatisfied finding each-where a long web of perplexities and a rouling wheel of immortal punishments To some he serves for matter of mirth to others as a shuttle-cock he giveth occasion of tears to few of indignation to all Men for him are wounded with jealousie and women have they never so little honesty abhor
him There are none but certain Harpies which as saith Cardinal Petrus Damianus flie round about Altars to pillage them who bear him the like good will as Ravens do to carrion He lives in a kind of stupidity of spirit in continual indisposition of body disgrace in his temporal fortunes the fable of the world the object of Heavens anger and earths execration Finally he resembleth an old sepulcher that hath nothing in it but stench and titles Happily then ponder in your heart what the life of a Priest ought to be who is the house of God of the cabinet and as it were of the bosom of God To think a wickedness is a crime to commit it a sacriledge to bear it to the Altar is a sin which hath no proper name there are titles and offices of all vices Oh how pure should that mouth be which approcheth to kiss the son of God! Oh how clean should those hands be which are chosen to purge away the worlds ordures Oh how chaste ought that heart to be that is bedewed with the bloud of the Word Eternal What a horrour when a faithless soul from the bed of wolves goeth out to find the Lamb and carrieth the pollutions of the earth to the Sanctuary of the living God like to that beastly Empress Messalina spoken of by the Satyrist (c) (c) (c) Faeda lupanaris tulit ad pulvinar odorem who bare to the Imperial bed of Claudius her husband the infamy and noisomness of places which should not be so much as named in the Palace of a Roman Emperour S. Peter (d) (d) (d) Instruebaâ— Petrus discipulos actus vitae suae omni horâ custoâ—ire in omni loco Deum respicere firmiter cogitationes malas cordi suo advenientes mox ad Christum allidere S. Clem. Ep. 1. ad Jacobum said we must break all ill thoughts by the exercise of the presence of Jesus Christ as the waves are dashed against the rocks And S. Chrysostom (e) (e) (e) Necesse est sacerdotem sic esse purum ut in Coelo collocatus inter ipsâ—s Coeli virtutes medius staret Chrys de Sacerdotio advised Priests to be pure as if they were in Heaven amidst the Angels Chastity saith holy Zeno is happy in virgins strong in widdows faithfull in the married but with Priests it ought to be wholly Seraphicall It is fit he should have little of the body who is made to manage and handle the body of the Son of God It is fit he should have small commerce with the flesh who knoweth how to incarnate the living God in his hands A carnal soul ready to sell his patrimony for a mess of pottage as the unworthy Esau is more fit for hogs than the Sanctuary They heretofore sacrificed to the Sun without effusion of wine and those who sacrifice to the Master of the Sun ought to entermarrie sobrietie with chastitie which are ever mutually linked together The banquets of rich seculars said S. Jerome (f) (f) (f) Convivia vitanda sunt secularium maximè eorum qui honoribus tument Consolatores nos potâ—us maeroribus suis quà m convivas prosperis noverint Facile contemnitur Clericus qui sâ—pe vocatus ad prandium ire non recusat Hieron Ep. 2. Neposian are not so proper for Church-men It is much fitter to comfort them in afflictions than to accompany them in their feasts A Priest who is still present at weddings is never well esteemed of He that would behold the modesty which is to be observed at the tables of Ecclesiastical men let him at the least take a model upon that which Tertullian writeth in his Apologetike of the Primitive Christians Our table saith he hath nothing in it which tasteth of sordidness sensuality or immodesty we eat there in proportion we drink according to the rules of temperance so much we satiate our selves as is necessary for men that must rise in the night to offer their prayers to God We there speak and converse as in the presence of God our hands washed and candles lighted every one reciteth what he knows of holy Scripture and of his own conceit all to the praise of God Prayer endeth the banquet as it gave beginning thereunto From the table we go to the exercise of modesty and honesty You would say if you saw us it were not a supper we had in hand but a lesson of piety The seventh SECTION The fourth perfection of a Prelate which is observed in Zeal and charitie YOur fourth mark is scarlet the sign of the ardent charity and zeal you ought to retain towards the house of God The buckler of brave Champions of the God of Hosts should be Num. 2. Clypeus fortium ejus ignitus viri exercitus in coccineis a buckler of fire and all his souldiers must appear in crimson cassocks You must early learn to bay the hares skin in the hall that you may afterward go into the field for the hunting of souls You must become a wall of fire to serve as a rampart in the house of God You must be a star to run over and enlighten the little world recommended to your charge You must oppose the power of great-ones the strength of the sturdy the wiles of the crafty the close practises of the wicked to divert ill actions advance good leave unprofitable destroy vice plant virtue chastise delinquents recompence men of merit protect the poor justifie the innocent You must be an eye to the blind a foot to the lame arm and hand to the maimed a Sanctuary to all the world You must have as many chains to oblige men to you as God hath given you means of well-doing Let the miseries which in a right line would hasten to you if it be possible may pass no further than you Let your house be a shop where from stones the sons of Abraham may be raised The High-Priest heretofore bare the whole world on his habit of which he was as it were the Advocate and you must think when you are in office all the world is on your shoulders and that both the living and dead shall have a share in the duty which you shall render thereunto It shall be your act to carry the torch of example before the people to instruct men to cure and comfort their infirmity to pray and sacrifice both for the world of the living and those whom death already hath divided from our conversation What charity think you can you have to be discharged from these obligations You must learn Nullum omnipotenti Deo tale sacrificium quale est zâ—lus animarum Greg. super Ezech. hom 12. to love souls as the most pretious moveables you have in the world to please your self with the places where the objects of your zeal are and the knots of your charge rather than the Courts of Princes when you shall have untamed spirits to govern let them serve as an arrest for
passed Ages edified the present enlightened the future and upheld great fortunes by a much greater sanctitie All these will tell you we have nothing immortal in us but the riches of the mind and all this exteriour lustre of the world which charmeth the eyes of men is but a cloud in painting a petty vapour of water a fable of time a dyal which we then onely behold when the sun of honour reflecteth on it and which must in the end be buried in an eternal night of oblivion Let us now see the great S. Ambrose whom we among thousands have selected to serve as a model for this first discourse You therein shall observe a man of a most noble extraction endowed with admirable parts and who by necessity of duty and considerations of charity was conversant in the Courts of Emperours and in the infinite perplexity of many affairs which he with all manner of prudence and courage handled shewing in his deportments a vigorous sanctity chosen by the Divine Providence to make as it were the whole State of Christendom most eminent E C DOCTORIS AMBROSII St. AMBROSE The first SECTION His Calling THe first mark of perfection which we require in a good Prelate to wit Divine calling is in great S. Ambrose so manifest that were it written with the rays of the Sun it could not be made more perspicuous We may in some sort speak of him what he said (a) (a) (a) Amb. l. 1. Comment in Lucam cap. 1. Vngebatur quasi bonus athleta exercebatur in utero matris amplissimo enim virtus certamini parabatur of S. John Baptist That it seemeth God began to prepare him from his mothers womb to exercise his virtue one day in main battels First it is a thing remarkeable that seeing resolution was taken in Heaven to make this Prelate one of the most couragious and eloquent men of the world he should be extracted from the Nobility which is ordinarily full of generosity being derived from a father honoured with one of the chief charges of the Empire which was the Lieutenancy over the Gauls Besides he came into the world first breathing French air which hath been esteemed according to S. Hierom (b) (b) (b) Hieron adversus Vigilantium Sola Gallia monstra non habuit sed viris semper fortissimis eloquentissimis abundavit the Countrey of the most noble and learned spirits of the earth and Sidonius (c) (c) (c) Sidonius Apol. carm 1. Invicti perstantanimisque supersunt Jam prope post animam another Prelate hath said the valour of a French-man extendeth further than his life for he liveth even then when the soul and body are divided Secondly as we have observed before God many times declared the calling of infants by sundry presages It was a great sign of the eloquence of Saint Ambrose to behold a swarm of bees (d) (d) (d) The cradle of S. Ambrose all together settle on his cradle which was at that time brought out into a court of his fathers Palace that the child might thereby take a little fresh air The nurse seeing these little honey-creatures buzze about him much nearer than she could have wished coming and going to his lips was affrighted and thought to drive them away but the father who walking in the same place with his wife and daughter beheld this pretty sport made a sign she should hold her hands lest by exasperating these little creatures she might provoke their stings In the end they peaceably forsook the place and soared away so high that they lost sight of them At that time Ambrose father of our great Prelate spake aloud as with the spirit of prophesie This infant shall be great And verily these bees much better alluded to S. Ambrose than to Plato who is said to have had the like hap in his infancy For we must affirm the eloquence of Plato had honey in it and no sting but this of S. Ambrose besides the exceeding sweetness thereof in peaceable arguments had when there was occasion of combate stings that pierced to the quick We may well say he was the most elaborate in his style of all the Doctours of the Church especially if we speak of the Latins For many as S. Hierom and S. Augustine oftentimes dictated with much vehemency of spirit what came to their mind but S. Ambrose did not so much accustom himself to dictate to a writer for he in composing ever had his pen in hand (e) (e) (e) Ambros Epist 65. ad Sabinum Nobis autem quibus curae est similem sermenem familiari usu ad unguem distinguere lento quedam figere gradu aptus videtur propriam manum nostro effigere stylo c. to polish his works at leisure and as we say lick his own bear Adde hereunto another sign of his vocation in the childish sports he exercised without consideration as did heretofore Saint Athanasius being then as he an infant which was to cause his sister and the children which attended her to kiss his hand as the hand of a Bishop he therein taking much pleasure It seemeth God sometimes sheweth children as with his finger the way they should pursue It is an admirable thing that therâ— was in Paris found a young begger called Mauritius so far transported in his own fancy that he one day might become Bishop of Paris that many offers being jestingly made unto him in his infinite necessity to move him to renounce the right he pretended to the Bishoprick of this ample Citie it proved meerly impossible which a wealthy man perceiving he so furthered him in studie as in the end he came to the degree which to himself he had prefigured What shall we say God unlooseneth even the tongues of mothers to speak prophetically touching the state of their children Witness a most honourable Ladie named Ida mother of three sons Baldwin Godfrey Eustace who one day sporting with her and hiding themselves under her gown and many times shewing their heads with diverse pretty childish dalliances the father casually coming thither in the midst of their play as they were all covered with their mothers garment demanded Who have we there The Ladie readily answered not knowing what she should say It is a King a Duke and a Count. So it proved Baldwin was King of Jerusalem Godfrey succeeded in the Dutchy of Lorrain to his father the great Godfrey of Bouillon and Eustace was Earl of Boloigne God made use of this womans tongue as of the hand of a dyal which pointeth out the hours as the great wheel guids it leaving no memory where it touched Ambrose did the like at that time directed by the spirit of God He made himself Bishop in his own imagination but when he pursued the way of his proper reason and natural judgement he therein used all resistance not thinking he was called thereunto In the third place his calling was altogether extraordinary and miraculous in
satisfaction of my mind but the establishment of my fortune Notwithstanding I have wholly left it through a most undoubted knowledge that we cannot resolve on any thing solid therein Judge you what you please but ever a well rectified spirit will be ashamed to profess a science not supported by reason and which knows almost no other trade but to deceive This at that time somewhat startled him but stayed not his purpose so much he loved to deceive himself and so much he resolved to find out this secret in the end But ever as he waded further not discovering firm land he found trouble in a barren labour and much vanitie where he to himself proposed some soliditie Nothing confirmed him so much in contempt of this folly as the discourse he had with Firminus a young man of eminent qualitie sick of the same disease that he was for the curiositie of Astrologie ceased not to incite him as being born of a father an Astrologer a man of honour but so curious that he calculated the very horoscope of cats and dogs that were whelped in his house yet so little had he profited therein that at the same time his son came into the world a servant of his neighbours being delivered of a male-child he foretold according to the rules of his art that both of them being born under one same constellation should run the like fortune which was so false that this Firminus his son being born of a rich family progressed far into the honour of the times whilest the son of the servant notwithstanding the favours of his goodly horoscope waxed old in servitude This young man who made this narration though convinced by his own experience still suffered himself to be beguiled with his proper errour so difficult it is to take away this charm by force of reasons Our Augustine by little and little dispersed those vapours both by the vivacitie of his own excellent judgement and the consideration of others folly He was likewise solicited to attempt a kind of magick much in request among the heathen Philosophers of that Age which was to seek predictions from the shop of the devil by means of the effusion of the bloud of beasts and sometiemes of children But God who as yet held a bridle on this uncollected soul and would not suffer it to be defiled with those black furies gave him in the beginning so much horrour upon all these proceedings that a Negromancer promising him one day to bear away the prize of Poesie in a publick meeting of Poets if he would assure him of a reasonable reward he answered that were the Crown to be given in those games of profit of gold wholly celestial he would not buy it by such kind of ways at the rate of the bloud of a flie Which he partly spake through some sence of pietie partly also by the knowledge he had of the illusion and barrenness of such sciences He was much more troubled about the Articles His Religion of Faith for though from his childhood he was educated in Christian Religion under the wings of his good mother S. Monica yet suffering his mind to mount up unto so many curiosities he had greatly weakened the sence of pietie And being desirous to penetrate all by the help of humane reasons when he began to think on the Christian maxims of Faith he therein beheld much terrour and abyss He came to this condition that not content with the God of his forefathers who taught him holy counsels and the universal voice of the Church he put himself upon masterie now wholly ready to shape a Divinitie on the weak idaeas of his own brain The Manichees at that time swayed in Africk who having found this spirit and seeing he might one day prove a support to their Sect they spared nothing to gain him and he being upon change it was not very hard to bring him into the snare This Sect sprang from one named Manes a Persian by birth and a servant by condition who having inherited the goods of a Mistress whom he served from a good slave which he had been had he remained in that siate became by studie an ill Philosopher and a worse Divine for mingling some old dotages of the magick of Persians with other maxims of Christianitie partly by the help of his purse partly also by an infinitie of impostures derived from his giddy spirit he made himself head of a faction protesting he was the holy Ghost His principal folly consisted in placing two Gods in the world the one good the other bad who had many strange battels The bodie as he said was the creature of the evil God and the soul a portion of the substance of the good enthraled in matter And following these principals he gave a phantastical bodie to the Saviour of the world esteeming it a thing unworthy of the Word to be personally united to the flesh which he held in the number of of things execrable Behold the cause why those who were ingulfed in this Sect made shew to abstain from meat and wine which they termed the dragons gall I do not think that ever Augustine fully consented to all the chymeraes of Manes which were innumerable but at the least he relished this Sect in the opinion it had of the original and nature of the bodie and soul and in many other articles even to the believing as himself witnesseth fables most ridiculous Great God! who thunderest upon the pride of humane spirits and draggest into the dust of the earth those that would go equal with Angels What Eclypse of understanding What abasing of courage in miserable Augustine To say that a man whose eye was so piercing doctrine so eminent and eloquence so divine after he had forsaken the helm of faith and reason became so abandoned as to make himself a partie of the Sect of a barbarous and phantastical slave who in the end for his misdeeds was flayed by the command of the King of Persia as if the skin of this man could no longer cover a soul so wicked Behold whither curiositie transporteth an exorbitant spirit Behold into what so many goodly gifts of grace and nature are dissolved Behold now the Eternal Wisdom besotteth those who forsake him to court the lying fantasies of their imagination A second obstacle went along with this extravagant A second impediment Presumption curiositie to settle him fixedly in errour which was the presumption of his own abilities an inseparable companion of heresie He that once in his brain hath deified crocodiles and dragons not onely adoreth them but will perswade others that he hath reason to set candles before them and burn incense for them It is a terrible blow when one is wounded in the head by his proper judgement whose ill never rests in the mean We come to the end of all by the strength of industrie Stones are pulled forth from the entrails of men the head is opened to make smoak issue
out but what hand hath ever drawn a false opinion out of the brain of one presumptuous but that of God All seemeth green saith A istotle to those who look on the water and all is just and specious to such as behold themselves in proper love Better it were according to the counsels of the ancient fathers of the desert to have one foot in hell with docibilitie of spirit than an arm in Paradise with your own judgement Augustine not to acknowledge his fault would August I. deduabus animabus contra Manachaeos ever maintain it and thought it was to make a truth of an errour opinionatively to defend it He had that which Tertullian saith is familiar among hereticks swellings and ostentation of knowledge and his design was then to dispute not to live Himself confesseth two things long time made him to tumble in the snare the first whereof was a certain complacence of humour which easily adhered to vicious companies and the other an opinion he should ever have the upper hand in disputation He was as a little Marlin without hood or leashes catching all sorts of men with his sophisms and when he had overcome some simple Catholick who knew not the subtilities of Philosophie he thought he had raised a great trophey over our Religion In all things this Genius sought for supereminence for even in game where hazards stood not fair for him he freely made use of shifts and were he surprized he would be augry making them still believe he had gained as a certain wrestler who being overthrown undertook by force of eloquence to prove he was not fallen This appeared more in dispute than game For having now flattered himself upon the advantages of his wit he was apprehensive in this point of the least interest of his reputation and had rather violate the law of God than commit a barbarism in speaking thereby to break the law of Grammer to the prejudice of the opinion was had of him It was a crime to speak of virtue with a solecism and a virtue to reckon up vices in fair language When he was publickly to enterprize some action of importance the apprehension of success put him into a fever so that walking one day through the Citie of Milan with a long Oration in his head and meeting a rogue in the street who confidently flouted him he fetched a great sigh and said Behold this varlet hath gone beyond me in matter of happiness See he is satisfied and content whilest I drag an uneasie burden through the bryers and all to please a silly estimation The ardent desire he had to excel in all encounters alienated him very far from truth which wils that we sacrifice to its Altars all the interests of honour we may pretend unto and besides it was the cause that the wisest Catholicks feared to be engaged in battel with so polished a tongue and such unguided youth Witness this good Bishop whom holy S. Monica so earnestly solicited to enter into the list with her son to convert him for he prudently excused himself saying the better to content her That a son of such tears could never perish Besides the curiositie and presumption of Augustine 3. Impediment The passion of love the passion of love surprized him also to make up his miserie and to frame great oppositions in matter of his salvation But because this noble spirit hath been set by God as the mast of a ship broken on the edge of a rock to shew others his ship-wrack I think it a matter very behovefull to consider here the tyranny of an unfortunate passion which long time enthraled so great a soul to derive profit from his experience The fault of Augustine proceeded not simply from love but from ill managing it affoarding that to creatures which was made for the Creatour Love in it self is not a vice but the soul of all virtues when it is tied to its object which is the sovereign good and never shall a soul act any thing great if it contain not some fire in the veins The Philosopher Hegesippus said that all the great and goodliest natures are known by three things light heat and love The more light precious stones have the more lusture they reflect Heat raiseth eagles above serpents yea among Palms those are the noblest which have the most love and inclination to their fellows These three qualities were eminent in our Augustine His understanding was lightning his will fire and heart affection If all this had happily taken the right way to God it had been a miracle infinitely accomplished but the clock which is out of frame in the first wheel doth easily miscarry in all its motions and he who was already much unjoynted in the prime piece which makes up a man viz. judgement and knowledge suffered all his actions to slide into exorbitancy As there are two sorts of love whereof the one is most felt in the spirit the other predominateth in the flesh Augustine tried them both in several encounters First he was excessively passionate even in chast amities witness a school-fellow of his whom he so passionately affected He was a second Pylades that had always been bred and trained up with him in a mervellous correspondence of age humour spirit will life and condition which had so enkindled friendship in either part that it was transcendent and though it were in the lists of perfect honesty yet being as it was too sensual God who chastiseth those that are estranged from his love as fugitive slaves weaned his Augustine first touching this friend with a sharp fever in which he received baptism after which he was somewhat lightened Whereupon Augustine grew very glad as if he were now out of danger He visited him and forbare not to scoff at his baptism still pursuing the motions of his profane spirit but the other beholding him with an angry eye cut off his speech with an admirable and present liberty wishing him he would abstain from such discourse unless he meant to renounce all correspondence He seemed already in this change to feel the approaches of the other world for verily his malady augmenting quickly separated the soul from the body Augustine was much troubled at this loss insomuch that all he beheld from heaven to earth seemed to him filled with images of death The country was to him a place of darkness and gyddy fancies the house of his father a sepulcher the memory of his passed pleasures a hell All was distast being deprived of him for whom heloved all things It seemed to him all men he beheld were unworthy of life and that death would quickly carry away all the world since it took him away whom he prized above all the world These words escaped him which he afterwards retracted to wit That the soul of his companion and his were expreslie but one and the same surviving in two bodies and therefore he abhorred life because he was no more than halfe a man yet
side seeing his Army grown very thin and the courage of his souldiers wavering more stedfastly made his address to God He was seen upon the top of a rock prostrate on the earth and crying aloud My God you know that I in the name of your Remarkable pietie of Theodosius Son enterprized this war and have opposed the arms of the Cross against Infidelitie If in me their rest any blame I beseech you to revenge my sins on my culpable head and not abandon the cause of Religion lest we become a reproch to Infidels The same night God for his assurance shewed him a vision of two Apostles S. John and S. Philip who should be as indeed they were the Conductours of his Legions The next morning about break of day he ranged his forces in battel array and charged Eugenius not as yet througly freed from his drunken prosperitie And when he saw that those who had the vanguard proceeded therein somewhat fearfully remembering themselves of the usage of their companions he did an act of admirable confidence for he alighted from his horse and marching on foot in the head of his Army cried out Where is the God of Theodosius At this word the ayd of Heaven Victorie of Theodosius over Eugenius Ambros in oratione funebri Theodosii was so propitious that a furious whirl-wind was raised which persecuted the enemies of Theodosius casting a huge cloud of dust into their eyes and returning all their own darts back to their proper faces in such sort that as it is confessed by Claudian a very obstinate Pagan it seemed the good Emperour that day had the winds and tempests at command and that he had nothing to do but to give the word to make them obedient to his Standards Heaven fought for its beloved Theodosius and all the powers of the ayr were in arms to favour his victories The souldiers at this instant were all changed so much hope had they in their hearts fire in their courages Bacurius one of the Emperours greatest Captains with his enflamed Legions brake through the ranks penetrated the strongest resistances and gained the Alps. Eugenius his people dejected as men fallen from the clouds could not sufficiently admire this alteration The discreetest among them disposed themselves to treat of peace crying aloud that never would they bear arms against a man who had the ayr and winds in his pay Theodosius sortified them with his clemencie all dispositions by a most remarkable miracle of God who exerciseth his power as well over hearts as winds were changed in an instant and that which is admirable the most faithfull to Eugenius promised the Emperour to put him into his hands which they performed for they went to take this miserable man who sat on his Throne entertaining his goodly imaginations and crying Bring him alive speaking of Theodosius when they laying hold of his collar and most shamefully binding his hands It is you said they we must bring alive to Theodosius and that instantly They trussed him up like a beast astonished and presented him to the Emperour who having reproched him in presence of all the world for his impietie and treacherie caused him presently to be put to death to make an end of his imaginarie Empire The wicked Arbogastus who had at other times been so happy when he followed the counsels of S. Ambrose seeing the ill success of his designs became so enraged that himself thrust two swords through his own bodie being not able to endure life nor light which seemed to upbraid him with his crimes Some hold that Flavianus died in the throng that he might not survive his own shame others think he escaped and that Theodosius extended his ordinarie clemencie to him Briefly behold the course of the tyrannie of Eugenius still more and more to verifie the Oracles of S. Ambrose The Emperour came to Milan where he cast himself at the feet of the holy Bishop attributing these victories to his wisdom counsels and virtue of his prayers The eighteenth SECTION The differences of S. Ambrose with the Emperour Theodosius and his death PHilosophers say there are four things which divert thunder to wit wind rain noise and the light of the Sun And behold a thunder-clap arrested by Saint Ambrose with the wind of his mouth the holy rain of his eloquence the noise of his voice and resplendent light of his most unsported life Theodosius verily was a great Prince but as it is so difficult to be on earth and not participate of earth as that the Moon being distant by so many thousand leagues yet seemeth to bear the marks thereof on the forehead so is it very hard to be in Court and not resent the manners of the Court and souls esteemed the most temperate not to have some blemishes appear on the face This brave Emperour was naturally enclined to choller which was enkindled by the breath of those who conversed with him nourishing himself with the food of over-much credulity For this cause he had two great contestations with S. Ambrose which eminently manifested the authority of the holy Bishop The one was for a Synagogue of Jews the other Synagogue burned for the murder committed at Thessalonica The matter for the Jews was for that one of their Synagogues was burnt in the East at the solicitation of a Bishop with which Theodosius offended as if it had imported much prejudice to his Edicts caused a carefull Inquisition to be made and adjudged the good Bishop who was said to be the Authour of this fire to re-build the Synagogue now turned to cinders Saint Ambrose although he had a peaceable spirit and that he in his Diocess had never undertaken the like avoiding popular commotions as much as he might which ever transport affairs into some excess yet could he not tolerate the rigours used against Christians on this pretended injury but he very sharply wrote thereof to Theodosius as it appeareth by the letter which is yet found among his Works some words whereof behold My life passeth away in many cares wherein I am Ambros epist 17. lib. 2. engaged by obligation of my charge but I must avow that I never resented any thing more lively than to see my self as it were accused of sacriledge before your Majestie I beseech you patiently to hearken to me for if I Grave words of S. Ambrose be unworthie to be heard by you I cannot be heard of God for you You do wrong to commit your praiers and vows to me to be carried to Altars if you denie me the audience of your ears you declare me by the same sentence unworthie to bear your complaints to the ears of the living God It is not a thing to be done by a good Emperour to take away the libertie of speech nor for a good Bishop to conceal a veritie contrarie to his conscience All that which Monarchs have in them most amiable is to love libertie even in the tongues of the
understanding these propositions went to find out the noble Bayard in his lodging and made a long discourse to him of the evil disposition of Pope Julius and the enterprises he had both on his life and of the Frenchmen of purpose to enkindle him for revenge Then he pursued his opportunitie and made overture to him of the treason of this wicked Gerlo Bayard beheld him and said How Sir I could never have imagined that a Prince so generous as you would consent to such a mischief and had you done it I swear by my soul before night I would have given the Pope notice of it How answered the Duke he would have done as much either to you or me It is no matter replieth Bayard this treacherie displeaseth me The Duke shrugged up his shoulders and spitting on the ground Mounsieur Bayard saith he I would I had killed all mine enemies in this sort but since you dislike it the matter shall rest and you and I both may have cause to repent it We shall not if it please God replyeth the good souldier but I pray you put this gallant into my hands that would do this goodly piece of service and if I do not cause him to be hanged in an hour let me supply his place The other excused it saying he had given him assurance of his person Behold you not a brave spirit See you not a man of a Royal conscience and of an honestie in all things like to it self Where are these pettie spirits of the abyss more black than specters and infernal furies who have neither loyaltie for their Prince nor Common-wealth but as it may concern their own interests who swallow treasons as big as cammels to gain a flie They would make truth it self to lie were not their issues ever tragical abominable and hideous The ninth SECTION Short and notable Instructions MY souldier follow the precepes which the great S. Augustine gave to Captain Boniface August ep 80. Observe faith and virtue in Arms which never will be prosperous on earth if they be not fortified with blessings from Heaven Beg of God with David to deliver you from your necessities which are your passions he doth nothing to overcome visible enemies that have power over bodies who surmounteth not the invisible bandied against the health of our souls Make use of the world as a thing borrowed do good with its goods and become not bad They are goods since they come from God who extendeth his power over all things both celestial and temporal They are goods since God gives them to good men but they are not also great goods since he affords them to the wicked He takes them away from the virtuous to trie their virtue and from the perverse to chastise their crimes It is true strength health victorie honour wealth are indifferently the portion of all men but conquest over passions virtues salvation of soul immortalitie of bodie glorie honour beatitude are the proper inheritance of Saints Love these goods desire them seek them with all your endeavour do alms-deeds to get them fast as much as your forces will permit all here below passeth away but good works Think when you go to the wars that the strength of your bodie is a gift of God that it is not fit to arm against your sovereign Masters proper benefits Keep promise even with your enemies make peace with all the world voluntarily and war for necessity to acquire the good of peace Be peacefull even in Arms for such men are called the children of God If it be necessarie to kill an enemie in fight let mercy be always exercised in the latter end of the combat principally when there is no further fear of rebellion Adorn your manners with conjugal chastitie sobrietie and modestie It is a ridiculous thing to conquer men and be vanquished by vices to escape the sword and be overthrown by wine If you want means seek it not on earth by wicked practices but secure rather in Heaven that little you have by the exercise of good works Flee these rocks of Nobilitie which we have hitherto spoken against and above all bridle presumption choller the tongue and sensuallitie They are slaves who cannot keep in the mean between servitude and Empire where either chains must be had to master them or a Throne erected to honour them Pesumption if you afford it enterance will make you of a man a baloon filled with wind a scare-crow of honour a temerarious thing void of courage an undertaker without successe a phantastick without shame which in the end shall become burdensome to it self and odious to all the world Choller and folly are two sisters which have in all things the same qualities or if there be any difference it is that the one with more furie maketh havock in an instant and the other produceth her effects with more leisure and cheerfulness whilest you are subject to this passion no man can confide in you in matter of judgement no more than to weather-cocks in the point of stabilitie you will have all other vices in-seed and perpetually live in the sorrow of time past disturbance of the present and uncertaintie of the future As for the tongue it is that which containeth all the good or evil of man It is the needle of the great dial of the soul that must shew all the hours It is the truche-man of our thoughts the image of our actions the interpreter of our wills and the principal key of conversation He that will now adays live in the world saith the famous S. Nazianzen must have a veil over his Nazianz. in Iamb eys a key on his ear a compass on his lips A veil over his eyes not to see or in seeing to dissemble many things a key on his ears to shut them up against so many follies and ordures which proceed from bad mouthes and a compass on the lips to measure and square out all his words with discretion So many secrets unnecessarily discovered so many infamous slanders so many inconsiderate tales so many frivolous promises so many impudent lyes such perjuries and execrable blasphemies so many disasters which oft happen for a sleight speech daily teach us that words have no handles to hold them by and better it is to trip with the foot than the tongue Sensualitie if you powerfully resist it not from the first reflections which reason may present will make you a thing of nothing The three spirits wine love and game will fetter you with a prodigious slavery You will become a living sepulchre a tomb of surphets and slaughters a gulf of calumnies a meer hobgoblin without repose which shall continually handle cards and dice to bereave you of your purse and understanding so to make a spoil of your goods a frencie of your reason and a perpetual feaver of your life Your condition ought not to make you pretend power over men if you seasonably enterprise it not over your own passions
which might slide into the heat of contention and guided all the affairs to peace In the end Arius Condemnation of Arius is condemned and a form of faith conceived for the equality of the Word with the Father whereat many Arians much amazed failed not to strike sail and yield themselves to the plurality of voices fearing least their contestation might ruin their reputation with the Emperour It is thought Eusebius the Historiographer was of this number a man of the time who knew how to comply readily with the humour of those who had authority and force in their hands As for the other Eusebius Bishop of Nicomedia who had maintained the faction of Arius with much passion he saw himself shamefully fallen from the opinion of his great credit and durst not refuse to sign the doctrine of the Councel Greatly was he streightned in another Session to pronounce excommunication upon Arius his creature saying he was consenting to the decision of the Councel under shadow of some perplexed words which he made use of to cover his opinion The fathers shutting up their eyes to all human reasons and fortifying their arms against favour surprized this Eusebius and Theognis Bishop of Nice in the condemnation of Arius which they would not sign declaring them upō this refusal deprived of their Bishopricks They interposed the authority of the Emperour who suspended the execution on such condition that they gave satisfaction to the Councel Never were men more humbled namely Eusebius who thought himself the all-predominant for he was constrained speedily to retire and address his request to the Bishops in terms most suppliant in which he protested wholly to submit himself to the decrees of the Councel yet notwithstanding he spared not to embroil matters with an infinity of wiles and malice which made the Emperour open his eyes to confirm their sentence who had condemned him and send him into banishment with subrogation of another in his place though he afterward by ordinary submission was repealed At that time happened a marvellous labyrinth of affairs in which began the combats of great S. Athanasius which are to take up another S. Athanasius History besides this it extending much further beyond the years of Constantine As for the success of Arius after the banishment of ten years he still intermedling with factions found means to be heard in another Councel of Jerusalem where feigning a penitence artificially counterfeited he handled the matter so by the practises of Eusebius who was then in favour that he was absolved with commandment given to the good Alexander Bishop of Constantinople to receive him into the communion of the Church The holy Prelate stoutly refused it knowing well it was an hypocrisie which tended to annul the decrees of the Councel of Nice and bring confusion into the Church But Eusebius of Nicomedia ceased not to make armed inhibitions threatening that in case of refusal he would deprive him of his Bishoprick He who cared not so much for the loss of his dignity as the safety of the Church forsook all these subtilities of Theologie and exhorting his people to a fast of seven days by the counsel of S. James of Nisibis who was then present spared not to macerate his body with austerities and present to God day and night his humble supplications to divert this scourge In the end the affair being very shortly to be determined he prostrated his face against the earth before the Altar and said My God if it be true that Arius ought to morrow to be received into the communion of the faithfull I beseech you let your poor servant Alexander go in peace and not loose the faithfull people with the wicked But if you be resolved to preserve your Church and I may be assured you will do it look on the threats of Eusebius and deliver not your inheritance to the scorn of the wicked but rather take Arius out of this world lest we receiving him may seem to introduce heresie and impiety into your house The next day Arius went early in the morning End of Arius from the Emperours Palace very well accompanied with Eusebius and walked in pomp through the streets of Constantinople He was a man more subtile than confident and it is thought the apprehensions he had of the issue of this combat put terrour in him and this terrour caused him to step out of the way Behold the cause why being by chance in the market-place of Constantinople he retired into a publick place of ease to satisfie the necessities of nature Socrates holdeth he cast forth a great quantity of bloud and thereupon falling into a swoon not being able to be holpen he yielded up his wicked soul by a just punishment from Heaven leaving to posterity a perpetual detestation of his life with a horrour of the very place of his death Eusebius caused the body to be intrerred Alexander breathed again and all the Church triumphed upon the admiration of the judgements of God seeing that he who had raised so many bloudy tragedies was dead in his own bloud and after he had infected the soundest parts of the world with his poison vomited up his contagious soul in the publick infections drawing on his criminal head the execration of all Ages The twelfth SECTION The government of Constantine HAving shewed unto you the greatness of Constantine Constant 19. Constantinople erected in matters of Religion let us now behold it in his politick government It is no slight note of the vigour of his spirit that he enterprized to make another Rome and so prosperously to have perfected this his design There is found among the Gentiles a certain Epigram in the ruines of ancient Rome which said It stood in need of Gods to make it but there was but one God necessary to destroy it What may we say of the courage prudence happy success of the Emperour in the establishment of Constantinople We will not make him a God as the Pagans but say he was a man singularly assisted by the providence of God in the greatness of his undertaking He perceived in this new change of Religion there were in Rome many harsh spirits and that even among the principal whom he could not reclaim to Christianity as his zeal fervently desired Behold whether desirous to consecrate to God a place better purified from Idols where he might be served with more consent and better judgement or whether he were transported with the desire of honour and the memory of posterity he resolved to build a City which should bear his name and be as it were the master-piece of a great Monarch For this purpose he had some desire to build on the ruins of Troy the Great thinking the fame of the place renowned for its unhappiness through all the parts of the habitable world might contribute somewhat to the glory of his name but he having laid the foundations God gave him notice in sleep that this was not the place
impatience She to appease him excused herself upon the necessity of the accident happened but this notable Astrologer hearing speech of the birth of a child forsooke the pot and glass which he dearly loved and endeavoured to set the Horoscope of this Ablavius newly come into the world And thereupon said to the hostess Go tell your neighbour she hath brought forth a son to day who shall be all and have all but the dignity of an Emperour I think with Eunapius that such tales are rather made after events to give credit to judicial Astrology than to say they have any foundation upon truth It is not known by what means he was advanced but he came into so great an esteem that he governed the whole Empire under Constantine who freely made use of him as of a man discreet and vigilant in affairs though much displeased to see him too eager in his proper interests And it is said that walking one day with him he took a stick in his hand and drew the length of five or six foot on the earth then turning towards his creature Ablavius why so much sweat and travel In the end of all neither I nor thou shall have more than this nay thou dost not know whether thou shalt have it or no. He was the cause by his factions that Constantine almost caused one day three innocent Captains to be punished with death being ill inform'd had it not been that S. Nicholas then living appeared in a dream the same night to Constantine and Ablavius threatning if they proceeded any further God would chastise them which made them stay execution Ablavius notwithstanding was so tyed to the earth that the words and examples of his Master had small power over his soul in such sort that he had an unhappy end ordinary with those who abuse the favours of God For after the death of Constantine Constantius who succeeded in the Empire of his father taking this man as it were for a Pedagogue so much authority had he assumed unto himself and thinking he could not free himself of his minority but by the death of Ablavius caused him miserably to be butchered sending two for executours of this commission men suborned who saluted him with great submissions and knees bended to the earth in manner of Emperour He who before had married one of the daughters of the Emperour Constans brother of Constantius thinking they would raise him to the dignity of Caesar asked where the purple was They answered they had no commission to give it him but that those who should present it were at his chamber dore He commandeth them to be speedily brought in These were armed men who approaching near unto him instead of the purple inflicted a purple death transfixing him with their swords and renting him as a Sacrifice If the poor man following his Masters example had been willing to set limits upon his fortune and taken shelter at least in the storm to meditate upon the affairs of his conscience he would the less have been blamed but natural desires have this proper that they are bounded by nature which made them The fantasies of ambition which grew from our opinions have no end no more than opinion subsistence For what bounds will you give to the falsehood and lying of a miserable vanity which filleth the spirit with illusion and the conscience with crimes When one goeth the right way he findeth an end but when he wandereth a-cross the fields he makes steps without number errours without measure and miseries without remedy The thirteenth SECTION The death of Constantine IT seemeth great men who have lived so well should never die and that it were very fit they still did what they once have done so happily But as they entred not into life by any other way than that of birth as men so must they issue out from this ordinary residence of mortals as other men Constantine had already reigned thirty and one years and was in the threescore and third of his age living otherwise in a prosperous old age and having a body exceedingly well disposed to the functions of life for he incessantly travelled in the duty of his charge without any inconvenience ordering military matters in his mind instituting laws hearing embassages reading writing discoursing to the admiration of all the world This good Prince earnestly desired the conversion of all the great-ones of his Court. Behold why not satisfied with giving them example of a perfect life he inflamed them to good with powerful words which were to souls as thunder-claps to Hinds not for the delivery of a beast but the production of salvation A little before his death he pronounced in his Palace to those of his Court a very elegant Oration of the immortality of the soul of the success of good and evil of the providence of God in the recompence of pure souls of the terrour of his justice upon the incredulous and reprobate This divine man handled these discourses with so much fervour and devotion that he seemed to have his ear already in heaven to understand mysteries and enjoy an antipast of Paradise A while after he felt some little inequality of temperature in his body which was with him very extraordinary so sound and well composed he was Thereupon he was taken with a fever somewhat violent and causing himself to be carried to the baths he remained not long there for little regarding the health of his body in comparison of the contentment of his soul he was possessed with a great desire to go to Drepanum in Bythinia a Citie which he surnamed of his good mother where was the bodie of S. Lucian the Martyr to which he had a particular devotion He being transported into this desired place felt in this heart an alacrity wholly celestial and for a long time remained in the Church notwithstanding the indisposition of his body fervently praying for his own salvation and the universal repose of his Empire From thence he went directly to a Palace which he had in the suburbs of Nichomedia where feeling the approaches of death he disposed himself for his last hour with the marks of a piety truly Christian His Princes and Captains who heard him speak of death being desirous to divert his mind from this thought said He was become too necessary for all the world and that the prayers of all men would prolong his life But he Of what do you speak to me as if it were not true life to die to so many dead things to live with my Saviour No this heer is not a death but a passage to immortality If you love me hinder not my way one cannot go too soon to God This spoken he disposed of his last Will with a constant judgement and couragious resolution declaring in his Testament the estate of affairs he would establish even in the least particulars and very well remembring all his good servants for whom he ordained pensions and rewards for every one
the Palace where judgements were given in the forme of Heaven for the very stone-work was of Saphirs which are of celestial colour and in the feelings clouds were counterfeited and in those clouds certain birds reputed as messengers of justice as if they had been delegated to see the deportments of men in discharge of their offices and to advise them that giving judgement on earth they must ever have an eie and an ear in Heaven I also discover this by another observation of Jud. 45. Scripture for it teacheth me that the brave Princess Debora surnamed the Bee judged the people and held her Assizes under a Palm or as it is probable after the reason both of the one and other were heard she took a leaf of this tree and gave it to him who had the right And from this practise Exornétque tuas plurima palma fores Mortial is derived the custom to plant Palms at the gates of great Advocates and Justiciers which was likewise observed in ancient Rome Now why think you would God have the first sessions of justice to be held under Palms but to signifie that which Philo speaketh of that as the Palm beareth his heart and strength in the top so good judges direct their whole understanding and affections to heaven living perpetually as in the presence of the Divinitie or else that as the virtues of the Palm are innumerable so the excellencies of justice are infinite Adde also hereunto a passage in a Caldaick Commentary upon Ecclesiastes which telleth how Solomon that great King under whose principality peace and justice mutually embraced as sisters to shew what account he made of those who well managed matters of right caused a most sumptuous Palace to be erected for them of most exquisite workmanship called the House of Judgement and through excess of favour ordained they should partake of the wine of offerings which was presented on the Altars of the living God and which came from a vine planted and manured by the hand of Solomon himself Is it Exod. 32. not to place justice in heaven to admit it to the communication of the honours and offerings of God So the people of Israel supposing one day that Moses was lost instantly asked of Aaron Gods to govern them as thinking there must be some divinitie to supply the loss of this great States-man Why then do you wonder if S. Augustine in the book he cōposed of Order praiseth the practise of Pythagoras who never taught politick science to his disciples till they had passed through many long trials esteeming the other arts were apt to debaush the mind but that this applied lively colours and as it is said varnished and perfected up the table It is not very hard at this time to conclude what the excellency of a brave States-man is but the discovery of him is very rare And I will tell you that considering well the tables which Delbenius hath made upon Aristotle his Phylosophy and comparing them with other exquisite pieces I have seen two Cities very different both which bare the title of Policy but the one in effect was false Policy and the other the City of Verity I will present them unto you plainly and sincerely according to the like design of S. Augustine in his City of God and according to the Idaea's of ancient Sages not plancing at our times which I will neither praise nor condemn my nature and profession having disposed me to much ignorance of worldly affairs The second SECTION The table of Babylon drawn from sundry conceptions of the most singular wits of Antiquity WE then have beheld the City of wicked Policy in those ancient paintings to be built upon ruines in a land of quick-silver wholly cemented with bloud Earth-quakes are there very frequent and I know not what kind of outragious winds blow so dangerously as if they would tear all in pieces The waters were there infected the air killed those which breathed in it the viands produced death under a false apparence of life The inhabitants saw nothing but wolves and foxes by their sides ravens and owls on their houses comets over their heads serpents and scorpions at their feet which were there seen as abundantly strewed as flowers in the ennamell of the spring The gates Plutarch de curiosit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 resembled those fatall portalls whereof histories make mention that were never opened but to pass away carrion and ordure and withall this the Citizens were so powerfully charmed that they esteemed themselves most happie supposing to sleep on thorns was to live among violets and roses It is verily a wonder that without there were some shadowes of pietie but within not so much as a Temple For in truth the Burgesses of this Citie never looked up to heaven but to blaspheme it and all of them greedily sought for earth covered with a vail of sky-colour I saw no other Gods there but Honour Gain and Pleasure to which souls and bodies were sacrificed in much greater number than Solomon slaughtered oxen in the solemnitie of his most magnificent Sacrifices I saw huge caves where there were all sorts of beasts and likewise many monsters that much resembled the Harpyes Gorgons and chymaera's of antiquitie I perceived also some solitarie dens where I was certified great sacriledges were committed of power to make darkness which served them for a cover to blush for shame being unable to deceive the eys of God The men which walked in the streets appeared like Centaures and were clothed with an habit spotted over like the skin of a Panther The Chirurgians who diffected some of them newly dead gave assurance they had found two hearts in them Howsoever it is certain they shewed as it is said marvellous cunning in their words and had no other pastime all the day but to lay snares not sparing their greatest friends for indeed they were extreamly treacherous and cruell in all which concerned their own interests As I more attentively considered their orders and distinctions I saw there were three labyrinths very different In the first which was at the very entrance stood the least wicked who were not as yet practised in black mischiefs contenting themselves to exercise some slight tricks of wit for they in good earnest deceived one another and took much pleasure in mutuall cousenage and called this kind of sport legier-demain I saw there many creatures that served their masters not forgetting their own affairs and who mowed the meadow whilest it was plenty I saw Merchants some of which foisted in false wares others disguised them others overprized them others sware without end and some likewise swallowed up perjuries as sweetly as the most delicate viand I saw Artificers who used many deceits in their manufactures and better understood the trade of lying than any other I also saw some who sold wind silence and time and had excellent inventions to get money Some by certain influences drew it out as doth
but I pronounce you must so repress all motions which comhat against reason that they sparkle not in publick both to your own disadvantage and the ill example of those who behold you Philosophers have noted that thunders which stir about break of day are the most dangerous and you shall observe if a man in the first rays of his dignity early discover covetousness love hatred revenge avarice and other passions which much hasten to the prejudice of the publick and that the voice of the people be raised up as the roaring of thunder he looseth as much reputation as if he were already corrupted in mind Discretion will also shew you the way how to manage your dignity in a manner neither too harsh arrogant nor haughty but sweet affible and communicative and with it to retain an honest and temperate gravity thereby to villifie the character which God hath imprinted on those whom he calleth to charges and commands It was a pleasant mockery to behold those Kings of Aegypt appear daily in new habits with the figures of beasts birds and fishes to put terrour upon the people and give subject to Poets to make fables of Protous This affected gravity is not in the manners of Great men who naturally love nothing of singularity above others but the eminence of their excellent qualities Our spirits are not so base and childish as to be satisfied with semblances they desire some thing more solid and he is ever best esteemed among the wise who is more respected for the interiour than the outward seeming Discretion will discover unto you the conditions manners inclinations abilities and wants of those whom you are to govern and with a finger shew you the bent which way you must encline to lay hold of men It is at this day no small matter to mannage humours which are as different as they are incompatible The problem of the wolf the goat and the colewort is daily renewed If a ferri-man find himself much troubled to pass these three things severally from one side of the river to the other that the wolf may do no hurt to the goat nor the goat to the colewort in his absence what prudence think you must a States-man have to accord so many dogs and hares hawks and doves Saint Gregorie saith Paradise hath nothing in it but blessed souls and hell is filled with miserable but the world wherein we live containeth merchants very different You shall behold under your government a great number of simple innocent poor and afflicted creatures Think A notable practise given by King Theodorick to Cassiodorus Proprio censu neglecto sine invidiâ lucri morum divitias retulisti Et unde vix solet reportari patientiâ— silentium voces militaverunt tibi loudantium God hath principally created you for them open your heart with an amorous compassion extend to them the bowels of your charity stretch out affectionately to them your helpfull hands take their requests lend ear to their cries cause their affairs to be speedily dispatched not drawing them along in delays which may devour them strengthen your arm against those that oppress them redeem the prey out of the Lions throat and the Harpies talons For this it is that Kings Princes States and Officers are made To actions of this kind is it that God promiseth all the blessings of Heaven and admirations of earth For this sort of processes are crowns of glory prepared By this means a man diveth into the bottom of the heart and good opinion of people This is the cause that one hath so many souls and lives at command as there are men who the more sweetly breath air by the liberality wherewith they are obliged The greatness of man before God is not to replenish earth with armies and make rivers of bloud and to raise up mountains of dead bodies but to do justice to a poor orphan to wipe away the tears of a forlorn widow to steep in oyl as the Scripture speaketh the yoke of people which live on gall and worm-wood For not touching here any thing in particular we know that in all Realms of Christendom there are very many persons who sigh under necessities almost intolerable to the most savage and who daily charge eares with complaints and Altars with vows for their deliverance Now that we have a King so well disposed to justice and near his person so sage a Councel a Parliament so zealous for the publick good so many honourable men endowed with so sincere intentions when may we reasonably expect the comfort of people if not at this hour when miseries are eminent clamours piercing and dispositions very good Alas if there be any thing in the world wherein a great States-man may be seen to oblige the present and replenish the future times with admiration of his virtues it is in procuring the advancement of so holy an affair for which Heaven is in expectation and the hands of so many thousands of people are daily lifted upon Altars Such and so many Officers for not having had any other aim in charges but the accommodation of their own affairs have passed away like phantasms leaving nothing here behind them but ordure nor bearing ought with them into the other world but crimes They have found that the souls of the wounded Anima vulneratorum clamavit Deus in ul am abire non patitur have cried to Heaven against them and that God hath not let it pass without revenge as speaketh holy Job in the four and twentieth Chapter where he at large explicateth both the calamity of the poor and the chastisement of the rich who persecute them But all those who have constantly addicted themselves to the maintenance of justice and the consolation of afflicted persons besides the Crowns which they enjoy in Heaven live gloriously in the memory of men Their mouthes which are opened for justice after Regnantis facultas tunc â—â—ditior cùm râ—mittiâ— acquirit nobiles thesauros famâ— neglectâ— vilitate pecuniae Cassiod l. 1. Epist 16. they are shut up as Temples are truly worthy to have lillies and roses strewed on the marble which incloseth them and that their posterity may also reap the good odour of the virtues of their noble ancestours which hath made it march with up-rear'd head before the face of the people You on the other part shall behold travels and laudable actions which good judgement will invite you to recompence wherein you must shew your self generous and liberal For although virtue be always well enough payed with its own merit yet must we affirm it to be one of the greatest disorders which may happen in a State when in sowing benefits nought else is reaped but ingratitude and that to be capable of rewards one must become remarkeable in crimes On the other side there will be many defects presented that must be corrected which are either of persons very well conditioned fallen into some slight offence by surprize and
nor fetters may prejudice the libertie of your spirit The third reason which is very much at large deduced in this divine Work is drawn from the vanitie of all temporal goods where wisdom proveth by very good reasons That if the sorrows we have for the world might be measured at the rate of the things which contristate us as there is nothing great in this vale of tears so should there not be any thing capable of much disquiet Mourn we for mettals which are the nests of rust and the tinder of concupiscence for attires which are the nourishment of mothes for bodies which are the food of worms for houses which are the bones of the earth piled one upon another with cement and morter for precious stones which are the excrements of an enraged sea borrowing their worth from our illusion for honours which are golden masks and weather-cocks of inconstancie What a folly is it to hold retirement for a punishment which so many brave spirits have taken for a Paradise and to think our selves sharply punished when we no longer behold behind us great trains of servitours who burden us with their crimes and make us become answerable for their souls What an errour is it to desire to hold riches locked up which never are what they ought to be but when they are distributed For they resemble a dung-hill which stinketh when it is together heaped and fatteneth the fields when it is spread abroad We move Heaven and earth to flie from povertie and find it in our riches for great fortunes are now adays so hungrie and have so much ado to maintain themselves that although the needie are ever the most poor yet is there nothing more beggerly than the rich who have a thousand dependances and a thousand necessities whereunto their felicitie is fastened as with a chain What a charm is it to think then to be happie when you mannage the affairs of Great-ones where never is any thing done to please them if you make not your self a slave to all their passions where favours are granted of feathers and disgraces inflicted of lead Where your sleep your life and your faith is sold for a pleasing fantasm which lasteth no longer than the dream of one night Deserveth not a man to be strucken down as an enemie of reason when unloosened from this slaverie he withereth languisheth and sighs for his fetters ready prest a thousand times to kiss the hands of him who again would enchain him Prof. 6. l. 3. O gloria gloria millibus hominum mortalium nihil aliud nisi aurium in statio magna What a mockerie is it to affect greatness among men as if a rat would make himself a lord among mice and to feed himself with glorie which is nothing but a swelling of the ear Oh Boetius Seneca desired under Nero and Papinian under Antoninus the solitude which thou now enjoyest but whilst they endeavoured to break their bands leaned to a ruinous wall the mass of their greatness transported and buried them Behold thy self retired Dum ruitures moles ipsa trahit from affairs into a chamber of Pavia behold thy self in repose and among books the first entertainment of thy young days why dost thou not now presently make a virtue of the happiness which the providence of God offereth thee For a third point he considered the fruits that might be derived from tribulation when it is well mannaged Prosperitie saith this wisdom unto him is windie open slipperie and inconsiderate Adversitie quite otherwise is sober reserved prudent and circumspect the one under apparences of felicities bringeth unto us an infinitie of lies the other is ever grave and sincere the one deceiveth us the other instructeth us the one blindeth us the other enlighteneth us the one polluteth us the other purifieth us the one charmeth us and tieth up our understanding the other enfranchizeth us the one separateth us from our sovereign good and maketh us fall into a thousand sorts of vanities the other draweth us back as with a book to the consideration of eternitie the one createth for us many flatteries the other discovereth unto us many true friends Let us suffer a little Boetius and if this seem troublesom think that as thy prosperities have passed away so shall thy adversities The last day of thy life which cannot be far off will ever be the last of thy ill fortunes if thou leave not it it will forsake thee it is an ordinance of God that favours and disgraces cannot be of long continuance and that for mortals there is no evil immortal Finally for the last reason the holy man who had composed so learned books of the mysteries of our faith forsaking all the comforts of humane things drenched himself very far into the consideration of blessings in the other life of eternity and the excellency of God He considered it as an infinite sea of essence This is inserted in my Journâ—â— bounty beatitude which encloseth in it self all being all good all veritie He saw the whole Universe in this immensity of God as a spunge would be in the midst of the ocean an atom in the air and a little globe of glass enchased in the first Heaven He saw in his bosom all glory all dignities all riches all treasures all pleasures all consolations all delights all joys and all beatitudes he walked at ease in those fourteen abysses of greatness which are in God to wit infinitie immensitie immutabilitie eternitie omnipotencie wisdom perfection sanctitie benignitie power providence mercie justice and the end whereunto all things tend From thence he beheld the Word Incarnate the true King of the afflicted and all the Saints laden with crosses and persecutions thinking himself very happy to mingle his tears with the bloud of so many brave courages who had gained Heaven with violence This consolation overflowing his heart drowned all his acerbities and infinitely sweetened the sharpness of his captivity Behold the fruits which the wise Boetius gathered in his prison well shewing that virtue is an hostess tractable in every lodging and who looseth no part of her liberty in chains It onely appertaineth to huge mountains to bear snow and verdure at one and the same time and to great souls to retain a holy vigour in the strength of afflictions The seventh SECTION The death of Boetius IT is a loss that the Authours which have written of this death have cut off so short the last act of a life so eminent There is not any thing saith one so curious in a statue nor so hard to polish as the nails and nothing which more clearly maketh the perfection of a man accomplished in virtues to be seen as a good death I will here speak that which I have drawn from the most probable authours touching the death of Boetius It is certain he was very long in this prison since he complaineth in the Preface of a book which he composed during the time of
civil life which happeneth to them through depraved habits and inordinate idleness whereinto they have suffered themselves to slide from their tender years or by some other corruptions of a melancholy spirit which they soment to the prejudice of their repose These kind of natures are good neither in the countrey citie house-keeping nor in religion For we find that in all things we must use endeavour and that we came into the world as into a galley where if one cannot manage either the stern or oar he must at the least make a shew to stir his arms and imitate the Philosopher Diogenes who roled his tub up and down wherin it was said he inhabited to busie himself For my August l. â— de Civit. Dei Philo de sacri Abel Cain part I like well those people who banished all idle gods out of their walls and retained such as enjoyned travel For to live and take pains is but one and the same thing and that which the nourishment we take operateth for the preservation of life labour doth the like for accommodation thereof In the fifth station you have women of the sea who Non est ira super iram mulieris Eccles 15. much deceive the world by their fair semblances for they at first appear quiet and peaceable as a sea in the greatest calm having no want of grace or beauty which promiseth much good to those who know them not but one would not believe how they shift away upon the least wind of contradiction which is raised how they are puffed up and become unquiet with anger love avarice jealousie and other passions very active Such an one seeth the flower of the thorn who knoweth not the pricking thereof and such an one beholdeth with admiration those excellent beauties who cannot believe how many pricks and stings they cover under these imaginary sweetnesses You shall therein ordinarily observe very great levity and impatience which maketh them hourly to change their resolution in such sort that they think nothing so miserable as to remain still in one and the same condition I have seen young widows who had washed S. Zeno Hoâ— de continent the bodies of their husbands with their tears wiped them away with their hairs and as it were worn it by force of kisses and who not content with these ardent affections discharging the surplusage of their passion upon their own proper bodies tore their hair pulled their cheeks were rather covered with dust than apparel They died every hour saying they could not live one sole moment without their best-beloved and filled the air and earth with their complaints which was the cause why such as came to the funerals knew not whether they should bewail the dead or the dying Notwithstanding presently after these goodly counterfeitings they began again to reform their hair and change the dust of the pavement into the powder of Cypress to put painting upon their tears to adorn with a carcanet of pearl the neck which they seemed to destine to a halter to seek for Oracles from their looking-glass and to do all things as if death and love conspired to make their feast in one and the same Inn. I have observed others who being yet under the yoak were the best servants in the world but as soon as they saw themselves at liberty there were no worse mistresses than they There are noted to be in the heart of a woman the passions of a tyrant and should they continually have wheels and gibbets at their command the world would become a place of torture and execution Never have I seen passions more hard to vanquish for in the end the sea which threateneth the world to make but one element suffereth it self to be distinguished into ditches by little grains of sand which stayed it with the commission they received thereupon from God but when a woman letteth the reins of her passion go there is not as it were neither law divine or humane which can recal her spirit to reason Fair maids take ever from the modesty of your hearts the laws which may be given you by justice In the sixth degree are the natures of the Ape who Custodi te à muliere mâ—lâ— Prov. 6. have a certain malice spightfull and affected and such spirits may be found of this kind who day and night dream on nothing but mischief They are filled with false opinions sinister judgements disdains smothered choller discontents acerbities in such sort that the ray of the prosperity of a neighbour reflecting on their eyes makes them sigh and groan And as those Apes which sculck in the shop of a Trades-man mar his tools disturb his works scatter his labours and turn all topsie-turvie So these malicious creatures spie occasions to trouble a good affair to dissolve a purpose well intended to overthrow a counsel maturely diliberated to cause a retardation on the most just desires and frustrate the most harmless delights How many times do we behold the sun to rise chearful and resplendent in a bright morning and every one is abashed to see a mist arise which in this serenity doth that which blemishes on a fair body It is said it sometimes proceedeth from a sorceress which darkeneth that glorious eye of the day with her charms And how often have you observed prosperities more radiant than the clearest summers day which have been cloyed with duskie vapours by the secret practises of a woman who biteth the bridle in some nook of a chamber Fair maids malice is an ill trade It ever drinketh down at least the moity of the poison which it mingled for others In the seventh Region there are some kind of owls Mulicrum penus avarissimum or wild-cats certain creatures enemies of day of all conversation all civility and all decorum who having received from God many honest enablements to adorn life and to do good to persons necessitous so lock up their entrails that you may sooner extract honey and manna from flints than get a good turn out of their hands How is it possible they should be courteous to oblige their likes since they are many times cruel to themselves defrauding themselves of the necessities of life which are as it were as common as elements to satisfie a wicked passion of avarice that gnaweth them with a kind of fury For they endure in abundance part of that which the damned suffer in flames perpetually and fearing lest the earth may fail them they bewail what is past they complain of the present they apprehend the future they love life onely to hold money in prison and fear not death but for the expence must be made at their funerals Let us take heed we resemble not those fountains Fountain Garamant Holunicus S. Bonaventura in dieta which are so cold in the day that they cannot be drunk and so hot in the night that none dare come near them Let us do good both in life and death
so much confusion in habits Citizens wives will become Queens if we hereafter would be taken for Queens we must become Citizens wives Perhaps those who censure us in this point require too much of us and some are therein transported with so much zeal that if we would believe them we should make all the Maries of Egypt to be at Court Those who intend to treat with us in this manner by falling upon our hair and attires touch not our hearts for could any one truely perswade us to virtue we should cover our selves with a sack so that it might advance the glory of God and the profit of our neighbour yet do I think we have some right to comliness and propriety in our garments ever abiding within the limits of the most regular in such sort that the wise may not blame our superfluities nor those who are more favourable accuse our defects But to speak sincerely there is a kind of frenzy in our proceeding He who should see the stuffs taken up somtimes at the Mercers to cloth a little body whereof the worms will quickly make a dung-hill would say they had undertaken to cover some huge Whale and he who should reckon up all the furnitures of a Ladie as they lie on a table having never seen any woman would think it were a Mercery to furnish a little Citie we resemble those birds which have no body and are as it were nought else but feathers we use therein so many fashions disguizes and invention that we tire our spirits so much studie and affection that many of us make so much business about a ruff as if we had a Common-wealth of Athens to manage And that which is most horrible is these vanities are drawn from the bloud of the poor and in the same proportion as they are extracted they so impoverish as I fear posterity may have more cause to curse our dissolutions than cherish them Nay worse is done when they so vehemently affect to begin the adultery of their bodies by that of the face that it is insensibly eaten into with painting and poyson as if they would derive beauty from corruption Then certain fashions of apparel are found out which seem to be made rather to sell bodies than to cover them I do not know what may be reserved for the eyes of a chast husband when through all markets the secret parts of his wives body are exposed as open as if they were ready to be delivered over to the best bidders I cannot tell what husbands can be pleased with the publication of this nakedness if not certain Platonists who would approve the law this Philosopher made as it is said of community of beds than the doctrine of idaeaes which would be viands too empty to satiate the hunger of concupiscence Verily if we yet retain a vien of the perfect Christianity which swaied in the golden age we ought to stifle by a generous consent all these abuses and make of the spoils of superfluity a Sacrifice of mercy giving in part for the relief of the poor that which hitherto we have dedicated to the fantasies of our spirits Since we are born with some supereminencies of body and are the goodliest creatures of the world why should we go about to beg glory from poisons of the earth from worms and spoils of the dead If opinion have put us unto it it is now long since withered by the confusion of so many hands who incessantly gathered it The glory of the greatest Ladies shall not hereafter survive but in great modesty The seventh SECTION Chastitie THis is the shortest way we have to the preservation It is the qualitie S. Paul calleth sanctificatione 1 Tim. 2. Saluabitur perfiliorum generationem sapermanserit in fide dilectione sanctificatione cum sobrietate of Chastity an incomparable virtue and the richest jewel of our sex It ought to be as natural to us as flight to birds swimming to fishes beauty in flowers and rays in the sun You need not ask what may become of a maid or wife who is prodigal of a good which should be as firmly united to her body as her hearts She is capable of all sorts of crimes and were there question to open all the gates of hell incontinency alone would put the keys into her hands There is no beast in the world that is not better than a prostitute who by the dishonour of her bed hath charged her soul with sins her body with intemperance her renown with reproaches and her memory with execration We ought so to instruct our daughters in the virtue of purity that they may not know the least shadow of sins which are committed in the world I approve not those little Dynaes who will see and smell out so many customes of Countries and entertainments for they too soon learn that which they too late will forget and take so much fire in at the ears and eyes that water enough will not be found to extinguish it I do not wish a maid though very young should be delighted in the company of children which are not of her own sex I likewise fear those of her sex who are too curious their company is sometimes so much the more dangerous than that of men as we least take heed of a domestick enemy That Chastity is ever the most stable which knoweth not so much as what voluptuousness may pretend unto I will think crows might become nightingales when any one should Hierom. ad Laetam Securiâ—ris est continentiae nescire quod quaera make me believe that a creature of our sex which is delighted to hear or utter scoffs speeches of double sense which cover ordure under golden words either is chast or can any long time continue as she is Let us guard the eyes mouth and ears of those young maidens as Temples dedicated to Honour and let us do nothing in their presence which they cannot imitate without sin let us teach them not to addict themselves either to pleasures of the mouth or sleight desires to take and freely possess any petty favours A creature which much coveteth to have that which her condition cannot afford hath many enemies in her heart which will deliver her body over to dishonour and her soul to confusion Let us cut off as much as we may so many wanton songs idle books infamous pictures gossipings dancings and banquets never is a beast taken but with some bait nor chastity lost but that such attractives serve as fore-runners There are not so many lost spirits to be found among women well bred who in sin pretended nothing but sin but the love of divers Ladies proceedeth rather from vanities of the mind than weakness of the body They desire to be in some esteem and admiration of those who can neither esteem nor admire them but in the pretensions of their own interests they take delight to be commended for their beauties which never any man so profusely
spared to use many love-dalliances but the affection she bare to this good Queen was so great that it razed out of his heart all other love as the ray of the sun scattereth the shadows and phantasms of the night The holy Lady perceiving the spirit of her husband already moved in hers and that there was no need of power but example so composed her manners in her marriage that she made her self a perfect model of perfections requisite for this estate Royal Crowns loose their lustre on heads without brains and brows without Majesty But this Lady made it presently appear that although her birth had not made her worthy of a Crown nor her good fortune had afforded it her merit alone had been of power to make her wear the best diadem in the world She practised in the Court of a Pagan King a strong vigorous devotion which was not puffed up with outward shews and vapours but wholy replenished with wisdom For she had a fear of God so chast that she apprehended the least shadows of sin as death a love so tender that her heart was as a flaming lamp which perpetually burned before the Sanctuary of the living God Her faith had a bosom as large as that of Eternity her hope was a bow in Heaven all furnished with emeralds which never lost its force and her piety an eternal source of blessings She had made a little Oratory as Judith in the royal Palace where she attended as much as time would permit to prayers and mortifications of flesh abiding therein as in a fortunate Island which made the sweetness of her immortal perfumes to mount up to heaven Yet did she mannage all her actions with singular discretion that she might not seem too austere in the eyes of her Court for fear weak souls might be diverted from Christianity by observing in her carriage perfections transcendent above ordinary capacities But all that which most passed in a common life was done by her and her maids with much purity fervour majesty and constancy It was an Angelical spectacle to see her present at Mass and dispose her self to receive the blessed Sacrament which she very often frequented to draw grace and strength from its source She honoured Priests as Messengers descended from Heaven as well to discharge her conscience as to hold her Religion in much estimation among Pagans The zeal of the houses of God which are Churches enflamed her with so much fervour that she had no delights more precious than either to cause new to be raised or to adorn those which had been erected so far as to make them receive radiance from the works of her royal hands Her charity towards the poor was a sea which never dryed up and her heart so large that all the hearts of the miserable breathed in hers She composed and decked herself dayly before the eyes of God putting on all virtues as it were by nature and rich attire of Ladyes for necessity But the King her husband she honoured as if she had seen the Saviour of the world walking upon the earth and not staying alone on the body she penetrated even to the center of this infidel soul which she beheld with eyes of unspeakable compassion She most particularly endeavoured to observe all his humours and follow the motions of his heart as certain flowers wait on the sun All that which Clodovaeus affected took presently an honourable place in the soul of Clotilda if he delighted in arms in dogs in horses she for his sake praysed arms dogs and horses regarding even the objects of the honest pleasures of her husband as her best entertainments Her conversation was full of charms and attractives which ever carryed profit along with them Sometimes she sweetened the warlick humours of her husband with harmony of reason sometimes she comforted him upon occasion of troubles which might happen in the world sometime she withheld very soberly and with prudent modesty his spirit which took too much liberty sometime she repeated unto him certain precepts of wisdom and practices of the lives of Saints and worthy personages that he might love our Religion sometime she pleased him with an eloquent tongue and an entertainment so delicate that nothing might be said more accomplished She was magnificent and liberal towards her household servants most exactly taking notice of the faithful services they yielded to her husband and kept her house so well united within the bands of concord and charity that it seemed as it were a little Temple of peace Slander uncleaness idleness impudence were from thence eternally banished virtues industry and arts found there a mansion and the miseries of the world a safe Sanctuary For she embraced all pious affairs of the Realm and governed them with so much equality of spirit that she resembled Angels who move the Heavens not using in themselves the least agitation May we not very well say this divine woman was selected out by God to a set golden face on an entire Monarchy by the rays of her piety The fifth SECTION The prudence which the Queen used in the conversion of her husband THe holy Queen brought forth a King and a great Monarch to Jesus Christ bearing perpetually his Court and the whole Kingdom in the entrails of her charity She had her Centinels day and night before the Altars who ceased not to implore the assistance for Heaven of the salvation of her husband and she her self often in deep silence of darkness caused her weeping eye to speak to God and adressed many vows to all the elect for the conversion of this unbelieving soul She very well considered that that which oftentimes slackeneth these wavering spirits in their endeavour to find the way of eternal life is certain interests of flesh and bloud certain impediments of temporal affairs some inordinate passion which tortureth and tyrannizeth over the mind Behold the cause why she took great care to sweeten the dispositions of her husband calm his passions and through a certain moral goodness facilitate unto him the way of the mysteries of our faith This being done she took her opportunity with the more effect and found the King dayly disposed better and better for these impressions He alreadie had the arrow very deep in his heart and began to ask questions proposing conditions which shewed he would one day render himself He said to Clotilda Madam I should not be so far alienated from your Religion were it not that I saw therein matters very strange which you would have me believe by power and authotity not giving any other reason thereof You would have me believe that three are but one in your Trinity that I adore a Crucified man and that I crucifie my self in an enforced and ceremonious life wherein I was never bred My dearest had I your good inclinations all would be easie to me but you know that all my life time I have been trayned up in arms If I should to morrow receive
your Baptism which blotteth out all sins according to your maxims I were no sooner washed but I should fear to plunge my self again into an infinity of occasions which might dayly present themselves to my understanding Then would you threaten me with the judgement-day and Hell with terrours able to over whelm my mind Consider whether it would not be more to the purpose to let me persevere in my Sect therein performing all the good I may Can you think that for all this I should be excluded from the mercy of God who will save all men The wise Clotilda replyed thereunto Sir I beseeth your Majesty not to flatter your self with this specious title of mercy for there will be none in the other world for those who have performed it in this without profit Now is the time that God spareth not to stretch out his arms for your obedience if you despise him you will loose him without recovery One can never do too much for eternall life and whatsoever we suffer Paradise may still be purchased at a good penny-worth Alas Sir why do you find so many difficulties in our Religion Think you God doth wrong in desiring to make you believe things which you cannot conceive by humane reason It is he who hath made the soul of man and who accommodateth all the wheels thereof nor is there any one of them which moveth not at his pleasure What marvel is it if man offer the homage of his understanding to God If weakness submit to strength littleness to greatness the finite to the infinite that which is nothing to him who is an abyss of essence goodness wisedom and light If you make a promise to any of your servants although it be unreasonable and almost incredible yet would you have him to believe it without reply and that he take no other ground for this belief but the greatness and infallible word of your Majesty One man exacteth faith of another though both of them are but earth and dust and you think the Sovereign Creatour of Heaven and earth is unjust to make us believe that which our bruitish senses cannot comprehend Is this the submission and obedience we ow Eternal Truth Why should not I believe that three are but one that is to say three persons one onely God since I dayly find my memory understanding and will make but one soul Wherefore should we scorn to adore a Crucified man The Cross is so far from weakening my belief that there is not any thing which more confirmeth it For if the Saviour of the world had come as your Majesty to the conquest of the universe with legions horses treasures and arms he should in my opinion retain that esteem which great Captains hold but when I consider that by the punishment of the Cross he hath reduced the whole world under his laws and planted the instrument of his excessive dolours even on the top of Capitols and the heads of Monarchs I affirm that all is of God in such an affair since there is nothing in it of man Alas Sir if you have a faithful servant who would suffer himself to be tormented and crucified to make you Master of a rebellious Fort would not you find more glory in his loyalty than ignominy in his torments And think you if the Eternal Wisdom having taken a humane body and voluntarily exposed it to extream rigour to wash our offences in his bloud and subdue the pride and curiosities of the earth to the power of Heaven it hath done ought therein reprehensible Have we not much more cause to adore the infinite plenty of his charities than to dispute upon honours which onely consist in the opinion of the world I beseech your Majesty figure not to your self our Religion as an irksome and austere Law when you have submitted to the yoak God will afford you so much grace that all these difficulties which you apprehend will no more burden you than feathers do birds And although it should happen you after Baptism fall into some sin which God by his grace will divert the bloud of Jesus Christ is a fountain which perpetually distilleth in the Sacraments of the Church to wash away all our iniquities Sir I fear least you too long defer to resign your self to the many advertisements which you have received from Heaven If you weigh the favours that God hath done to your Majesty having set a Crown on your head at the age of fifteen years having preserved you against so many factions defended you from so many perils adorned you with so much glory honoured you with so many prosperours successes you shall find he hath reason to require at this time from you what he demandeth of your by my mouth What know you whether he have chosen out yâ—â—r person to make you a pattern to all other Kings and constitute you such in France as Constantine hath been in the Roman Empire which will render you glorious in the memory of men and happy in Heaven to all eternity Verily Sir if you yield not your self up to my words you ought to submit to the bloud of so many worthy Martyrs who have already professed this faith in your Kingdom you ought to submit to so many great Confessours as knowing as Oracles of as good life as Angels who denounce truth unto you You ought to submit to miracles that are every day visibly done at the Sepulcher of great S. Martin which is an incomparable treasure in your Kingdom Sweet-heart answereth the King say no more you are too learned for me and I fear least you should perswade me to that which I have no desire to believe and although you had convinced my soul to dispose it to this belief think you it would be lawful for me so soon to make profession of your faith You see I am King of an infinite people and have ever at my commanda great Nobility who acknowledge no other Gods but those of the Country Do you believe that all spirits are so easy to be curbed and that when I shall go about to take a strange God will it not make them murmur and perhaps forge pretexts to embroil something in my Kingdom For Religion and the State are two pieces which mutually touch one another very near one cannot almost stir the one without the other the surest way is not to fall upon it and to let the world pass along as our predecessours found it Clotilda well saw this apprehension was one of the mainest obstacles of his salvation and she already had given good remedy thereunto practising the dispositions of all the greatest of the Court. Behold the cause why she most stoutly replyed thereunto Sir it is to apprehend fantasies to form to your self such imaginations You are a Prince too absolute and too well beloved to fear these commotions but rather much otherwise I assure you upon mine honour your people are already much disposed to receive our Religion and your Nobility
understanding this defeat became so furious that he caused the head of his prisoner to be cut off with his wife and children by his second marriage commanding through extremitie of cruelty to throw the body into a ditch which was executed Nor content with this he re-entereth into Burgundie boyling with choller with intention to recover all to his obedience but he found himself assaulted by the Burgundians in a battel who slew him and knowing him by his long hair they cut off his head and fixed it on the point of a launce to serve for a sad spectacle to the French This accident afflicted the heart of the mother who bewailed her son with inconsolable tears as well because he was the first whom she had bred with all tender affection as for that she seeing him dead in the pursuit of so many bloudy acts was full of anxiety in the matter of salvation of his soul The poor Queen fortified her self as much as she might against the violences of sorrow and armed her self against other accidents which she foresaw might grow from the evil dispositions of her children Clodomer left three sons very young whom the holy woman bred up in her house and near her person into whom the most excellent Maxims of all wisdom and piety were distilled These little children very well bred and gently trained by the very good precepts of their grand-mother promised something excellent in time to come and served as a most sweet lenitive to this disconsolate turtle to sweeten the acerbities she had conceived upon the death of their father when behold a horrible frenzie crept into the souls of Childebert and Clotharius her two sons which is read in all our histories the brows whereof do blush to leave a blemish of execration on the wicked exorbitancy of ambition It were much fitter for the great men of the earth to have gnawing vultures and sharp rasors in their entrails than to nourish such a passion which being onely puffed up with a smoke violateth all it hath therein of right or humanity to fatten it self with bloud and never as it were openeth its eyes but in the flames of the damned Childebert and Clotharius sons of the great Clodovaeus and the holy Clotilda despoyling themselves of all respect sweetness and humanity conceived a mortal jealousie against their little Nephews imagining their mother would breed them up to their prejudice and so not taking counsel of ought but their own bruitish passion they resolved to be rid of them The poor children were perpetually under the wing of their good grand-mother Clotilda who could never suffer them out of her sight such fear had she of ill habits which are easily made to slide into the hearts of children by the corruption of evil companie These infamous Uncles besought their mother to let their little Nephews come to visit them to have thereby some harmless recreation promising to restore them again speedily into her hands The holy woman who could not imagine the execrable malice which was hatched in the hearts of these unnatural sons consented these little ones should go fearing lest the denial she might make would further exasperate the suspition of the suppliants Yet did she even then quake for fear and bidding them farewel kissed them with redoubled embracements raptures and affections not being able to contain her passion nor the presage of her unhappiness The little innocents went to the slaughter with a smiling countenance as children who have walks of recreation and play in their heads When they had them in their full power they dispatched a messenger to their mother to bear unto her most unwelcome news For he was commanded to shew her a poynard and a cyzars requiring her she would make choice which of these she should judge fittest for her grand-children either to pass them by the dint of sword or forcibly to shave them and make them Monks Clotilda extreamly astonished at this impudence answered As well dead as Monks which some very inconsiderately have interpreted thinking this answer proceeded from an ambition she had that her grand-children might reign but the admirable Princess would say that we ought not to apply any to the service of God but voluntaries and that she had rather see her children well dead than to behold them in a religious profession by constraint and force This wretched messenger made to the humour of his Masters in stead of sweetening the matter made a very harsh relation of his message which precipated the evil already beginning to fall into extremity Clotharius possessed with a diabolical spirit took Thibault the eldest of these children and striking him down to the ground thrust his sword quite through his body The little Guntharus who was the second besprinkled with the bloud of his brother whom he saw distended on the pavement grasped the knees of his uncle Childebert with lamentable out-cries saying O Uncle save my life wherein have I offended you He so quaked in all the parts of his body and so transfixed him with his sighs that the other though he purposed this mischief was seized with much compassion and prayed his brother to pass no further But Clotharius enraged and more ravenous than a Tyger of Armenia What saith he you have been of the Councel and yet now hinder me in the execution I will run you both through with my sword Childebert amazed threw the poor victim from his knees and delivered him to the executioner who in that very place cut his throat As they were upon these contestations the third son of Clodomer named Clodoaldus was taken away by a friend of the father and secretly bred up in Ecclesiastical condition wherein he arrived to so perfect a sanctity that forsaking the shadow of Diadems and Scepters which deceiveth the credulity of the most passionate by its illusions he hath merited Altars on earth and a Crown of glory in Heaven For this is that S. Cloud which we reverence near unto Paris What imagination is sufficiently powerfull to figure to its self the ardent dolours which seized on the spirit of poor Clotilda when she heard all that passed by the practise of her unnatural sons What might this soul think so free and purified from the contagions of the earth which apprehended the shadow of the least sins when she beheld her house polluted with so horrible sacriledges Yet still she guided the helm of reason in so tempestuous a storm of passions and in so dead a night of misery she adored a ray of the Providence of God which she considered in the depth of her sorrows she her self no whit affrighted took up the mangled bodies of these innocent creatures and gathered together the scattered members as well as she could saying Poor Children I bewail not your death although it cannot be too much bemoaned You are dead like little Abels like little Innocents forsaking the earth profaned with the crimes of your Uncles to hasten to possess a place in
with a constancy which amazed this bloudy soul that so tortured her In the end she again took her garments going out of the water as from an Amphitheater of her glorious battel The twelfth SECTION The retreat of Hermingildus and his Conversion HErmingildus who knew nothing of what had passed beholding her somewhat pase and weakened with such harsh usage asked her if she felt any pain of body or affliction of mind to discolour her so much more than ordinary but the wise Princess replied It was nothing and that there was not any thing so important as to be worthy of his knowledge He who well perceived that she by her discretion dissembled some great affront enquired very curiously of those who might inform him and somewhat too soon discovered the cruel disgrace which his mother-in-law Goizintha had put upon his wife This transfixed him with a dolour so sensible and so enkindled him with fire and choller in his heart that if the fear of God and the sweetness of his wife had not served for a counterpoize to his passion he had torn this wicked Queen in pieces But the good Indegondis prostrating her self at his feet besought him by all that which was most noble in him not to precipitaâ—e the matter into such extremities and prevailed so well with her natural eloquence that he was contented to remove presently from the Court and retire to Sevil which his father had given him for his lively-hood Then was the time when those chast loves which had been crossed by the disturbances of Goizintha all obstacles being overcome enlarged themselves as a river which having broken his banks poureth it self with a victorious current in the wideness of his channel Hermingildus could not sufficiently satisfie himself to behold so many virtues in so great a beauty the modesty which she had witnessed in this last disgrace gave him apprehensions of her piety above all may be said Those who seek nothing in marriage but sensual pleasure which is more thin than smoke and much lighter than the wind cannot imagine how much these fair amities which are the daughters of virtues nourish holy delights These are celestial fires which are ever in the bosom of God as in their sphere It is he who begetteth them and breedeth them they being not constrained to descend upon earth to beg a caytiff nourishment from perishable creatures which promise so many wonders and produce nought but wind These two great souls beheld one another with the eyes of the dove and were mutually enflamed with affections so honest and innocent that Angels would not be ashamed to entertain the like fires since they are those of charity which is the eternal furnace of all souls the most purified Indegondis perceiving she had already great power in the affection of her husband and that there was no longer any step-mother to dissolve her designs sollicited him seriously for his Conversion and said Sir I must confess unto you the honour I have received from your alliance seemeth not accomplished whilest I behold between us a wall of division which separateth us in belief and Sacraments Since our amities are come to that point as to enjoy all in common and that they unite things most different why should we divide God who is most simple of nature Why should we make two Religions and two Altars since we now live in such manner that we have but one table one heart and one bed Verily Sir if I saw the least ray of truth in the Sect you profess and some hope of salvation I would submit thereunto the more to oblige me to your person which I love above all the things in the world But it is most undoubted that you are ill rectified that you pursue a fantasie in stead of a verity and that dying in this state you loose a soul so noble which I would purchase with expence of my bloud I boast not to be learned as you Arians who have so many goodly allegations of Scripture that you make the ignorant believe God is all that which to your selves you imagine Sir I for my part think the chief wisdom in matter of religion is not to be so wise as you are and to have a little more submission of spirit for faith is the inheritance of the humble and never doth the day of God shine in a soul which hath too much light of man You well see this heresie of the Arians is a revolted Band which hath forsaken the high way to wander cross the fields you are not ignorant that this Arius was a wicked Priest who raised an heresie for despight that he was not made Bishop and was rejected and solemnly condemned in a Councel of three hundred and eighteen Bishops These men were wise enough for you and me I fix my self upon their resolutions I follow the generality of the Church I adhere to the body of the tree and you tie your selves to a rotten branch I have no argument more strong than the succession of lawfull Pastours than the conformity of the Universal Church than the succession of all Ages than the wisdom sanctity and piety which I see resplendent on our side Besides I come from a Countrey where we have seen all the Arian Kings our neighbours round about to have had most unhappy ends when in the mean time my great grand-father King Clodovaeus for having sincerely embraced Catholick Religion received so many blessings from Heaven that he seemed to have good hap and victories under his pay I am not the daughter of a Prophet nor do I vaunt to have the spirit of prophesie but I dare well foretel the Kingdom of Spain shall not be of long continuance unless it vomit out this pestilence of Arianism which lies about the heart of it I would to God with expence of my life I might establish my Religion then should I account my self the most contented Queen of the world Hermingildus knew not what to answer to the strength of truth and love two the most powerfull things in the world onely he said it was a business which well deserved to be pondered and that these changes in persons of his quality are subject to much censure if they have not great reason for caution The good Princess to give him full leisure to advise thereupon handled the matter so by her industrie that he conferred with S. Leander who was a strong pillar of the Catholick faith in Spain The sage Prelate so well mannaged the spirit of this Prince that with assistance of God and the good offices of Indegondis who moved Heaven and earth for this conversion he drew him from errour This brave courage so soon as he saw the ray of truth needs would acknowledge and freely confess it taking the Chrism of Catholicks with pomp and solemnity even to the giving a largess of golden coyns which he purposely caused to be stamped a little too suddenly making his own image to be engraven thereon with a
away by the hand of a hang-man the life which he gave him Had his condition been capable of tears even Tygers themselves would have deplored him seeing so much piety such faith so much goodness such worth eclipsed in a bloud so precious in an Age so flourishing in a fortune so replenished with hope The news of his death hastened to find out Indegondis who was yet in Africa where she also received the last Letter which her husband wrote to her out of prison The servants that were about her person began to make hydeous lamentations as if they themselves had been condemned to death But the couragious Indegondis kissing the letter of her dear husband then opening it with singular reverence and reading the last words which he as it were had steeped in his bloud she cried out Alas Generous and faithfull heart you have done all that which a good man might you have manfully fought you are happily arrived at the Crown Nothing can be desired in you but the imitation of your constancy Servants Why do you weep This is the very day wherein I am a Queen and when I esteem my self the most triumphant woman in the world having my husband a Martyr in Heaven Give me roses and flower-de-luces that I may crown his Image and honour at the least with these testimonies a soul which hath left unto us such sweet odours of virtue She had with her her little Hermingildus almost dead with the wearisomness of travel on the way which indeed had been somewhat easie for the tenderness of his age The mother beholding him Go my son saith she follow your good father God hath given you a favour in your cradle that he doth not to all children which is to be banished for the faith and to take part in the Martyrdom of him who begot you Go little innocent and rejoyce with others before the Altar of the Lamb your mother shall not long stay behind you The child died shortly after and the good Princess Others say he was sent prisoner to the Emperour Mauritius but without ground having for a long time combatted in a brave manner against the apprehensions of nature poured forth on a sudden thick sobs and a main tyde of tears which distilled from her eyes against her will whereupon she mildly said Alas my tears what fitness can you find to bemoan a Martyr My God it is done the father and the son are alreadie at rest there remaineth nothing but to take the mother Behold two parts of the world Europe and Africk which I have filled with my miseries If you will that I yet pass into Asia your will be done But if I no longer be ought but an unprofitable burden to the earth what do I here I have spun out all the web which you gave me I have ended all the hopes of the world why stay you O my God to receive my soul which I bear on my lips She was heard For in few days being all wasted with love travel and desires after an exemplar death she found her tomb in Africk What shall I say here and what shall I do to shut up this discourse We have all certain natural softnesses in the bottom of our souls and some humane apprehensions which alter the force of our judgement My pen cannot almost pass over this history and not commix the waters of mine eyes with mine ink and perhaps also you my Reader cannot peruse it without compassion It seemeth unto you these chaste loves of Hermingildus and Indegondis are too unhappy that such virtues are cruelly handled that such noble courages have met with a fortune sinister hydeous and persecutive even to the tomb You would gladly see these brave spirits after so many tempests such thunder-claps and whirle-winds arrive at a Port of some large temporal felicity You would behold them with Crowns on their heads with Scepters in their hands with Provinces flourishing in revenues with prosperities perpetually smiling in their house with loves free from disturbance desires void oâ— denials affairs without trouble greatness without change pleasures without acerbities and a long posterity fully laden with honours It grieves you that this poor Prince hath passed away as a pearl parched up with lightening in its growth or as an eagle strangled in the shell You bewail this Princess that being born in France she died in Africk separated by the sword from a husband who loved her so tenderly deprived of a son who gave so many good hopes abandoned by all her allies but some poor waiting-women that buried her with sorrow so full of pitie that it was of power to move the monsters of Africk to commiseration Ah ignorant that we are of the works of God perpetually fixed to the earth and deprived of those sparkles of fire and light which burn under the most generous breasts Let us a little draw aside the curtain and see through so many clouds one sole ray of the Sanctuary What injury hath the Divine Providence done to Prince Hermingildus if for a Crown which is the weather-cock of winds if for a Scepter which is the reed of the times if for a life which is the harbinger of death it afford him virtues delights and glories which out-strip the flight of our thoughts which drie up our mouthes which out-run our desires which surmount all our imaginations What injury if it make a Saint of him whose name is couched in Martyrologes whose memory liveth in writing whose praise flourisheth in mouthes whose words are nought but honour and works but blessings whilest his step-mother Goizintha dies like a dog and is buried in the opprobrie of her name What injury if it have so handled the matter that his father touched with a lively repentance hath justified him as an innocent deplored him as a son invoked as a Martyr If it hath sanctified his setters consecrated the tower of his prison raised up his ashes above all the Crowns of the Kings of Spain If it hath given him Altars on earth and a Diadem of beatitudes in Heaven Is it to have despised his virtue neglected his sufferings disobliged his constancy and frustrated his travels What would you have God to have made the virtuous Indegondis A Queen delicate ambitious covetuous haughty which had not spit but in gold walked but on roses flown over the heads of men and putrified in delights How many such like are there who have defiled their names with reproach wearied the earth with their importunities astonished posterity with their deportments and peopled hell with their crimes But this Ladie having been purified with the burning coals of tribulation issued from the hands of God as a vessel of glory to make her lustre resplendent in the sight of all Ages Ah Ladies who read this piece and who many times flatter your selves with the title of virtue in some petty tracks of devotion which have nothing but outward semblance what example of piety see you here What
birth under your favour It is the third Part of a Court absolutely holy which not unlike the Citie S. John saw in his profound comtemplations cannot ascend from our manners to Heaven unless it descend from Heaven into our manners I likewise endeavour to fashion it in Books by the model of things celestial to imprint it on lives and I now undertake the defence of truth which constituting your salvation and composing your happiness well deserve to be the most serious employments of your mind It is true Sir all Maxims of State that depend not on the Maxims of God are effects of carnal prudence which end in flesh and all fortunes that rest not on him who with three fingers supporteth the globe of the earth rather pursue the way of precipices than the path of exaltation The wisdom of the world loves nothing so much as that whereof it is most ignorant it runs after honour not knowing what honour is ever hungry and still needy nor having any other aim but to make it self a Mistress over giddie spirits to become the slave of all passions Which maketh me say there are none but the blind who seek after it the miserable who find it the sottish who serve it and the forlorn who tie themselves to its principles But the wisdom of Heaven which I in these Maxims present you is so transcendently sublime above all humane inventions as the light of stars surpasseth the petty sparklings and slitting fires of the earth It is that which leisurely marcheth by holy paths to the sources of day-light and as being present before the throne of God beholdeth glory and felicitie unfolded in his hands It is the element of great souls such as yours and when they once are throughly settled therein they find tastfulness which turneth into nutriment and nutriment which passeth to immortalitie Your prudence may read in your own experience what I express in my Treatises nor need you go any further than your own life to meet with the proofs of these excellent verities You know Sir how the Divine Providence in the first flower of your age drew you from ill ways and snatched you out of the hands of infidelity as a Constantine from the palace of Diocletian to serve as a Buckler for the Church whereof impietie would have made you a persecutour This Providence knew so well how to separate bloud from manners that it caused you to demolish what your Ancestours had raised and preserving their dignity without touching their errours to make of the unhappiness of their judgement the beginning of your felicity From thence you see with what success the hand of God hath conducted you to the height of this most eminent glory wherein France at this present beholds you as a Prince accomplished in the experience of affairs and times the Father of good counsels the undertaker of great actions endowed with a spirit which seems an eternal fire and to be parallel'd by nothing but the goodness of your own heart You live peaceable as in the right sphere of true greatness where you perpetually reflect on two Poles God and the King You seek for the one in the other and you walk to the God of life by the most lively of his Images His Arms are beheld to prosper in your hands as well as his Edicts in your mouth You have born thunder and Olives throughout France under your protection awfull at one time and amiable at another but ever prosperous in both Yea fully to crown your happiness the Divine goodness hath afforded you a house flourishing in riches and honours which comprehendeth in its latitude two Princes of the bloud to serve as pillars for the State It gave you a wife who hath made of her fruitfulness the trophey of her virtues and entered by love into an eclipse to become the Mother of lights and bring forth children to bear the hope of Flower-de-luces The eldest Son whom your Excellency hath committed as a sacred pledge to our Colledge at Bourges would trouble us to tell you from whence he hath taken such and so many splendours and sparkling flames of wit which dazle the eyes of those who have the honour to be near him were not you his Father He is a Pearl who maketh it appear by the equality of his Orient that if Nature have equalled his birth to the greatest on earth he will equal his virtues to his extraction SIR I speak this ingeniously that you may both behold in your own Person what I treat in my books as also understand that true piety soweth the seeds of the most solid greatness But besides the relation this Design seems to have to the pleasure of God over you I find much obligation to offer it you as a slender testimony of a singular gratitude in our Superiours and our whole Societie which would willingly suffer their affections to pass through my pen if it had as much eloquence as the main body tenders respect and zeal to your service You have been pleased to make it known by your good purposes to love it by election defend it by justice honour it with your opinion encrease it with your liberalities and if your benefits be ornaments unto it your judgement serve for Apologies I received a notable portion in your favours whilest you resided in Bourges where your Excellency called me to deliver the Word of God and to confess your virtues in my discourses as I must acknowledge my discourses to proceed from your virtues It was by your conversation I perceived that as there is nothing too high for your understanding so there is not any thing too low for your bounty God hath bestowed on you the gift which the Scripture attributeth to the Patriarch Joseph to oblige hearts with sweetness not unlike the Engines of Archimedes which made water mount in descending so yours causeth not your humility to descend but to make it re-ascend to the source of the prime sublimity Which done not presuming any thing in regard of your Excellency but daring all through your courtesie I present these MAXIMS of the Holy Court of which many will make their reading others their precepts but you will I hope frame your virtues of them on earth to make them your Crowns in Heaven So wisheth SIR Your most humble and most obsequious servant in our Lord N. CAUSSIN S. J. The Design and Order of the BOOK I Find Courteous Reader my Works do insensibly encrease under the savour of thy good opinion as plants sprout under the aspect of the most benign stars I had confined my self to that which concerneth the Historie of Courts and still rest in the same resolution But saw a piece verie necessarie in these times wanting in my Work which was the Treatise of MAXIMS and majestie of our Religion I almost durst not undertake it so much the subject seemed to require judgement preparation and abilitie But God having inspired me with a strong conceit I might be
your body by the most noble sense within you but by the help of a mirrour Nay you know so little of your self that scarcely have you observed the number of your teeth and being far from the particular distinction of the interiour parts of your body should you enter into the great labyrinths of the faculties of your soul you would quickly find out your own ignorance Compare now the science you have of your self with the great proofs which lead you to the knowledge of the Divinity First we are born to know God as the excellent Divine Alexander Alensis discourseth Alex. Alens quaest 2. de cognitione Dei A singular consideration of Aleâ— because if the sovereign Goodness be necessarily desired by our reasonable appetite we must affirm the supream truth is no less capable to be known by our understanding and as we are naturally inclined to the search of this sovereign Good which may take up al the agitatioÌ„s of our thoughts so we feel our soul almost without any other reflection stir'd up with a generous desire to be united to the first cause We behold it through so many creatures as through lattices and it seems to speak to us in as many objects as we see works of his Goodness It maketh us restless it scorcheth us with an honest flame which teacheth us there is a God and that we are created for him nor is there any other creature in all visible nature which laboureth in such inquisition but man This ardent inclination to this knowledge is not a slight facility of science and we see constant study is ordinarily recompenced with the fruition of its object 2. I likewise hold God of his part is very well to God most easie to be â—nown be known having all the conditions which may make a thing known as Essence immutability simplicity brightness and presence If you there look for Being which is a necessary object of the understanding as colour of sight God saith S. Gregorie of Nazianzen Naziâ—â—z Iâ—mbico 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Origenes homil in numer 23. Faustus de gratiâ l. 2. c. 7. Deus est quod habet Deâ— ubique est quis nullibi est is a creating Essence an Essence comprehending all things If immutability Origen teacheth the Divinity sitteth on the top of beatitude ever constant never changeable If brightness God is all light as the Scripture manifesteth in so many places If simplicity Faustus Bishop of Rhegium sheweth God is all what he hath If continual presence Porphyriâ— confesseth he is every where because he is not in any part as bodies are The Poet Orpheus in his mysterious poefie calleth him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as one would say lightsom and visible to teach us all the world is enfolded within his radiance I will not hereupon inferre that one may have in this world an absolute and perfect knowledge of God as of a thing finite but I say that amongst so many lights it is not admitted that any man should be ignorant there is a God Creatour of all things 3. What Epicurean can dis-involve himself from Reason of Mercury Trismegistus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Trismegistus his reason who teacheth that were there not an Essence necessary and independent all we see all we touch all we feel in the world would have no being but this is meer illusion Wherefore Because the things which may be and not be indifferently like so many plants or transitory animals one while are and another while are not And we may truly say there hath been a certain time wherein they neither had being nor name in the world Now as nothing can actuate and produce it self must we not confess that had there not been from all eternity a first Agent which gave motion to so many causes enchained one to another whereof they are produced wherein we presently behold this great world all had been a nothing For of two we must grant one either that the world is created or not created If impiety transport a man so far as to say it is not created but hath been from all eternity he would ever be convinced by his own confession that there were such a Being as we seek for eternal necessary independent which is nothing else but God He would be reduced to this point that he no longer could deny the Divinity but was onely ignorant what this Divinity is and in stead of giving this title to a most pure Spirit as we do he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 would attribute it to a body as to heaven water earth where he would instantly find himself ashamed of his folly to take for the Divinity a thing which hath no understanding and consequently is far less than himself In stead of a true God he would make a million of deities to become as many snares of his errour and witnesses of his bruitishness But if the world be created which it is not lawful to doubt of three things we must affirm one Either that it produced it self or that one piece made another or that there was one cause external supream not to be reckoned among the rest which made all the parts of the universe To say Author libri de triplici habitaculo apud Aug. tom 9. Nihil scipsum creat Quâ enim potentiâ qui omnino nâ—â— esset scipsâ—â— faceret Deâ—â— innatus infectus sine initiâ— sine fine in aternitate constitutus Tert. l. 3. advers Marcion c. 3. a thing made it self is to affirm it was before its being and to assever a proposition ridiculous to all humane understanding But if to evade this manifest contradiction one will maintain one piece made another still must he come to a last piece which was produced by it self and so fall again into the same difficulty Behold the reason why we must stick upon a general cause out of the main mass of all causes and which affording essence sense and intelligence to so many creatures according to the condition and qualities of every one remaineth eternal and immoveable Now he who says this affirmeth there is a God 4. But if some impious creature will notwithstanding Instance upon the infinite number of the wicked perplex the evidence of this proposition imitating Sorcerers who cast mists upon the brightest morning and say one thing produced another from father to son but that this still mounteth upward in infinitum and so think to make us loose our judgement and reason in the labyrinth of infinities First it is answered according to the doctrine of Philosophers There is Force of reason nothing in the world actually infinite and although an infinity of generations of men beasts and other creatures were admitted still must you confess this infinite mass of men was produced from a cause independent For that which agreeth to each part of a species and which is properly by it affected agreeth likewise to the main of the whole species as if it be proper
saith he the universe should interest it self in the loss of particulars yea were it of Monarchs We all bud forth like the leaf of a tree and die as the leaf neither our life nor death any thing importeth this great All. Behold that which much abaseth the pride of the most vain-glorious is to think upon a beer and tomb and reflect on that ample grave whereinto all mankind insensibly sinketh That is it which Job called Lapidem calipinis Job 28. 3. Secretarium horroris the stone of darkness That which the Ancients named the secret of horrour The greatest Princes of the earth resemble Alexanders stone the most excellent of the world in the brightness of lustre but so soon as it was covered with dust it had neither force nor beauty beyond other stones How great rich active soever they be the dust of a sepulcher makes it appear they are nothing But God alone hath immortality without dependence because he is what he is All that which may be and not be hath ever some time assigned when it was not or wherein it shall no more be One may Tu autem idem ipse es ann tui non deficient Saecula cuncta tenens anie omnia saecula solus Novatiani l. de Trin. c. 31. at the least find an imaginary time when the most eminent Powers were nothing and for so much as concernethmen it is no difficult matter to give them limits to which and in which they no longer shall be men But of God alone we may truly say his years not onely decrease not but know not what it is to increase For the Eternity of God to speak properly is very long and very short very long in extent for it spreadeth over all Ages very short because in an instant it possesseth all it can have in the infinity of times being ever like the center of a circle which looketh towards all the lines without stirring out of one place 4. Our third Annihilation is that we have much Man hath more non-essence than Essence more non-essence than essence according to Plato's argument because if we have the essence of a man we have not therefore the essence of Heaven of earth creatures nor plants although some similitude thereof We are confined and limited within a particular essence which comprehendeth a soul ignorant and unsatiable a body feeble and frail a strange connexion of a nature mortal and immortal an alliance of a ray of the sun with a dung-hill of a spirit prompt and subtile with most infirm flesh But God who is Excellency of the simplicity and universality of God in comparison of the world what he is containeth in himself all possible essences and which is more containeth them under the sole form of the Divinitie The world is bright in the light of stars resplendent in flames subtile in air streaming in eternal veins of rivers stable on the foundation of the earth rich in mynes fruitfull in plants displayed in flowers and all because it is a world and it a creature But God in one sole indivisible and under one sole form concludeth the fervour of Seraphins the science of Cherubins the majesty of Dominations the height of Thrones the excellency of Principalities the strength of Virtues the superintendence of Arch-angels the charitable offices of Angels the greatness of Heaven the beauty of stars the splendour of lights the activity of fire the subtilitie of air the fruitfulness of earth the eternal freshness of fountains and all we may call great beautifull or pleasing God I say comprehendeth them under this great title I am that I am That is it which Ego sum qui sum Bonum hoc bonum illud â—â—lle hoc illud vide ipswn bonum si potenita Deuâ— videbis non alio bono bonum â—ed bonum omnis boni Aug. l. 8. de Trinit c. 3. Maximus Tyrius Orat. de Deo In Deâ— non est nisi Deuâ— S. Bernard de consider l. 5. made S. Augustine say This and that is good Take away this and that when you speak of God and behold the Sovereign Good so shall you see God who is not good by a borrowed goodness but the Good of all good This first essence is lovely said Maximus of Tyre And verily it is the chief of beauties But how think you is it lovely like a meadow all strewed over with flowers or as Heaven all enamelled with stars Take away this meadow these flowers this Heaven these stars God is nothing of all created things but it is he from whom all creatures derive being beauty goodness force unity and lasting I well know what he is not but cannot say what he is I am satisfied in speaking with S. Bernard In the great God all is God and there is not any thing in him which is not himself Finally our fourth misery is that our essence being Mutability of men so short and slender faileth not to be afflicted with so many mutations so many vicissitudes that we may say there is almost nothing less in us than our selves All change saith the Philosopher beareth with it some image of non-essence and therefore we who change every moment are as it were nothing in nature to be trusted to It is not known with what knot with what chains men should be tied or fettered so variable and inconstant there Proteuses are Ages alter us and in changing us change themselues Infancy becometh adolescency adolescency is taken off by youth youth by manhood manhood by declining years and those years by decrepit age If you reckon well you shall find everyone of these mutations is a species of death As time alters our bodies a thousand other things make impression on our minds Humours passions conversations customs accidents vices and virtues so often transform us into other men that one may say we are the most natural pourtraicts of inconstancy in universal Nature There is none but God can say I Ego Dominus nonmutor Malach. 3. 6. In se â—aneâ—â— innevat omnis nihil accipit quod ipse non dedit esse illi quod est sempiternum semper est proprium S. Leo. ep 93. c. 5. am the God who changeth not There is not any the least shadow of vicissitude in the great abyss of light as he is one without number infinite without limits eternal free from floud and ebbe of time so he is immoveable without augmentation or diminution He stands immoveabâ—e within himself and reneweth all various nature out of himself He takes nothing of men which he gave them not Essence is proper to him as eternal to him It is a maxim in Theologie that simple forms which of themselves constitute a Person make no difference between the subject and nature that is to say God is his Deity his life his eternity and all he is without diversity It is for things composed of divers pieces to be susceptible of many forms and consequently
the contrary and that this good man would never become evil with the blessings of God but would rather make them mount up again to their source That were he made rich it would be but for the poor and that wealth would change nothing in him but to make him the more profitable for all the world adding thereto he would answer for him body for body and soul for soul God who was willing to let the Hermit find by very sensible experience the temerity of his request permitted the Mason in an instant to become a wealthy and able man For digging in the earth he there sound a very rich treasure which made him even in an instant bury his piety Behold him changed into another man He who before perpetually sang the praises of God among the wants of poverty like Change of fortune causeth change of manners a little Gold-finch among thorns groaned under the burden of this gold grew pensive anxious sad and suspitious He forgot piety and himself to converse with his gold In the end he resolved to steal out of his Countrey where he was very well known and to travel to Constantinople the Port of all Nations there to unfold the change of his fortune with the more liberty Yet had he some discretion not instantly to appear in full view but to pollish and trick up himself making some apprentiship in the school of the world and of civil life to correct all that which the defect of his birth had left in him either of rudeness or imperfection And being of a good understanding and handsom presence he put himself in the conversation of honest men and drawing near to the fountain of light began to haunt the Court to fashion himself for arms in the Emperours Regiments where being full of crowns and daily having opportunity to oblige souldiers he so well knew how to gain hearts and purchase the good opinion of all the world that mounting step after step he was in some few years made Captain of the Guard to the Emperour Justin Behold him transported from the element of terrestrial men into a new sphere to converse with Gods There he was seized on by a dead drunkenness Riches the mother of vices and neglect of God which change of fortune usually causeth in weak understandings He no longer looks back on his extraction but to hide the defects of it He no more remembers ancient amities but quite to deface the marks of them He neither knew God nor men but for his own ends and services He walketh up and down the Citie of Constantinople like a God in a Comedie wearing rubies and dragging silk after him and he who scarcely had iron to forge a hammer or a trewel will now no longer spit but in gold and silver Prayer is a trouble to him fasts are torments ceremonies of the Church amusements and constraints This eclipse of devotion is waited on by a desperate exorbitance of feasts game and love The more shamefull his birth was so much the more he makes himself ostentous and magnificent to divert all the suspition of it It is the fashion of many Great-ones derived from inferiour rank to drown their former condition in profuse riots and to do as that Roman who sought to cover by strength of gold and silver his fathers cottage who was but a sheapherd Being engulphed in these vast delights the Hermit Vision of Daniel the Hermit who knew not what was become of his Eulogius had a frightfull vision wherein he saw himself suddenly brought before the Tribunal of God He seemed to stand trembling before this awfull Throne environed with Angels of fire who held instruments of terrour in their hands The Judge sitting with incomparable majesty looked on him with an incensed eye and shewed him a man buried in roses and wasted with riots saying unto him Is this then the care thou hast had of thy brothers soul Afterward turning to the Angels executours of his justice Strike said he and spare not this respondent The poor man half dead with fear presently understood this out-cast shewed him was Eulogius who having found great riches by his means led a riotous life at Constantinople He presently threw himself at the feet of the Judge humbly beseeching him with tears and groans to suspend the rod of his indignation on condition he would reduce his friend unto duty Verily he failed not instantly to hasten to the place He went to Constantinople and spake to Eulogius where he was and found him in this ample Citie the most eminent of the Eastern Empire in glorious equipage perpetually near the Kings person or so overwhelmed with visits affairs and delights that it was a whole moneth before he might speak to him though he daily much endeavoured it In the end it was Gods will one day he was admitted into his Cabinet when beseeching him to send away his people for the importance of the business he was to treat that done he presently made himself known remembering Eulogius of his former poverty his trewel and masons life adding that by his prayers he came to this eminent fortune he confidently blamed him for his ingratitude and infidelity towards God The other who took no contentment that amidst his golden glitter and silk the old ragge of his first fortune should be remembered brake off the discourse and shamefully driving him out of his Cabinet asked his waiters what they meant to bring a fool and a melancholy lunatick before him which was the cause the unfortunate Father Daniel was so loaden with blows that he thought he should have been slain in the place Yet all bloudie he crept out of the chamber as well as he could and lifting his eyes up to Heaven humbly besought God steeping every word in his tears and bloud to send Eulogius not more riches and honours but disgrace and poverty knowing it was the onely means to reduce him to reason This quickly came to pass as he wished For Fall of Eulogius the Emperour Justin dying Eulogius was removed both from the favours he hoped and those he possessed which disposed him to a bitterness of heart against Justinian then seated in the Empire But it being dangerous to suffer ill affection towards the Prince to encroach upon the heart he already was so giddy that nothing wanted but opportunity to undo himself Behold here a hydeous treason plotted against the Rebellions and seditions direfull for people new Emperour which aimed to ruin the whole state of the East and to bury Constantinople in its ruins Hypatius and Pompey nephews of the Emperour Anastasius who preceded Justin had also pretences for the Empire which having been little countenanced either through want of time or defect in their merit failed not to be reproduced in this new State wherein Justinian's affairs seemed as yet much unsetled These Rebels had drawn to their side huge factions of mutinous spirits and envenomed the peoples minds by decrying what
of his power in the misery of mortals but with the Scripture that he separateth light from darkness with a diamond to wit a most strong and resplendent knowledge of the merit and demerit of men What sense is Notable passage Adamante diserevit lucem tenebras Eccles 16. 14. Secundum 70 there to make a power which takes its glory from ignorance and is potent in contempt of reason Is not this to make all terrible even to its own favours What sense is it to appoint a Judge to satisfie the whole world according to desert and to make him sign Decrees irrevocable in favour of some one before knowledge of all merit Cannot we make him potent unless we make him unjust Adde also that in the feeling we have of Praedestination Goodness of God the mercy of the most mild Father shineth with visible marks For we do not make him to damn him through a negligence of thoughts and coldness of affection which cannot be in a God so active or a heart so loving but we believe his goodness extendeth to Cain and Judas and would they have endeavoured they had the means to gain beatitude which never fails any man if he want not correspondence In the end we likewise acknowledge in this point Si voluisset Esau cacurrisset Dei adjutorio pervenisset Aug. ad Simp. l. 4. 2. the most prudent government of God who will have nothing idle in nature nor grace He could enlighten us without the Sun and afford us fruit without the earth but he will his creatures operate and that one unfold the rays of his substance another supply with the juice of its bosom In like manner he is pleased we make his grace to profit us to raise our riches out of his favours and derive our glory from his bounty He will give a title of merit to our happiness to advance the quality of his gifts He will crown in us what comes from himself as if it were wholly ours Why shall we shut up the eyes of his wisdom why tie up the hands of his liberality An Ancient said He more esteemed the judgement of certain men than their proper benefits God will we value both in him that we enjoy his bounty by favour and his judgement by merit The actions of the Sovereign Monarch are free from controul as his gifts from repentance I will leave you now to conclude what quiet we Third point Repose of Conscience may have in our consciences upon the matter of Praedestination I leave you to think whether a good soul have not cause to say O be the Divine Providence praised for evermore since it so worthily hath provided for me I cannot adore its counsels unless I love its goodness It sweeteneth my pains it comforteth my cares when it teacheth me my eternal happiness depends on him and me on him who loveth me tenderly and on me who cannot hate my self unless I derogate from my essence after I have failed in all virtues Courage then we roul not under this fatality which writeth laws on diamonds and ties us to inevitable necessities The fodder is not cast we have yet the mettal boyling apace in hand we may appear on the mould of virtue we may make our selves such by the grace of God as to put our salvation in assurance our life into repose and death into crowns I cannot fear God with a slavish fear since he is nought but goodness but I will ever dread my works since I am frailty it self Let us hereafter live in such sort as we would be judged Let us consecrate our life to innocency and banish all sin Let us undertake piety humility obedience alms and devotion towards the Blessed Virgin which are most assured marks of Praedestination Let us not presume of our own forces nor despair likewise of Gods mercy If we stand upright let us still fear the declining of nature which easily bendeth to evil and if we stoop let us quickly raise our selves again making all avail to our salvation yea our proper falls We have a great Advocate in Heaven who openeth as many mouthes for us as we have inflicted wounds on his body We have inflicted them through cruelty and they will receive us through mercy serving us towards Heaven for a chariot of triumph as they were to us on earth a mirrour in life and a sepulcher in death The sixth EXAMPLE upon the sixth Drawn out of Simeon of Constantinoplâ— MAXIM Of the secret Power of Praedestination PROCOPIUS PRaedestination is an admirable secret wherein Marvellous secret of Praedestination experience teacheth us there is nothing which the happy ought not to fear nor any thing the miserable may not hope Stars fall from the firmament to be changed into dung-hills and dung-hills of the earth mount to Heaven to be metamorphosed into stars The graces of God insinuate themselves by secret ways and the impressions of the will are extreamly nice all that past is a dream and the future a cloud where thunders murmur in the dark We tremble when we read in the History of holy Historia Patrum orientis Raderus Fathers that an Hermit grown white in the austerities of Religion understanding a notable thief had gained Heaven by a sigh he cast forth in the instant of his death was much displeased and presently became nought because God was good blaming his mercy to trie his justice For one sole censure made him loose forty years of penance and drew his foot out of Paradise to deliver his soul to hell I purpose here consequently to produce a singular conversion that you may admire and fear the secret ways of God Simeon of Constantinople is the Authour of it who enlarged it with many words but I will abbreviate it into good proportion which shall render it no whit the less effectual The Emperour Diocletian having pacified Aegypt sojourned sometime in Antioch of purpose to destroy Actor 12. the name of Jesus Christ in the same place where the faithfull began to be called Christians Theodosia a Procopius presented to Dioclesian great Ladie came to him bringing her son along with her named Neanias in very good equipage with purpose to prefer him in Court and satisfie her ambition To make her self the more acceptable she freely protested her deceased husband died a Christian that she had often attempted to work him to forsake this superstition adverse to Gods and men and that being unable to prevail upon his inveterate obstinacy she had manured this young plant speaking of her son carefully training him in the service of the gods and Prince with infinite detestation against Christianitie Diocletian who was much delighted with such accidents loudly praised the Ladie and casting his eye on Neanias he found him of handsom shape good presence understanding and valiant whereof he conceived great hope he might prove hereafter a principal instrument of his desires That which also pleased him the more
August serm 19. de verbis Apost Inhonestos amatores â—stendite Siquis amore foeminae lasciviens vestis se aliter quà m amatae placet illi dixerit nalo te habere tale birrhum non habebit si per hyemem illi dicet in lacinia te amo eliget tremere quà m displicere Numquid illa tamen damnatura est Numquid adhibitura tortores Nunquid in carcerem missura Hoc solum ibi timetur non te videbo faciem meam non videbis of our love towards God pertinently maketh use of the practise of prophane loves Behold saith he these foolish and dishonest Amourists of the world I demand whether any one surprized with the love of a woman attyreth himself any otherwise than to the liking of his Mistress If she say I would not have you wear such a cloke he puls it off I command you in the midst of winter to take a sommer garment he had rather shiver with cold than displease a miserable creature But yet what will she do if he obey not Will she condemn him to death Will she send him executioners Will she thrust him into a dungeon Nothing less she will onely say if you do not this I will never see you more This word alone is able to make a man tear himself in pieces in the endeavour of complacence and service O foul confusion of our life and prostitution of spirit A God who makes a Paradise of his aspects and a hell in his separation from us promiseth never to behold us with a good eye unless we keep his commandements nor can his menaces but be most effectual since he hath sovereign authority in his hands He deserves to be served above all things service done to him is not onely most pleasing but after this life gaineth recompence In the mean time we rather choose to live the slaves of creatures and dwell under the tyranny of our passions than to embrace the yoke of God Were it not fit we hereafter order the small service we do to God as well in our prayers as actions in such sort that there be neither work word nor thought from morning till night which hath not all its accommodations and is not squared within the rule God desireth of us with intentions most purified and indefatigable fervours Finally the last character of love is to suffer for 3. To suffer Satiabor cum apparuit gloria tua Psal 16. Satiabor cum affâ—ictuâ— fuero ad similitudinem tuam Jesus the father of sufferings and King of the afflicted The Kingly Prophet said I shall be satisfied when thy glory shall appear to me Another translation importeth I shall be well pleased when I shall behold my self marked with the characters of thy sufferings Jesus Christ in the great sacrifice of patience made in the beginning of Ages supplyes the person of a great Bishop putting on flesh wholly imprinted with dolours a heart drenched in acerbities a tongue steeped in gall Round about him are all the most elevated and couragious souls who all wear his livery and both constantly and gloriously dispose themselves to this great model of dolours Would we at the sight of so many brave Champions lead a life lazy languishing and corrupt Know we not all creatures of the world groan and bring forth that all elements are in travel and in a ceaseless agitation The air it self say Philosophers is perpetually strucken with the motion of heaven as with a hammer or whip that this benummed mass may not hatch any poyson Rivers are cleansed and purified by the streaming current of their waters The earth is never in repose and the nature of great things is generously to suffer evils The clock goeth on by the help of its counterpoise and Christian life never proceedeth in virtue but by counter-ballance of its crosses Our souls are engaged by Oath to this warfare Animas nostrâ—s authorati in has pugnas accessimus Tertul. ad Scap. so soon as first we enter into Christianity said the noble Tertullian Suffering is our trade our vow our profession Love which cannot suffer is not love and if it cease to love when it should bear it never was what it professed A lover said in Olympius that when he was onely Olympius Te sine vâ— misero mihi lilis nigra videntur Pallentesque rosae c. some little moment absented from the creature he most loved in the world all the best seasons were irkesome all discourses troublesome and the greatest delights turned into bitterness Flower de-luces seemed cole-black in the meadow when he beheld them in his pensive solitude roses the most vermillion grew pale gilli-flowers lost their lustre the very bay-trees which resist winters cold could not withstand the sadness caused by this absence but in a moment they all appeared quite withered to him Viands with him had no rellish wine tast nor sleep repose But so soon as this creature returned all was animated by her presence Flower-deluces became white again roses resumed their vermillion gilli-flowers their beauty lawrels their verdure wine and viands their tastfulness and sleep its contentment But if there happened any harsh and painful accidents which he must bear for her sake they seemed a Paradise All worldly loves speak the same yet are we unwilling to say or do any thing for this excellent Word of God which is endowed with a beauty incomparable exalted above all the beauties of the sons of men This Jesus who maketh a Paradise spring from his eyes This Jesus who distilleth honey from lips of roses for the comfort of his elect This Jesus who causeth Nations to tremble under the force of his word as under flaming arrows and is attired with the conquest and tropheys of souls Behold him on the bright empyreal Heaven crowned with a diadem of honour and revested with celestial purple who regardeth us who beholdeth us and never ceaseth to draw us unto him So many brave spirits have followed him amongst torrents thorns and flames which they found replenished with a sweetness that charmed their pain in the sight of their best beloved It is this sweetness turned the stones of S. Stephen into flower-de-luces and changed the burning coles of S. Lawrence into roses For it S. Bartholomew despoiled himself of his skin as freely as of a garment and S. Catharine hastened to the wheel armed with keen rasors S. Tecla to Lyons S. Agnes to the wood-pile S. Cicely to the sharp sword and S. Appollonia suffered her teeth to be torn out with as much ease as the tree suffers his leaves to fall away from him O the sweetness of Jesus who makes all the valiant and knoweth how to turn doves into eagles of fire Shall we never understand what it is to love him towards whom all generous hearts sigh and for whom all charities are crowned with immortal garlands The eighth EXAMPLE upon the eighth MAXIM Of the admirable change of worldly love Drawn from the Ecclesiastical history
Contemplation also is divided into divers degrees Divers degrees of contemplation For there is one ordinary which maketh use of imagination and of sensible species drawn from the sight of objects though it subtilize and purifie them by the help of the understanding There is another termed immediate and perfect which goes directly to God without any mixture of fantasies or aid of creatures but if it be much discharged from all things create it is called dark contemplation because the soul being in it wholly dazeled and as it were blinded with rays of the divine Essence frameth not to it self any sensible idaea of God but beholdeth him by the way of negation banishing all representations and resemblances of creatures the more firmly to adhere unto the simplicity of the first Being But if it proceed in a superiour manner then it mounteth S. Ambros l. 3. de virginibus Influentibus divinis corporeus peregrinatur affectus usus ille exterioris hominis exâ—lesâ—it to the contemplation termed the most eminent which is the whole-sister of the beatified vision and the last heaven whereunto S. Paul was rapt a sphere totally enflamed with seraphical love where the use of sense and exteriour man seems quite annihilated and the spirit transported to the ineffable conversation with the Divinity Now we must observe upon this discourse what S. Thomos in 3. dist 52. the learned S. Thomas said That whilest our life is shut up in this mortal body its manner of actuating proceedeth by simple and ordinary ways which conduct us to the Creatour by contemplation of creatures and if any one understand spiritual things in this sublime nakedness which is discharged of images it is an admirable way and surpasseth all humane things First it is necessary to have a pious affection The ordinary manner of proceeding in things divine to matters divine thence we pass to meditation from meditation to ordinary contemplation which is attended by admiration and admiration by a certain spiritual alacrity and this alacrity by a certain fear with reverence and fear by fervent charity diffused into the exercise of good works These are the most assured ways to walk in spiritual life But these transcendent souls will in the beginning Illusions of this transcendent devotion lift a man up from the earth and make a Seraphin of him from the first day of his apprentiship To meditate well is nothing else but to make a review of our self and actions to adapt them to the commandments of God and counsels of Jesus Christ You must flie fervently even to the third Heaven and remain there rapt without knowledge whether one be on this side or that side of the world But alas how many times happeneth it these Eagles descend from this false emperial heaven to fish some wretched frog in the marsh of this inferiour earth After all these large temples of prayers gilded with so goodly words we see in the Sanctuary a pourtraict of a Rat a soul faint and pusillanimous shut up in self-love tied to petty interests imperiously commanded by so many tumultuous passions which play their prize whilest the spirit slumbers in this mystical sleep and living death They will in the beginning go equal with the seraphical souls of Saints who arrived at this purity of prayer by great mortifications and most particular favours from God But they imitate them so ill that in stead of being suited with great and solid virtues they retain nought but ostentous forms and a vain boast of words What importeth it a devote who cannot tell how to govern her house to know the retire introversion extroversion simplification dark prayer mystical sleep spiritual drunkenness tast fire quiet the cloud of glory and so many other kinds which serve to disguise devotion Know we not many spirits of young women loose themselves herein and seeking too much to refine ancient piety have made it wholly to vapour out in smoke finding themselves as void of humility as they were puffed up with presumption From thence often proceeds the curiosity of matters ravishing and extraordinary to gain to themselves the reputation of great spiritual persons and to sooth themselves with the opinion of a false sanctity When one is once gained by a false pretext of errour it is no hard matter to be perswaded all we think on is a vision all we say is a prophesie and all we do is a miracle The evil spirit finding souls drunk with this self-love hath played strange pranks which may be read in Epiphanius and Cassianus and whereof it would be an easie matter to produce many examples were it not much better to deplore than recount them 8. This vanity not satisfied to harbour in the mind The word of God altered in chairs by the extravagant opinions of hearers which bred it extendeth to the chairs of Preachers where the curious and phanatical spirits of Auditours would willingly hatch chymaera's for such as are yet but young beginners in the mystery One will have that use be made of thoughts transcendent and extraordinary and many times extravagant entangled with a perplexity of periods which leave nothing but noise in the ear and arrogance in the mind the other who is most ignorant startles at this quaint Theologie and seeks to wrest mysteries and disjoynt mens judgements thereby to draw upon all sorts of people discourses of the Trinity and Incarnation involved in visionary imaginations and turned about on a counter-battery of affected antitheses and if this be not as ordinary in all sermons as was the Delphick sword which heretofore served for all purposes in sacrifices it is to be ignorant in the ways of souls elect The other delighteth in doctrines unheard-of in a vast recital of Authours and forreign tongues as if he went about to exercise devils and not instruct Christians some one boasts to alledge neither Scripture Fathers nor any passage whatsoever for fear of marring the plaits of his periods he makes trophey to take all within his own fancy and to borrow nothing of the Ancients as if Bees who rob flowers in the garden to make honey of them were not much better than spiders who spin their wretched webs out of their own substance There are of them who desire to bundle up an endless train of fantastical conceptions without Scripture or reason who seem to tell wonders and rarities most ravishing but if any man will weigh them in an equal ballance he shall find vanities onely big with noise and wind They who have the itch of ear Sapientiae atque facundiae caupones Tertul. l. de anima c. 3. are devoted to the beauty of language and bestir them rather to talk than speak in a sermon They adore discourses replenished with a youth full eloquence and devested of wisdom having no sinews for support and less sting to transfix a heart Good God! how knowing would Preachers be did they understand as saith S. Paul how to speak
abundance unless we will say such as have been the most persecuted were the most eminent Where it seems it is an act of the Divine Providence to have many times given to vicious and faithless husbands the best wives Good wives of bad husbands in the world as Mariamne to Herod Serena to Diocletian Constantia to Licinius Helena to Julian the Apostate Irene to Constantinus Copronymus Theodora to the Emperour Theophilus Theodelinda to Uthar Thira to Gormondus King of Denmark Charlotte de Albret to Caesar Borgia Catherine to Henrie of England Katherine of England Flor. Remond This Ladie was infinitely pious yea beyond limit It is good to be devout in marriage and not to forget she is a married wife much way must be given to the humours of a husband much to the care of children and family and sometimes to loose God at the Altar to find him in houshold cares But this Queen onely attended the affairs of Heaven and had already so little in her of earth that she shewed in all her deportments to bemade for another manner of Crown than that of Great Brittain She for the most part shut her self up in the Monasteries of Virgins and rose at mid-night to be present at Mattins She was clothed from five of the clock not decked like a Queen but contented with a simple habit saying The best time should be allowed to the soul since it is the better part of our selves When she had the poor habit of Saint Francis under her garments which she commonly ware she reputed her self brave enough The Fridays and Saturdays were ever dedicated by her to abstinence but the Eves of our Ladies feasts she fasted with bread and water she failed not to confess on wednesdays and fridays and in a time when Communions were very seldom she had recourse thereunto every sunday In the fore-noon she continued six hours in prayer after dinner she read two whole hours the lives of Saints and speedily returned to Church from whence she departed not till night drave her thence This was to eat honey and Manna in abundance in a condition which had too strong ties for the earth to be so timely an inhabitant of Heaven Whilest she led this Angelical life her husband young and boyling overflowed in all sorts of riot and in the end came to this extremity as to trample all laws both divine and humane under foot to repudiate his lawfull wife who brought him children to serve as pledges of marriage and wed Anne of Bollen Since this love which made as it were but one tomb of two parts of the world never have we seen any more dreadfull The poor Princess who was looked on by all Christendom as a perfect model of all virtue was driven out of her Palace and bed amidst the tears and lamentations of all honest men and went to Kimbolton a place in commodious and unhealthy whilest another took possession both of the heart and scepter of the King So that here we may behold virtue afflicted and a devotion so constant that the ruins of fortune which made all the world tremble were unable to shake it She remained in her solitude with three waiting-women and four or five servants a thousand times more content than had she lived in the highest glory of worldly honour and having no tears to bewail her self she lamented the miseries she left behind her There is yet a letter left which she wrote to her husband a little before her death plainly shewing the mild temper of her heart and the force of devotion which makes the most enflamed injuries to be forgotten to procure conformity to the King of the afflicted who is the mirrour of patience as he is the reward of all sufferers My King and dearest spouse Insomuch as already the hour of my death approcheth the love and affection I bear you causeth me to conjure you to have a care of the eternal salvation of your soul which you ought to prefer before mortal things or all worldly blessings It is for this immortal spirit you must neglect the care of your bodie for the love of which you have thrown me head-long into many calamities and your own self into infinite disturbances But I forgive you with all my heart humbly beseeching Almightie God he will in Heaven confirm the pardon I on earth give you I recommend unto you our most dear Mary your daughter and mine praying you to be a better Father to her than you have been a husband to me Remember also the three poor maids companions of my retirement as likewise all the rest of my servants giving them a whole years wages besides what is due that so they may be a little recompenced for the good service they have done me protesting unto you in the conclusion of this my letter and life that my eyes love you and desire to see you more than any thing mortal Henrie the eight notwithstanding his violence read this letter with tears in his eyes and having dispatched a Gentleman to visit her he found death had already delivered her from captivity X. MAXIM Of PROPER INTEREST THE PROPHANE COURT THE HOLY COURT Every understanding man should do all for himself as if he were his own God and esteem no Gospel more sacred than his Proper Interest That proper Interest is a tyranny framed against the Divinitie and that a man who is the God of himself is a devil to the rest of the world THis Maxim of the Prophane Court is the source of all evils the very plague of humane life and one may say it is the Trojan horse which beareth fire and sword saccage and rapine in its entrails From thence proceed ambition rebellion sacriledge rapine Disloyalties that spring from this marim concussion ingratitude treacherie and in a word all that which is horrid in nature Self-love which should be contained within the limits of an honest preservation of ones self flieth out as a river from his channel and with a furious inundation covereth all the land it overthrows all duty and deep drencheth all respect of honesty Men who have renounced piety if they peradventure see themselves to be strong and supported with worldly enablements acknowledge no other Gods but themselves They imagine the Jupiter of Poets was made as they they create little Sultans and there is not any thing from whence they derive not tribute to make their imaginary greatness encrease When this blindness happeneth in persons very eminent it is most pernicious for then is the time when not being awed by the fear of a God Omnipotent they turn the world upside down to satisfie miserable ambition And such Princes there have been who have rather profusely lost the lives of thirty thousand subjects than suffered so much land to be usurped upon them as were needfull for their tomb Others whom birth hath not made Caesars extend Practise of worldly men Ingratitude their petty power what they may They observemen sound
knows how patiently to suffer an injury The maxims of the world cease not to persecute us and say That by tolerating a first affront a second is provoked that mildness and mansuetude serve as matter of mirth to insolency and that a man never so much undervalueth himself as by publishing his little courage in the revenge of an affront Behold goodly propositions which so oft have drawn bloud out of the veins of France in these detestable duels nourishing afterward covert hatred and everlasting aversions O ignorant that we are of Gods greatness and ever unfaithful to his word We fear by pardoning to be contemned when the onely reason which God useth in the Gospel to perswade us unto pardon is the excellency and glory derived from this action for he Vt sitis filij Patris vestri qui in coelis est qui solem suum facit oriri super bonos malos pluit super justos injustos Mat. 5. Isaiah 40. saith It is the means to become the children of God who causeth his Sun to shine upon the good and the bad who lets his showrs fall as well on the offenders as the innocent What beauty what lustre what splendour to enter into the number of the children of God! What elevation to be transported with full flight into conformities with the Omnipotent The Prophet Isaiah saith God measureth the waters with his fist and poizeth the heavens in the palm of his hand to signify he goeth with a shut hand to punishments signified by the waters but proceeds with the whole extent of his goodness to reward represented by the heavens The rain-bow which God hath taken for the simbole of his reconciliation with man environeth the throne of his Majesty in the Apocalips and it is a bow without arrows saith S. Ambrose to instruct us this divine Ambros 16. de arcâ— Noe. 17. Arcus contentus at carens sagitta magis terrere vult quà m ferire Majesty is sweet and peaceful So in the Prophet Ezechiel after the description of this terrible cloud which serves as a chariot for the God of Hoasts you read these words (a) (a) (a) Et sursum quasi aspectus splendoris And upward a face smiling with light where Theodotion as saith S Hierom hath translated (b) (b) (b) Aura in supernis Dei The west hath the highest place with the Creatour meaning the mildness of western winds and cooleness from scor chings is in the pavillion of glory where this Sovereign Monarch inhabiteth O wonder God who is a Sovereign Majesty Sovereign Greatness and Sovereign Justice shewed himself in all times so patient to suffer men who are the worst of all evils that he had rather we doubted his Divinity than make any question of his mildness he had rather that by so patiently tolerating such infidels sinners the lips of blasphemers should receive encouragement to say there is no God than by taking revenge Non est Deâ—â— on every sin in the heat of crime it should be truely said there is a God but he is ever armed with lightnings is inaccessible to the miseries of men as those mountains which all flaming cast out their entrails O Prodigie God maketh it so great a matter to pardon Tertul. de pat c. 2. an injury that he rather permitteth his essence to be touched than his clemency his title of God to be taken away than the glory of pardon Shall we then place greatness in revenge How many Pyrates are there to whom God daily openeth seas How many Idolaters for whom he causeth stars to give light fountains to stream corn to grow harvests to become yellow and vines to ripen How many ungrateful children who take benefits from him as hogs do acorns by grumbling against the tree which gave them and never casting an eye to heaven God notwithstanding suffereth them and confounds their ingratitude by continually conferring favours in an absolute power of revenge What answer we to that Shall we make it our glory to do like the silly mouse which bites that which pincheth her or rather imitate the perfections of God who never appears so great as in pardoning great injuries What may we hope in revenge but to enter into the community of a bruitish life That is it bears do tygers serpents and so many other creatures which imploy their teeth horns poyson and all the arms they have from nature to pursue revenge Yet many times they measure it by the necessity of their defence but to pardon an ungrateful man and an enemy is to go out of our elements and the base dross of earth to enter into a sphere of glory and light ranked in the number of sovereign beauties to be an associate with so many noble and illustrious souls who have in all Ages placed their glory on actions of mildness and patience Let us I pray you enter into it with a firm footing Goodly company of courteous a bright forehead There shall we see Moses at the feet of the Tabernacle to pray almost bind up the hands of God to stay the course of his revenge against those who persecuted him even to the Tabernacle There shall we see an Aaron in the majesty of his Priestly habit bearing all the world with the incensory and Sacrifice in hand to appease the anger of God against his persecutours when heaven was all on fire over their heads and the earth became a gulph under their feet to swallow them There shall we see a David bear honourable wounds which the envenomed tongue of Shimei had thrown on his reputation and to mount to the throne of Saul by the steps of patience witnessed in suffering Saul There shall we see all the Martyrs laden with torments opening as many mouths as they had wounds to beg pardon for those who persecuted them and in the midst of all the Martyrs Jesus the great and faithful witness quickning by effusion of his bloud even those who shed his There finally shall we see Constantine laughing at his statues they stoned a Theodosius pardoning such as dragged his an Andronicus who at the taking of a Citie embraced in sight of all the world him who most eagerly had opposed him with all manner of outrage Let us now judge which is most glorious either to enter by pardoning into the most noble and generous society or in seeking revenge to become of the number of certain wranglers ruffians men of the damned crew and lastly creatures the most bruitish in the world wholly inclined to revenge 4. Let us conclude finally with the third reason Third point of reasons drawn from necessity Dimitte nobis sicut dimittimus Yade prius reconciliari fratri tuo tune veniens offer munus tuum and withal say that to pardon injuries is not so much an election of virtue as a necessitie of salvation since God will not we hope remission of our sins but on condition we banish
not if an enemy he hath done according to the world what he ought If he were wise he hath not done it without reason if simple he deserves compassion Who ever bit a dogg because he was bitten by a dogg Or who ever entered into a combat of kicking with a Mule If he did it in anger let us give him leisure to come to himself and he will correct himself without our trouble to give assistance If it be a superiour or man of eminent quality let us suffer that which God hath set over us if a person of base condition why by striving against him shall we make him our equal What pleasure hath a woman whose hands are so delicate to seek to foul them with crushing flies and catterpillars Let us reflect on the carriage of humane things we are all faulty and live among errours There is no wise man whom some indiscretions escape not We shall never live content if we learn not to excuse in another what our selves are Are we not ashamed to exercise in a life so short eternal enmities Be hold death comes to separate us although we forcibly hold one another by the throat let us give a little truce to our reason light to our understanding and rest to our ashes JESUS in his last words recommended forgiveness to us moistned with his tears and bloud Go we about to tear his Testament that we afterward may pull his Images in pieces The bloud of Just Abel still bubleth on the earth and is unrevenged shall we then seek to revenge it O my God we utterly renounce it with all our hearts and are ready to seal peace with our bloud that by thy bloud thou maist sign our mercy The twelfth EXAMPLE upon the twelfth MAXIM Of Reconciliation CONSTANTIA THere is nothing more certain than that he who seeks revenge shall find the God of revenge It followeth those who pursue it and when they think to exercise it on others they feel it falling on their own heads It is onely proper to base and infamous spirits to endeavour to glut themselves with bloud and to delight in the miseries of mortals but souls the most noble are ever beautified with the rays of clemency Theophilus one of the most bloudy Emperours that Zonar Theophilus a bloudy Emperour ever ware the diadem an enemy both of heaven and earth of Saints and men as he had lived on gall would end in bloud He felt his soul on his lips flying from him and saw death near at hand which he could not escape It was time he should now yield up life to others when it appeared he could no more take it from them But this wicked man holding at that time Thephobus one of his prime Captaines imprisoned in his own Palace upon certain jealousies conceiv'd he was too able a man and well worthy of Empire commanded a little before his death to have his head cut off and causing it to be brought to his bed side he took it by the hair held it a long time in his hands so much was he pleased with this massacre then seriously beholding it he cried out It is true I shall no langer be Theophilus nor art thou any more Theophobus And many times repeating these words he yielded up his damned ghost like a ravenous wolf which passed from bloud to infernal flames although certain revelations spake of his deliverance Behold how having taken in his youth evil habits of cruelty and revenge he persevered in them to his death being besides most unfortunate and infamous in all his enterprises But contrariwise it is observed all great-ones disposed to clemency have been very glorious and most happy before God and men I could here reherse very many yet pursuing our design I rest contented with relation of a notable pardon given by a Queen to a Prince on a Friday in memory of our Saviours Passion It cannot be said but so much the greater and more outragious injuries are so much the more difficult is their pardon especially when one hath full power of revenge in his hands Now the injury whereof we Conradinus speak was the death of poor Conradinus which well considered in all its circumstances rendereth this clemency whereof I intend to speak much more admirable Know then this Prince son of the Emperour Conradus went into Italy with a huge army to defend the inheritance of his Ancestours pretending it to be unjustly usurped by the wily practises of Charls of Anjou He stood at that time in the midst of his armies sparkling like a star full of fire courage when Pope Clement the fourth seeing him pass along with so much Nobility said Alas what goodly victims are led to the Altar His valour in the tenderness of his age was as yet more innocent than wary and he had to do with a Captain whom warlike experience had made more subtile in this profession Charls being ready to give him battel resolved it He gave battle to Charls of Anjou was best to weary out this young vigour to afford him the bait of some success in appearance the more easily to draw him into his snare He gave the leading of one part of his army to a Captain of his called Alardus commanding him to bear all the royal ensings as if he had been Charls of Anjou's person Conradinus thinking he had nothing to do but to conquer what he saw before his eyes for decision of the difference advanced his troups which falling like a tempest upon the enemies quickly dispatched Alardus who was slain in the battel as some histories record carrying from all this ostent of regallity a fatal glory into a tomb This young Mars supposing the war ended by the death of his Adversary presently proclaimed victory at which time Charls of Anjou who lay hidden in a trench with the activest troups as yet very fresh came suddenly upon him He did all that for his defence which a brave spirit might in an evil fortune But his army being cut in pieces he was enforced to save himself after the loss of twelve thousand dead in the place His calamity caused him to change the habit of a King into that of a horse-keeper for his greater security so much he feared to be known by those who would decide the dint of war by his bloud He embarked His taking with his cousin Frederick of Austria to pass unto Pisa committing himself in this disguised habit to a Pilot who much importuned him for his hire He had not then about him either bread or money so that he was constrained to pull off a ring and leave it in pledge to the Pilot to assure the debt He seeing these young men of a graceful garbe and considering this jewel was not a wealth suitable to their habit doubted some trick and gave notice to the Governour a crafty man who complying with the times laid hold of the Princes and put them into the hands of the Conquerour
the virtue of temperance but for that it seemed he found himself better disposed in this frugality than in superfluities the tormentours of health Yet notwithstanding he is ever greatly reprehensible in that he so deifieth the contentments of nature and this kind of life free from bodily pain and minds unquiet that he makes a Sovereign God of it honouring and adoring it as a Divinity From this principle he derived conclusions which led to a life wholly replenished with easeful idlenese much prejudicial to civil society For he would not have a wise man intermeddle in state-affairs nor untertake designs for the good of Common-wealths for fear of troubling the repose of his mind and gave a most infamous advise to tast the pleasures of marriage without taking care for the education of children because it was painfull whereupon Arianus in Arian l. 4. c. 20. Epictetus reprocheth him that his father and mother would have smothered him in the cradle had they known such pestilent words should come from his lips He now-adayes is waited on by many who take other wayes than he did to arrive at the practise of his Maxims For they use their bodies to such effeminacie that they seem single in their kind and seed their minds what they can with tender thoughts free from any care or affair which may divert contentment so that they suffer themselves with all endeavour to be dissolved in an easie truantly life wholly to enjoy themselves 2. Now you who incline to this Sect by ill habits 1. Reason against this Maxim of riot Occupatio magna creata est omnibus hominibus jugum grave super filiis Adam Eccl. 40. Isle of amber felicitie of Epicurus Garcias taken in the great service you daily do your bodies I beseech you consider how far it is allenated both from reason and Christianity First see you not that to imagine here on earth a life without pain is to frame chymraes in your mind since the world is a soil as natural for thorns as barren of violets All the sons of Adam saith the Scripture have trouble enough to carrie their yoke Where find you this perpetual quiet of mind this freedom from bodily disturbances which you figure in your thoughts It is in my opinion not unlike the little Island of amber-grece whereof Garcias speaketh which was perceived by certain merchants who sayled along on the Ocean But they much labouring to take it in such proportion as they advanced towards it it recoyled back and when they thought to touch it it was lost in the waves I dare affirm you pursue an Island more imaginarie than that running with full speed after the false pleasures of Epicurus It is a fantasie that mocketh you and which amuzeth you on the surges of this life to make you perish seeing according to Clemens Alexandrinus sensuality is the Clemens Alex Paedag. l. 3. c. 7. ship wrack of spiritual life A man must not be born of a mother to escape worldly molestations since the Scripture which cannot lie teacheth us travell is as naturall for the children of women as flight for birds How could there Homo nascitur ad laboreth avis ad volatum Job 57. Reason of Simplicius be pleasures of bodie without pain since pleasures would never be pleasures if they had not been preceded by some incommodities It is a witty reason of the Philosopher Simplicius which was well considered by S. Bernard (a) (a) (a) S. Bern. tract de gratiâ lib. arbitrio Tolle famem panem non curabis Telle sitim limpidissâ—mum fontem quasi paludem respicies umbram non quaerit nisi aestuans solem non curat nisi algens Take away hunger saith he and there is no pleasure in viands take away thirst and the most chrystal fountains would be unto you but as marishes Hot things must be had to seek for coolness and cold to be delighted with heat If you take away evil and necessitie you take away the most active spur which sensualitie hath over nature The world which is so old the earth so fertile experience so knowing and histories so curious could not this day produce one sole man absolutely happie and content The great Genius of nature Plinie who searched into all the corners of the world to meet with a man such as Epicurus framed in his idaea assureth us that after a very long enquiry he found but one a Musician named (b) (b) (b) Plin. l. 7. c. 50. One soleman happie Xenophilus who was said to have arrived to the age of an hundred and five years free from disquiet or sickness This is a Rodomontado of Greece which went about to make him brave it on paper But might we have penetrated into his heart and taken all the parts of his life asunder I am perswaded we might presently find somewhat for which he should be banished out of the imaginarie Palace of felicitie I can as soon believe Xenophilus came into the world free from original sin as imagine he went out of it exempt from any dolour It were as easie to sayl prosperously amidst the tempests of the Ocean having no other vessel but a tortoyse shell as to live in the world without suffering We are condemned to it before we are born and our tears teach us this decree before we issue from our mothers womb What remaineth sayes S. Bernard to finish the description Bern. l. 2. de consid c. 9. Quid enim calamitate vacat nascenti in peccato fragili corpore mente sterili cui infirmitas corporis fatuitâ—s cordis cumulatur traduce sortis mortis additione The whole world an enemy of curiositie of man and to make him a true picture of calamity since he entereth into the world by the gate of sin with a bodie frail a mind barren weakness of mortal Members and stupiditie of heart being given him as a portion of his birth and a necessitie of his condition The miserable Epicurus who was the first Authour of this lazie life and who sought by speculation and practise into all he could imagine bending all his thoughts and actions to this purpose found he satisfaction in this search Histories tell us this great father of the happie had a stone in his bladder which infinitly pained him and this being a time that knew not the operations now in use to deliver mortals from these vexations he carried his affliction to the grave dying with enraged dolour Upon this you shall observe that it seems God nature elements and men conspire to torment one who seeks with over-much curiosity and too seriously the contentments of his bodie and the ease of his mind 3. But that I may here produce a second reason Reason 2 although you were permitted to please your sensuality throughout the whole latitude of your desires and the capacitie thereof what should you elss do but serve a miserable bodie and tie your self all your life time to the
any doth notwithstanding particularly bind himself to patience Let us conclude with four excellent instructions to be observed in adversity which are expressed in the book of Job (l) (l) (l) Job 1. Tunc surrexit seidis vestimenta sua tonse capite corruens in terram adoravit dixit Nudus egressus sum c. for it is said He rent his garments and having cut off his hair and prostrated himself on the earth adored and said Naked I came out of my mothers womb and naked I return into earth Note that rising up he rent his garments to shew he couragiously discharged himself of all exteriour blessings which are riches and possessions signified by garments He cut his hair which was a sign he put the whole bodie into the hands of God to dispose of it at his pleasure For as those Ancients sacrificing a victim first pulled off the hair and threw into the fire to testifie the whole bodie was already ordained to sacrifice so such as for ceremony gave their hair to temples protested they were dedicated to the service of the Divinity to whom the vow was made In the third instance he prostrated himself on the earth acknowledging his beginning by a most holy humility And for conclusion he prayed and adored with much reverence Behold all you should practise in tribulation well expressed in this mirrour of patience First are you afflicted with loss of goods either by some unexpected chance or by some tyranny and injustice Abate not your courage but considering the nullity of all earthly blessings and the greatness of eternal riches say My God although I have endeavoured hitherto to preserve the wealth thou gavest me as an instrument of many good deeds yet if thou hast ordained in the sacred counsel of thy providence that I must be deprived of them for my much greater spiritual avail I from this time renounce them with all my heart and am ready to be despoiled even to the last nakedness the more perfectly to enter into the imitation of thy poverty Say with S. Lewis Divitia mea Christus desixt caetera Omnis copia qua Deus meus non est mibi inopia est Archbishop of Tholouse Jesus is all my riches and with him I am content in the want of all other wealth All plenty which is not God is mere penurie to me If you be tormented with bodily pain by maladies by death of allies say My God to whom belongs this afflicted bodie Is it not to thee Is not this one of thy members It now endureth some pain since thou hast so appointed and it complains and groaneth under the scourge where are so many precepts of patience where is the love of suffering where conformity to the cross S. Olalla a Virgin Quam juvas bos apices le gere qui tus Christe trophea notant Prudent about thirteen or fourteen years of age as she was martyred and her bodie torn with iron hooks beheld her members all bloudy and said O my God what a brave thing is it to read these characters where I see thy trophies and monuments imprinted with iron on my bodie and written in my bloud A creature so tender so delicate shall she shew such courage in the midst of torments such transfixing pains and cannot I resolve to suffer a little evil with some manner of patience If be the death of an ally behold that bodie not in the state wherein it now appears but in the bright lustre of glorie wherewith you shall behold it in the day of the Resurrection wiping away your tears say what Ruricius did Let them bewail the dead who cannot have any hope of Resurrection Let the dead Fleant â—ntuos qui spom resurrectionis habere non possunt Flems mortui mortuos suos quos in perpetuim existimant interiisse lament their dead friends whom they account dead for ever In the third place arm your self with profound humility and looking on the earth from whence your body came say My God it is against my pride thy rod is lifted up in this tribulation Shall such a creature as I drawn out of the dust become proud against thy commandments and so often shake off the yoke of thy Law I now acknowledge from the bottom of my soul the abjectness of my nothing and protest with all resentments of heart my dependence on thee The little hearb called trefoyl foldeth up the three leaves it beareth when thunder roareth thereby willing to tell us it will not lift a creast nor raise a bristle against Heaven Lightening also which teareth huge trees asunder never falls upon it My God I hear thy hand murmuring over my head in this great affliction and I involve me within my self and behold the element whereinto I must be reduced to do the homage my mortality oweth thee Exercise not the power of thy thunders against a worm of the earth against a reed which serves for a sport to the wind Lastly take courage what you may in the accidents Factus in agonia prolixius erabat Domine quid multiplicati sunt qui tribulant me Multi insargunt adversum me multidicunt animae meâ— non est solus ipsi in Deo ejus Tu autem Domine susceptor meus c. that happen and by the imitation of our Saviour retire into the bosom of prayer which is a sovereign means to calm all storms Jesus prayed in his agony and the more his sadness encreased the more the multiplied his prayers Say in imitation of him My God why are my persecutours so encreased Many rise up against me Many say to my soul there is no salvation for it in God But Lord thou art my Protectour and my glorie thou art he who wilt make me exalt my head above all mine enemies The fourteenth EXAMPLE upon the fourteenth MAXIM Of Constancie in Tribulation ELEONORA WE are able to endure more than we think For there are none but slight evils which cause us readily to deplore and which raise a great noise like to those brooks that purl among pibbles whilest great-ones pass through a generous soul as huge rivers which drive their waves along with a peacefull majesty This manifestly appeareth in the death of Sosa and Maffaeus hist Indicar l. 16. Eleonora related by Maffaeus in the sixteenth book of his history of the Indies This Sosa was by Nation a Portingale a man of quality pious rich liberal and valiant married to one of the most virtuous women in the whole Kingdom They having been already some good time in the Indies and enflamed with the desire of seeing their dear Countrey again embarked at Cochin with their children very young some gentlemen and officers and with about six hundred men The beginning of their navigation was very prosperous but being arrived at Capo de bona speranza they there found the despair of their return A westerly wind beat them back with all violence clouds gathered thunders
COURT That it is to no purpose to think upon death so far off and that it always cometh soon enough without thinking on it That the best employment of life is to bewel prepared for death and that good thoughts of death are the seeds of immortalitie 1. IT is a strange thing that men being all made out of one and the same mass are so different in beliefs in reasons in customs and actions as the Proteus in Poetical fables Our manners daily Diversitie of men teach us a truth which says There is not any thing so mutable upon earth as the heart of man Yet we see in the world many honourable personages and good men who travel apace to this triumphant Citie of God this Heavenly Jerusalem looking on the blessings of the other life with an eye purified by the rays of faith and expecting them with a hope for which all Heaven is in bloom But there Opinion concerning the other life are an infinite number of black souls marked with the stamp of Cain who consider all is said of the state of the other world as if it were some imaginary Island feigned to be in the Ocean to amuze credulous spirits and fill them partly with pleasing dreams partly with irksom visions If these people could find some apparent proofs they would easily perswade themselves there were no death but their senses convinced of the contrary from experience of all Ages they believe that which they dare not think on and commonly die after so bruitish a fashion that a man may say They had converted the lights of an immortal spirit wholly into flesh But you generous souls whom at this present I intend to guid through the hopes and terrours of the other life observe this first step you must make to enter into a new world with constancy not unworthy a soul sensible of its immortality 2. Life and death are two poles on the which all Life death the two poles of the world creatures rowl life is the first act moveable and continual of the living thing death the cessation of the same act And as there are three notable actions in things animated the one whereof tendeth to nourishment and increase the other to sense the third to understanding so there are three sorts of lives Divers kinds of life the vegetative the sensitive and the intellectual the vegetative in plants sensitive in beasts the intellectual which onely appertaineth to God Angels and men The intellectual life is divided into two other which are the life of grace and glory In Heaven the place of things eternal reign those great and divine lives which never die and which are in a perpetual vigour being applied to the first source of lives which is God But in the more inferiour rank of the world are dying lives of which we daily see the beginning progress and end Here properly is the dominion of death and our onely mystery is to die well Some do it of necessity others every day anticipate it by virtue Now it is my desire here to shew you That death in the state wherein the world is at this present is a singular invention of Divine Providence whether we consider the generality of men whether we look on the vicious or fix our thoughts on the just 3. Some complain of death but you would see Providence of God concerning the sentence of death in the generality of men much other complaints if in such a life as we live there were no death You would see men worn with years and cares daily to charge altars with vows and prayers men insupportable to all the world irksom to life inexpugnable to death men old as the earth incessantly calling upon the hour of death and almost eating one another with despair God hath herein saith Plato well provided for seeing the soul was to be Plato in Timaeo Pater misericors illis mortalia vincula faciebat shut up in the body as in a prison he hath at least made it chains mortal What makes you so much desire life I find saith the worldling it is a pleasure to behold the light the star elements and seasons There will be much more delight to see them one day under your feet than there is now to behold them over your head Are there now so many years you have been upon the earth and have you not yet sufficiently looked upon the elements There were certain people among the Pagans who by laws forbade a man of fifty years to make use of the Physitian saying It discovered too much love of life and yet with Christians you may find at the age of four-score who will not endure a word of the other world as if they had not yet one days leisure to look into it But I must still Ambr. l. 2. de Abel Cain Non advertitis senectutem hanc aerumnarum esse veteranam processionibusque aetatis miseriarum crescere stipendia Scyllâ—o quodam usu circumsonari nos quotidianis naufragiis perform the actions of life Have you not done them enough See you not that to live long is to be long in the entertainment of travel and misery which extend their power over our heads according as the web of our life lengtheneth Do you not consider we are in this life as fish in the sea perpetually in fear of nets or hooks Will you not say we live here in the midst of misery and envie as between Scylla and Charybdis and that to decline once perishing we daily make ship wrack Notwithstanding we are pleased with life as if man were not so much a mortal creature as an immortal misery Do you not know life was given by God to Cain Revolution troublesom the most wicked man on earth for a punishment of his crime and will it rest with you as a title of reward There is great cause to desire life Were there no other miseries which are but too frequent this anxiety and turmoil of relapsing actions would tyre us What is life but clothing and unclothing rising and down-lying drinking eating sleeping gaming scoffing negotiating buying selling masonry carpentery quarreling cozening rowling in a labyrinth of actions which perpetually turn and return filling and emptying the tub of the Danaïdes and to be continually tied to a body as to the tending of an infant a fool or a sick man That is not it which withdraweth me say you But I must see the world and live with the living Had you been all your life Baseness of the world time shut up in a prison and not seen the world but through a little grate you had seen enough of it What behold you in the streets but men houses horses mules coaches and people who tumble up and down like fishes in the sea who have many times no other trade but to devour one another and besides some pedling trifles hanged out on stals When I have seen all this but for half an hour
quality of a good death is the ready and constant adieu given to the world as did the Blessed Virgin who was so disengaged from it towards death that she touched not earth at all but with the soles of her feet Philo saith God gave Moses leave to live very long perpetually in glorious actions in contemplations in lights so that his body was worn wasted and almost wholly vapoured out into the substance of his spirit By a much stronger reason may one say the like of the Mother of God For it is certain her life was nothing else but a divorce from the world But as Physitians observe that the breath of storks is purified and made sweet in the proportion as they increase in age in such sort that becoming old they yield forth most odoriferous exhalations So the life of this holy Mother which was ever hanging about the heart of her Son ever in the contemplation of the great mysteries of our salvation perpetually in the furnace of love wholly transformed it self into her well-beloved as one wax melted into another as a drop of water poured into a great vessel of wine as incense wasted into flames O what sweetness of breath what odour of virtues in her old age Her body seemed to be exhaled and to vapour out Harph. c. 49. libri de mystic Theol. all in soul the soul which is the knot of life and which possesseth in us the most inferiour part of spirituality dissolved wholly into spirit which is in the middle and the spirit melted entirely into the understanding which hath the highest rank in the soul and which bears the image of the most holy Trinitie Her memory in a silent repose was freed from all rememberances of the world her will resided in languishing fervours and her understanding was wholly engulfed in great abysses of lights there was not one small threed of imagination which tied her to earth O what an adieu to the world It is very well declared in the Canticles by these Cantic 1. 6. Quae est ista quae ascendit per desertum sicut virgula fumi ex aromatibus myrrhae thuris universâ— pulveris pigmentarii The three ties of the world Genes 12. Egredere de terra tua de cognationetua de domo patris tui words Who is it that ascendeth through the desert like a thin vapour composed of odours myrrb incense and all the most curious perfumes Which saith in a word the holy Virgin was wholly spiritualized wholly vapour all perfume all spirit and had as it were nothing of body massiness or earth O how many unreasonably fail in this second condition When death comes to sound his trumpet in our ears and saith to us Let us go thou must dislodge from thy lands inheritances never to return again from thy kinred from the house thy father gave thee to wit thy bodie how harsh that is to ill mortified spirits and which hold of the world by roots as deep as hell and as big as arms Go out of thy land O how hard is this first step to go out of the land to forsake the land not at all to pretend to the land to the gold to the silver to those jewels that inheritance to all that glorious glitter of fortune See the first torment of worldly spirits Such there have been who Desperate desire of worldly goods Joannes Nider seeing themselves in the last approaches of inevitable death have swallowed their gold like pills other to eternize themselves on earth have caused formidable sepulchers to be built wherein they put all their wealths as the Aegyptian King Cheopes who prostituted even his own daughter to raise unto himself a Pyramid for burial so enormous that it seemed the earth was too weak to bear it and Heaven too low to be freed from its importunity Besides he caused to be engraven upon it that the manufactures alone of this sepulcher had cost six millions of gold in coleworts and turneps Others caused to be buried with them dogs horses slaves apparrel dishes to serve them in the other world Yea it is not long ago since there was found in Anno 1544. Belforest Goodly monument of the Emperess Marie Rome a coffin of marble eight foot long and in it a robe embroidered with Gold-smiths work which yielded six and thirty pounds of gold besides fourty rings a cluster of emeralds a little mouse made of another precious stone and amongst all these precious magnificencies two leg-bones of a dead corps known by the inscription of the tomb to be the bones of the Emperess Marie daughter of Stilicon and wife of the Emperour Honorius who died before consummation of marriage About twelve hundred years were passed after she was buried with all these goodly toys which no doubt gave much ease to her soul My God how are we tied to earth Tell me not the like is not done now adays for it is worse since they were buried after death with their riches and you O mortals alive as you are build your sepulchers thereon We see men who having already one foot in the grave if you speak to them of the affairs of their consciences all the spirit yet remaining is perhaps for two or three hours besieged by an infinite number of thoughts of worldly wealth Death crieth out aloud in their ears saying Go from thy land and you pull it to you as with iron hooks After that cometh kinred allies table-frends friends for game buffons amourists and all the delights of former companies Some weep others make shew of tears the rest under a veil of sorrow make bones-fires in their hearts they seem all to appear about the bed and to sing this sad song of S. Augustine Aug. Confes 6. 11. Dimittis ne nos a momento illo non erimus tecum ultra in aeternum Et a momento isto non licebit hoc illud ultra in aeternum Alas do you leave us and shall we hereafter meet no more together Farewel pleasing amities Adieu feasts adieu sports adieu loves This nor that will any longer be permitted from this moment for ever Behold another very slipperie and dangerous step notwithstanding you must leave it Death hasteneth and says Go from thy kinred In the last the body and flesh is presented which seems to say Ah my soul whither goest thou My dear hostess whither goest thou Thou hast hitherto so tenderly pampered me so pompously clothed me so wantonly cherished me I was thy Idol thy Paradise thy little Goddess and where will you put me into a grave with serpents and worms what shall I do there and what will become of me Behold a hard task principally for such of both sexes as have dearly loved their bodies like the Dutchess of Venice Damian opusc in instit ad Blanch. c. 11. The prodigality of a Venetian Ladie and her punishnent of whom Cardinal Petrus Damianus speaketh who was plunged into sensuality
period of thy life having bid adieu to the world and drawn the curtain between thee and creatures endeavour to be united as perfectly as is possible to thy Creatour First by good and perfect confession of the principal actions of all thy life Secondly by a most religious participation of thy viaticum in presence of thy friends in a manner the most sober well ordered edificative thou maist In the third place seasonably receiving extream unction thy self answering if it be possible to the prayers of the Church and causing to be read in the approaches of this last combate some part of the passion Lastly by the acts of faith hope charity and contrition I approve not the manner of some who make studied remonstrances to dying men as if they were in a pulpit nor of those who blow incessantly in their ears unseasonable words and make as much noise with the tongue as heretofore Pagans with their kettles in the eclipse of the Moon We must let those good souls depart without any disturbance in the shades of death S. Augustine would die in great silence desiring not to be troubled with lamentations nor visits for ten days together where having hanged some versicles of Psalms about his bed he fixed his dying eyes upon them with a sweetness most peacefull and so gave up the ghost It is good to say My God I believe assist my incredulitie I know my Crâ—do Domine adjuva incredulitatem meam Marc. 9. Scio quod Redemptor meus vivit c. Job 9. Si ambulavero in medio umbrae mortis non timebo mala quoniam tu mecum es Psal 22. Quid mihi est in coelo c. Psal 72. Quare tristis es anima mea c. Psal 83. Redeemer is living and that I shall see him in the same flesh which I at this present disarray Though I must walk into the shades of death I will fear nothing because Oh my God thou art with me What have I to desire in heaven and what would I of thee on earth My flesh and my heart are entranced in thee O the God of my heart and my portion for all eternitie Wherefore art thou so sad O my soul and why dost thou trouble me Turn now to thy rest because God hath afforded thee mercie Behold how the Virgin our Ladie died behold how Saint Lewis died behold how Saint Paula departed of whom Saint Hierom (a) (a) (a) Hier. ep 27. ad Eustoc Digitum ad â— tenens crucis signum pingebat in labiis Anima erumpere gestiens ipsum stridorem quo mortalis vita finitur in laudes convertebat said The holy Lady rendering up her life put her finger on her mouth as desirous to imprint the sign of the Cross upon it turning the gasps of death and last breath of the soul into the praises of God whom she so faithfully had served XVI MAXIM Of the Immortalitie of the SOUL THE PROPHANE COURT THE HOLY COURT Little care is to be had of the Soul after death so all be well with it in this life That we have an immortal Soul capable of happiness or unhappiness eternal 1. A Man who doubteth and questions the immortalitie of the Soul sheweth in the very beginning that he almost hath no soul that retaining nought but the substance of it to suffer he hath lost the lights and goodness which might crown it Never enter these thoughts into any man without making a tomb of flesh for his reason whilest he so flattering his body forgets all the excellencies of his soul We must here follow the counsel of ancient Sages when a Libertine will impugn a verity known by the onely light of nature it is not needfull to answer his absurdities but to lead him directly into the stall and to shut him up with beasts speaking unto him the sentence which the Prophet Daniel pronounced against Nebuchadnezzar Thou shalt hereafter be banished Sentence against the wicked Ejicient te ab hominibus cum bestiis ferisque erit habitatio tua Daniel 4. from the companie of men and thy abode shall be with beasts and savage creatures All speak and all dispute for the Maxim of the Holy Court and although we ought to have full obligation to faith which manifestly hath set this truth before us thereunto affixing all the order of our life and the principal felicity we hope for yet are we not a little enlightened with so many excellent conceits which learning furnisheth us withal upon it and which I will endeavour to abbreviate comprehending much in few words 2. I will then say for your comfort that it hath happened that an Heretick lost both of understanding and conscience having opposed the belief of Purgatory heresie being a beaten path to infidelity came to this point of folly as throughly to perswade himself that death ended all things and that these endeavours of prayers and ceremonies which we afford to the memory of the deceased were given to shadows He did all a wicked man might to tear himself from The belief of the immortalitie of the soul invincible Condemnation of impiety in the tribunal of nature himself and belie that which God made him but it was impossible for him as you shall see in considering the three chambers of justice wherein he was condemned First he entered into the Court before the tribunal of Nature and thought he saw a huge troup of all the learned men of the earth and all Nations of the universe who came to fall upon as a mighty cloud armed with fire and lightening My God said he what is this The great Tertullian Quod apud multos commune invenitur non est erratum sed traditum Tertul. said and it is true that verities which fall into the general understandings of all men as acknowledged avowed and confessed by all sorts of nations ought to be believed as by a decree of Nature The example thereof is evident For all men in the world believe that the whole is greater than a part that the superiour number exceedeth the inferiour That the father and mother should be honoured as the Authours of life That one must not do to another what he would not be done to himself And because every one understands and averreth this by the light of nature he would be thought a beast or a mad man who should contradict it Now from whence proceedeth it that the belief of the souls immortality holds the same place with these general Maxims although it be otherwise much transcendent above our sense If I regard the course of time and revolution Tertul. de testimonio animae of Ages from the beginning of the world one cannot assign any one wherein this faith hath not been published by words or actions correspondent to the life of the other world And if some depraved spirits have doubted it they were gain-said by publick voice by laws ceremonies customs protestations of Common-wealths of
Empires and Kingdoms where they took beginning If I look upon all the Nations of the earth so far distant in climates so divided in commerce so different in dispositions so contrary in opinions they all agree in this ray of the light of nature that there is a life of separated souls that there are punishments and rewards at the going out of the body It is the belief of Hebrews Chaldeans Persians Medes Babylonians Aegyptians Arabians Ethiopians Scythians Grecians ancient Gauls Romans and that which is most admirable after one hath roamed over Europe Africk Asia let him enter into the new worlds which nature hath divided from us by so mighty a mass of seas shelves rocks and monsters he findeth the faith of the souls immortality began there so soon as men It is observed to have been so publick with the ancient that they carried the marks thereof on their garments and inscribed it on their tombs Men of the best quality of Rome had little croissants Plutar. probl 71. on their shoes saith Castor to signifie their souls came from Heaven and were to return to Heaven after the death of the body and therefore there was not any thing in them which ought not to be celestial The like also is found of tombs where open Camerar gates were engraven on them to shew that after death all was not shut up from the soul but that it had passages into eternity All the most eminent Philosophers following the bright splendour of natural light although distant by the course of Ages parted into sects divided into so many different Maxims agreed in this as Mercurie Trismegistus Pythagoras Plato Aristotle Xenocrates Seneca Plutarch Maximus Tyriensis Jamblicus Themistius Epictetus and Cicero as may be seen in so many excellent Treatises which I might mention at large were they well enough known But if sometimes doubtfull passages occurre in Aristotle and Seneca hereupon were it not much better to judge them by so many perspicuous and illustrious sentences which they have upon the life of the other world than to censure them by some words insensibly escaped in discourse In which if some thing repugnant to our doctrine may be discovered it is to be understood of the sensitive and vegetative soul not the reasonable and intelligent which these Authours ever set aside as being celestial and divine 3. Never saith Plotinus was there a man of good Enu l. 7. c. 10. Nec vult improbus animâ—m immortalem esse ne ad conspectum Judicis aequi torquenduâ— veniat understanding amongst so many Writers who strove not for the immortality of the soul But if any one among them hath impugned it even in the darkness of Gentilism it hath been observed there ever was some disorder and impurity in his life which made him controvert his opinion to divert the apprehension of punishments due to his crimes That was it which Minutius Felix said I well know many Malunt enim extingui penitus quà m ad supplicia reservari pressed with a conscience guiltie of crimes rather desire to be nothing after their death than to be perswaded of it for they wish rather wholly to perish than to be reserved for their punishment He should make an annotation not a discourse who would here alledge all the authorities of the ancients which are very ordinary I satisfie my self with a most excellent passage of wise Quintilian who in the case of an enchanted sepulcher comprized all the doctrine of Gentiles upon this Article when he said Our Soul came from the same place from whence proceeded Animam inde venire unde rerum omniâ—â— authorem parentem spiritum ducimus nec interire nec solvi nec ullo mortalitatis affici fato sed quoties humani corporis carcerem effregerit exonerata membris mortalibus leâ—i se igne lustrâ—verit petere sedem inter astra the Eternal Spirit Authour and Father of all things to wit the true God and that this soul could neither be corrupted die nay nor feel the least touch of mortalitie common to corruptible things But at the passage out of the prison of bodie it was purged by fire and after this purgation it ascended to Heaven there to live happie Which is to be understood of good souls for polluted and impious are delivered to eternal torments by the consent of the wisest Gentiles Behold a man who in few words heaped together the belief of more than fourty Ages which preceded him touching the immortality of the soul Paradise Purgatory hell and that within the limits of the light of nature (a) (a) (a) Plato 1. de Legib. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato saith the same That our soul wears the liveries of the eternal Father which make it incorruptible Algazel in the book of nature That our soul being separated from the body shall subsist with the first Intelligence Maximus Tyriensis That that which we call death was the beginning of immortalitie Dionysius the Geographer forgat not in the worlds description the white Island whereinto it was held the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 souls of Heroes were carried Lawyers were not ignorant of it for when there is any speech of legacies to be distributed on the birth-day of the Testatour they avouch them to be legacies which must be given in perpetuity every year on the birth-day by reason that by death we enter into another nativitie which is that of glory To the very same the law of sepulchers hath relation which Marcel in l. cum quidam l. 23. de annuis legatis Theodosiis valent Novella de sepulehris tit 5. Scimus nec vana sides est solutâ—s membris animas habere sensum in originem suam spiritum redire coelestem Tertul. de testim animae saith We know and our faith is not in vain that souls discharged from bodies have understanding and that the spirit which is celestial returneth to its original From whence comes this consent so great so universal so authentical in a thing so sublime so alienated from sense so eminent but from the spirit of God Let us say with Tertullian in the book of the souls testimonie From whence proceeds it that those who will neither see nor hear Christians have the language of Christians I much suspect the consent of words in so great a disagreement of conversation 4. I am condemned in this first Court of justice Sentence of God upon the immortalitie of the soul said the Libertine But let us go along to the Tribunal of supernatural light and see what the divine Wisdom will affirm Let us follow the counsel of S. Ambrose He who made heaven teacheth us the mysteries Ambros in Symmachus Coeli mysterium doceâ—t nos Deâ—â— ipse qui condidit Cui magis de Deo quam Deo cre dam Vide August ep 4. ad Vincent Cui veritas comperta sine Deos cui Deus cognitus sine Christo 3 Reg. 17. Revertatur
another nature and return into elements but I who have no matter subsist by necessity absolutely entire and wholly incorruptible without suffering these changes Ask likewise thy understanding and it will repeat Radix intellectualitatis est immaterialitas Avicenna apud Caprâ—ol Modus operandi sequitur modum essendi The operations of the soul are admirable the philosophical Axiom The workman is known by the work by the operation of every thing its nature is discovered from whence ensueth that if the manner which thy soul useth in its functions and operations be wholly spiritual we may truly say it is all spirit all indivisible and wholly incorruptible Now where is it that it worketh not with a tenderness and admirable spirituality First in the separations it maketh of universal natures in numbers relations proportions orders correspondencies harmonies in things eternal and divine Secondly in judgements discourses disputations comparisons applications which it maketh on every thing Thirdly in the considerations and reflections it hath on it self yea over all its actions almost in infinitum If it did not work spiritually how could it harbour in the memory so many seas rivers mountains valleys cities and castles How could it put so many places into one place not holding any place If it operated not spiritually and indivisibly how could it be whole in each of its actions The body because it is body and quantitative and divisible what it doth with one part it doth not necessarily with another what it toucheth with the hand it doth not necessarily touch with the foot but the soul is all in its action If the soul understand all the soul understandeth If the soul will all the soul willeth If the soul suffer all the soul suffereth For it is in an indivisible That August l. de spiritu anima c. 19. Anima in quibuscumque suis motibus tota est Manilius l. 4. Astron I am nusquam natura latet pervidimus omnem was it which S. Augustine judiciously spake The soul is all in each of its motions Mortal things can do nothing immortal But our soul to teach us its immortality doth wonderfull works which fear not the sithe of time the wheel of inconstancy nor power of death it our-lives stones mettals Aegyptian Pyramids and the worlds seven wonders It is a strange thing to see a humane spirit which taketh away the veil from nature and looketh into the bottom and penetrateth into the very marrow It entereth into these great labyrinths of essences it defineth divideth distinguisheth severeth it appropriateth maketh marvellous dissections mounteth above the tracts of the Sun and time scoreth out the course of the Heavens the periods of the Stars It deciphereth eclipses to an instant and foregoeth by understanding those great celestial bodies whose motions are more swift than wind or thunder From thence it expatiateth into the air there to hear the winds blow rain pour down tempests roar lightnings to flash rain-bowes and crowns arise It descendeth into the deep caverns of the earth there to meditate on the mettals It floateth on the sea it reckoneth the veins of the abyss it keeps a register of so many birds and fishes so many terrestrial creatures so many worms and serpents so many hearbs and plants All this great frame of nature passeth through its consideration from the cedars of Lybanus to the hyssop It createth sciences it inventeth arts it findeth out an infinite number of devices It governeth the great bodies of Kingdoms and Common-wealths with passages of incomparable prudence Arms and laws cures of maladies commerce navigations industries of mechanicks and finally a million of rarities are produced from the sources of the wit of man who cannot yet understand his own worth Besides what is more spiritual more independent on matter than the action of the will than free-will which beareth the beginning of its motion and elevation within it self not borrowing it from any What is more divine than to see a heart more capable than abysses which cannot be satiated with all the things in the world The plant is contented with a little dew the horse with a few oats and hay because animal and vegetative nature is limited to certain small quantities But the immaterial soul as it is in some sort infinite bendeth to infinitie (a) (a) (a) Omnibus fere ingenita est fame post mortem expido Et unde anima affectaret aliquid quod velit post mortem si ribil de postero sciret Tertul. de testim animae It speaketh of Heaven as of its mansion and of God as of the object of its felicity It desireth to live ever it taketh incomparable care for posteritie it interesseth it self in the future which it would never do were it not its hereditary possession Sleep which tameth Lions cannot overcome it It learns its immortality even in the image of death there it is where it incessantly worketh travelleth by sea and land negotiateth converseth sporteth rejoyceth suffereth hunteth after a thousand objects both good and bad and knoweth says Eusebius that having no end in its motion it hath none in its life And to conclude in a word what is there more admirable for the proof of our immortality than this synderesis this conscience which is in the body contrary to the body and a perpetual enemy of senfual nature which pleadeth which questioneth which strikes us with remorse upon the rememberance of sin What is there less corporal than a soul which can see its body burned flesh pulled off with pincers and members torn piece-meal one after another to maintain and preserve a belief which it judgeth to be true as did the Martyrs Never should we behold such a combat between the soul body were they not two pieces quite different the one whereof is sublime spiritual immortal the other low frail and mortal We likewise daily see how the soul wholly retired within it self as it happeneth in apprehensive speculations and raptures is more strong and knowing than ever being touched by some ray from commerce with Intelligencies to which it hath so much relation We find by experience that upon the declining Eaâ— decrescente corpore augeri maxime videmus Aenesius Illa sine hoc vinit melius hoc sine ista nee pejus Claudius Marcus l. 3. de statu animae c. 3. Manifest conviction age when the body shrinketh it hath much more vigour in counsels and judgements which giveth us assurance it cannot any way participate of the corruption of the flesh Who will consider the effects of the soul in three principal things which are Intelligence Sanctitie and Courage shall find all therein is divine And if the wicked smothering these gifts of God will put themselves willingly into the rank of bruit beasts do they not well deserve the place of devils 6. Finally we say we have a soul immortal because God both can and will make it such He can for he is Omnipotent and it is not
must there perhaps long time remain to burn and wear off so many ordures as our soul contracted in worldly affections if we make account to decline the eternity of torments I am amazed when I reflect on the remisness of Catholicks as well in the provision for their own safety as the comfort of their bretherens souls And when I have well weighed the course and progress of this great neglect I find it hath two sources The first is called infidelity the second stupidity which I resolve to convince in two passages of this discourse It is true that after this direfull heresie blown by the breath of the infernal serpent hath for this last Age opposed the verities of our faith besides the lost souls it daily takes away in the torrent of corruption it hath destilled into the minds of Catholicks faintness and infidelities which now adays turmoyl irresolute wits upon many articles and namely that which is now our present object Purgatorie will some Libertine say amidst the fumes of wine and good cheer is not so hot as folk talk Who ever came back to tell us news of it God is mercifull think you he takes delight to burn his children and to cut off the price of his Sons passion who satisfied for our sins Young souls hear this and suck in poison by the ear which choaks their belief and killeth the exercise of good works What shall I say against these infidelities and floating opinions of feeble Catholicks It is not my purpose to cast my self upon a subtile controversie which doth nothing but hale truth hither and thither I will loose no time to touch at many passages I onely to the matter express two reasons drawn from two lights that of nature and the other of faith which are able to evict confession of truth from a man who hath never so little shame or brain 2. It is a strange thing to see the great consent of all Purgatorie proved by the light of nature Ages which agree in a pretention of purgations of the soul so strong powerfull that those lights of nature speak as understandingly as if they were written with the rays of the Sun All the Gentiles who lived out of the law knew not how to gainsay this doctrine For they were sensible of the noble extraction of their soul and knew it was defiled by the body and by sensual works Behold the cause why they tied themselves to The opinion of the Ancients concerning the purgation of souls feeble elements to purifie it one while washing themselves in the streams of fountains another while passing through flames and sometimes seeking other ways to cleanse themselves from pollutions of the flesh But it was a pitifull thing they found prophanation even in sacrifice They were not content to purge themselves in this life but extend it to the souls of the dead constantly believing they stood in need of remedies to free themselves from bodily stains Theophilus Patriark of Antioch in the book he directed to one named Antiochus saith the Gentiles took out of the Scripture all they wrote of punishments in the other life And S. Augustine observeth that having this August 21. de civitate Dei c. 13. idea that all stains of the soul proceeded from the earth they employed the other three elements to purge them as he proveth by texts of the Ancients Synesius Synesius epist ad Joan. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 likewise thought there remained certain visible spots in the soul which made it appear they were the crimes wherewith it was contaminated in the body which notwithstanding agrees not very well with the truth we hold of the spirituality of the same soul And I find he spake in this text more like a Platonist than a Christian The Hebrews the Aegyptians Grecians and Romanes all contended for prayers for the dead and the truth of purgatorie The Hebrews three times in the Morus de Missa An excellent observation upon the belief of Purgatorie among the Hebrews Apoc. 21. 16. Civitas in quadro posita est year celebrated the feast of the dead and their Priest mounting up into a chair made expresly and ceremoniously four-square to represent the Citie of the blessed according to S. John rehearsed aloud and audibly the names of the dead to recommend them to the prayers of such as were present prayers so familiar amongst them that they wrote them upon tombs instead of Epitaphs in these terms SIT ANIMA EIUS COLLIGATA IN FASCICULO VIVENTIUM let his soul be bound up in the posey of the living As one would say all the souls of Saints were as an odoriferous posey whereof every elect constituted a flower What is this but to make stones speak against impietie What shall I say of the Aegyptians that were so Notable purgation of Aegyptians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 impressed with the opinion that souls must be purged in the other life in so much as they had been drenched in voluptuous pleasures of the flesh that in the funerals of the dead having opened the bodie they took the heart out of the breast and put it into a little casket then on the bank of Nilus where ordinarily Plutarch in convivio septem Sapientum tombs were erected a herald holding the casket and shewing it to the eyes of heaven protested before all there present the deceased now in question had lived piously and according to the laws of his Ancestours that if he had offended through bodily pleasures they wished his soul might be as well cleansed as they went about to purge the stomack the instrument of the lusts of the living thereupon they threw it into Nilus Behold these poor Pagans how they were moved with a touch from God which cannot lye who says unto them the dead must be purged but as for the rest they know not how Shall I speak of the Grecians And know we not that Plato the prime man of their Nation in his Phedon spake so perspicuously for purgatory that he seemed to have been bred in the Christian schools I will conclude with the Romans And can we be ignorant how in the beginning of the Church under the Emperour Domitian when as yet some Apostles lived Quintilian a most renowned Oratour making Qintil Declam 10. an oration in the City of Rome in a certain pleading concerning a sepulcher which had been enchanted by magick protested in terms most express the truth of purgatory saying The soul being purged of fire went to take place in heaven as we shewed also in the sixteenth maxim If you also require authorities of Pagans who have seen what Christians practised adde to all this that Julius a very ancient Authour speaking Julius Florileg l. 3. of the death of a Lady named Podon observed in plain terms that her husband who was one of the most ancient Christians made offerings for her which he called Tertul. in exhort ad castitat Jam repete apud
the first book of the sermon made on the mountain interpreteth all that of punishments in the other life When in the fourth Chapter of Tobie it is written of bread to be put upon the graves of the dead S. Chrysostom Homily thirty two upon S. Matthew referreth this passage to the custom of the ancient Church which called both the Priests and the poor purposely to pray for the dead When mention is made in the fourth of Kings of a solemn fast made for Saul Bede makes no question but it was for the quiet of his soul For S. Paul sheweth in the first to the Corinthians fifteenth Chapter that it was the custom to mortifie and macerate ones self for the dead and the second of Machabees saith it is a holy and a wholesome thing to pray for them Who knew more and who saw more in all this than the great S. Augustine who on the thirty seventh Psalm hath these words My God make me such in my life that I may not Aug. in Psal 37. Talem me reddas cui emendatorio igne non sit opus need the fire of Purgatorie after my death Hath the Roman Church hired all these so ancient Fathers to write such texts in its behalf Is it not a shame that a brainless Libertine with the eyes of a bat should mock at all these lights 4. Doubtless will some say these reasons are forcible The manner of Purgatory but I understand not where this purgatorie is and how souls are there tormented To that I answer the Church which walketh reservedly in its ordinances ever grounded on the word of God onely obligeth us to hold as an article of faith a third place for the purgation of souls which is neither Paradise nor hel As for circumstances of the place and manner Nyss de anima resurrectione Chrysost homil de Beatorum premiis Beda l. 3. hist Angl. â—9 of sensible torments it hath decryed nothing thereof as an article of our belief School Divines ordinarily set purgatorie in a subterranean place which is very probable It may also be that souls may be purged in the air in the sphear of fire and in divers parts of the elementary world according to the opinion of S. Gregory Nyssen S. Chrysostom and S. Gregory the great It dependeth on the prerogative of Gods power and the ministery of Angels As for punishments it is most certain the first consisteth Miris sed veris modis August in suspension from the sight of God a matter very dolorous to a soul which being out of the body far absented from its source is as would the globe of the earth be were it out of its place or like unto fire shut up in the bowels of mount Aetna It naturally desireth to rejoyn it self to God and the least retardation it feels from such felicitie is most sensible unto it It mourneth to be deprived from an infinite comfort when the thirst is most ardent and to see it self bereaved by its own fault yea such an one as might easily have been avoided The second is the pain of sense which is exercised by fire the great executioner of Gods justice and sometimes also by other wayes known to his providence as S. Bonaventure and holy Bede teach us If you say you cannot comprehend how a material thing worketh on a spiritual I ask of you again this soul which is in your bodie is it of any other kind than those in purgatorie And yet see you not how it daily suffereth in the bodie See you not how all the dolours of mortal flesh rebound back again by an amorous simpathy and a counter-buff wholly necessarie to the bottom of our soul And yet you ask how it can suffer Is it not true our soul containeth in it the root of understanding all sensible knowledge framed and accomplished by the help of the bodies organs Is it not true that being in the bodie it understandeth and feeleth with dependance on the bodie But separated doth it loose this root of understanding and knowledge Verily no For it then understandeth with independence on the body To speak also according to the opinion of some it may feel out of the body not onely by a knowledge naked and intellectual but experimental in some sort not unlike the understanding exercised in the bodie But there is no more corporal organ which is as the chariot of feeling What importeth it God by his power cannot he supply the organ of bodie and necessitate the soul immediately to feel the sharpness of fire as if it were still in the bodie And which is more some Divines think there would be no inconvenience to say the soul were revested by God with a bodie of air as in a sheath wherewith it should have Corink de purgatorio p. 529. the same sympathy it had before with the bodie it informed and this bodie being incorruptibly burnt as that of the damned should cause a painful quality to arise to torment it which I notwithstanding think not so probable But I rather believe the fire not being contrarie of its nature to the spirit might for all that be chosen and appointed by the singular disposition of providence to be unto the soul an afflicting sign in that it representeth to it in its flames the anger of an offended God as it shall be said in the subsequent Maxim Alas O Christians God grant we may be ignorant of this eternal and temporal fire and may rather be purged in this life than expect it in the other 5. When I come to the second point of this discourse Against the dulness of those who understand it not I cannot wonder enough at our stupidity lethargy we believe purgatorie and bely our belief by our works What may we hope in the other life living so negligently and remislely God is mercifull Behold our ordinarie saying But see we not in Scriptures the hand of God armed with fiery tempests over the infamous Cities of Sodom and Gomorrha and the bodies which sacrificed themselves in the flames of prodigious luxurie roasted and broyled under the breath of the anger of the Omnipotent See we not a whole world buried in the waters of a deluge waves of the Ocean rushing as in a citie sacked on the heads of offenders the sea becoming altogether the executioner and tomb of sinners See we not those beautifull Angels so beloved of God and so worthy of favour which also came most resplendent out of his hands lost by one thought of pride scorched and precipitated into dungeons of eternal flames Think we to be more to God than those cities replenished with an infinite number of souls than a whole world than legions of Angels Let us not flatter our selves by a presumptuous confidence of a mercy not due to a negligence so faint and dissolute The truth is no uncleanness enetreth into Paradise The truth is the eyes of the supream Judge cannot endure pollution
Libertine thou dost ask how this material fire burneth spiritual souls It is one of the most unfortunate sciences not to understand hell but by proper experience to dispute the activity of a fire as true as the mouth of God and unfaithfully deny on earth what must everlastingly be learned under earth Algazel the Arabian Avicen said a damned soul suffers no other pain but the object of its eternal perdition Algazel and Avicen behold two goodly Authours to oppose the wisdom of the eternal word I am of opinion we learn from devils how to believe in God and derive our Theology from the lips of the wicked and our belief from infidelity as if one should prostitute a Vestal to a lost man Alas wretched spirit how worthy art thou of compassion when not satisfied to play the Epicure in thy manners thou wilt divide thy Libertinism with Philosophy If this discourse which ought to be dedicated to holy horrour of Gods judgements Gulielm Paris de universo did permit farther question one might shew with the great Bishop of Paris that a damned soul kept in a prison of fire retains all the same senses as if it were with the bodie in the middest of flames since we feel in this life such vivacity onely from the imagination that it in us produceth the same effects which the presence of objects doth And this Doctour witnesseth he hath seen and known men who needed no other purgation but the sight of a medecine But if the sole idea do thus what will the real impression of fire work upon a soul which raised by the Divine power above its ordinarie force leaves a form and a character as if a hot-iron were stamped on the flesh We might deduce with S. Thomas Turrecremata Cajetan Isolam and Ocham all the exquisite dolours of a soul that feeleth it self imprisoned as in a cage of fire and stormeth seeing it self not onely deprived of sweet liberty but tormented by an imperious element destined by God for its punishment by extraordinary ways by a suppliment of the antipathy of senses and which shamefully wrack it as if a person of eminent quality were insolently abused by some slave come from the Moors or Arabia We should likewise set before you with other Divines See S. August 21. Citie of God S. Gregory in the 4. of his dialogues S. Thomas contra Gentes l. 4. c. 90. Suar. part 3. and the R. P. Theophilus Raynaud in his natural Theology where this question is excellently handled the quality of a prodigious deformity caused by fire raised above its condition which extreamly afflicteth an immortal spirit then especially when it understands the excellent gifts wherewith God had endowed it the favours and glories it might pretend unto this most blessed eternity One might say with many other modern Doctours that the soul being the root of sensitive qualities is no less tormented by objects dissenting from sense than as if sense were present and hath a spiritual sense by the help of which it trieth and feeleth the fire with an experimental knowledge wholly like the action of sense All these opinions might be argued with many instancies and reasons but it being not according to the scope of this design I say in one word with S. Gregory the Great There is made in the soul from a visible fire a heat and an invisible pain It is true the soul separated from the body hath not a natural antipathy and disagreement from fire but what this imperious element cannot have remaining within the limits of nature it obtaineth by a particular ordinance and disposition of God who chooseth and expresly deputeth it to serve him as an instrument and a sign in this action and to be as an eternal messenger of his anger against a damned soul Now as the Sovereign Judge of the world gave life to Cain for a punishment so according to S. Ambrose he engraved by the same means a disastrous mark on his person which continually set before the eyes of this fratricide the image of his crime and the Divine justice In such manner that oftentimes turmoyled during life in the miseries and confusions of his bruitish spirit so soon as he represented to himself this sign he acknowledged the decree of God who prolonged his life to lengthen his calamities So this Divine hand Omnipotent in its effects imprinteth fire on a damned soul as the true token of his justice the character of his anger the centinel and executioner of his eternal will who beareth the face of an incensed God with all his decrees in his own flames who presseth and lieth heavy on this miserable thing separated from the sight of God and resigned through an eternal malediction to the life of divels 2. Thou must here understand O Reader this Foundation of the eternity of the pains of the damned truth touching the eternity of the pains of the damned confirmed by express texts of holy Scripture and the decision of the universal Church and by all Ages is grounded upon the justice of God ever to be adored by our wills although impenetrable to the weakness of our understanding and for confirmation hereof I think we should not omit the reasons of S. Gregory S. Bernard and S. Thomas before we produce that which to me seems the most formal for although they are not all necessarie in their conclusions yet they fail not to furnish us with much light and to give matter of true piety which is the butt whereat we aim in this discourse You O sinner demand why is a deadly sin strucken and punished with an eternal pain I answer you first with S. Gregory 1. Reason of S. Gregory the Great that if an eternal malice be proved in sin justice by all reasonable ways requireth the chastizement of it to be eternal for an eternity of crimes Non transeunt opera nostra ut videantur sed temporalia quaeque velut aeternitatis semina jaciuntur must be counterballanced with an eternity of miseries Now sin in some sort is eternal and in some manner extends beyond our life which alone is capable of merit or demerit For tell me those stones and kernels of pomegranades and apple-trees and all other trees created in the first week of the world were they temporary or eternal Temporary you will say for they fell before the tree And yet behold they propagate to our time and live in as many trees as there are of their kind on earth for these five thousand years or thereabouts The like is it with the actions you do at this present For they seem to pass in a moment yet are they so many seeds of eternity Reader understand well what I say behold here a secret wherewith daily to acquire a rich treasure of merits make me all your virtues as eternal by the sincerity of your intentions as they in effect are such in their consequence When you do a good work be it prayer alms
believe them Wert not thou mad Cruel ambition thou hast given me the stroke of death Disastrous riches you have forged gyves which now fetter me Loves pettie vipers of inhumane hearts you ceased not to breath and enkindle sparks which made these fires for me Wicked companies charming companies traiterous companies you were the chains of my ruin O why was not the womb of my Mother that served for the first bed of my conception the Sepulcher of my birth O why the stars which predominated at my coming into the world in lieu of their benign aspects threw they not darts of poyson against me Why did not the earth swallow me in my Cradle Must I live one sole moment to live an enemy of God eternally O God what an abyss is thy judgement Let us draw let us draw aside the curtain of silence thy spirit can no longer endure me nor my pen maintain the conceptions of my heart 6. It seems enough is said to shew the horrour of mortal sin which alone is the cause and procurer of Hell Think serously on all I have said and all I have omitted and if you desire to eschew the unhappiness of a reasonable creature which I have expressed observe I pray perpetually and inviolably these things which I would if I might inscribe on your hearts in unremoveable characters The first is that you must diligently seek to fore-arm your selves against a certain liberty of heart which neither feareth sin hell nor evils of the other life liberty of heart which swayeth now adays throughout the world of which Sathan makes use to blunt the darts of heaven and all the incitements to the fear of God as being the true way of athiesm and an undoubted note of damnation But contrariewise frame unto your self a conscience termed timorous a conscience filially and lovingly fearfull which layeth hold without scruple and disturbance even of the least offences and imperfections Fear is the mother of safety and the means Nemo saepius opprimitur quà m qui nihil timet frequentissimum calamitatis initium securitas Velleius not to fear hell at all is to fear it always In the second place you must effectualy apprehend frequent relapse into mortal sins which is the second note of reprobation For when a creature suddenly returneth into enormous sins and playeth as between Paradise and hell it is a sign he harboureth in this evil heart a plain contempt of God and an eternal root of sin the sprout whereof is an everlasting punishment In the third place you must still live in the state wherein you would die and often to call your soul to an account of your actions Ah my soul If you were at this present instant to dislodge out of this world are you in a state to be presented before the inevitable throne of the Sovereign Judge Have you not some touch of mortal sin Is there not some restitution to make some satisfaction not accomplished Rests there not in your heart some blemish of evil company worldly love which slackeneth your purposes Let us break let us break these chains there is neither pleasure money nor honour can hold You must seek salvation and say O God of mercy O most mild Saviour I embrace thy Altars and implore thy clemencie deliver my poor soul from the snares of Sathan and eternal death at the great day when heaven and earth shall flie before thy Justice I am neither greater than David nor more holy than S. Paul not to think of Hell All my members quake and bloud waxeth cold in my veins when I reflect on it O Jesus O love of eternal mountains deliver not a soul over to this infernal beast which will have no lips but to praise and confess thee eyes but to behold thee feet but to run after thy commandments nor hands but eternally to serve thee The eighteenth EXAMPLE upon the eighteenth MAXIM Of Judgement and of the pains of Hell ALl affairs of the World end in one great affair of the other life which is that of the judgement God will give upon our soul at its passage out of the body A heart which hath no apprehension thereof unless it have some extraordinarie revelation of its glorie is faithless or stupid to extremity The simple idea's of this day make the most confident to quake not so much as pictures but have given matter of fear and if some sparks of knowledge touching that which passeth at the tribunal of God come unto us it ever produceth good effects in souls which had some disposition to pietie Curopalates relateth that whilest Theodora possessed Curopalates Scilizza the Empire of Constantinople with her son who was yet in minoritie one named Methodius an excellent Painter an Italian by Nation and religious by profession went to the Court of the Bulgarian King named Bogoris where he was entertained with much favour This Prince was yet a Pagan and though trial had been made to convert him to faith it succeeded not because his mind employed on pleasures and worldly affairs gave very little access to reason He was excessively pleased with hunting and as some delight in pictures to behold what they love so he appointed Methodius to paint an excellent piece of hunting in a Palace which he newly had built and not to forget to pencil forth some hydeous monsters and frightful shapes The Painter seeing he had a fair occasion to take his opportunity for the conversion of this infidel instead of painting an hunting-piece for him made an exquisite table of the day of judgement There upon one part was to be seen heaven in mourning on the other the earth on fire the Sea in bloud the throne of God hanging in the clouds environed with infinite store of legions of Angels with countless numbers of men raised again fearfully expecting the decree of their happiness or latest misery Below were the devils in divers shapes of hydeous monsters all ready to execute strange punishments upon souls abandoned to their furie The abyss of Hell was open and threw forth many flames with vapours able to cover heaven and infect the earth This draught being in hand the Painter still held the King in expectation saying he wrought an excellent picture for him and which perhaps might be the last master-piece of his hand In the end the day assigned being come he drew aside the curtain and shewed his work It is said the King at first stood some while pensive not being able to wonder enough at this sight Then turning towards Methodius what is this said he The religious man took occasion thereupon to tell him of the judgements of God of punishments and rewards in the other life wherewith he was so moved that in a short time he yielded himself to God by a happy conversion If draughts and colours have this effect what do not visions and undoubted revelations which were communicated to many Saints concerning affairs of the other life Every one knows the
sin but by resigning her self to death But on the contrarie you observe some of the Gentiles who professed the happiness of the soul in the other life and the resurrection even on their tombs We at this day read in Rome the Epitaph of Lucius and Flavius two friends who witnessed In caelo spiritus unus adest Vt in die censorio sine impedimento facilius resurgam Brisson They would have but one grave on earth since their souls make but one in Heaven And that of Aulus Egnatius who maketh mention That all his life-time he learned nothing but to live and die from whence he now deriveth the joys of beatitude And that of Felicianus who having led a solitarie life saith He did so to rise again with the more facility being freed from trouble at the day of Judgement Where the Interpreters under this word Trouble understand his wife What voice of nature is this What touch of God What impression of verity In the Evangelical law besides the passages of S. Matthew 22. of S. John 5. of S. Paul 1. to the Corinthians 15. the Saviour of the world remained fourty days upon earth after his resurrection that he might be seen reviewed touched handled and manifested to more than five hundred people assembled together as writeth S. Paul in the fore-alledged place of purpose most deeply to engraft the mysterie of resurrection in the hearts of the faithfull 2. And as for that which concerneth reason this belief was acknowledged to be so plausible and conform to humane understanding that never hath there been any who doubted it were it not some hereticks furious infamous and devillish as the Gnosticks Carpocratians Priscillianists Bardesanites Albigenses and such like enemies of God and nature or Epicures and Libertines who finding themselves guilty of many crimes have rather desired not to be perswaded of the end of souls and bodies to burie their punishments with their life For which cause they framed gross and sensual reasons touching this truth unworthily blaspheming that which their carnal spirit could not comprehend What impossibility should there be in resurrection Reason of possibility to an Omnipotent hand We must necessarily say it comes either from matter or form the final or efficient cause It cannot come from matter since our bodies being consumed by death the first matter still remaineth and after a thing is once created never is it meerly reduced into nothing Shall it be said that God who made thee of nothing cannot make thee again of the remainders of matter and that he hath less power over dust than over nothing The Philosopher Heraclitus saith birth is a river which never dries up because nature is in the world as a workman in his shop who with soft clay makes and unmakes what he list Think we the God of nature cannot have the like power over our flesh that nature hath over the worlds Proceeds the impediment from form It cannot since the soul which is the form of bodie remaineth incorruptible and hath a very strong inclinatiion to its re-union Proceeds it from the end No since Resurrection is so the end of man that without Leoin l. 2. de mirac c. 52. it he cannot obtain beatitude for which he is created perfect felicitie being not onely the good of the soul but of the whole man Will then impediment arise from the efficient Wonders of nature cause And is it not an indignity to deny to the Sovereign power of god the restauration of a body he made being we daily see so many wonders in nature whereof we can yield no reason Why doth a liquor extracted from herbs by a certain distillation never corrupt Why is water seven times purged not subject to corruption Why doth amber draw a straw along which other mettals repel Why do the lees of wine poured to the root of vines make them fruitfull How with so base ingredients are so goodly and admirable glasses made Why do men by the help of a fornace and a limbeck daily make of dead and putrified things so wonderous essences What prostitution of understanding to think that the great Architect having made our bodies to pass through this great fornace of the world and through all the searces his divine providence ordaineth cannot render them more beautifull and resplendent than ever What should hinder him Length of time There is no prescription for him Multitude of men That no more troubles him than millions of waves do the Ocean since all Nations before him are but one drop of dew The condition of glorions bodies COnsider I pray the state of glorified bodies and observe that there commonly are four things irksom to a mortal bodie sorrow weight weakness and deformity These four scourges of our mortality shall cease in the Resurrection being banished by gifts quite contrarie to their defects We may truly say among the miseries of bodie there is not almost any comparable to pains and maladies which are in number so divers in their continuance so tedious in their impressions so sharp that it is not without reason an Ancient said health was the chief of Divinities and an incomparable blessing For what is a soul inforced perpetually to inhabit a sickly bodie but a Queen in a tottering and ruinous house but a bird of Paradise in an evil cage and an Intelligence tied to attend on a sick man As the bodie very sound serves the soul for a house of pleasure so that which is continually crazy is a perpetual prison Now observe that against the encounters of all sorts of pains and maladies God communicateth to glorified bodies the chief gift which is impassibility wherewith they shall be exempt not onely Apoc. 21. Abstergeâ— Deus omnem lachrymain ab oculis eorum c. Isai 49. Non esurient neque sitient neque percutiet eos aestus from death but from hunger thirst infirmities and all the diseases of this frail and momentarie life O God what a favour is the banishment from so many stones gravels gouts nephreticks collicks sciaticks from so many pains of teeth head heart so many plagues and sundry symptoms of malladies which afflict a humane body This good if maturely weighed will be thought very great by such as have some experience of the incommodities of this life Adde also thereunto a singular Theological reason that this gift shall not be in us by a simple privation as the non-essence which the Epicureans imagined but by a flourishing quality communicated by God to our bodies and which shall have the force to exclude all whatsoever is contrarie and painful onely admitting the sweet impressions of light colours melodies odours and other things pleasing to sense Note I say quality Scot. in 4. distinct 49. q. 13. Durand d. 15. 44. q. 4. num 13. for I am not ignorant Divines dispute concerning the true cause of the impassibility of a glorified bodie and that some place it in a virtue and external
in grace and enjoy in the other thy eternal joys in the bosom of Glorie So be it The fourteenth SECTION Of the time proper for spiritual reading BElieve me you shall do well at this time of the morning when your mind is freest from earthly thoughts to use some spiritual reading sometimes of the precepts sometimes of the lives of the Apostles and Saints calling to mind that saying of Isidore in his Book of Sentences He that will live in the exercise of God's presence must pray and read frequently When you pray you speak to God and when you read God speaks to you Good sermons and good books are the sinews of virtue Observe you not how colours as Philosophie teacheth have a certain light which in the night time is obscured and buried as it were in matter But as soon as the Sun riseth and diâ—playeth his beams on so many beauties that languished in darkness he awakes them and makes them appear in their true lustre So may we truly say that we have all some seeds of knowledge which would be quite choaked as it were with the vapours arising â—rom our passions did not the wisdom of God which speaketh in the holy Scripture and in good spiritual books stir them up and give them light and vigour to enflame the course of our actions to virtue Always before you take a book in hand invoke the Father of light to direct your reading Read little if you have but little leisure but with attention and make a pause at some sentence which all that day may come into your memory You will find that good books teach nothing but truth command nothing but virtue and promise nothing but happiness The fifteenth SECTION An Abstract of the doctrine of Jesus Christ to be used at the Communion JOhn 14. 6. I am the way the truth and the life no man cometh to the Father but by me Mark 1. 15. The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand Repent ye and believe the Gospel Matth. 11. 28. Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest 29. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls 30. For my yoke is easie and my burden is light Matth. 7. 12. All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them for this is the Law and the Prophets John 15. 12. This is my commandment that ye love one another as I have loved you 13. Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friend 14. Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you Matth. 5. 44. Love your enemies bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you 45. That you may be the children of your Father which is in Heaven For he maketh his Sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust Luke 5. 35. Be ye mercifull as your Father also is mercifull 23. Judge not and ye shall not be judged condemn not and ye shall not be condemned forgive and it shall be forgiven 30. Give and it shall be given unto you Luke 12. 15. Take heed and beware of covetousness for a mans life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth Matth. 7. 13. Enter ye in at the strait-gate for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be which go in thereat 14. Because strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find it Matth. 10. 38. He that taketh not his Cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me John 16. 33. In the world ye shall have tribulation but be of good cheer I have overcome the world Matth. 28. 20. Lo I am with you alway even unto the end of the world Matth. 26. 41. Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation the spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak Luke 12. 36. Let your loyns be girded about and your lights burning 37. And ye your selves like unto men that wait for the Lord when he will return from the wedding that when he cometh and knocketh they may open unto him immediately Luke 21. 34. Take heed to your selves lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfetting and drunkenness and cares of this life John 5. 28. The hour is coming in the which all that are in the grave shall hear his voice 29. And shall come forth they that have done good unto the resurrection of life and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation The sixteenth SECTION What is to be done at the Celebration of the Sacrament AT the Celebration of the Sacrament you shall endeavour to stir up in your self a great reverence of this incomparable Majestie who cometh to fill the Sacrifice with his presence and say O God dispose me to offer unto Thee the merits of the life and passion of thy well-beloved Son At this present I offer up to thee in the union thereof my understanding my will my memorie my thoughts my words my works my sufferings and consolations my good my life all that I have and all that I can ever pretend unto Afterwards at the Preface when the Priest inviteth all to lift up their hearts to God or when the Angelical Hymn called by the Ancients Trisagion is pronounced may be said as followeth being taken out of the Liturgies of S. James and S. Chrysostom TO thee the Creatour of all things visible and invisible To thee the Treasure of eternal blessings To thee the Fountain of life and immortalitie To thee the absolute Lord of the whole world be given as is due all praise honour and worship Let the Sun Moon and Quires of Stars the Air Earth Sea and all that is in the Celestial Elementarie world bless thee Let thy Jerusalem thy Church from the first-born thereof alreadie enrolled in Heaven glorifie thee Let the elect souls of Apostles Martyrs and Prophets Let Angels Arch-Angels Thrones Dominations Principalities Powers and Virutes Let the dreadfull Cherubims and Seraphins perpetually sing the Hymn of thy triumphs Holy holy holy Lord God of hosts Heaven and Earth are full of thy glorie Save us O thou that dwellest in Heaven the palace of thy Majestie O Lord Jesus thou art the everlasting Son of the Father When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man thou clothedst thy self with flesh in the Virgins womb When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death thou didst open unto us the Kingdom of Heaven Thou sittest at the right hand of God in the glory of the Father and shalt judge both the quick and the dead O Lord help thy servants whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious bloud
I eat drink sleep when I do business when I am both in conversation and solitude Whither shall this poor soul go which thou hast thrown into a body so frail in a world so corrupt and amongst the assaults of so many pernicious enemies Open O Lord thine eyes for my guidance and compassionate my infirmities without thee I can do nothing and in thee I can do all that I ought Give me O Lord a piercing eye to see my danger and the wings of an Eagle to flie from it or the heart of a Lion to fight valiantly that I may never be wanting in my duty and fidelity to thee I ow all that I am or have to thy gracious favour and I will hope for my salvation not by any proportion of my own virtues which are weak and slender but by thy boundless liberalities which onely do crown all our good works The Gospel upon Munday the first week of Lent out of Saint Matthew 25. Of the Judgement-Day ANd when the Son of man shall come in his Majesty and all the Angels with him then shall be sit upon the seat of his Majesty And all Nations shall be gathered together before him and he shall separate them one from another as the Pastour separateth the sheep from the goats And shall set the sheep at his right hand but the goats at his left Then shall the King say to them that shall be at his right hand Come ye blessed of my Father possess you the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world For I was hungred and you gave me to eat I was athirst and you gave me to drink I was a stranger and you took me in naked and you covered me sick and you visited me I was in prison and you came to me Then shall the just answer him saying Lord when did we see thee an hungred and fed thee athirst and gave thee drink and when did we see thee a stranger and took thee in or naked and covered thee or when did we see thee sick or in prison and came to thee And the King answering shall say to them Amen I say to you as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren you did it to me Then shall he say to them also that shall be at his left hand Get you away from me you cursed into fire everlasting which was prepared for the Devil and his Angels For I was an hungred and you gave me not to eat I was athirst and you gave me not to drink I was a stranger and ye took me not in naked and you covered me not sick and in prison and you did not visit me Then they also shall answer him saying Lord when did we see thee an hungred or athirst or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not minister to thee Then shall he answer them saying Amen I say to you as long as you did it not to one of these lesser neither did you it to me And these shall go into punishment everlasting but the just into life everlasting Moralities 1. BEhold here a Gospel of great terrour where our spirit like the Dove of Noah is placed upon the great deluge of Gods wrath and knows not where to find footing Every thing is most dreadfull But what can be more terrible than the certainty of Gods judgement joyned with the great uncertainty of the hour of our death It is an unchangeable decree that we must all be presented before the high Tribunal of the living God to render a just account of all which our soul hath done while it was joyned with our body as we are taught by S. Paul We must make an account of our time spent of our thoughts words actions of that we have done and that we have omitted of life death and of the bloud of Jesus Christ and thereupon receive a judgement of everlasting life or death All men know that this must certainly be done but no man knows the hour or moment when it shall be So many clocks strike about us every day and yet none can let us know the hour of our death 2. O how great is the solitude of a Soul in her separation from so many great enticements of the world wherein many men live and in an instant to see nothing but the good or ill we have done on either side us what an astonishment will it be for a man suddenly to see all the actions of his life as upon a piece of Tapistree spred befor his eyes where his sins will appear like so many thorns so many serpents so many venemous beasts Where will then be that cozening vail of reputation and reason of state which as yet cover so many wicked actions The soul shall in that day of God be shewed naked to all the world and her own eyes will most vex her by witnessing so plainly what she hath done 3. O what a parting water is Gods judgement which in a moment shall separate the mettals so different O what a division will then be made of some men which now live upon earth Some shall be made clear and bright like the stars of heaven others like coals burning in hell O what a dreadfull change will it be to a damned soul at her separation from this life to live onely in the company of devils in that piercing sense of torments and eternal punishment It is a very troublesom thing to be tied with silken strings in a bed of Roses for the space of eight days together What may we think of a damned soul which must dwell in a bed of flames so long as there shall be a God 4. Make use of the time given you to work your salvation and live such a life as may end with a happy death and so obtain that favourable judgement which shall say Come O thou soul blessed of God my Father possess the kingdom which is prepared for thee from the beginning of the world There is no better means to avoid the rigour of Gods judgements than to fear them continually Imitate the tree mentioned in an Emblem which being designed to make a ship and finding it self wind-shaken as it grew upon the land said What will become of me in the sea If we be already moved in this world by the bare consideration of the punishment due to sin think what it will be in that vast sea and dreadfull Abyss of Gods judgements Aspirations O King of dreadfull Majesty who doest justly damn and undeservedly save souls save me O Fountain of Mercy Remember thy self sweet Jesus that I was the cause of that great journey which thou tookest from God to man and do not destroy me in that dreadfull day which must decide the Question of my life or death for all eternity Take care of my last end since thou art the cause of my beginning and the onely cause of all that I am O Father of bounties wouldest thou stop a mouth
find the like to whom wouldst thou have me go but to thy self who doest not yet cease to call me The Gospel upon the third Sunday in Lent S. Luke 11. Jesus cast out the Devil which was dumb ANd he was casting out a devil and that was dumb And when he had cast out the devil the dumb spake and the multitudes marvelled And certain of them said in Belzebub the Prince of Devils he casteth out Devils And others tempting asked him a sign from Heaven But he seeing their cogitations said to them Every Kingdom divided against it self shall be made desolate and house upon house shall fall And if Satan also be divided against himself how shall his Kingdom stand because you say that in Belzebub I do cast out Devils And if I in Belzebub cast out Devils your children in whom do they cast out Therefore they shall be your judges But if I in the finger of God do cast out Devils surely the Kingdom of God is come upon you When the strong armed keepeth his court those things are in peace that he possesseth but if a stronger than he come upon him and overcome him he will take away his whole armour wherein he trusted and will distribute his spoils He that is not with me is against me and he that gathereth not with me scattereth When the unclean spirit shall depart out of a man he wandreth through places without water seeking rest and not finding he saith I will return into my house whence I departed And when he is come he findeth it swept with a besom and trimmed Then he goeth and taketh seven other spirits worse than himself and entering in they dwell there And the last of that man be made worse than the first And it came to pass when he said these things a certain woman lifting up her voice out of the multitude said to him Blessed is the womb that bare thee and the paps that thou didst suck But he said Yea rather blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it Moralities 1. THe Almond-tree is the first which begins to flourish and it is often first nipt with frost The tongue is the first thing which moves in a mans body and is soonest caught with the snares of Satan That man deserves to be speechless all his life who never speaks a word better than silence 2. Jesus the eternal word of God came upon earth to reform the words of man his life was a lightening and his word a thunder which was powerfull in effect but always measured within his bounds He did fight against ill tongues in his life and conquered them all in his death The gall and vinegar which he took to expiate the sins of this unhappy tongue do shew how great the evil was since it did need so sharp a remedy He hath cured by suffering his dolours what it deserved by our committing sins Other vices are determined by one act the tongue goes to all it is a servant to all malitious actions and is generally confederate with the heart in all crimes 3. We have just so much Religion as we have government of our tongues A little thing serves to tame wild beasts and a small stern will serve to govern a ship Why then cannot a man rule so small a part of his body It is not sufficient to avoid lying perjuries quarrels injuries slanders and blasphemies such as the Scribes and Pharisees did vomit out in this Gospel against the purity of the Son of God We must also repress idle talk and other frivolous and unprofitable discourses There are some persons who have their hearts so loose that they cannot keep them within their brests but they will quickly swim upon their lips without thinking what they say and so make a shift to wound their souls 4. Imitate a holy Father called Sisus who prayed God thirty years together every day to deliver him from his tongue as from a capital enemy You shall never be very chaste of your body except you do very well bridle your tongue For loosness of the flesh proceeds sometimes from liberty of the tongue Remember your self that your heart should go like a clock with all the just and equal motions of his springs and that your tongue is the finger which shews how all the hours of the day pass When the heart goes of one side and the tongue of another it is a sure desolation of your spirits Kingdom If Jesus set it once at peace and quiet you must be very carefull to keep it so and be very fearfull of relapses For the multiplying of long continued sins brings at last hell it self upon a mans shoulders Aspirations O Word incarnate to whom all just tongues speak and after whom all hearts do thirst and languish chase from us all prating devils and also those which are dumb the first provoke and loose the tongue to speak wickedly and the other bind it when it should confess the truth O peace-making Solomon appease the divisions of my heart and unite all my powers to the love of thy service Destroy in me all the marks of Satans Empire and plant there thy Trophees and Standards that my spirit be never like those devils which seek for rest but shall never find it Make me preserve inviolable the house of my conscience which thou hast cleansed by repentance and clothed with thy graces that I may have perseverance to the end without relapses and so obtain happiness without more need of repentance The Gospel upon Munday the third week in Lent S. Luke 4. Jesus is required to do Miracles in his own Countrey ANd he said to them Certes you will say to me this similitude Physitian cure thy self as great things as we have heard done in Capharnaum do also here in thy Countrey And he said Amen I say to you that no Prophet is accepted in his own Country In truth I say to you there were many widows in the dayes of Elias in Israel when the heaven was shut three years and six moneths when there was a great famine made in the whole earth and to none of them was Elias sent but into Sarepta of Sidon to a widow woman And there were many Lepars in Israel under Elizeus the Prophet and none of them made clean but Naaman the Syrian And all in the Synagogue were filled with anger hearing these things And they rose and cast him out of the Citie and they brought him to the edge of the hill whereupon their Citie was built that they might throw him down headlong But he passing through the midst of them went his way Moralities 1. THe malignity of mans nature undervalueth all that which it hath in hand little esteems many necessary things because they are common The Sun is not counted rare because it shines every day and the elements are held contemptible since they are common to the poor as well as the rich Jesus was despised in his own Countrey because he
before we die let us take order for our soul by repentance and a moderate care of our bodies burial Let us order our goods by a good and charitable Testament with a discreet direction for the poor for our children and kinred to be executed by fit persons Let us put our selves into the protection of the Divine providence with a most perfect confidence and how can we then fear death being in the arms of life Aspirations O Jesus fountain of all lives in whose bosom all things are living Jesus the fruit of the dead who hast destroyed the kingdom of death why should we fear a path which thou hast so terrified with thy steps honoured with thy bloud and sanctified by thy conquests Shall we never die to so many dying things All is dead here for us and we have no life if we do not seek it from thy heart What should I care for death though he come with all those grim hideous and antick faces which men put upon him for when I see him through thy wounds thy bloud and thy venerable death I find he hath no sting at all If I shall walk in the shadow of death and a thousand terrours shall conspire against me on every side to disturb my quiet I will fear nothing being placed in the arms of thy providence O my sweet Master do but once touch the winding sheet of my body which holds down my soul so often within the sleep of death and sin Command me to arise and speak and then the light of thy morning shall never set my discourses shall be always of thy praises and my life shall be onely a contemplation of thy beautifull countenance The Gospel upon Friday the fourth week in Lent S. John 11. Of the raising of Lazarus from death ANd there was a certain sick man Lazarus of Bethania of the Town of Mâ—ry and Martha her sister And Marie vvas she that anointed our Lord vvith ointment and vviped his feet vvith her hair vvhose brother Lazarus vvas sick his sisters therefore sent to him saying Lord behold he vvhom thou lovest is sick And Jesus hearing said to them This sickness is not to death but for the glorie of God that the Son may be glorified by it And Jesus loved Martha and her sister Marie and Lazarus As he heard therefore that he vvas sick then he tarried in the same place two dayes Then after this he saith to his Disciples Let us go into Jewry again The Disciples say to him Rabbi now the Jews sought to stone thee and goest thou thither again Jesus answered Are there not twelve hours of the day If a man vvalk in the day he stumbleth not because he seeth the light of this vvorld but if he vvalk in the night he stumbleth because the light is not in him These things he said and after this he saith to them Lazarus our friend sleepeth but I go that I may raise him from sleep His Disciples therefore said Lord if he sleep he shall be safe But Jesus spake of his death and they thought that he spake of the sleeping of sleep Then therefore Jesus said to them plainly Lazarus is dead and I am glad for your sake that you may believe because I vvas not there but let us go to him Thomas therefore vvho is called Didymus said to his condisciples Let us also go to die with him Jesus therefore came and found him now having been four dayes in the grave And Bethania vvas nigh to Jerusalem about fifteen furlongs And many of the Jews vvere come to Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their brother Martha therefore vvhen she heard that Jesus vvas come vvent to meet him but Mary sate at home Martha therefore said to Jesus Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not died But now also I know that vvhat things soever thou shalt ask of God God vvill give thee Jesus saith to her Thy brother shall rise again Martha saith to him I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection in the last day Jesus said to her I am the resurrection and the life he that believeth in me although he be dead shall live And every one that liveth and believeth in me shall not die for ever Believest thou this She said to him Yea Lord I have believed that thou art Christ the Son of God that art come into this vvorld Moralities 1. OUr Saviour Jesus makes here a strong assault upon death to cure our infirmities at the cost of his dearest friends He suffered Lazarus whom he loved tenderly to fall into a violent sickness to teach us that the bodies of Gods favourites are not free from infirmities and that to make men Saints they must not enjoy too much health A soul is never more worthy to be a house for God than when she raiseth up the greatness of her courage the body being cast down with sickness A soul which suffers is a sacred thing All the world did touch our Saviour before his Passion The throng of people pressed upon him but after his death he would not be touched by S. Mary Maudlin because he was consecrated by his dolours 2. The good sisters dispatch a messenger not to a strange God as they do who seek for health by remedies which are a thousand times worse than the disease But they addressed themselves to the living God the God of life and death to drive away death And to recover life they were content onely to shew the wound to the faithfull friendship of the Physician without prescribing any remedies for that is better left to his providence than committed to our passion 3. He defers his cure to raise from death The delay of Gods favours is not always a refusal but sometimes a double liberality The vows of good men are paid with usury It was expedient that Lazarus should die that he might triumph over death in the triumph of Jesus Christ It is here that we should always raise high our thoughts by considering our glory in the state of resurrection he would have us believe it not onely as it is a lesson of Nature imprinted above the skies upon the plants or elements of the world and as a doctrine which many ancient Philosophers had by the light of nature but also as a belief which is fast joyned to the faith we have in the Divine providence which keeps our bodies in trust under its seal within the bosom of the earth so that no prescription of time can make laws to restrain his power having passed his word and raised up Lazarus who was but as one grain of seed in respect of all posterity 4. Jesus wept over Lazarus thereby to weep over us all Our evils were lamentable and could never sufficiently be deplored without opening a fountain of tears within heaven and within the eyes of the Son of God This is justly the river which comes from that place of all pleasure to water Paradise How could those heavenly
and to execute all the decrees of his divine Providence as our chiefest helps to obtain perfection Aspirations OBeauteous garden of Olives which from henceforth shalt be the most delicious object of my heart I will lose my self in thy walks I will be lost with God that I may never be lost I will breathe onely thy air since it is made noble by the sighs of my dear Master I will gather thy flowers since Jesus hath marked them with his bloud I will wash my self in those fountains since they are sanctified by the sweat of my Jesus I will have no other joy but the sorrow of the Son of God nor any other will but his O my sweet Saviour Master and teacher of all humane kind wilt thou be abridged of thine own will which was so reasonable and pure to give me an example of mortifying my passions and shall I before thy face retain any wicked or disordinate appetites Is it possible I should desire to be Lord of my self who am so bad a Master when I see the Authour of all goodness separate himself from himself onely to make me and all mankind partakers of his merits Of the apprehension of JESUS IN that obscure and dolorous night wherein our Saviour was apprehended three sorts of darkness were cast upon the Jews upon Judas and upon Saint Peter A darkness of obduration upon the hearts of the Jews a darkness of ingratefull malignity upon Judas and a darkness of infirmity upon Saint Peter Was there ever any blindness like that of the Jews who sought for the shining Sun with lighted torches without knowing him by so many beams of power which shined from him They are strucken down with the voice of the Son of God as with lightening and they rise again upon the earth to arm themselves against Heaven They bind his hands to take away the use of his forces but they could not stop the course of his bounties To shew that he is totally good he is good and charitable even amongst his merciless executioners and he lost all he had saving his Godhead onely to gain patience When S. Peter stroke the high Priests servant the patience of our Lord Jesus received the blow and had no patience till he was healed If goodness did shew forth any one beam in the garden modesty sent forth another in the house of Anuas when his face was strucken by a servile hand his mouth opened it self as a Temple from whence nothing came but sweetness and light The God of Truth speaketh to Caiaphas and they spit upon his brightness and cover that face which must discover Heaven for us The mirrour of Angels is tarnisht with the spittle of infernal mouthes and wounded by most sacrilegious hands without any disturbance of his constancy That was invincible by his virtue as the willfulness of the Jews stood immoveable by their obduration There are souls which after they have filled the earth with crimes expect no cure of their diseases but by the hell of the reprobate 2. The second darkness appeareth by the black passion of Judas who falls down into hell with his eyes open and after he had sold his soul sold Jesus and both all he had and all he was to buy an infamous halter to hang himself A soul become passionate with wanton love with ambition or avarice is banished into it self as into a direct hell and delivered to her own passions as to the Furies The Poet Hydra had but seven heads but the spirit of Avarice S. Iohn Climacus saith hath ten thousand The conversation of Jesus which was so full of infinite attractions could never win the spirit of Iudas when it was once bewitched with covetousness The tinkling of silver kept him from rightly understanding Iesus He makes use of the most holy things to betray Holiness it self He employes the kiss of peace to begin war He carries poison in his heart and honey in his mouth he puts on the spirit of Iesus to betray him This shews us plainly that covetous and traiterous persons are farthest from God and nearest to the devils 3. The third power of darkness appeared in the infirmity of S. Peter who after so many protestations of fidelity for fear of death renounced the Authour of life One of the Ancients said The greatest frailty of Humanity was that the wisest men were not infallibly wise at all times And all men are astonished to see that the greatest spirits being left to themselves become barren and suffer eclipses which give examples to the wisest and terrour to all the world God hath suffered the fall of S. Peter to make us have in horrour all presumption of our own forces and to teach us that over-great assurance is oftentimes mother of an approching danger Besides it seemeth he would by this example consecrate the virtue of repentance in this fault of him whom he chose to be head of his Church to make us see that there is no dignity so high nor holiness so eminent which doth not ow Tribute to the mercy of God Aspirations Upon S. Peters tears IT is most true saith S. Peter that a proud felicity hath alwayes reeling feet Thou which didst defie the gates of hell hast yielded thy self to the voice of a simple woman All those conquests which thou didst promise to thy self are become the tropheys of so weak a hand Return to the combat and since she hath triumphed over thee do thou at least triumph over thy self Alas I am afraid even to behold the place of my fall and the weak snares of a simple woman appear to me as boisterous chains Yet what can he fear who is resolute to die If thou find death amongst these massacres thou shouldst rather embrace than decline it For what can it do but make thee companion of life it self Our soul is yet too foul to be a sacrifice for God let us first wash it with tears I fell down before the fire and I will rise by water I have walked upon the sea to come to Jesus and I will now return to him by the way of my tears I will speak now onely by my tears since I have lately talked so wickedly with my mouth Since that which should open to speak Oracles for the Church hath been employed to commit foul treason since we have nothing left free to us but sighs and groans let us make use of the last liberty which is left us and when all is spent return to the mercy of Jesus which all the sins of the world can never evacuate I will from henceforth be a perpetual example to the Church by my fall and rising again from death for the comfort of sinners and the fault of one night shall be lamented by me alll the days of my life Moralities upon the Pretorian or Judgement-Hall 1. IN the passion of our Saviour all things are divine and it seemeth they go as high as they could be raised by that Sovereign power joyned with
whole world as he did proportioning his torments according to the fruits which were to proceed from his Cross Perhaps O faithfull soul thou lookest for a mans body in thy Jesus but thou findest nothing but the appearance of one crusted over with gore bloud Thou seekest for limbs and findest nothing but wounds Thou lookest for a Jesus which appeared glorious upon Mount Tabor as upon a Throne of Majestie with all the Ensigns of his Glory and thou findest onely a skin all bloudy fastened to a Cross between two thieves And if the consideration of this cannot bring drops of bloud from thy heart it must be more insensible than a diamond 3. To conclude observe the third quality of a good death which will declare it self by the exercise of great and heroick virtues Consider that incomparable mildness which hath astonished all Ages hath encouraged all virtues hath condemned all revenges hath instructed all Schools and crowned all good actions He was raised upon the Cross when his dolours were most sharp and piercing when his wounds did open on all sides when his precious bloud shed upon the earth and moistened it in great abundance when he saw his poor clothes torn in pieces and yet bloudy in the hands of those who crucified him He considered the extream malice of that cruel people how those which could not wound him with iron pierced him with the points of their accursed tongues He could quickly have made fire come down from Heaven upon those rebellious heads And yet forgetting all his pains to remember his mercies he opened his mouth and the first word he spake was in favour of his enemies to negotiate their reconciliation before his soul departed The learned Cardinal Hugues admiring this excessive charity of our Saviour toward his enemies applies excellent well that which is spoken of the Sun in Ecclesiasticus He brings news to all the world at his rising and at noon day he burns the earth and heats those furnaces of Nature which make it produce all her feats So Jesus the Sun of the intelligible world did manifest himself at his Nativity as in the morning But the Cross was his bed at noon from whence came those burning streams of Love which enflame the hearts of all blessed persons who are like furnaces of that eternal fire which burns in holy Sion On the other part admire that great magnanimity which held him so long upon the Cross as upon a throne of honour and power when he bestowed Paradise upon a man that was his companion in suffering I cannot tell whether in this action we should more admire the good fortune of the good thief or the greatness of Jesus The happiness of the good thief who is drawn for a cut-throat to prison from prison to the Judgement-hall from thence to the Cross and thence goes to Paradise without needing any other gate but the heart of Jesus On the other side what can be more admirable than to see a man crucified to do that act which must be performed by the living God when the world shall end To save some to make others reprobate and to judge from the heighth of his Cross as if he sate upon the chiefest throne of all Monarchs But we must needs affirm that the virtue of patience in this holds a chief place and teaches very admirable lessons He endures the torments of body and the pains of spirit in all the faculties of his soul in all the parts of his virgin flesh and by the cruelty and multiplicity of his wounds they all become one onely wound from the sole of his foot to the top of his head His delicate body suffers most innocently and all by most ingrate and hypocritical persons who would colour their vengeance with an apparance of holiness He suffers without any comfort at all and which is more without bemoaning himself he suffers whatsoever they would or could lay upon him to the very last gasp of his life Heaven wears mourning upon the Cross all the Citizens of Heaven weep over his torments the earth quakes stones rend themselves Sepulchers open the dead arise Onely Jesus dies unmoveable upon this throne of patience To conclude who would not be astonished at the tranquility of his spirit and amongst those great convulsions of the world which moved round about the Cross amongst such bloudy dolours insolent cries and insupportable blasphemies how he remained upon the Cross as in a Sanctuary at the foot of an Altar bleeding weeping and praying to mingle his prayers with his bloud and tears I do now understand why the Wiseman said He planted Isles within the Abyss since that in so great a Gulf of afflictions he shewed such a serenity of spirit thereby making a Paradise for his Father amongst so great pains by the sweet perfume of his virtues After he had prayed for his enemies given a promise of Paradise to the good thief and recommended his Mother to his Disciple he shut up his eyes from all humane things entertaining himself onely with prayers and sighs to his Heavenly Father O that at the time of our deaths we could imitate the death of Jesus and then we should be sure to find the streams of life Aspirations O Spectacles of horrour but Abyss of goodness and mercy I feel my heart divided by horrour pitie hate love execration and adoration But my admiration being ravished carries me beyond my self Is this then that bloudy sacrifice which hath been expected from all Ages This hidden mystery this profound knowledge of the Cross this dolorous Jesus which makes the honourable amends between Heaven and earth to the eternal Father for expiation of the sins of humane kind Alas poor Lord thou hadst but one life and I see a thousand instruments of death which have taken it away Was there need of opening so many bloudy doors to let out thine innocent soul Could it not part from thy body without making on all sides so many wounds which after they have served for the objects of mens cruelty serve now for those of thy mercy O my Jesus I know not to whom I speak for I do no more know thee in the state thou now art or if I do it is onely by thy miseries because they are so excessive that there was need of a God to suffer what thou hast endured I look upon thy disfigured countenance to find some part of thy resemblance and yet can find none but that of thy love Alas O beautifull head which dost carry all the glory of the highest Heaven divide with me this dolorous Crown of Thorns they were my sins which sowed them and it is thy pleasure that thine innocency should mow them Give me O Sacred mouth give me that Gall which I see upon thy lips suffer me to sprinkle all my pleasures with it since after a long continuance it did shut up and conclude all thy dolours Give me O Sacred hands and adored feet the Nails which have pierced
you love binds you fast enough to the Cross without them But do thou O Lord hold me fast to thy self by the chain of thine immensity O Lance cruel Lance Why didst thou open that most precious side Thou didst think perhaps to find there the Sons life and yet thou foundest nothing but the Mothers heart But without so much as thinking what thou didst in playing the murderer thou hast made a Sepulcher wherein I will from henceforth bury my soul When I behold these wounds of my dear Saviour I do acknowledge the strokes of my own hand I will therefore likewise engrave there my repentance I will write my conversion with an eternal Character And if I must live I will never breathe any other life but that onely which shall be produced from the death of my Jesus crucified The Gospel for Easter-day S. Mark 16. ANd when the Sabbath was past Mary Magdalene and Mary of James and Salome bought spices that coming they might anoint Jesus And very early the first of the Sabbaths they come to the Monument the Sun being now risen And they say one to another who shall roll us back the stone from the door of the Monument And looking they saw the stone rolled back For it was very great And entering into the Monument they saw a young man sitting on the right hand covered with a white Robe and they were astonied Who saith to them Be not dismayed you seck Jesus of Nazareth that was crucified he is risen he is not here behold the place where they laid him But go tell his Disciples and Peter that be goeth before you into Galilee there you shall see him as he told you Moralities 1. THe Sepulcher of Jesus becomes a fountain of life which carries in power all the glories of the highest Heaven Our Saviour riseth from thence as day out of the East and appears as triumphant in the ornaments of his beauties as he had been humbled by the excess of his mercies The rage of the Jews looseth here its power death his sting Satan his kingdom the Tomb his corruption and hell his conquest Mortality is destroyed life is illuminated all is drowned in one day of glory which comes from the glorious light of our Redeemer It is now saith Tertullian that he is revested with his Robe of Honour and is acknowledged as the eternal Priest for all eternity It is now saith S. Gregory Nazianzen that he re-assembles humane kind which was scattered so many years by the sin of one man and placeth it between the arms of his Divinity This is the Master-piece of his profound humility and I dare boldly affirm saith S. Ambrose that God had lost the whole world if this Sacred Virtue which he made so clearly shine in his beloved Son had not put him into possession of his Conquests We should all languish after this Triumphant state of the Resurrection which will make an end of all our pains and make our Crowns everlasting 2. Let us love our Jesus as the Maries did that with them we may be honoured with his visits Their love is indefatigable couragious and insatiable They had all the day walkt round about the Judgement-Hall Mount Calvary the Cross and the Sepulcher They were not wearied with all that And night had no sleep to shut up their eyes They forsook the Image of death which is sleep to find death it self and never looked after any bed except the Sepulcher of their Master They travel amongst darkness pikes launces the affrights of Arms and of the night nothing makes them afraid If there appear a difficulty to remove the stones love gives them arms They spare nothing for their Master and Saviour They are above Nicodemus and Joseph they have more exquisite perfumes for they are ready to melt and distil their hearts upon the Tomb of their Master O faithfull lovers seek no more for the living amongst the dead That cannot die for love which is the root of life 3. The Angel in form of a young man covered with a white Robe shews us that all is young and white in immortality The Resurrection hath no old age it is an age which can neither grow nor diminish These holy Maries enter alive into the sepulcher where they thought to find death but they learn news of the chiefest of lives Their faith is there confirmed their piety satisfied their promises assured and their love receives consolation Aspirations I Do not this day look toward the East O my Jesus I consider the Sepulcher it is from thence this fair Sun is risen O that thou appearest amiable dear Spouse of my soul Thy head which was covered with thorns is now crowned with a Diadem of Stars and Lights and all the glory of the highest Heaven rests upon it Thine eyes which were eclipsed in bloud have enlightened them with fires and delicious brightness which melt my heart Thy feet and hands so far as I can see are enamel'd with Rubies which after they have been the objects of mens cruelty are now become eternal marks of thy bounty O Jesus no more my wounded but my glorified Jesus where am I What do I I see I flie I swound I die I revive my self with thee I do beseech thee my most Sacred Jesus by the most triumphant of thy glories let me no more fall into the image of death nor into those appetites of smoke and earth which have so many times buried the light of my soul What have I to do with the illusions of this world I am for Heaven for Glory and for the Resurrection which I will now make bud out of my thoughts that I may hereafter possess them with a full fruition The Gospel upon Munday in Easter-week S. Luke the 24. ANd behold two of them went the same day into a Town which was the space of sixty furlongs from Jerusalem named Emmaus And they talked betwixt themselves of all those things that had chanced And it came to pass while they talked and reasoned with themselves Jesus also himself approching went with them but their eyes were held that they might not know him And he faid to them What are these communications that you confer one with another walking and are sad And one whose name was Cleophas answering said to him Art thou onely a stranger in Jerusalem and hast not known the things that have been done in it these dayes To whom he said What things And they said Concerning Jesus of Nazareth who was a man a Prophet mighty in work and word before God and all the people And how our chief Priests and Princes delivered him into condemnation of death and crucified him But we hoped that it was he that should redeem Israel And now besides all this to day is the third day since these things were done But certain women also of ours made us afraid who before it was light were at the Monument and not finding his body came saying That they saw a vision also
of Angels who say that he is alive And certain men of ours went to the Monument and they found it so as the women said but him they found not And he said to them O foolish and slow of heart to believe in all thing which the Prophets have spoken Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and so enter into his glory And beginning from Moses and all the Prophets he did interpret to them in all the Scriptures the things that were concerning him And they drew nigh to the Town whither they went and he made semblance to go further And they forced him saying Tarry with us because it is toward night and the day now far spent and he went in with them And it came to pass while he sate at the table with them he took bread and blessed and brake and did reach to them And their eyes were opened and they knew him and he vanished out of their sight And they said to the other Was not our heart burning in us whiles he spake in the way and opened unto us the Scriptures And rising up the same hour they went back into Jerusalem and they found the eleven gathered together and those that were with them saying That our Lord is risen indeed and hath appeared to Simon And they told the things that were done in the way and how they knew him in the breaking of bread Moralities 1. IT is a strange thing that God is always with us and we are so little with him We have our being our moving our life from him he carries us in his arms he keeps us as a nurse doth her dear child and yet all this while we scarce know what he is and use him so often as a stranger He is in our being and yet we keep him far from our heart as a dead man who is quite forgotten And Enoch walked with him and for that he was taken from the conversation of men and reserved for Paradise To speak truth our soul should always be languishing after her Jesus and count it a kind of Adultery to be separated from him so much as by thought Let us learn a little to talk with him we commonly have that in our tongue which we keep in our heart Let us sweeten the sadness of our pilgrimage by the contemplation of his beauties Let us look upon him as God and man the God of gods the Man of men our great Saviour and Prophet powerfull both in word and work for if his word be thunder his life is a lightening He hath been here doing good to all the world and suffering hurt from all the world doing good without reward and enduring evil without impatience We all pass here as Torrents into valleys the onely question is of our passing well whether we look on worldly goods as on waters which pass under a bridge and as upon the furniture of an Inn which is none of ours If we be embarked in the Vessel of life let us not amuse our selves to gather Cockles upon the shore but so that we may always have our eyes fixt upon Paradise 2. Two things do hinder those Pilgrims from knowing Jesus as they should The one is their eyes are dazeled and the other is the little account they make of the Cross which drives them into the mistrust of the Resurrection And this is it which crosseth us all our life and so oft diverts us from the point of our happiness Our eyes are dazeled with false lights of the world they are darkened with so many mists and vapours of our own appetites and passions that we cannot see the goods of heaven in the brightest of their day Worldly chains have a certain effective vigour and pleasure which is onely painted but they have a most certain sorrow and a most uncertain contentment They have a painful labour and a timorous rest A possession full of misery and void of all beatitude If we had our eyes well opened to penetrate and see what it is we should then say of all the most ravishing objects of the world How senseless was I when I courted you O deceitfull world thou didst appear great to me when I saw thee not as thou art But so soon as I did see thee rightly I did then cease to see thee for thou wast no more to me but just nothing We run in full career after all that pleaseth our sense and the Cross which is so much preached to us is much more upon our Altars than in our hearts We will not know that the throne of Mount Calvarie is the path-way to Heaven and as this truth wanders from our hearts Jesus departs from our eyes Let us at least pray Jesus to stay with us for it is late in our hearts and the night is far advanced by our want of true light We shal not know Jesus by discourse but by feeding him in the persons of his poor since he gives the continual nourishment of his body Aspirations O Onely Pilgrim of the world and first dweller in the heart of thy heavenly Father what a pilgrimage hast thou made descending from Heaven to earth and yet without forsaking Heaven Thou hast markt thy steps by thy conquests made visible thy way by thine own light thou hast watered it with thy precious bloud and paved it with thy wounds O what a goodly thing it is to walk with thee when thou openest thy sacred mouth as the opening of a temple to discover the beauties and mysteries of it O that is most pleasing to understand that mouth which distils so much honey through lips of Roses But wherefore My good Lord art thou pleased to hide thy self from a soul which languishes after thee Take away the vail from mine eyes and suffer thy self to be seen in the vesture of thy heavenly beauties If I must bear the Cross and pass by the throne of Mount Calvarie to come to Heaven I most humbly submit to thy divine pleasure that I may possess all that thou art The Gospel upon Tuesday in Easter week S. Luke the 24. ANd whiles they spake these things Jesus stood in the midst of them and he saith to them Peace be to you It is I fear not But they being troubled and frighted imagined they saw a Spirit And he saith to them Why are you troubled and cogitations arise in your hearts See my hands and feet that it is I my self handle and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as you see me to have And when he had said this he shewed them his hands and feet But they yet not believing and marvelling for joy he said Have you here any thing to be eaten But they offered him a piece of fish broiled and a honey-comb And when he had eaten before them taking the remains he gave to them And he said to them These are the words which I spake to you when I was yet with you that all things must needs be fulfilled which are written
in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms of me Then he opened their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures And he said to them That so it is written and so it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise again from the dead the third day and penance to be preached in his Name and remission of sins unto all Nations Moralities 1. WE think sometimes that Jesus is far from us when he is in the midst of our heart he watches over us and stretches out his divine hands for our protection Let us live always as if we were actually in his presence before his eyes and in his bosom An ancient Tradition doth observe that after our Lords Ascension the Apostles did never eat together but they left the first napkin for their good Master conceiving that according to his promise he was always with them Let us accustom our selves to this exercise of Gods presence It is a happy necessity to make us do well to believe and apprehend that our Judge is always present If respect make him formidable love will teach us that he is the Father of all sweetness There can be no greater comfort in this world than to be present in heart and body with that which we love beast 2. Jesus is taken by his Apostles for a Spirit because after the Resurrection he pierced the walls and appeared suddenly as Spirits do S. Paul also saith in the second to the Corinthians that now we do no more know Christ according to the flesh that is to say by the passions of a mortal body as S. Epiphanius doth expound it We must make little use of our bodies to converse with our Jesus who hath taken upon him the rare qualities of a Spirit We must raise our selves above our senses when we go to the Father of light and the Creatour of sense He teaches us the life of Spirits and the commerce of Angels and makes assayes of our immortality by a body now immortal Why are we so tied to our sense and glued to the earth Must we suffer our selves to enter into a kingdom of death when we are told of the resurrection of him who is the Authour of all lives 3. Admire the condescending and bounties of our Lord to his dear Disciples He that was entered into the kingdom of spirits and immortal conversation suffers his feet and hands to be touched to prove in him the reality of a true body He eats in presence of his Apostles though he was not in more estate to digest meat than the Sun is to digest vapours He did no more nourish himself with our corruptible meats than the Stars do by the vapours of the earth And yet he took them to confirm our belief and to make us familiar with him It is the act of great and generous spirits to abase themselves and condescend to their inferiours So David being anointed King and inspired as a Prophet doth not shew his person terrible in the height of his great glory but still retained the mildness of a shepheard So Jesus the true Son of David by his condescending to us hath consecrated a certain degree whereby we may ascend to Heaven Are not we ashamed that we have so little humility or respect to our inferiours but are always so full of our selves since our Lord sitting in his Throne of glory and majesty doth yet abase himself to the actions of our mortal life Let it be seen by our hands whether we be resuscitated by doing good works and giving liberal alms Let it appear by our feet that they follow the paths of the most holy persons Let it be seen by our nourishment which should be most of honey that is of that celestial sweetness which is extracted from prayer And if we seem to refuse fish let us at least remain in the element of piety as fish is in water Aspirations THy love is most tender and thy cares most generous O mild Saviour Amongst all the torrents of thy Passion thou hast not tasted the waters of forgetfulness Thou returnest to thy children as a Nightingale to her little nest Thou dost comfort them with thy visits and makest them familiar with thy glorious life Thou eatest of a honey-comb by just right having first tasted the bitter gall of that unmercifull Cross It is thus that our sorrows should be turned into sweets Thou must always be most welcome to me in my troubles for I know well that thou onely canst pacifie and give them remedy I will govern my self toward thee as to the fire too much near familiarity will burn us and the want of it will let us freeze I will eat honey with thee in the blessed Sacrament I know that many there do chew but few receive thee worthily Make me O Lord I beseech thee capable of those which here on earth shall be the true Antepasts to our future glory The Gospel upon Low-Sunday S. John the 20. THerefore when it was late that day the first of the Sabbaths and the doors were shut where the Disciples were gathered together for fear of the Jews Jesus came and stood in the midst and saith to them Peace be to you And when he had said this he shewed them his hands and side The Disciples therefore were glad when they saw our Lord. He said therefore to them again Peace be to you As my Father hath sent me I also do send you When he had said this he breathed upon them and he said to them Receive ye the Holy Ghost Whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them and whose you shall retain they are retained But Thomas one of the twelve who is called Didymus was not with them when Jesus came the other Disciples therefore said to him We have seen our Lord. But he said to them Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails and put my finger into the place of the nails and put my hand into his side I will not believe And after eight days again his Disciples were within and Thomas with them Jesus cometh the doors being shut and stood in the midst and said Peace be to you Then he saith to Thomas Put in thy finger hither and see my hands and bring hither thy hand and put it into my side and be not incredulous but faithfull Thomas answered and said to him My Lord and my God Jesus saith to him Because thou hast seen me Thomas thou hast believed Blessed are they that have not seen and have believed Moralities 1. JEsus the Father of all blessed harmonies after so many combats makes a general peace in all nature He pacifieth Limbo taking the holy Fathers out of darkness to enjoy an eternal light and sending the damned to the bottom of hell He pacifieth the earth making it from thenceforth to breathe the air of his mercies He pacifieth his Apostles by delivering them from that profound sadness which they conceived by the imaginary loss of their dear Master
He pacifieth Heaven by sweetening the sharpness of his Heavenly Father quenching by his wounds the fire which was kindled of his just anger Every thing smileth upon this great Peace-maker Nature leaveth her mourning and putteth on robes of chearfulness to congratulate with him his great and admirable conquests It is in him that the Heavenly Father by a singular delight hath poured out the fullness of all Graces to make us an eternal dwelling and to reconcile all in him and by him pacifying by his bloud from the Cross all that is upon earth and in Heaven This is our Joshua of whom the Scripture speaketh that he clears all differences and appeaseth all battels No stroke of any hammer or other iron was heard at the building of Solomon's Temple and behold the Church which is the Temple of the living God doth edifie souls with a marvellous tranquilitie 2. The Sun is not so well set forth by his beams as our Saviour is magnificently adorned with his wounds Those are the characters which he hath engraved upon his flesh alter a hundred ingenious fashions The Ladies count their pearls and diamonds but our Saviour keeps his wounds in the highest attire of his Magnificences It is from thence that the beauty of his body taketh a new state of glory and our faith in the resurrection is confirmed that the good fill themselves with hope miscreants with terrour and Martyrs find wherewith to enflame their courage These divine wounds open themselves as so many mouthes to plead our cause before the Celestial Father Our Saviour Jesus never spake better for us than by the voice of his precious Bloud Great inquiry hath been made for those mountains of myrrh and frankincense which Solomon promiseth in the Canticles but now we have found them in the wounds of Jesus It is from thence that there cometh forth a million of sanctified exhalations of sweetness of peace and propitiation as from an eternal Sanctuary A man may say they are like the Carbuncle which melteth the wax upon which it is imprinted for they melt our hearts by a most profitable impression At this sight the Eternal Father calms his countenance and the sword of his Justice returneth into the sheath Shall not we be worthy of all miseries if we do not arm these wounds against us which are so effectual in our behalf And if this bloud of our Abel after it hath reconciled his cruel executioners should find just matter to condemn us for our ingratitudes John the Second King of Portugal had made a sacred vow never to refuse any thing which should be asked of him in the virtue of our Saviour's wounds which made him give all his silver vessel to a poor gentleman that had found out the word And why should not we give our selves to God who both buyeth and requireth us by the wounds of Jesus 3. Jesus inspireth the sacred breath of his mouth upon the Apostles as upon the first fruits of Christianity to repair the first breath and respiration of lives which the Authour of our race did so miserably lose If we can obtain a part of this we shall be like the wheels of Ezechiels mysterious chariot which are filled with the spirit of life That great Divine called Matthias Vienna said That light was the substance of colours and the spirit of Jesus is the same of all our virtues If we live of his flesh there is great reason we should be animated by his Spirit Happy a thousand times are they who are possessed with the the Spirit of Jesus which is to their spirit as the apple of the eye S. Thomas was deprived of this amorous communication by reason of his incredulitie He would see with his eyes and feel with his hands that which should rather be comprehended by faith which is an eye blessedly blind which knoweth all within its own blindness and is also a hand which remaining on earth goeth to find God in Heaven Aspirations GReat Peace-maker of the world who by the effusion of thy precious bloud hast pacified the wars of fourty ages which went before thy death This word of peace hath cost thee many battels many sweats and labours to cement this agreement of Heaven and earth of sence and reason of God and man Behold thou art at this present like the Dove of Noah's Ark thou hast escaped a great deluge of passions and many torrents of dolours thrown head-long one upon another Thou bringest us the green Olive branch to be the mark of thy eternal alliances What Shall my soul be so audacious and disordered as to talk to thee of war when thou speakest to her of peace To offer thee a weapon when thou offerest her the Articles of her reconciliation signed with thy precious bloud Oh what earth could open wide enough her bosom to swallow me if I should live like a little Abiram with a hand armed against Heaven which pours out for me nothing but flowers and roses Reign O my sweet Saviour within all the conquered powers of my soul and within my heart as a conquest which thou hast gotten by so many titles I will swear upon thy wounds which after they have been the monuments of thy fidelity shall be the adored Altars of my vows and sacrifices I will promise thereupon an inviolable fidelity to thy service I will live no more but for thee since thou hast killed my death in thy life and makest my life flourish within thy triumphant Resurrection FINIS AN ALPHABETICAL TABLE Setting down the most observable Matters contained in the first three TOMES of the HOLY COURT A Aâ—dâ—rites Fol 38 Abdâ—lâ—â—in 7 Abraham the Hermit 86 Abstinence defined 468 The Aâ—â—rons of men must be directed to one assured Butt 67 Apprehension of Affronts 47 Retreat into the Conscience in Affronts is a good remedy against them 58 Aglae a noble Dame 379 She is a worldly Widow ibid. She is in love ibid. Her admirable Conversion 380 Her devotion in enquiry after Martyrs ibid. Her speech to Boniface her Steward ibid. Agrippa Grand-child of Herod 3â—2 His flatterie ibid. Alexander son of Mariamne imprisoned 130 Alms the works of God 9 Ambition an itch 56 It is a forreign vice ibid. It is the life of a slave 57 The Ambitious are miserable ibid. Extream disaster of an Ambitions man ib. Ambitious men travel for Rachel and find 〈◊〉 58 Ambition was the God of Antiochus 347 Sr. Ambrose 175 His Calling ib. His Election 176 His rare endowments 179 His government ib. He cherisheth the Religious 181 He took away superstitions and excesses ib. His puritie of invention ib. His Oration against Symmachus 184 He refuteth Symmachus his strongest arguments ib. His answer concerning the dearth 186 His greatness in the Conversion of Sr. Augustine 188 He speaketh unto the two souls of his Pupils 211 His brave speech to Theodorick 214 The majestie of Sr. Ambrose 205 His prudence and charitie 209 He is persecuted by Justice 206 Resolution of Sr.
courtships overflow of words kisses saucinesse immodesty good chear idlenesse this seems a goodly thing to sottish youth which hath nothing so certain as ruine These are the snares wherewith it surpriseth and the knots which many times indissolubly settereth its liberty After that comes the chamber perfumed with myrrh and aloes wherein the slight expected pleasures are drenched in great acerbities There folly temerity liberty meet mixed with care terrour distrust tears sighs falshood perjury dolours jealousies execrations rage which caused an Antient to say That the Plutarch in Sympos heart of a Lover was a city in which upon one and the same day were seen sports and banquets battels and funerals In the third place a slaughter-house is opened where we clearly behold that false love which insinuateth it self with so many fair resemblances is nothing but massacres both of body and soul and that it is not without cause that a foolish Lover saith in the best of Comick Poets that the first Executioner that Plautus in Cystellaria ever was on earth was Love which he saith taught men all cruelties and tortures adding that to Love fondly and to be racked on the wheel was in a manner all one In this place of slaughter there are likewise seen Pictures of Samson with his eyes pulled out pouring Jud. 16. forth tears and bloud through the same channel Of Amon who transfixed with a deadly and dreadfull 2 Sam. 13. wound yields up the ghost in a feast at the foot of his brother Absoloms table for having violated Thamar On the other side two armies of Gods people Judg. 20. who cruelly kill one another for a luxurious act committed on the person of a married wife so that of one part eighteen thousand men were massacred and of the other more then twenty and five thousand And round about there is nothing but halters poison swords bloud racks gibbets and precipices See here the goodly Sacrifices of Lust In the fourth chamber are beheld the transfigurations of sottish Love where he who is strucken with it becomes first stupid as an Ox dull and benummed in his wits as having a paralytick soul and brutish like Nebuchadonozor who forsook his Regall throne to eat hay with beasts Then he is shorn as a sheep by taking away his flieces and despoiling him of the goods of soul body wealth and reputation and of all that to which a reasonable creature may pretend unto Lastly to cut off all hope of recovery he is unfeathered like a bird caught in a gin yea his wings are taken away which are the desires of futurely doing well that he may perpetually have the evil in object and an inability towards good The first chamber is very near to hell there is to be seen darknesse smoke flames and from whence are heard gnashings of teeth despairs and enraged complaints of unfortunate Lovers who vomit out their souls in sinne having made no expiation by a long penance Oh God! what is he who beholding this picture would ever betray his soul heaven and his God to yield obedience to loathsome lust All this well considered give your self a little leasure Disasters of love in every age and condition to rally your thoughts together and to behold the disasters which wait on the experience of miserable sinne If you be a Virgin stain not the honour of your body vilifie not in your flesh on earth a virtue Advice to all sorts of persons to which Angels afford such glory in heaven Above all beware of a damnable curiosity which cannot be known but by becoming criminall If you understand the sinne profit by your experience and betray not an eternity of blessing for a pleasure so short and wretched If you be a master of a Family and a Greg. Naz. homil de Fornic man of quality note what S. Gregory Nazianzene saith That a man by his sinne wholly ruineth body soul estate and reputation He is terrible in his house shamefull abroad he serves for an executioner to a chaste wife he is a tyrant to his children a reproch to his friends a scourge to his domesticks a dishonour to his allies a blemish to his renown a shipwrack to his means and a fable to all the world If you be a maid ever fear to become a woman and cast not the garland of your virginity under the feet of hogs Give not a hair of your head to them who promise you golden mountains and when they desire you in the quest of marriage then is the time you must least be for marriage All you grant to their importunity will be the subject of your disgrace and when they shall have wedded you should you live as chaste as Susanna they will continually imagine you will be liberall to others of that whereof you were prodigall to them If you desire to marry by fancy rather pursuing your own wanton humours then the reasonable commands of those to whom you owe your being hold it as a crime the most capitall you may undertake and confidently believe if so you do you will open a floud-gate to a deluge of miseries and cares which will flow upon you through all the parts of your life Account the resolutions you make to this purpose as treasons and think whosoever shall to you suggest the execution of them will poison you by the ear to murder your chastity If you be a married woman and peradventure innocent enough and of good reputation what colour is there for you to engage your self in a crime for which husbands have furies laws thunders threats Judges for Sentence punishments of gibbets and bloudy scaffolds and for which a thousand poor creatures have ended their miserable lives surprised in the heat of sin to passe from a temporall fire to that which never is quenched If you be a man of the sword know it is given you to defend honour not to violate it and that a man who suffers himself to be lead by women what Rhodomontado's soever he make in words he is ever a coward If you be a Judge or an Officer raised up into an eminent place degrade not your self of the honours which God hath imprinted on your fore-head and never mount you up to the throne of Judicature to condemn your own act and still think the purple which will not be died but by virginall hands ought not to be worn but on a chaste body If you be an Ecclesiastick and which is more engaged to Religion or Prelacy will you be so unnaturall as ever to consent to a sinne which cannot in your person but be a sacriledge What a madnesse is it that for to satisfie an infamous act of lust you must be either an excommunicate or a persecutour of Jesus Christ Excommunicate I say if you forsake altars and a persecutour of Jesus Christ if you come to them in this horrible sinne where you strike a nail into his hand a lance into his side you devour
your self by the practise of retirement of penance of hair-cloth and fasting A holy maid of Alexandria was twelve years in a sepulchre Raderus to free her self from the importunities of concupiscence cannot you be there one hour so much as in thought Another had this stratagem to elude love for she seeing Speculum Anonymi a young man to be very much touched with her love who ceased not to importune her with all the violent pursuits which passion could suggest told him she had made a vow to fast forty dayes with bread and water of which she would discharge her self before she would think of any thing else and asked whether he pleased not to be a Party for the triall of his love which he accepted but in few dayes he was so weakned that he then more thought upon death then love Have not you courage to resist your enemy by the like arms your heart faileth you in all that is generous and you can better tell how to commit a sin then to do penance Then chuse out that which is most necessary and reasonable separation from that body so beloved which by Separation the first remedy its presence is the nourishment of your flames Consider you not that comets which as it is said are fed by vapours of the earth are maintained whilst their mother furnisheth them with food so love which shineth and burns like a false star in the bottome of your heart continually taketh its substance and sustenance from the face which you behold with so much admiration from the conversation which entertains you in an enchanted palace full of chains and charms Believe me unlose this charm stoutly take your felfe off dispute not any longer with your concupiscence fly away cut the cable weigh anchor spread sails set forward go fly Oh how a little care will quickly be passed over Oh how a thousand times will you blesse the hour of this resosolution Look for no more letters regard not pictures no longer preserve favours let all be to preserve your reason Ah! why argue you still with your own thoughts Take me then some Angel some Directour The counsel and assiduity of a good directour is an excellent antidote who is an able intelligent industrious couragious man resign your self wholly up to his advice he will draw you out from these fires of Gomorrha to place you in repose and safety on the mountain of the living God I adde also one advice which I think very essentiall which is infinitely to fear relapses after health and to avoid all that may re-enkindle the flame For Love oft-times resembleth a snake enchanted cast asleep and smothered which upon the first occasions awakeneth and becomes more stronger and more outragious then ever You must not onely fortifie your body against it but your heart for to what purpose is it to be chast in your members and be in thought an adulterer Many stick not to entertain love in their imagination with frequent desires without putting them in execution but they should consider that Love though imaginary makes not an imaginary hell and that for a transitory smoke they purchase an eternall fire § 10. Of Celestiall Amities BUt it is time we leave the giddy fancies of love to behold the beauties and lights of divine Charity which causeth peace in battails conquest in victories life in death admiration on earth and paradise in heaven it self It is a strange thing that this subject the most amiable of all proves somewhat dreadfull to me by the confluence of so many excellent Writers antient and modern who have handled it so worthily since thier riches hath impoverished their successions and their plenty maketh me in some sort to fear sterility They had much furtherance in their design they took as much stuffe as they thought good referring all that to the love of God which is in nature and above nature in grace and beyond grace They have enlarged themselves in great volumes the sight whereof alone seems to have much majesty and to please their own appetites they have said all they might possible But here forasmuch as concemeth my purpose I have reduced my self into contractions of great figures which will not prove troublesome if measures and proportions be therein observed and nothing forgotten of all that which is most essentiall to the matter we treat I find my self very often enforced to confine giants to Myrmecidia opera apud Aelianum the compasse of a ring and to cover ships under the wing of a fly drawing propositions out of a huge masse of thoughts and discourses to conclude them in a little Treatise not suffering sublimity to take ought away of their facility nativenesse of their majesty shadows of their lustre nor superficies of their dimensions Besides that which renders this my discourse the lesse pleasing is that speaking to men of the world I cannot disguise the matter in unknown habits splendid and pompous words conceptions extatick I cannot perswade them that a Seraphin hath penetrated rhe heart of one with a dart of fire and that another hath had his sides broken by the strength of the love of God I must pursue ordinary wayes and teach practises more nearly approching to our humanity I am then resolved to shew there are celestiall Amities which great souls contract with God that their condition is very excellent and most happy and that the practice of them must begin in this world to have a full fruition of them in the other Carnall spirits which onely follow animall wayes have much a-doe to conceive how a man can become passionate in the love of God and think there is no affection but for temporall and visible things It is a Love too high say they to transferre their affections into heaven It is a countrey wherein we have no commerce There comes neither letter nor message thence No ships arrive on that coast It is a world separated from ours by a great Chaos wholly impenetrable That there may be a celestiall amity by the commerce of man with God How would you I love God since he is all spirit and I a body He is Infinite I finite He so High and I so low It is a kind of insolency to go about to think of it Behold how spirits ignorant of heavens mysteries do talk But I maintain upon good grounds that we are made to place our love in the heart of God and that if we do not seasonably take this way well we may go on but never shall we arrive at repose First the Philosopher Plato hath worthily observed An exellent conceit of Plato Plato in Sympos Marlil Ficinus Amor memoria primi ac summi purissuni pulchri Appetitor artis desertor artificis amplectitur speciem eujus non miratur authorem S. Eucherius ep Paraenâ—t that the love we have here below is a remembrance of the first fair sovereign and most pure of all beauties which is
this fire I see lightning flashes to issue forth This is the fire of the love of God and these lightnings are the eruptions he made by communicating himself to man Consider O soul redeemed with the bloud of the sonne of God that thou canst not live without love on what side soever thou turnest thou necessarily must love and God foreseeing this necessity would that thou lovest like him that thou take the object of his love for the object of thine own his manner of loving for thine his scope and contentment for thine And where thinkest thou hath God the heavenly Father placed his love from all eternity but in himself Because he alone is worthy to be originally beloved as the source and fountain-head of all beauties and bounties which are the two baits of affections excessively as he who hath neither end nor beginning He loves himself by his holy Spirit which is his own substance and he loves himself necessarily because love is his Essence O soul if thou couldest a little lift up thine eyes surcharged with so many terrestriall humours and behold in the bosome of the heavenly Father the eternall Fire-brand which he gives for a rule of thy love what secrets and what mysteries of love wouldst thou learn there mightest thou observe the four conditions which constitute all the excellency of love to wit Purity Simplicity Fervour and Communication First thou must learn to purifie thy love this love being most pure and excellent for it is God himself produced in the bosome of God it is the first of Sanctities holy by origin by object by example and by form It is the holy Ghost burning in the heart of the eternall Father S. Thomas teacheth us a very singular piece of Theology in the Treatise he wrote of charity S. Thom. opusc 61. De Dilectione omne receptum est in recipiente per modum recipientis where he saith every thing placed in another is measured and adapted to that which receiveth it as water which is round in a round vessell and square in a square vessell For if the thing received be lesser then that which received it it by this reception gets a state of excellency and a Title of worth above its Nature so saith he the visible species are ennobled in our eyes and the Intelligible in our understanding This admitted I say that if we onely consider the love of God in that manner as we do in men as drawn from exteriour objects yet would it be a matter of a marvellous value to be received into the heart of God and to be conform to the Diviniâ—y but when Divinity telleth us that this love produced of God is the substance of God received in God hinself and inseparable from his essence what greatnesse and what purity must we conceive in this love of God and if he will that this same love which is all his should be not onely the object but the efficient cause of ours by the infusions Charitas Dei dâ—ffusa est in cordibus nostris per spiritum sanâ—tum Rom. 5. 8. he worketh in our hearts O how much shame ought we to have so to defile our love with contaminations and impurities of the earth Secondly you must know this love is most simple and totally as well in this unity as in the Essence of God and although he love creatures as the tokens and footsteps of his bounty which are in kinds so manifold in multitude so innumerable yet is he not devided nor severed because he gathers all those creatures together in his bosome where their beginning and end is and therein uniteth them as rayes of his benignity contracted and drawn together into one Centre in a burning-glasse Monas genuis monadem in se suum reflexit amorem it a explicat S. Thom 1. part 9. 23. Fornacem custodiens in operibus ardoris Eccl. 43. 3. Thereupon thou shouldst be sorry to see thy heart torn and divided by so many objects which divert thy affections and hinder thee from simply giving them to God for whom they are made Thirdly thou must understand this love is most ardent since the bosome of the eternall father is as a great Fornace which with its flames enkindleth all the chaste loves that burn whether they be in heaven in the heart of Angels or whether on earth in the souls of the elect Ah! how much oughtst thou to blush and to be ashamed considering how in stead of enkindling thy love with the sacred fires of this eternall fornace thou hast sought to beg a profane fire from the eyes of a wretched woman which hath burnt thee to the bones thou hast gone door after door to all sorts of creatures opening thy heart to forraign flames whereby thou hast gone about to burn even the sacrifice of the living God Ah? Thou insensible creature knowest thou not that Nadab and Abihu for putting ordinary Levit 10. fire into their Incensories when they came to the Altar of the synagogue were devoured as unfortunate victimes with the proper coles of their own sacrifices and dost thou think it will be lawfull for thee to approach the Altar of the eternall Testament with this forraign love which thou lodgest in thy heart Art not thou afraid to hear those thundring words This Sacrifice shall be a punishment to thee since thou hast Crysol serm 26. sums de sacrificio pâ—nam quia feciâ—â— de propitistione peccatum made a sinne of thy propitiation Lastly faithfull soul thou shouldst know the love of God is most communicative for it is streamed forth in his eternall productions by two emanations of understanding and will as by two Conduit-pipes of Glories and beauties And not content with this this eternall communication being involved in a profound obscurity unknown to all creatures he hath cleft the cloud in five places and is come to communicate himself to the world by five admirable wayes of his magnificence which are Creation Conservation the Incarnation of the word Justification and Exaltation of the soul to beatitude O! how thou shouldest be confounded hereupon to see thy heart so narrow and streightned in the exercise of good works Look back again upon thy second modell and attentively The love of Jesus towards his heavenly Father consider how Jesus the pattern of all chaste amities loved his eternall Father and on earth rendered him that honourable tribute of love which could not well have been payed to a God so justly loved but by a loving God and who did with so much perfection love Jesus alone passed with an incomparable eminency those nine degrees whereof we spake before which are as nine spheres of love This most blessed foul which had an exact knowledge of all the excellencies of increated beauty loved him according to its science equalling his fervours to its lights It first of all entred into the solitude of love which made a little fortunate Island of the heart wherein there was
nothing but God and It God who was in it with eternall contentments It which was in God with reciprocall and wholly ineffable affections This heart of Jesus resembled the Halcions nest which cannot hold one silly fly more then the bird it self So he knew not how to lodge one creature in himself to the prejudice of the Creatour but could tell how to lodge them altogether to uâ—ite them to their Head O it was properly his businesse to give us this lesson which he afterward dictated by one of his Oracles He loveth thee not August â—olil Minà s tâ— amat qui tâ—cum aliquid amat quod propter te non amat Apoc. 8. enough whosoever loveth any thing with thee which he loveth not for thee From solitude he entred into the silence which Synesius calleth Beatifick Silence and which S. John placeth in heaven in the peacefull condition of the Blessed It was properly the calm and repose which the holy soul of Jesus took with his heavenly Father in his divine Orisons which he many times continued the space of whole nights watching and weeping for us and dwelling as it were in the fire of love It is that silence which the Canticle calleth the Cantic 3. Bed of Solomon encompassed with threescore valiant ones but of that great Host of Angels From silence he passed to the suspension whereof Job speaketh Job 7. 15. Elegit suspendium anima 〈◊〉 where his soul felt it self totally pulled up by the root from earth but not as yet placed in heaven because he was corporally in this transitory life We verily find three admirable suspensions in Nature That of water in the clouds of Heaven above the clouds and of earth under the clouds and two ineffable suspensions in the Humanity of Jesus The first is that of his blessed soul which was alwaies hanging at the heart of God and the second of his body on the Crosse to purifie by his death all the regions of the world both above and beneath above by the exhalation of his spirit beneath by the effusion of his bloud After suspension he mounted to insatiability which Daâ—iâ—â— Cardi. â—â— Hymno dâ— Paradiso Avidi semper plâ—ni quod habent de â—â—â—â—rant caused him that drinking those eternall sources by long draughts in the delighrs of Contemplation which streams upon him from heaven he slaked his thirst in his own bosome not quite quenching it therein retaining the condition of those who see God of whom it is said That they are still replenished yet still greedy incessantly desiring what they possesse From insatiability he came to the degree of Indefatigability which caused him perpetually to spend himself in most glorious labours for the redemption of the world measuring and running over the earth as the sun doth Heaven and fowing virtues and benefits every where to reap nought but Ingratitude From thence he proceeded to that Inseparability which tied him for the love of his heavenly Father not onely to the punishment of the Crosse but to so many scorns and miseries as he embraced for us and he made so much account of this mortall flesh which he took of us that he associated it unto himself with an eternall band and hath transmitted it into the bosome of Immortality placing his wounds which were the characters of his love and of our inhumanity even in the sanctuary of the most blessed Trinity From this Inseparability he suffered himself to slide into languours extasies and transanimations which make up a Deified love such as was that of Jesus Languour dried him up with the zeal he had for our salvation exhausting all the strength of his body and to speak with Philo he seemed as if he would have transformed his flesh into the nature of Mark 3. 21. his spirit causing it to melt and dissolve under the ardours of ineffable affection as we see a Myrrhe-Tree which distilleth the first fruits of its liquour under the lustre of the sun-beams Extasie which bare this great soul with a vigorous violence to the heart of God made a truce in all the actions of sensitive nature and as it happeneth that the Ocean extraordinarily swelling up upon one shore forsaketh the other So the spirit of our Saviour already divinized amassing together the whole multitude of his forces to serve his love and satisfie the passion he had towards his celestiall Father overflowed in the heart of the Divinity with so immeasurable a profusion that all his inferiour Nature seemed to be forsaken and despoiled of the presence and government of his soul In the end he entred into that transanimation which Orig. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Anima ilia quasi scrâ—um in igne semper in verbo semper in sapientia semper in Deo in convertibilitatem ex verbi Dei unitate indesinenter ignita possidebat so powerfully united him to God that onely retaining the property of two natures Divine and Humane he made an incomparable commixtion of heart of love of affections and conformities which made Origen say This soul like unto Iron which is on burning Coles was alwayes in the word alwayes in wisdome ever in God and took an immutable constancy from the ardour wherewith it is enkindled in the union of God If you find this love too sublime for you behold it as it were tempered and reflected in so many saints as were S. Paul S. Augustine S. Bernard and so many other §. 13. A notable Example of worldly love changed into divine Charity I Will give you a very familiar one in a man of the world a man of the Court and one who is at this present a treasure hidden from many who was hated by the envious persecuted by the proud condemned by the Ignorant and yet a great servant of God It is the learned and pious Raymundus Lullus as it Vitae Patrum Occid l. â— Ex Carolo Bovillo appeareth by his life faithfully written in the Tome of the lives of the Western Fathers This man flourished above three hundred years ago and was born in the Island of Majorica of a notable extraction which gave him passage into worldly honours and caused him to be bread in the Court of his King by whom he afterward was made one of his prime Officers Never was there a man more inclining to love for he loved transportedly and spent all his youth in this vanity having no employment more acceptable then to write amourous verses to expresse his passion In the end he fell into the snare of a violent affection that long turmoiled him which was the love of an honourable Lady endowed with an invincible chastity Here ordinarily love which delights to pursue what it cannot arrive unto finds most admiration for the eyes and food for its flame He was so on fire in this quest that he thought he should lose his wits suffering himself to fall into unbeseeming and extraordinary actions so farre as being one day on horse-back
the eternall and unquenchable fornace of all chaste affections He hath all his desires limited and replenished since as he sees nothing out of himself so he cannot desire any thing out of himself If you imagine the sea saith S. Augustine Mare co gitas non est hoc Deus omnia quae sunt in terra homines animalia non est hoc Deus Augin Psal 85. it is not God If you imagine the earth with so many rivers which moisten it so many herbs and flowers which enamel it so many trees which cover it so many living creatures which furnish it so many men which inhabite and cultivate it it is not God If you in your thoughts figure the air with all its birds so different in shape so various in plumage so diversified in their notes it is not God If you go up to those Chrystaline and Azure vaults where the Sunne and Moon and so many Starres perform their career with such measure it is not God If you behold in heaven innumerable legions of Angels Spirits of fire and light resplendent before the face of God as lamps of balsamum lighted before the propitiatory it is not God but God is he who comprehendeth all that who bounds it and incomparably surpasseth it All things say Divines are in God by way of eminency as in the Exemplar Cause which mouldeth them as in the Efficient Cause which produceth them as in the Finall Cause which determines them but they are in a manner so elate and exalted that those same which in themselves are inanimate in God are spirit and life All the Creatures we have seen produced in the revolution of so many Ages are as Actours which God Quod factum est in ipso vita erat Joh. 1. who is the great Master of the Comedy which is acted in this world kept hidden behinde the hangings in his Idea's more lively and more lustrous then they be on the stage The World strikes the hour of their Entrances and Exits of their life and death but the great Clock of God in his Eternity hath at one instant strucken all their hours Nothing to him is unexpected nothing unknown nothing new All that which tieth the desires of the most curious all that which suspendeth the admiration of the sagest all which enflameth the hearts of the most passionate Lands and Seas Magazines of Nature Thrones Theatres Arms and Empires all are but a silly drop of dew before the face of God Then how can God but live contented within himself Ecce gentes quasi stilla fitulae quasi momentum staterae reputatae sunt ecce insulae quasi pulvis exiguus Libanus non sufficiet ac ad succedendum Isa 4. 16. since the smallest streams of the fountain which springs from his bosome may suffice a million of worlds O ungratefull and faithlesse soul the same Paradise which God hath for himself he hath prepared for thee he will thou beholdest thy self that thou contemplatest thy self that thou reposest thy self in his heart yet thou flutterest up and down like a silly butterfly among so many creatures so many objects so many desires perpetually hungry ever distant from thy good ever a traitour to thy repose and glory Beggarly soul which beggest every where Miserable soul which in every place findest want in abundance Ignominious soul upon whose front all loves have stamped dishonour when wilt thou rally together all thy desires into one period When wilt thou begin to live the life of God to be satisfied with Gods contentment and to be happy with Gods felicity § 5. That we should desire by the imitation of Jesus Christ THe second Reason that I draw from the second 2. Reason of the onely desire which Jesus had in seeking the glory of his heavenly Father Model which is the Word Incarnate the Rule and Example of all our actions is that Jesus Christ had no other desire on earth but to suffer to be dissolved and to annihilate himself for the glory of his heavenly Father by subjecting rebellious powers to his Sceptre and by gaining souls of which he infinitely was desirous even to the last moment of his life The Plato lib. de ordine universi apud Viennam Philosopher Plato in the Book of the order of the Universe writeth that all the Elements naturally desired to evaporate themselves in the Celestiall Region as it were therein to obtain a more noble and more eminent state of consistence Now the deaf and dumb desire which things inanimate have to be transformed into a nature more delicate is most apparent in the sacred Humanity of the Son of God which although it alwayes remained within the limits of its Essence it notwithstanding had an ineffable sympathy with the Divinity being totally plunged therein as iron in burning coals It in all and through all followed its motions will and ordinances as true dials wait on the Sun nor had it any desire more ordinary then to make a profusion of it self in all it had created Theology teacheth us that albeit the will of God were necessitated in certain actions as in the production of the love which sprang from the sight of God notwithstanding in others it was altogether free able to do and not to do such or such a thing according to his good pleasure as at such or such a time to go or not to go into Jury Able of two good things which were presented to chuse the one or leave the other as to do miracles rather in Jury then in Sidon Able also Nonvolebat in Judaeam ambulare Job 7. 1. to do the things ordained him by his heavenly Father out of motives and reasons such as his wisdome thought best to chuse In all those liberties never pretended he ought but the Glory and Service of his Father Good God what sublimate is made in the limbeck of Love what evaporations and what separations of things even indivisible are made in the five great annihilations which Theology contemplateth in the person of Jesus Christ First the inseparable Word of God seemeth to make a divorce but a divorce of obedience and to separate it self but with a separation alwayes adherent by the condition of a forreign nature transplanted into Radius ex sole portio de summa de spiritu spiritus de Deo Deus Tertul Apol 2. Greg. l. 28 mor. cap. 2. the Divinity Secondly he by a new miracle permitteth that this Humane nature tied to the Divine nature be separated from its subsistence its last determination and substantiall accomplishments Thirdly that Glory be separated from the estate and condition of Glory yielding his glorious soul up as a prey to sadnesse Fourthly he separateth himself not onely from the signs and conditions of a Messias but almost from the resemblance of a man being become us a worm Lastly he draws himself into the interiour of his Quasi ignis effulgens thus ardens in igne soul
Ecclesiam Ephes 5. 25. To seek by lawfull wayes ones petty accommodations is not a thing of it self to be alwayes condemned Servus vocarus â—es non fit tibi curae sed â— potes fieri liber magis utere 1 Cor. 7. 21. onely by the first Motives of Nature but also out of Election and Reason all that which is hurtful to the body and health No man saith the Apostle hateth his own flesh but cherisheth and entertaineth it as long as he can therein imitating the tendernesse of affection which Jesus Christ hath for his Church I adde that it is not also my intention to perswade that one should not seek in the care of his life things the most commodious so much as Justice and Reason will permit We must bear with servitude saith this fore-alledged Oracle if we be engaged in this condition but if one can become free I advise him rather to make choice of liberty Yet we are not ignorant but that there are many good men who by the power of virtue afflict their bodies and preferre contempt above all which the world esteemeth that they may conform themselves to the suffering of our Saviour But to rest within the limits of * * * One must take heed of being 〈◊〉 curious Civii life I say that although we may innocently use the blessings of God and put nature to its small pittances yet we must take heed of becoming too suspicious too nice and too apprehensive of those things which are not according to our appetites for otherwise there happen great disturbances and irksome confusions of mind which thrust the health of our soul into uncertainty First when a spirit is too much tied to its skin and It is a hard thing not to feel some incommodities life being so full of them too much bent to flie all the contrarieties of nature it is very beggarly and suppliant towards its body which is not done without much care For life being replenished with great and little incommodities from which Kings themselves cannot be wholly exempt If one apprehend them too much he must live like a man who would perpetually shut his eyes for fear of flies and imploy almost all his time which is so precious in the service of the flesh God himself permitteth it also Timor quem timebam evenit mihi quod verebar accidit Job 3. 25. Secondly God for punishment of this nicenesse will suffer that all we most fear shall happen to us a man many times falleth into mischiefs even by fearing them Death seems to be onely for cowards and when one seeks for liberty by unworthy wayes then he is involved in rhe greatest servitude Thirdly one is in danger to fall into much discouragement One puts himself upon the hazard to live alwayes in insupportable anxiety Debitores sumus non carâ—i ut socundum carnem viâ— vamus Rom. 8. Hier. in ep ad Aglas Non est de ficata in Deum secura confessio quotiâ— die eredent in Christum tollit Crucem suam negat scipsum Bern. ser 85. in Cant. Fuge ad illum qui adversatur per quem talis fias cui jam non adversetur and into sad despair when he sees himself slipped into matters troublesome and very vexing since he sought to avoid the lightest For which cause the Sages counsel us willingly to accustome our selves a little to evill and of our own accord to harden our selves to the end that when it shall come necessity may make that more supportable which we have already assayed by prudence We ow nothing to flesh to live according to flesh saith S. Paul and S. Hierome in the Epistle he wrote to Aglasius clearly giveth him to understand That the Profession of Christianity is not a Profession nice and lazy a true Christian every day beareth the Crosse and renounceth himself S. Bernard said as much in one of his Sermons upon the Canticles Fly saith he to your beloved persecutour that you may find the end of your persecutions in the accomplishment of his will It is a determination from heaven that we should see before our eyes so many great religious men and women most austere whom the divine Providence seems to propose unto us to extend and glorifie the Crosse of Jesus Christ and shew that all is possible to the love of God § 3. The Consideration of the indulgent favours of Jesus Christ towards Humane Nature is a powerfull remedy against the Humour of Disdain IF we be not yet throughly perswaded by these reasons The example of our Saviour serves for another strong remedy to sweeten our Aversions the example of our Saviour ought to make us ashamed For when we more nearly consider his life we find that he onely did not shew an Aversion from things despicable but chose the most abject and contrary to Nature I ask of you what attractive was there in humane nature to draw him from the highest parts of the heavens to its love What saw he in it but a brutish body a soul in the most inferiour order of Intelligencies all covered over with crimes wholly drenched in remedilesse miseries and yet laying aside those beautiful Angels who did shine as Aromatick lamps in his eternall Temple he came upon earth to seek for this lost creature prodigall of his substance a foe to his honour injurious to his glory and not content to reconcile it to Eras â—â—da confusione plena transivi perte vidi â—â— expandi amictum meum super te opeâ—uâ— Ignominram tuam Ezech. 16. Displicentes amati snmus ut fieret in nobis unde placeremus Concil Arausican Nee pereuntem perire patitur nec abaverso avertirur sed fugientem paternâ charitate insequitur revocat blanditur reâ—erso no◠〈…〉 ignoscit sed regnâ—â— promâ—â—it Fraâ—â—â— Abbâ—â— l. 5. de gratia The humours of the world are quite contrary to the designs of God Displicet avaris quòd non corpus aureum habuit displicet impudicis quia ex virgine natus est displicet superbis quòd contumelias â—apienter pertulit displicet delicatis quòd â—ruâ—iatus est displicet timidis quòd mortuus est ut non vitia sua videantur defendere unum in hoc dicunt sibi hoc displicere sed in filio Dei August de agone Christiano his father he espoused it and united it to himself with a band indissoluble putting it into the possession of all his greatnesse to surcharge himself with its miseries This is it which is so notably described by the Prophet Ezechiel when he sets before our eyes a miserable ungracious wretch cast forth upon the face of the earth wallowing in ordures abandoned to all sorts of injuries and scorns whom the Prince of glory looketh on with his eyes of mercy taketh him washeth clotheth adorneth and tyeth him to himself by the band of marriage We naturally have so much Aversion from persons misshapen nasty and infected
Essence and appertenances thereof HOpe is the gate of a great Pallace replenished with riches It is in my opinion the place The Image and nature of Hope which Tertullian termeth when he calls it the portresse of Nature It looketh on and considers upon one side pearls which are as yet in the shell and Naturae jaâ—tricem on the other upon Roses in the midst of thorns which it thinks it may enjoy with some labour Such is the nature of Hope according to S. Thomas It is a motion of the S. Thom. 1. 2 q. 40. art 2. appetite which followeth the knowledge one hath of a good future possible and somewhat difficult It hath two arms with which it endeavoureth to pursue and embrace objects whereof the one is called Desire and the other Belief to be able to obtain what one desireth Thus doth learned Occham define it It is not sufficient Occham quodlibeto 3. q 9. to say that a thing is beautifull pleasing and profitable to create Hope unlesse it be shewed it is possible and that one may arrive thereunto by certain wayes which are not out of his power who hopeth So Hope if it be reasonable hath ordinarily wisdome strength eloquence amity and money for it for these are the things which raise its courage At the gates of passion we see huge heaps of people of all manner of dispositons who flatter it and behold it of one side lovers who seek for a mate For Philo said it was the virtue of lovers on â—hilo lib. Quod deterius c. the other side Courtiers who run after favour on the other aspirers who canvas for offices and dignities on the other Laborours and Merchants but above all there are many young-men bold and resolute who therein have a great share because as saith Aristotle they Arist l. 2. Rhet. c. 12. have little of the past and much of the future Or as S. Gregory Nazianzen affirmeth for that nothing is Nazian de vita sua 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hard to a fervent spirit Moreover it sitteth upon a Peacock and its face is encompassed with a Rainbowe by reason it infinitely charmeth and recreateth the minds of such as follow it by very pleasing semblances and as King Mithridates saith it hath I know not what kind Mithrid in epist Graecis of sweetnesse which pleaseth even then when it deceiveth but if you observe it you shall find it holdeth an Anchor in the right hand to fix the desire of the wise as on the contrary it carryeth in the left hand an enchanted mirrour wherein it letteth fools see a thousand slight trifles all which turn into smoke Pleasure waiteth on it whilst we hope for it is that which sweetneth all the labours of life and which serves for a spur to all great and generous actions But if it falls out that things happen not as they were figured in the imagination then are all these Courtiers delivered over to a furious Monster called Despair which drags them down to the foot of a mountain and oft-times drencheth them in gulphs and precipices Behold in few words the nature definition difference composition object subject the causes and the effects of hope Let us now see how we may govern this Motion § 2. That one cannot live in the world without Hope and what course is to be held for the well ordering of it THey are of too haughty a strain who never friendly entertein Hope and think there is no life for them if Felicity be not alwayes at their gate The condition of creatures is such that all their blessings never come to them all at one It were to go about to expresse a word without letters to compose a happinesse without joyes and contentments succeeding one another How can hope be banished from earth sith Heaven which is so well content hath not renounced it The blessed souls after the vision of God do yet hope something which is the Resurrection of their bodies to which they most ardently wish to be reunited those which are represented under the Altar in the Apocalypse who ask vengeance Apoc. 6. of their blood at the tribunall of the Divine Justice are instantly clothed with white garments in token of this most bright flesh which is to be joyned to their immortall spirits Heaven which expecteth nothing for the perfection of its beauties ceaseth not to revolve each moment of the day and night to diversifie them But we must confesse that earth is the place of Hopes which are as seeds of our Felicities from whence it cometh that what the Grecians call to some we name it to hope Our soul here resembleth the Sperare 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 First Matter which is perpetually enamoured of new forms and as the understanding of Angels according to the saying of a great Philosopher is all that which it ought to be from the beginning and becometh not Carolus Bovilus de intellectu humano Angelico new at all Contrariwise Humane understanding is nothing in the beginning and becomes all in processe of time So our will is like unto white Writing-tables wherein we easily write or blot out all we will The estate of perfection must be expected to imprint it with a lasting Character So many young plants so many little living creatures so many children so many imperfections so many wishes warn us that we may live here with hope we have so little of time present that we are enforced to dilate our selves upon the future This insensibly delighteth us and stirs us as Trees which seem to take pleasure to be rocked by the winds It being resolved that we necessarily must expect and hope The good husbanding of hopes whilst we are in the world It remaineth to consider how we may well employ this passion in hoping good things and hoping them by wayes very direct and in an orderly manner First It is a shamefull thing to say there are such who hope all that which is to be feared One promiseth himself the death of a Kinsman the other the confusion of a family another to seduce some silly maid another to debauch a married wife another to satisfie his revenge another to scrape together as much as his avarice can wish and so many other things which are most unhappy Hopes the successe whereof God sometimes permitteth when he will chastise wicked men What a horrour is it to hope for crimes and to feed ones self with anothers evils as if one sought nourishment from coals and serpents If our thoughts be not alwayes so high as the glory of heaven at least let us not abase them so low as Hell If they cannot be divine let them not be inhumane let them ty themselves to blessings permitted and not to objects so unworthy One may expect wealth children health knowledge honour an office a marriage and so many other things which are commodious for humane life without desiring disasters
places under the ground such as that which we now adayes call Sybilla's Grot and it is thought the Sun never reflected into their caves but it is not so in the visits of the holy Ghost The great S. Dionys de Hierarch coelesti sea of Divine Lights is ever at hand and abundantly overfloweth in favour of such evils as will participate therein I am not ignorant that certain Divines have said that some sinners arrive many times to such exorbitancy of crimes and ingratitudes that they in the end are totally abandoned by God and have not all the rest of their time one sole good thought But the Bellarm. l. 2 de Gratia most moderate say that this happeneth for certain time and certain moments albeit one cannot generally S. Thom. 3. 4. 86. Dicere quod peccatum sit in hac vita de quo quis poenltere non possit erroneum est Misericordiae Dei nec mensuram possumus ponere nec tempora definire S. Leo. ep 89 Admirabile conversions of such as seemed desperate say that a man may come to an estate so desperate as to be wholly impenetrable to the graces of God It is an errour to say that a crime so detestable may happen in the world of which one cannot have remission We cannot set limits nor bound time in the infinite mercies of God Moses the Ethiopian who was so black of body so stained in conscience so wicked of life that he was accounted a devil incarnate was so changed by the Grace of God that he became an Angel of heaven An infamous thief having obtained his pardon of the Emperour Mauricius was put into the Hospitall of S. Samson where he so plentifully bewailed his sins in the last agonies of death that the Physician who took care of him coming to see him found him unexpectedly dead and over his face a handkerchief bathed with his tears and soon after he had a certain revelation of his Beatitude To this purpose Pope Celestine said That a true Conversion made at the Coelest 1. ep 2. c. 2. Vera ad Deum conversio in ultimis positorum mente potius est existimanda quam tempere last end of life is to be measured by the mind not by the time God caused a thief to mount from the gallows to Glory to teach us that as there is nothing impossible to his Power so there is not any thing limitted in his Mercy It is onely fit for him to Despair who can be as wicked as God is good § 5 The Examples which Jesus Christ gave us in the abysse of his suffering are most efficacious against pusillanimity BEhold the consolations we may derive fâ—om our first model but if we will consider the second The sight of our Saviour teacheth us to persevere in our good hopes and not to despair we shall find that our Lord who did all for our instruction witnessed strong hopes in the great abysse of dolours wherewith he was all covered over on the Crosse to encourage us to hope well in the most sensible afflictions That you may well understand this point so important you must consider what then was the state of the body and soul of Jesus Christ the body was so full of wounds that they who could not be satisfied with his pains did more in him torment his wounds then his members He had almost no part about him entire whereof he on the Crosse could make use but his eyes and his tongue His eyes not being pulled out as Samson's and Zedekiah's there was nothing left for him but to set before his view the Martyrdome of his good Mother who was fastned on the Crosse by love and who imprinted in her soul by a most amorous reflexion all the torments which the King of the afflicted bare on his body His Tongue which he had reserved free to be the organ of heavenly harmonies in those fervent prayers he sent to his celestiall Father was wholly drenched in gall But all this was nothing in comparison of the dolours of his Soul For he was destitute for a time of all divine Consolations abandoned to himself delivered over as a prey to all the outrageous sadnesse which may grow in our minds It was a horrible blasphemy in Calvin to say that our Lord descended into Hell Calvin l. 2. Instit c. 16. there to endure the pains of the damned without the suffering of which he was not in a state to be able to redeem the world This spoken in the manner as this abominable Novelist hath dared to write woundeth and offendeth the most obdurate ears But if we Suaâ—ez in 3. q. 46. Fieri potuit ut intensivè esset major an ità de facto fuerit non potest constare will speak with the most eminent Divines we may say that it is very likely that the Agonies of our Saviours Soul might in some sort enter into Comparison with the sadnesse of the damned not by reason of their condition but of their excesse And certainly some have thought that our Saviour stirring up in his blessed Soul a Contrition for all the sin of the world in The excesse of the contrition and dolour of our Lord. generall and of every one in particular was wounded with so piercing a sorrow that it in some sort exceeded that of devils and the damned For all the sadnesse which may be imagined in hell consisteth in acts which are produced from Principles that surpasse not the force of Humane or Angelicall Nature but the pain which our Saviour endured for the expiation of our Ingratitude was derived from the heart of God according to the whole latitude of the Grace and Charity of the word Incarnrte For which cause it is conformable to reason to say The three sadnesses of our Saviour by Allegory that this blessed Soul entred into three kinds of sacred and honourable flames and of pains wholly Divine The first was in the garden of Olivet when he said His soul was sad to death The Maâ— 16. second when he pronounced on the Crosse My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Complaining Mat. 17. not of the separation of the Word as some antient Writers have understood it little conform to true Vox recedentis verbi Dei contestata dissidium Hil. can 33. Athan. lib. de Incarn Aug. ract 47. in Joan. Theology but of recesse from protection as S. Athanasius doth explicate it in his Book of the Incarnation and S. Augustine in his 47. Tract upon S. John The third was at the going forth of the incomparable soul of Jesus when there was not so small a filament of a vein in his body which resented not the absence of this divine Sunne Notwithstanding among all these great convulsions which put heaven into mourning and earth into quakings under his feet he stood firm and with an eye bathed in bloud beheld the raies of Glory which were to crown him
it disentombed sinnes which were before as it were interred §. 2. Three principall Kinds of Anger VVE notwithstanding can say with S. John Damascen that Anger stirreth up and down in three principall regions where it produceth very different Three regions of Anger Damascen l. 2. orth c. 16. Weak spirits ordinarily cholerick effects The first is called the region of sharp choler the second of bitter choler and the third of fury In the first region are all those who have slight heats of the liver who are angry upon every light occasion and almost ever moment In this are to be found many women many children and lovers and besides Hungry Thirsty needy sickly and nice ones fantasticks and extravagants as that Smyndrides who seeing a peasant taking pains before him said his body was quite broken therewith There needs almost nothing to make choler fly up into their faces so much they are thereunto disposed The slightest things put them out of the limits of reason and if no man contradict them they frame quarrels to themselves with wood and stones and with other things inanimate which serve their use and in the end fall out with themselves and skirmish against their own shadow The great Cesarius a Greek Authour Caesarius in dialog saith that Mil-stones having not corn to grind strike fire so we oft-times see in housholds and Communities when there is no employment no gain nor profit the fire of Anger interposeth between man and wife between brothers and friends yea among religious who are not throughy well applyed to the functions of their profession The second Region is that of inveterate choler Second region of anger wherein rest malicious and covert souls wherein malicious souls are engaged who do nothing else but gnaw their own heart and envy the felicity of another closely undermining it as much as they can both by word and deed There you behold them all ranked in order which is nothing but disorder with a visage ghastly and disfigured an eye of an owl a countenance moody a gate slow speech wrangling and most often an enraged silence O discontented and dismall Region I had rather see the Comet which appeared not long since then to behold a man so composed who perpetually hath vultures in his entrails executioners by his sides and who moreover hath a petty hell within himself It is of this anger the wise-man saith Proverb 26. Grave est saxum onerosa a rena sed ira utroque gravior The property of the yew Tree like unto Anger that A stone was very heavy and sand weighty but choler incomparably more I had rather roll Sisyphus his stone eat sand and cloes then hatch in my heart such anger Have you ever observed the unlucky Tree whereof Theophylact speaketh upon the Prophet Nahum which we in our Language call the yew Tree It is a Tree of death which with its shadow alone killeth the herbs and plants about it This worthy Interpreter addeth that it out of a singular malignity devoureth them And Dioscorides noteth that being once set on fire it will many moneths keep a melancholy fire hidden under the ashes not almost to be quenched Behold the picture of one who is tainted with the cursed choler of the second region you see him anxious and burthensome to himself dull like an old yew an old Tree in a Church-yard He is impotent in effect for revenge but hath a furious appetite towards it which he dissembleth under the meagernesse of the Countenance of a dead man and under the coldnesse of a maligne passion The fire is as under ashes the space of so many moneths so many good friends so many good advises so many convincing reasons quench some little spark of it yet there still remaineth some of it behind So many powerfull Sermons so many confessions so many communions cry out Fire Fire pour on water Miserable creature thy house smoketh It will burn thee when thou art asleep But he hath no ears And when this serpentine soul shall be snatched away by a sudden death if you search into the ashes of his body there you shall yet find fire The Earth which shall cover him shall be Et erit terra ejus in picem ardentem nocte die non extinguetur in sempiternum ascendet fumus ejus Isai 34. Festuca in oculo ira est trabs verò odium Festuca initium trabis est nam trabs quando nascitur prius festuca est riganâ—o festucam deducis ad trabem alendo iram malis suspicionibus perducis ad odium August l. de verbis Domini ser 16. The region wherin are the furiouâ— like burning pitch It shall burn night and day and make black and thick smokes arise which shall eternally issue out of it Preserve your self from this second region and observe the words of S. Augustine Choler which proceedeth from some innocent promptitude is as a stick but this is a beam A stick is the beginning of a beam For the beam at first is but a stick if you water it it becometh a beam and if you cherish choler by evill suspicions you turn it into Hatred The third region of choler is fury in which all such are as play the part of mad Orlando and become as red as the Comb of a Cock and presently as pale as the dead who have eyes bloudy like frogges sparkling like Gorgons rolling as those of Cain who roar like lions who foam like Boars who hisse like serpents who poyson all they see like Basilisks who cast forth fire like Medeas buls who tear one another like Canniballs who sup with lights and lamps of bloud like Cyclops who walk in the night to strike and commit outrages like Furies who are perpetually in disturbance like Devils who do nothing but vomit forth blasphemies who swear by heaps who breath nothing but wounds but plague-sores and revenges who have no more of man in them but so much as may serve for food to eternall fire unlesse they betake them to repentance There are of them so ardent that they resemble those dogs of hot Countreys whereof Xenophon speaketh which strike their teeth so eagerly into the skin of a boar that together with the gash they make fire to fly out Behold a horrible sphere of monsters and tempests bloudy Comets horses and arms of fire It is they of Genes 49 Simeon Levi vasa iniquitatis bellantia c. Malediâ—â—us furor eorum quiae pertinax indignatio quia dura whom the Scripture speaketh Simeon and Levi you vessels of warre instruments of Iniquity Trumpets of fury and bloud never shall my spirit have to do with you never will I defile the glory of a peacefull soul by the contagion of your company Cursed be your fury for it is head-strong cursed your anger and revenge for it is wicked and insatiable Two things principally are deplorable in this third region The first is that anger is
causeth heaven and beatitude Thus doth S. Augustine assure us that the science of God is the cause of all things which draweth Being from the Abysse of nothing and brings the shades of death into light The world is known by us because it is but it is insomuch as it is known by God so efficacious this knowledge is O what a goodly thing it had been to see this great world how it displayed it self in all its pieces and smiled in all its mansions under the eye of God! The Heavens were stretched forth like a Courtain the stars were inchased in the Heavens as Diamonds the clouds suspended in the air as floating bodies that air was diversified in meteors the eternal veins of fountains began to stream the earth to cover its bosome and liberally to afford us out of its entrails infinite many blessings from the benignity of his aspects Tell me not that which the naturall History mentioneth that the Ostrich hatcheth her little ones by the rayes of her eyes yet never shall she bring forth eggs by looking on the earth but the Eye that is to say the knowledge of God hath such virtue that it is the maker of all creatures O beauty O greatnesse O goodnesse Beauty to inhabit in the Idea of God as in a Paradise of Glory Greatnesse to have a capacitie infinite Goodnesse to rest in the bowels of the mercy of the Creatour See a little the difference that is between our knowledges The differencies of our knowledges from those of God and that of God you think it a goodly matter to know a man and to wish him well yet he thereby becomes neither white nor black hot nor cold good rich nor learned for our knowledges are small in their capacities limited in their effects and inefficacious in their operations How many brave Captains and learned Authours are there who are still well thought of in the opinion of men but whether they beliving or whether they be dead if their souls be in an ill state this knowledge and this love nothing contributeth to their felicities But so is it not with the knowledge of God I speak of an amourous knowledge It gives Being and Grace Being because all things known by God are in God in a more noble manner then in themselves Here we behold dying creatures who fade wither and shrink insensibly into nothing were they not supported by the divine hand but in the house of God in the palace of Essences the Summers are of Cypresse saith the holy Canticle insomuch as all therein Cant. 1. 17. is immortall vigorous perfect and incorruptible and there it is where the blessed who have not here seen the world but by two eyes of flesh and have seen it tottering Bearis pervium est omniforme illud divinitatis speculum in quo quicquid eorum interest illucescat Concil Sen nonse and altogether imperfect behold it in God fully stable equall and absolute in all its dimensions The Saints perpetually have before their eyes the incomprehensible mirrour of the Divinity in which they at case behold all that which concerneth them and may conduce to their greater contentment I add that this knowledge causeth Grace For what makes predestination but that preparation of Grace and Glory which God hath conceived from all Eternity in his understanding to communicate it to his elect See what God doth seeing and God seen what doth he else but actually make heaven and Beatitude which consisteth in the clear vision of God So soon as a soul predestinated to enjoy without delay the glory of heaven is gone from out the bands of its body it hath for guide this divine splendour which Divines call the light of Glory which is a quality infused into the understanding that so elevates and fortifies it beyond its condition that it is able to endure the lightning flash eternall Beatitude Is it not of this light holy Job spake when he said he hideth light in his hands Job 36. and faith to his friend it is his inheritance possession Then God all-good communicateth himself to this soul ennobled with such a qualitie not by some image or representation but by its very essence intimately united to the glorified understanding and from thence what followeth but an admirable transformation The soul is wholly absorpt in felicity and as a small drop of water poured into the sea instantly takes the colour and taste of the sea so the souls taste is fully inebriated and coloured with the Divinity It is almost no longer in its self but becometh wholly like to God not by nature but by participation We know saith S. John when we shall see him we shall be like him And S. Gregory Nazianzen dareth to call it God Joan. ep 1. and as we have two principall parts of the soul to content Greg. Naz. Hymn the understanding and the will so God all benigne abundantly satisfieth them making thither to stream as by two dugs of glory all the delights and contentments proportioned to their condition For the understanding which naturally desireth to know is illuminated by a most excellent knowledge of things the most hidden which it seeth in God as in an incomprehensible Mirrour and seeth them not in the manner of the wise men of the world who flutter round about sciences as little flies about lamps that findge their wings and make their tomb in the flames but it seeth them with a vision sublime calm and delicious which giveth to the will that is made to love amorous eagrenesse Avidi semper pleni quod habent desiderant Pet. Damis in Hymn de gloria Paradis ever desiring and ever having what it desireth O what miracles doth the eye of God enkindling with one sole aspect of many Divinities when maketh so many blessed ones like unto it self as if the sun rising should in the heavens createa million of little suns and on earth an infinitie of Diamonds all which should bear the image of this bright star All those blessed ones illustrated by this aspect albeit The blessed although unequall iâ— glory are not enviouâ— they shine diversly according to each ones merit are so far from envie receiving the flames of eternall Goodnesse that every one accounteth the felicity of his companion for the accomplishment of his own Non erit tibi aliqua invidia disparis claritatis ubi regnat unitas charitatis Aug. There you shall hear no speech of envie occasioned by inequalitie of felicity where the union of charity shall eternally reign Go to then O thou Envious O thou malign Man God hath made thee to his likenesse to carry as he in proportion raies of love and compassion in thy eyes towards men and thou there bearest gall bloud and poyson Nay so far art thou otherwise that if it were in thy power to make benefits to grow from thy aspects thou wouldest rather desire the eye of a Basilisk to poyson burn and
Ordures which never are washed off miseries which are without end But this world wherein we live as it hath sanctities which are not without hazard and Felicities which cannot be without change so it hath sinnes waited on by pardon and miseries comforted by remedies yet against iniquities God hath given us penance and against calamities mercy Deum extra se effici creaturis omanibus providendo S. Maximus God in heaven produceth another God not in substance but in person and on earth a second image of himself which is this divine mercy It is an infinite goodnesse of the Father of Nature and grace to have here below seated this excellent passion to the end great maladies might not be without great medicines Of all living creatures there is none more miserable Man as he is the most miserable of all creatures so he is the most mercifull then man nor is there any likewise more mercifull then man whilest he is man and that he despoil not himself of that which God hath made him to do that which ought never to be so much as thought on And if he forget mildnesse and Compassion which is naturall to him our sovereign Creatour teacheth it him by his own miseries Alas How can one man harden his heart one against another on what side soever he look he seeth the tokens of his infirmities and scarce can he go a step but he finds a lesson of humility against his vanities If he consider what is above him he beholdeth the heavens and the air which so waste and change his life that yet without them he cannot live If he cast his eye round about him and under his feet he sees waters which in moistening him rot him and earth which being spread as a Table before his eyes fails not to serve him for a Tomb. It is a strange thing that even evils are necessary for him and that he cannot overslip things which kill him Smelling tasting meat and drink sleep and repose do with his life what Penelope did with her web what one houre makes another unmakes and the very sources of the greatest blessings are found to be wholly infected with mortall poyson But if man come to examine himself he finds he hath a body frail naked disarmed begging of all creatures exposed to all the injuries of elements of beasts and men and there is not a hand so little which strives not violently to pull off his skin Heat cold drouth moisture labour maladies old age exercise him and if he think to take a little repose idlenesse corrupteth him If he enter farther in to himself he meeteth a spirit fastned to the brink of his lips which is invaded by an army of passions so many times fleshed for his ruine And yet we must truly say that of all the evils of man there is not any worse then Man hath no greater evil then Man man It is he who causeth wars and shipwracks murthers and poysons he who burneth houses and whole Cities he who maketh Wildernesses of the most flourishing Provinces he who demolisheth the foundations of the most famous buildings he who rednceth the greatest riches to nakednesse he who putteth Princes into fetters who exposeth Ladies to dishonour who thrusts the knife into the throats of the pleople who not content with so many manner of deaths daily inventeth new to force out a soul by the violence of torments by as many bloudy gates as it receiveth wounds Good God! what doth not man against man when he hath once renounced humanity Novv vvhat remedy vvould there be in so great and horrible confusions vvhich make a hell of the earth vvere it not that God hath given us this vvholesome mercy vvhich it seems is come from heaven to unloose our chains to vvipe avvay our tears to svveeten our acerbities repair our losses and rebeautifie our felicities Mercy tilleth the fields of heaven and had it not descended on earth all which God did had been lost saith the golden mouth of the West Chry l. 1. 4. so § 2. The Essence of Compassion and how it findeth place in hearts the most generous GOd then hath caused Compassion to grow in our hearts as a Celestiall inspiration which stirreth The Essence of this passion up the will to succour the miseries of another and taketh its source as Theology observeth from a dislike we conceive out of the consideration of a certain dissent and disorder we see in a civil life when we behold a man like unto us according to nature so different in quality and so ill handled by the mishap of the accidents of life Thence it comes to passe that all good souls have tender hearts and especially such as know what worldly miseries are as learned men and those who have had experience of them and who think they may also feel them in the uncertainty of life and condition of humane things The bowels of mercy open with some sweetnesse in the evils which nearly touch us namely when we see persons innocently qualified delicate well disposed to fall into great calamities and ruines of fortune Honourable old men ill used young people snatched away in the flower of their age and beauty Ladies despised and dishonoured afflictions without remedies or remedies that come too late when the evil is ended And moreover when those afflicted persons shew constancy and generosity in their affliction it penetrateth into the deepest apprehensions of the soul Yet we still find among so many objects of miseries hearts which have no compassion and as if they were made of rocks or anviles are never mollified with the sufferings of mortals This proceeds in some from a great stupidity from a nature very savage in others from a narrownesse of heart caused by self-love which perpetually keeps them busied within themselves never going forth to behold the miseries of another in some from long prosperities which make them forget the condition of men in others from the nature of a Hangman who takes delight in bloud in fire and in all horrid things Such kind of men think nature did them wrong in not having given them the horn of a Rhinoceros Detestation of Cruelty the paws of bears the throat of a Lion the teeth of Tigers to crush to quail to devour and tear men in pieces They supply by a cursed industry that which by nature faileth them They make themselves mouths of fire by the means of flaming fornaces and boiling caldrons hands by the invention of Iron hooks arms with combs of steel fingers with scorpions and feet with the claws of wild beasts You would say these are men composed of the instruments of all torments or rather devils crept into humane bodies to create a Hell on Earth Such are those Tonoes of Japonia who study to saw to hack asunder to beat and bray in a morter the courage of Christians thinking the greatest marks of their power to be scaffolds and gibbets where are practised inventions
and that which is exacted to husband it for their benefit to employ the customes with the greatest fidelity as the bloud of men redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ This is to take order for the Education of Youth to honour the Church and persons of desert to Authorize good Magistrates to have a particular care of acknowledging the good services of men at Arms which do sacrifice themselves in a thousand occasions for the Common-weal It is to have great compassion on the poor especially Widows and Orphans to hear willingly the Petitions of those that are afflicted and oppressed to take thought for all watch for all to do that in his Realm that the soul infused doth in the Body It is too much power to say that which Nero said by Royalty a mervellous profession the tongue of Seneca Among so many mortals I am the onely one chosen in heaven to performe the office of God upon earth I am the Arbitratour both of life and death I am the distributer of fortunes the favours that come from above are not bestowed but by my mouth I cause the rejoycings of cities and countreys nothing flourisheth but by my favour If I speak but a word I make a million of swords to come forth of the scabberd and if I command I cause them to be put up again It is I that give and take away liberty which make and unmake Kings which remove nations which lay waste rebellious towns which hold the happinesse or unhappinesse of men in mine hands What other thing is this that he vaunts and so proudly boasts himself of but onely to confesse himself responsible to God for so great an account whereof this miserable Emperour acquitted himself so ill that having lived like a beast he dyed like a mad-man There is no man worthy to reign but he that can tremble at the very shadow of Royalty Great Princes are not made by the suffrages of men Great Princes the workmanship of God alone but by the finger of God they are born in Heaven by the Divine Decrees before they appear upon earth by humane birth To speak the truth there are wonderfull qualities required to make a well-accomplished King and this is a thing more hard to Very rare find then the Phenix nest When the children of Israel had this conceit that Moses was lost they repair to his brother Aaron and intreat him to make them a God to sit in the place of their Conductour as if they meant to say after Moses no lesse will serve them then a Deity Neverthelesse God hath never suffered that there should be a perfect Monarch in the World in whom nothing hath been wanting for there would have been a hazard lest he should have been taken for a God and thereby have caused a perpetuall Idolatry The Heathens have made Gods of some Emperours vicious enough what would they not have made of perfect ones seeing that men naturally do bear a certain reverence towards virtue Look a little narrowly into the life of the greatest Monarchs of the World as of David Cyrus Alexander Julius Cesar Augustus Constantine Charlemagne and you shall find that all those beauties which have so dazled the eyes of the World have had their spots and the most part of the rest have inherited a Renown but little commendable that is To be none of the worst amongst many bad ones Whatsoever excellency the most famous of them had proceeded from the especiall gift of God and whatsoever meannesse was in them proceeded from themselves who alwayes mingled somewhat of Man with the work of the great Work-master Neverthelesse good Instructions are very usefull for Princes to rouse up and make active the endowments they have from above yet it is not in those Panegyricks so well composed that they learn their duty for there they may sooner learn to forget it when being puft up by those flatteries they think themselves to be in deed that which they are there but in flourish It is not my intent here to discourse at large how Princes ought to govern themselves but to contract in a few words that which is necessary for their direction and I am perswaded that the Scripture Saint Lewis in his Testament and Lewis the eleventh in that Treatise which he composed himself for the instruction of the King his sonne have said hereto sufficient and that the rules of reigning well cannot be drawn better from any then those that have been of the same profession The perfection of a Prince may be comprehended within these five Qualities Piety Wisdome Justice Goodnesse and Valour Piety fits him for God Wisdome for himself Justice for the Law Valour for Arms and Goodnesse for the whole World Piety or to speak more properly with Saint Thomas Religion is a virtue that appropriates Man to God and makes him to render that honour that is due to him as first Originall and chief Lord of the whole frame of Nature Synesius in that excellent Treatise that he made for the Emperour Arcadius concerning goverment sayes That this is the foundation on the which all firmnesse subsists This is that spirit of life which Kings do breathe from heaven which fills their understanding with enlightning their heart with Divine love and confidence their Palace with holinesse and their Kingdome with a Blessing It belongs to a King above all to be Pious and Devout towards God even by the Title of Royalty it self Who should honour that highest Majesty more then his Vicegerent here on Earth Who should represent his virtues more then his image here below Who should render greatest thanks for his favours more then he that receives them in the mostabundance besides the obligement that binds the Prince unto this virtue he finds the chiefest interest there Prosperity for the most part is found on their side which honour the Deity saith Titus Livius in his History And Aristotle who proceeds by way of Policy onely counsels a Monarch to be exceedingly religious for that thereby he will be more beloved and reverenced by his subjects which expect lesse evil and more good from a Prince which is joyned to God by Religion This also procures him an assurance in his affairs and makes his prosperity the sweeter and adversities the lesse afflicting God who is the Master and Teacher of Princes doth so strictly recommend this virtue to those Kings that were made more especially by his own election that he commands them to receive from the Priests a copy of the Law of God or else to transcribe it with their own hand to carry it alwayes with them and to reade it all the dayes of their life to learn thereby to fear the highest King and to keep his instructions Now the Piety of a Prince ought not to be ordinary but it ought to excell in three things chiefly in an inward sence of the Deity in his worship and zealous affection An Antient said That he which believes the Gods
he touched the earth without leaving heaven The second marvell of S. Lewis is to have lodged humility upon the glittering splendour of his Diadem and to have preserved this place for it amongst all the The second marvel the union of humility and royall greatnesse occasions which might invite him to make use of his greatnesse One may avouch that this virtue in what place soever it is found is alwayes great and S. Paul justly calls it the virtue of Jesus Christ by excellency but when it mingles it self with the estate of great ones it carries away the admiration of mankind We are all born with the desire of honour and this appetite deviated from its proper excellence is found even in the lowest persons In the age past there was found in India a people called the Verrais of so grosse an understanding and uncomely in body which lived so basely that they ate nothing but roasted Ants and Crocodiles tails and neverthelesse they were so proud that when they spake to them of baptizing them they asked if they should be baptized in the same water with other people and if they would have no respect to their quality If presumption doth take such hold on such base souls I leave it to you to consider what effect it might have on those that are lifted up in all qualities above the common sort There is no doubt that ambition ruleth over all our actions and that to see a Prince humble amidst the flatteries of the Court modest with an absolute power victorious over vanity in the midst of the great mortifying of truth which comes into the cabinet of Kings like money into their coffers with very much disguising and diminution is a wonder almost as rare as if one should see the stars to walk on the earth And neverthelesse S. Lewis as he had very great wisdome and a perfect knowledge of the life of man was a soul the most humble the most meek and most amiable that ever conversed amongst men in the like estate Princes have had at all times a high ambition to carry in their titles great names There are some which have caused themselves to be called the brethren of the Sun and cosens to the Starrs others would be the Arms the Eyes the Rubies of the World and some the Saviours and the Gods but our Monarch named himself Lewis of Poysey the humble servant of Jesus accounting it that the highest greatnesse of a Sceptre was to serve God Hence he desired nothing so ardently in all his behaviour as to humble himself before God by a perfect examination without retaining any thing more of himself then this high point of humility When he entred into Damiata the first town that he conquered in his voyage to Egypt he caused not himself to be carried in a charriot drawn with Lyons or Elephants as the Roman Captains use to do but he caused the crosse to march before him and followed it with a bare head and naked feet And when at the Councell of Lyons they spoke of giving him the name and quality of an Emperour he avoided that honour like a tempest and chose rather the extremity of sufferings amongst the Sarazens then to ascend into the throne of the Cesars He carried his Royalty as it were a mountain on his back and there was no greater servitude in the world to him then his greatnesse When he could free himself of the necessary ceremonies in publick for a person of his quality and that he had full liberty to converse with inferiour ones he was as a fish in his water This wise humility caused that he enterteined the whole world every one according to his degree with great consideration He honoured the Queen his mother all his life time with a respect which approched near to reverence He was wonderfully-kind to all his kindred and courteous to all those that came to him which he did without ceremonies without constraint but with an unparralleld cordialnesse for that his humility was rooted in a deep charity which gave all the motions to his soul He walked oftentimes in publick in a plain garment of chamlet and if he had seen the riot that now reigns in our behaviour he would have taken our conversation for some Mascorade He conversed not onely with the plainest but abased himself continually even to the feet of the poor and that the most ill favoured He was seen to bow himself and to make clean the ulcers of the leprous so horrible that people cast bread to them afar off not any one daring to come near them He was seen in the champians of Asia and Africa to seek out the bodies of his poore Subjects all stinking with corruption to bury them with his royall hands O what a triumph of humility is here O what ardency of charity and where is it that God can place the condemnation of our pride and hardnesse of our hearts more high then upon the person of this great King Lastly the third miracle that we observe in the life of The third marvel his devotion and courage S. Lewis is that he hath joyned the devotion of the most perfect religious ones with the courage of the most invincible conquerours Here it is that I do chalenge all those brave ones in appearance all those Phantasmes of valour for to testifie unto them that S. Lewis was one of the most valiant and most courageous Princes that ever bore Sceptre in Christendome For where is valiantnesse placed according to Aristotle if it be not conceived in the understanding and if it tend not to virtuous actions would you that I should account it an action of courage and ability to hew men in pieces and to fill the world with massacres for to content the rage for to nourish an ambition or satisfie a revenge God forbid that we should judge so basely of a virtue that makes them demigods If the intentions thereof be not right if the actions thereof be not justifiable if its effects be not commendable it is a spirit that seduces us and not a perfection that rectifies us The valour of S. Lewis was the effect of a lively faith of an incomparable wisedome of a strong and puissant charity faith filled him with confidence wisdome with moderation and charity with boldnesse This valour was enlivened by three loves which the Divines do observe which are the love incomparable the love ardent and the love indefatigable The love incomparable caused him to forsake a great and flourishing kingdome filled with peace contentments and delights where he might have lived under the shadow of his Palm-trees in all happinesse to transport himself into the land of the Sarazens and there to suffer all the inconveniencies of nature The same love caused him to carry the Queen his wife young and tender amongst so many foming rocks so many seas so many monsters and so many tempests The same love perswaded him to embark the Princes his children in their
she should receive all possible courtesies Some men will marvel at all this proceeding of Judith A woman so handsome and so capable to tempt men to go into the midst of Souldiers without fearing to expose her modesty that was so dear to her not considering that she kindled love and that she was yet in the fair season of her years capable to admit that which she moved in others Who had told her that the Assyrians would let her freely passe without attempting any thing upon her honour What security could there be in a dissolute Militia that propound to themselves the ravishing of women for a recompence of their toils And suppose she had promised her self that in case she should be forced her soul should remain incorruptible in the corruption of her body yet sure an honest woman would hardly ever expose her body to the least affront although it were to save a city If we consider all this according to man it cannot be defended but who should dare so to condemne that which was done by a manifest inspiration of God and of her good Angel that lead her as by the hand and made her walk securely upon the tops of precipices and kept her alwayes green as the Ivie in the ruines of old decayed walls With all this she was skilfull in the art of dissembling and deceived those souldiers that took a singular pleasure to hear her talk And who would make a scruple to speak words with two meanings to deceive an enemy in warre and to save his life seeing that some Divines and the Lawyers agree that there are deceits that are good and commendable being done to a good end and by lawfull means She was then conducted to the Generall Holophernes whom she found seated on his Throne under a pavilion of gold and purple all bestudded with emeralds proud as a peacock that spreads in the sunne the mirrours of his tail for which alone he seems to have been created She suddenly prostrates her self on the earth and makes him a reverence of civility and not of adoration He failed not to be taken with her at first sight just as she had plotted and to make of his eyes the snares of his soul Those that were about him began to say with admiration that the Land that bore so handsome women deserved to have no labour spared in its conquest Holophernes caused her instantly to be raised up again and because she feign'd that she had some fear and that she was seiz'd with a profound reverence at the aspect of that great Generall of an Army knowing well that he was vain and that it would conduce much to surprise him He speaks to her with an incomparable sweetnesse assuring her that he was not so terrible as men would make him and that since that he had had the Arms of that great Monarchy in his hands he never did hurt to any one that rendred himself to the obedience of his Master that he bore no ill will to her Nation but that if they had reduced themselves to their duty he would not have permitted so much as that a sword should have been lifted up against them And therefore he desired to know from whence it came that she had forsaken her City and was come to his Camp Then that Lady holily-deceitfull began to speak to him after such a winning manner that an hundred Holophernes's would have had work enough to defend themselves against such batteries of Love She beseeched him to hear with attention and to take her speeches in good part by which God would accomplish a great affair That she knew well that Nebuchadonozor had been chosen of God to be King of the whole world and that all the puissance of his Monarchy was included in Holophernes where it lived and triumphed magnificently for the safety of the good and the chastisement of the wicked That she was not so ignorant of humane things as not to have heard of the Prudence and valour of an Holophernes who hath the honour to be the onely man in the Kingdome of Nebuchadonozor that is arrived to so high a degree of Power as that it cannot be equalled by any thing in the world but by the goodnesse of his disposition for he desires to be powerfull for nothing but to do good and all the Provinces well know the good order that he hath put to all the businesses of the Realm She declared to him that she had heard of what had passed in Achiors person and told him that he truly discovered the weak spirit of her Nation and that he might do good upon it at the present now God was provoked against it and had threatned by his Prophets to destroy it And therefore they were all seized with an unspeakable affright besides that hunger and thirst conspired together to their ruine and they had taken a resolution to kill all the cattle to drink their bloud and not to spare even the things consecrated to the divine Majesty which is a sign of a manifest reprobation And this was the reason that she had left that abominable city and was come as a messenger from God to give him this advice She added that the God which she adored was very great and that she would not fail to pray him to make known his will and to tell her the time that he hath determined for the utmost misery of that unfortunate City with intention to inform him of the news that at last she might lead him even to the gates of Jerusalem delivering up to him all that people as sheep without a shepherd and that there should not be so much as a dog that should bark against him it being very reasonable that men and beasts should submit themselves under a power so formidable conducted by the hand of the most High and by the orders of his Providence Holophernes that had already been taken by the Eyes was now chained by the Ears with the sweetnesse and profit of that discourse His heart was no more his own he courts her and promises her that her God shall be his God and that he will make her great in the house of Nebuchadonozor and renowned through all the earth At the same instant he causes her to enter into the chamber where his treasures were to shew her his Magnificence and ordered what should be given her day by day from his own table for her diet Whereto she answered that it was not yet permitted her according to her Law to enter into a community of table with those that are of any other Religion but her own and that providing for it she had caused what was necessary for her to be brought with her But when your provision comes to fail sayes Holophernes what shall we then do with you She replyed that she hoped to accomplish the businesse that had brought her thither before that her ordinary food should be all spent Thereupon he commanded that she should be conducted into a
who devoured them immediately and published an Edict in favour of the true Religion This King reigned seventeen years till such time as Cyrus by a most particular design of God seized upon the Monarchy and dealt favourably with the faithfull people Daniel remained alwayes very considerable having seen five Kings passe away and was at last honoured even by his enemies themselves for his rare virtues and for the wonders that God had placed in his person One may observe in his life abundance of Lineaments that adorn highly the conversation of a true Courtier as are his constancy in Religion his Devotion the tendernesse of his love to God his Charity towards his neighbour his modesty his sparingness to speak of himself his Moderation in Prosperity his Strength of spirit in Adversity his inviolable Firmnesse never to yield to sin his exact Faithfulnesse towards his Master his Conscience Science and Ability in the Administration of his Charges his Love to his Friends his Compassion to the Miserable his affability towards all the World his patient enduring of the humours of Strangers his Prudence in his Conduct and the blessing of God that made all his enterprises prosper THE RELIGIOUS MEN. ELIJAH ELISHA ELIIAH THE PROPHETTT ELISHA THE PROPHETT BEhold here an admirable Courtier that was never of the number of those flatterers of the Court that keep Truth in Iron-Chains and give to vices the colour of virtue Elijah was a Prophet that included the name of God and of the Sun in his Name and who all his life-time bare the perfections of them both as being a true child of Light of Fire and a visible image of the invisible beauties As he was yet hanging at his mothers breast his father had a vision by which it seemed to him that his son sucked fire in stead of Milk and nourished himself with a most pure flame which without offending him furnished him with an Aliment as delicious as possible So was he all his life a Man of Fire and as it seemed that that King of Elements followed the course of his words and will so he burnt also in the Interiour with that fire that kindles the heart of Angels He was the first of men that set up the Standart of Virginity that consecrated it upon his body when it was unknown and despised in the World who made an Angelicall order of the Mount Carmel to which he hath transmitted his spirit through a long and sweet posterity that hath found sources of contemplation which he derived to the world to water the barrennesse of the Earth that hath traced the Originals of all his virtues upon that fair Carmel upon that sacred solitude that was his first Terrestriall Paradise His Speech was Thunder and his Life Lightning his Example a School of great Actions his Zeal a Devouring fire his Negotiations the affairs of Eternity His Conversation an Idea of the Contemplative and Civil Life his Translation a Miracle without peer I leave to those that have undertaken to write his Life the retail of his Virtues and of his Miracles staying onely upon his Actions that he did at Court treating with the Kings Ahab Jehu Ahazias and the wicked Queen Jezabel He flourished nine hundred years before the Nativity of our Lord in the Kingdome of Israel which was then divided both by Religion and by Policy from that of Judah and Jerusalem Ahab the son of Amri an ill Crow of an ill Egge held then the Empire and being married to a Sidonian the daughter of the King of Sidon which was called Jezabel an haughty and malicious woman he was totally governed by her and to render himself complacent to her humours caused a Temple to be erected to the God Baal and near that Temple a Grove to be Planted where were committed all the Abominations ordinary to Idolaters Elijah that burned with the Zeal of the honour of God was touched with a most sensible grief by so scandalous an action and was stireed up by his great Master to destroy that Mystery of Iniquity Now he knowing that it was hard to Preach efficaciously the Truth to Spirits froliking it in the middest of the smiling prosperities of the world thought by the order of the God of the Universe that it was best to afflict that wicked people by a long famine and great adversities to make them reflect upon themselves and return to the worship of the true Religion He sware then aloud and publickly before Ahab for the punishment of his Idolatry that there should not be during three years either rain or dew upon the earth and that the Heavens should become Brasse to chastise that Age of Iron and that he should not expect that it should be opened during that time unlesse it were by the words of his mouth As soon as he had said this in the presence of witnesses he went away to the Eastern Coast and hid himself at the Brook of Carith over against Jordan where God nourished him by Ravens that brought him orderly every day his portion In the mean while the drought failed not to raise a great famine on the earth and chiefly in the Kingdome of Israel where one could see nothing but people crying with hunger But the Heavens took in hand to revenge the God of Heaven and the Clouds that are as the Breasts of the Earth had no water for a people that abused the Elements and all the Creatures to the prejudice of the Creatour In the mean while God that spares not alwayes the Lands and Goods of his Servants in a common havock that they may not amuse themselves on the vain prosperities of the World permitted that that Brook that furnished the Prophet with water should grow dry as well as the rest But as the Ocean which retires it self out of one River swells it self in another so this great Nursing-father of Elias that seemed to fail in matter of that little Rivulet recompensed it by the miraculous liberality of a poor widdow He forsook not that station that Providence had assigned him although barren before he had orders for it from God his Master who sent him to the Countrey of Sidon to Sarepta assuring him that he had already provided for his nourishment The Prophet arriving at the destined place found at the City-gate a poor Widow-woman the mother of a little sonne and forasmuch as he knew that the Famine was great every where that he might not astonish her at first he desired of her onely a glasse of water which she gave him with a good will after which he prayes her to add to it a morsell of bread but the good woman sware to him that she had but one handfull of Meal left in the great rigour of Famine and that she was going to gather two or three small sticks to make a little fire and to bake a Cake which would be the last that she and her sonne should eat in all their lives for after that repast they must
to men but well known to God that appeared to him and comforted him asking of him what he made there Whereto he answered That he was zealous with an ardent zeal for the God of Hosts but the children of Israel had forsaken him demolished his Altars killed his Prophets and that he alone remained yet for all that they ceased not to seek his life to extinguish the whole service of God Upon this God commanded him to come forth and to stand upon the mountain to see great sights caused by the presence of God And suddenly there came an impetuous whirlwind that overturned the Mountains and brake the Rocks but God was not therein after that impetuous Wind came an Earthquake but God was not therein after the Earthquake devouring-Fire but God was not in those flames after the Fire behold there came a small gracious gale and God was in it And therefore Elijah ravished with a profound respect covered his face with his Mantle and kept himself at the entry of his Cave where he heard a voyce that demanded of him again what he did there whereto he answered as before that he fled from the perfecution of those that would give him the stroke of death for the zeal which he had to the service of the Living God But the voyce commanded him to return and to take again his way through the desert into Damascus and gave him order to Anoint and declare two Kings the one over Syria which was Hazael and the other over Israel which was Jehu that should succeed his Persecutour Furthermore God informed him that all was not lost but that he had yet reserved to himself seven thousand servants that had not bowed the knee to Baal nor lifted up their hands to adore his Idol He added yet farther that he should take Elisha for his Companion and Successour of whom he had reason to expect good effects Such was Elijahs Vision and his discourse with God and it seemed that this Sovereign Teacher of the Prophets shewing him the representation of an impetuous wind of an Earthquake and of Fire in which God was not although he was in a little gentle blast and would signifie to him that His Spirit is not in those great commotions that would seem to overturn all nature but in a certain Calm that produces little noise but much fruit filling the earth with blessings So also would he make him hope that after these violent persecutions and those fatall Convulsions of Kingdoms there should come a sweet and peacefull Messias and that forasmuch as concerned him Jezabels persecution should cease and his soul after the toyles of that banishment should taste the sweetnesse of an anticipated Paradise He took then his way again according to the command of God without passing by Samaria and finding Elisha plowing the ground with twelve yoak of Oxen cast his Mantle on him to signifie to him that he was called of God to that sacred ministery of Prophecy which the other understood and quitting instantly his Oxen ran to Elijah whom he beseeched that he would permit him to go and give the kisse of peace to his Father and Mother after that he would adhere to nothing but render himself up to him which Elijah having granted he when he had acquitted himself of his duty returned and sacrificed two Oxen which he boiled with the wood of his Plough and made a Feast with them for the people after which he ranged himself under the conduct of the Prophet and was a perfect imitatour of his virtues An ill occasion embarked him again in a Combat against Ahab and Jezabel which was fatall to them both The King had a mind to enlarge his Gardens and Naboths Vineyard was near his Palace and for his advantage he calls for him and asks him very courteously for it promising to pay him the price that it was worth or to buy him a better inheritance in whatsoever place he would The desire was very civill and not like that of so many other Princes and Lords that disposed at that time of the goods of their subjects as of their own usurping by violence that which they could not have by right Yet this good man that measured all by the affection he bare his Vineyard and not by the submission he owed his Master was obstinate and told him That it was the wealth of his Fathers which he would no way part with Ahab was much troubled at this denyall and returning to his Palace threw himself upon his bed and would not eat at the ordinary hour of his repast The Queen his wife being surprised at that accident goes to see him and inquires after the cause of his indisposition which he declared to her out of a desire he had to receive some ease This Princesse which was a daughter of the King of Sidon and who knew how her Father reigned absolutely over his subjects falls a laughing and meaning to blame the weaknesse of her husband said to him It appears plainly Sir that you are a Prince of great authority very worthy to govern a Kingdome since you receive affronts from your subjects and revenge them upon your self by the losse of your dinner But if that be all that hinders you I pray arise be merry and eat for I know the way to make you possessour of that Vineyard that you desire At the same instant that Imperious Queen takes her seal writes a Letter to the Principall men of Jezreel and commands them to call an Assembly under colour of a Fast and Publick Prayers to call Naboth to it to make him sit amongst the chief and not to fail to suborn two witnesses against him that should depose that he had blasphemed against God and his King and thereupon indite him and stone him Behold how so many Ministers of Iniquity use the Innocent not seeing that at the same time as they lay snares against the honour the goods and the life of their neighbour an invisible Hand draws up in Heaven the decree of their ruine This Letter being come to Jezreel the principall men assemble themselves and not seeking any delay or incident to sweeten a bad businesse betray their conscience to avoid the fury of the King executing that which was commanded them and before they are Judges render themselves Criminall Thus go violent Reigns where virtue is abandoned by some through wvaknesse and persecuted by others through fury Miserable Naboth astonished at that wicked calumny protests his innocence in the face of Heaven and Earth justifies and defends himself by good reason but the false Witnesses which are the instruments of Satan and the chief furies against the peace of mankind urge and torment him His Judges sold to iniquity condemned him He is led out of the City delivered to the fury of the people overwhelmed as a Blasphemer of God and the King with a bloody tempest of stones and flints every hand making it self injurious against him some through a false zeal and
way capable to appease the troubles prevent the ambuscadoes or sustain the great charges of the Realm Therefore she ought to receive him for her husband and the Companion of her Fortunes and designs having both power will and courage to defend her in all conditions and that he would never suffer her to be in quiet but onely by the consummation of this Marriage This wicked man by this Counsel did promise to himself either to reign with him being his familiar friend or by this action to crie down the Queen and overthrow her Authority as afterwards it came to pass The Marriage is now to be accomplished and the Importunities of the Earl prevailed on Maries heart who married him in the face of the Church with all the ceremonies requisite to it Some have written that this virtuous Lady by reason of her beauties was strongly persecuted by diverse with daily motions concerning marriage And that the easiness of her nature which could not resist the great importunities and continual battels which love stirred up against her did bring upon her a deluge of misfortunes likewise her neighbour Princes who knew not the Artifice of her enemies did in the beginning blame her for having so easily adhered to a man who was so dangerously suspected concerning that she ought to clear her reputation from the least shadows of suspition wherewith Envy began to cloud it But who shall well consider a young widow of seventeen years of age placed in the furthest part of all the world where Heresie had over-turned all order and let loose the blackest furies of Hell for the dissolution of the State Who shall contemplate her alone as the morning Star in the midst of so many clouds without assistance without forces without Counsel persecuted by her brother outraged by the Hereticks betrayed by the Queen of England under the colour of good will sought for in marriage by force of Arms by the Princes of her own Realm he shall find that she hath done nothing improvidently in chusing those by friendship which necessity did give her by force and whether that there are times and revolutions of affairs so dangerous and remediles in which we have no other power left us but onely to destroy our selves 7. In the mean time the Lutherans and the Calvinists The persecution of the Queen of Scots by the Protestants did not cease to cry out and to bray against their Princess and having begun by in famous libels they prevailed so much by their Trumpets of Sedition that they kindled a war under the pretence of revenging the Kings death whom they had caused to be pourtrayed dead in a bloudy Standard with his little Son at his feet who demanded vengeance Bothuel who as yet was drunk with the sweetnesses of affection which he received from his new spouse was altogether amazed when he saw an Army marching in the field against him And that the clamour of the people did charge him aloud with the death of the King The Queen was struck into such a horrour at the report of the Crime that forthwith she commanded him to withdraw himself and never to see her more and although she was ignorant that his Courage and Valour were able to secure her from the tempest which was falling on her yet she chose rather to abandon her self as a prey to all the fury of her Enemies than to keep but one hour that person near her which she then onely knew to have had some ill designs on the person of the King He fled from Scotland into Denmark where after ten years tedious imprisonment he living and dying did protest that Queen Mary did never know of the conspiracy against her husband that those who gave the blow having demanded some Warrant from the Queen for their discharge she made answer that it was sacriledge to think of it so innocent a Soul she had This protestation which he made at his death before the Bishop and other Lords of the Realm was afterwards sent to diverse Princes of Europe and to Elizabeth her self who did dissemble it In the mean time the Rage of the Infidels did seize on Mary and did constrain her with execrable violence and treasons plotted under hand by the Agents of the Queen of England to resign the Kingdom to her son whom The fury and infidelity of Ambition these seditious people caused to be Crowned at one year of age to put all the Authority into the hands of Murray in the quality of Regent Not content with this they surprized her in a morning as she was putting on her cloathes and taking from her all ornaments worthy of her quality they cloathed her in a sordid habite and having mounted her upon a horse which by chance passed through a Meadow they brought her into a place out of the way and confined her to a Castle scituate on the lake of Lenox under the guard of the Earl of Douglas Brother by the mothers side to the Vice-Roy using her as a lost creature and with horrible boldness accusing her for the death of her husband and a design to invade his Kingdom In this captivity she was charged with contumacies by the Concubine of her Father a most insolent woman to whom the keeping of her was committed and by a disrobed Prior who did visite her and tendered her some Remonstrances to assist her as her Father Confessor And at that time some black and butcherly spirits did take a resolution to strangle her and to publish to the world that she had done it of her self being overcome by dispair What an indignity was this and what a confusion in nature and the laws of the world to behold that excellent Lady to whom grace and nature had given chains to captivate the hearts of the most barbarous That great Princess whom the sun did see almost as soon to be a Queen as a living creature She that was born to Empires as all Empires seemed to be made for her to be deprived of her sweet liberty to see herself severed from all commerce with mankind to be banished in a desart where nothing but rocks were the witnesses of her sufferings Nay which is more she is now become the captive of her own subjects and a servant to her slaves The poor Turtle ceased not to groan and often through the grate would look on the lake wherein every wave she conceived she beheld the waving image of her change of fortunes Not long after she entered into a deep melancholy when the evil spirit that fisheth in troubled waters did tempt her into thoughts of despair representing to her that since the air and the earth were shut from her she should make choice of the water into the which she should throw her self and end the langushment of her captivity by burying her self in a moment with her afflictions But as her pious soul was fastened unto GOD by chains not to be dissolved she fervently besought the Divine
his people I will invoke him in this extremity of my afflictions to render both to you and my self what is due either to our Merits or Demerits Remember Madam that he is the onely Judge a Judge whom the painting and policie of this world can no way disguise although men for a time may obscure the truth by the subtility of their inventions In his name and being as it were both of us before him I must remember you of the secret practises you have used to trouble my Kingdom to corrupt my Subjects to forsake their allegiance and to attempt my person I shall represent unto you the unjust dismission which by your Counsel I was overcome to sign when my enemies held their ponyards at my throat in the prison of Locklevin you assured me that the Dismission should be of no force although since you have made it as effectual and powerfull as you could assisting those by your forces who were the first Authors of it You have transmitted my Authority to my Son when be was but in his Cradle and was not able to help himself and since I have by law confirmed the Crown on him you have intrusted him in the hands of my most capital enemies who having forced from him the effect will also take away the title of a King if God doth not preserve him I will profess unto you before the most impartial Judge that beholding my self pursued to death by my Rebels I sent unto you expresly by a Gentleman the Diamond Ring which I received from you with an assurance to be protected by your Authority succoured by your Arms and received into your Realm with all courtesie This promise so often repeated by your mouth did oblige me to come to throw my self into your Arms if I could be so happy to approch them But indeavouring where to find you behold I was stopped in the way environed with Guards detained in strong holds confined to a lamentable captivity in which I do at this day die without numbering a thousand deaths which alreadie I have suffered After that the Truth hath laid open all the impostures which were contrived against me that the chiefest of the Nobilitie of your Kingdom have acknowledged in publick and declared my innocence After that it hath been made apparent that what passed betwixt the late Duke of Norfolk and my self was treated approved and signed by those who held the first place in your Councels After so long a time that I have always submitted to the Orders which were prescribed for my captivitie I do behold my self to be daily persecuted in my own person and in the persons of my servants and totally hinders not onely from relieving the pressing necessities of my Son but from receiving the least knowledge of his condition This is that MADAM which makes me once more to beseech you by the dolorous Passion of our Saviour and Redeemer Jesus Christ that I may have permission to depart your Kingdom to assist my dear Son and to find some comfort for my poor bodie travelled with continual sorrows and with all libertie of conscience to prepare my soul for God who hourly doth call for it Your Prisons have destroyed my bodie there is no more left for my Enemies to satiate their vengeance My soul is still entire which you neither can nor ought to captivate Allow it some place to breathe more freely after its own safety which a thousand times I do more desire than all the greatness in the world What Honour can you receive to see me stifled in your presence and to fall at the feet of my Enemies Do you not consider that in this extreamity if by your means although late I shall be rescued from their hands that you shall oblige me and all mine and especially my Son whom most of all you may assure your own I must beseech you that I may understand your intentions concerning this and that you will not remit me to the discretion of any other but your own In the mean time I shall demand two things the one That being readie to depart this world I may be suffered to have with me some man of honour of the Church to instruct and perfect me in my Religion in which I am resolved to live and die The other That I may have two maids in my Chamber to attend me in my sickness protesting before God they are most necessary for me to keep me from the shame of the simple people Grant me then these Petitions for the honour of God and let it appear that my Enemies have not so much credit with you as to exercise their vengeance and crueltie in a thing of so small a consequence Reassume the marks of your ancient good nature Oblige your own to your self Grant me that contentment before I die as to see all things remitted betwixt you and my self to the end that my soul being inlarged from my bodie it be not constrained to lay open her groans before God for the injuries which you have suffered to be done unto me upon earth But on the contrary that departing from this captivity in peace and concord it may with all content repair to him whom I most humbly beseech to inspire You to condescend to my most just Requests Sheffeild November 28. 1581. Your most desolate most near and most affectionate Kinswoman QUEEN MARY 11. May we not affirm that these Remonstrances and that these words were of power to soften the heart of a Tyger and yet they made no impression on her barbarous soul who being born by a crime could not afterwards live but by iniquity Dear Reader it is true that we are possessed with A parallel on both Queens an amazement on the consideration of the particulars of this History And it may be you have the curiosity to draw open the curtain of the Sanctuary and enter into the secrets of the Divine Providence and in the travers of so much shade and darkness to discover why two Queens of so different qualities were so indifferently handled as it were by the blind conduct of Chance How came it about that nothing but calamity did follow the good Queen and all good fortune seemed not to be but onely for the bad one I will parallel the one with the other and although Queen Elizabeth be dead out of the communion of the true Church and in many considerations had extreamly undervalued and offended France yet I will not so rudely speak of her as she hath been charactered by the eloquent pens of Monsieur the Cardinal of Peron and Monsieur du Vair but content my self to speak of that onely which may be collected from the History written by Cambden her own Historiographer Queen Mary was high and glorious in her birth both by the Father and the Mother Queen Elizabeth did come into the world by a crime and a scandal who made all Christendom to groan It is true indeed she was the daughter of a King but
smiling she added some few words that she blamed Paulet and Deurey who guarded the Prisoner for not delivering her from that pain It is true that in the morning she sent one named Killigrew to Davison to forbid to put that command in Execution whether it were that her Remorse of Conscience had put her into some frights her sleeps being ordinarily disturbed with horrible Dreams which did represent unto her the images of her Crimes or whether it were an artifice to procure her the reputation of being mercifull in killing with so much treachery The Secretary came to her in the field and declared to her that the Order for the Queen of Scotland's death was now finished and sealed on which she put on the countenance of displeasure and told him that by the Counsel of wise men one might find out other expedients by which it is believed that she intended poison Nevertheless she now was commanded that the Execution should be delayed And as Davison presented himself to her three dayes afterward demanding of her if her Majesty had changed her advice she answered No and was angry with Paulet for not enterprising boldly enough the last of the Crimes And said moreover That she would find others who would do it for the love they did bear unto her On which the other did remonstrate that she must think well of him for otherwise she would ruin Men of great Merit with their posterity She still persisted and on the very same day of the Execution she did chide the Secretary for being so slow in advancing her Commands who as soon as he had discovered the affair the evil Counsellours did pursue the expedition with incredible heat for they sent Beal a Capital Enemy of the Catholicks with letters directed to certain Lords in which power was given them to proceed unto the Massacre who immediately repairing to the Castle of Fotheringhey where the Queen was prisoner they caused her to rise from her bed where the Indisposition of her body had laid her and having read unto her their Commission they did advertise her that she must die on the morning following 16. She received this without changing of her countenance and said That she did not think that the Queen her Sister Her death and miraculous constancy would have brought it to that extremity But since such was her pleasure death was most agreeable to her and that a Soul was not worthy of celestial and eternal joys whose body could not endure the stroke of the Hang-man For the rest she appealed to Heaven and Earth who were the witnesses of her Innocence adding that the onely Consolation which she received in a spectacle so ignominious was that she died for the Religion of her Fathers she beseeched God to increase her constancy to the measure of her afflictions and to welcome the death she was to suffer for the expiation of her sins After she spake these words she besought the Commissioners to permit her to conser with her Confessor which by a barbarous cruelty was refused a cruelty which is not exercised on the worst of all offendours and in the place for a Director of her conscience they gave her for her comforters the Bishop and the Dean of Peterborough whom with horrour she rejected saying That God should be her Comforter The Earl of Kent who was one of the Commissioners and most hot in the persecution of her told her Your life will he the death and your death will be the life of our Religion Declaring in that sufficiently the cause of her death whereupon she gave thanks to God that she was judged by her Enemies themselves to be judged an instrument capable to restore the ancient Religion in England In this particular she desired that the Protestants had rather blamed her effects than her designs After the Lords were retired she began to provide for her last day as if she had deliberated on some voyage and this she did with so much devotion prudence and courage that a Religious man who hath had all his Meditations on death for thirty years together could not have performed it with greater Justice And in the first place she commanded that supper should be dispatched to advise of her affairs and according to her custom supping very soberly she entertained her self on a good discourse with a marvellous tranquillity of mind And amongst other things turning her self to Burgon her Physitian she demanded of him if he did not observe how great was the power of the Truth seeing the sentence of her death did import that she was condemned for having conspired against Elizabeth and the Earl of Kent did signifie that she died for the apprehension which they had that she should be the death of the false Religion which would be rather her glory than a punishment At the end of supper she drank to all her Servants with a grave and modest chearfulness on which they all kneeled down and mingled so many tears with their wine that it was lamentable to behold As soon as their sobs had given liberty to their words they asked her pardon for not performing those services which her Majesty did merit and she although she was the best Mistress that ever was under heaven desired all the world to pardon her defects She comforted them with an invincible courage and commanded them to wipe away their tears and to rejoyce because she should now depart from an abyss of misery and assured them that she never would forget them neither before God nor men After supper she wrote three letters one to the King of France one to the Duke of Guise and the third unto her Confessor Behold the letter in its own terms which she wrote unto King Henry the Third SIR GOD as with all humility I am bound to believe A Letter unto Henry the Third having permitted that for the expiation of my sins I should cast my self into the Arms of this Queen my Cousin having endured for above twenty years the afflictions of imprisonment I am in the end by her and her Estates condemned unto death I have demanded that they should restore the papers which they have taken from me the better to perfect my last Will and Testament and that according to my desire my body should be transported into your Kingdom where I have had the Honour to be a Queen your Sister and ancient Allie but as my sufferings are without comfort so my requests are without answer This day after dinner they signified unto me the sentence to be executed on the next day about seven of the clock in the morning as the most guilty offendor in the world I cannot give you the discourse at large of what is passed It shall please your Majesty to believe my Physitian and my servants whom I conceive to be worthy of credence I am wholly disposed unto death which in this Innocence I shall receive with as much misprision as I have attended it with patience The
thousand Crowns to him who should bring him to him and having understood that the Pope had made him his delegate into France and Flanders he did importune the French King by all manner of Sollicitation to deliver him into his hands But the brave Prince although it was directly against his Interest would do nothing that was against his generous mind and received the Cardinal with all courtesie and fidelity because he would not offend the Pope howsoever he would not suffer him to continue long in France because he would not exasperate the King of England for he had great use of his assistance in the war which he made against the Emperour Pool was then constrained to repair to Flanders where he was charitably received by Cardinal Everard Bishop of Cambray and he continued there sometimes attending the disposition of the Pope But Henry understanding that he was retired into that Province did again kndle his choler and that in so violent a heat that he promised the Flemmings to entertain four thousand men in pay for ten Moneths in favour of the Emperour against the French if they would abandon the Cardinal to his discretion Howsoever he found none that would favour his violence which did so incense him that he caused the Countess of Salisburie to be arrested She was mother to the Cardinal and daughter to the Duke of Clarence brother to Edward the fourth She was accused for having received a letter from her Son and for having worn about her neck the figure of the five wounds of our Saviour on which he commanded that a Process should proceed against her which was performed accordingly and the perverse and abominable Judges who made all their proceedings to comply with the merciless sury of their Prince did condemn her to death and caused her head to be cut off upon a Scaffold where she gave incomparable demonstrations of her piety and constancy Her dear Son who did love and respect her with all the tenderness of affection was extreamly afflicted at it and could find no comfort but in the order of Gods providence and in the glory of her death which was pretious before God After this the Legate was called back to Rome and after he had informed Paul the third of the misery of the people of Christendom who incessantly groaned under the calamity of war kindled betwixt the two principal Crowns he did contribute the uttermost of his indeavour to provide a remedy for it This good Pope was courteous liberal magnificent well versed in letters and above all a great lover of Astrology It seemeth that the Harmony of celestial bodies with which his spirit was so delicately transported did touch his Soul with a desire to make a like harmony on earth He was passionate for the Peace of Christian Princes and as he well understood the great capacity of Cardinal Pool joyned with the Royal bloud which gave him a more full Authority he did not delay to send him with a most Authenticall Commission to mediate an accord betwixt the two Kings The holy Prelate undertook this busines with great courage being carried to it as well by his own inclination as by election He failed not to represent unto their puissances all reasons both Divine and humane which might move them to an accord for the glorie of God for the glory of their own Monarchies and for the safety of their people But as he found in the ear of Henry the Eighth a Devil of lust which obstructed all the force of reason which was presented to him to divert his passion so he found in the spirit of these two Monarchs a horrible jealousie of Estate which stopped all enterance to his saving Counsels The time was not yet come and it was to row against the wind and tide to press that business any further He was constrained to return to Rome where the Pope gave him Commission to go to Wittimbergh where he continued certain years delighting in the fruits of a sweet tranquillity In the end the Councel of Trent being already assembled to extirpate Heresies and remedy the disorders with which its venemous Contagion had infected the brest of Christendom he was chosen to be president thereof which place for some time he executed to the admiration of his knowledge and the universal approbation of his zeal But when Paul the third having exceeded the age He is considered on to be Pope of four-score years did pay the Tribute common to the condition of the living he was obliged to return to Rome where all the world did cast their eyes on him to make him the head of the Church All things seemed to conspire to his Election his age his bloud his virtue his knowledge his great experience in affairs the general affection of all which did pass almost to veneration It was onely himself that resisted his own Fortune because he would not assist himself and permitted nothing of a submiss softness to over-act his generosity neither in that nature would he be a suppliant although it were for the chiefest Miter in the world The Nephews of Paul the third who as yet possessed the most high Authority of affairs considering the faithfulness of the great services which he had rendered their uncle did perswade him with importunity to this chief Bishoprick of the world And as the Conclave was assembled and the Decision of the great business did approch unto maturity they came at night into his Chamber to speak with him concerning his promotion and to offer themselves to his service to prefer unto him that Sovereign dignity But he shewed so little complacence to their discourse that in stead of making indearments and submissions of which they who pretend to honour are always excessively prodigal he made answer to them That God was the God of light and that the affair which they came about ought not to be treated on in darkness That one word did rebate the edge of their spirits and on the morning following the good Fortune which for two moneths together did look directly on Cardinal Pool did slack its foot at the dismission of the Nephew Cardinals and Julius the Third was chosen Pope a person of much renown and a great Lawyer Pool his Competitor well understanding that it was He retireth again into solitude not expedient to reside under the eyes of a Potentate to whom the power over Christendom was secretly preferred retired to Mentz into a monastery of Saint Benets where he enjoyed the delights of rest to which his inclinations carried him exercising his devotion to the height and recreating himself with good letters which he always loved But God who by his means was pleased to bring about the greatest revolution of Estate as Europe ever saw did cause occasions to arise to draw him from that solitude to return again to his great imployments It is necessary in this place to make mention of the condition of the affairs in England to behold virtue in
lawfull greatest Princes to interrupt your Highnesses I will appear for the Cause of God the Angel of Peace the Minister of Concord and Union the Interpreter of Truth the Mean and Solicitour of Salvation I am not that terrible and dreadfull messenger who injected terrours and scourges into David astonished with Divine Prodigies I am not listed in that number which utterly overwhelmed the City of Pentapolis almost drowned before in the inundation of their impieties I rain nor sulphur I do not brandish flames I dart no thunderbolts but with a mild temperate and gentle amenity I exhibit those olive-branches which the direfull contagion of Warres hath not yet blasted I come from the conversation of those who at the Nativity of our Jesus sang Anthems of Peace to Good-willing men Despise not the Augur of Glad-tydings contemne not the Hyperaspist of Truth who speaketh unto you before God in Christ It is the concernment of the whole Christian world most pious Princes which I addresse unto you it is your interest which I urge and inculcate both by wishes and writings it is the Profession of God which I require and indeed of great importance as having diverse times summoned yea enforced the Priests from the Altars the Virgins from the Monasteries and the Anachoretes from the Woods that of the mute it might make Oratours and Agitatours of the retired God the Arbitratour and Accomplisher of all things who calleth those things which are not as if they were he formeth and prepareth the mouths of infants giveth wisdome to the impudent to yield to him is victory to contest with him is succeslesse opposition Appetite infuseth Eloquence and necessity not seldome makes a souldier To be silent amidst the articulated movings of the oppressed is unlawfull and to sit still amidst the wounds of Military men as unconcerned is highly and justly reproveable That hand that is not officious to the suffering world deserves an amputation I shall not disoblige the supplicated engagement of your patience excelient Princes with unimporting reasons I shall not abuse your senses with unappertaining figments but by a pleasant prospect I shall shew you that Glory which you aim at thorow fields flowing with bloud thorow the flames of collucent Cities and thorow many doubtfull circulations and diverticles Condescend therefore to give me an allowance of discourse concerning the nature of Warre and Peace and of the Right of Christian Princes in each of them For upon this foundation I conceive I can build firm and satisfactory Arguments whereby to secure your Dignity and to settle the Peoples safety It was a speech well becoming the wisdome of the Ancients that this world in whose circumference all things are contained is as it were a great volumn of the Deity wherein life and death are as the beginning and the end but the middle Pages are perpetually turned over backwards and forwards That which Life and Death bring to passe in the nature of things the same doth Peace and Warre in the Nation of all Kingdomes and Empires And indeed Life is a certain portion of the Divine Eternity which being first diffused in the Divine Nature and afterwards streaming into the sea and penetrating into the earth and our world doth contemperate by an espousall and connexion of bodies and souls wonderfull and almost Divine Agreements But when there is a solution of this undervalued continuity when this harmony is disturbed and broken it suddenly vanisheth by the irresistible necessity of death greedily depopulating all things under his dominion In like manner Peace the greatest and most excellent gift of the Divine indulgence reconciles and apportions apportions a kind of temperature in the wills of men from whence floweth the most active vigour of all functions in the Body Politick as the alacrity of minds the rewarded sedulity of Provinces the faithfull plenty of the Countrey the security of travelling the opulency of Kingdomes and the accumulation of all temporall blessings But when Concord is dissipated and the alarms of Warre besiege mens ears presently there insueth a convulsion and direfull decay of all the members and Audacity finding it self disingaged from the mulcts and penalties of the Laws runneth headlong into all variety of mischief the most Sacred things are violenced and the most Profane are licenced the nocent and the innocent are involved in the expectation of a sad and promiscuous catastrophe and bonefires are made of cities not to be quenched but with the bloud of miserable Christians He that will tax his own leisure but with the cheap expence of considering our mortality will so much scruple these effects to be the actions of men that he may be easily seduced to believe that Hell hath lost some prisoners or that some troops of Furies have broken the chains of darknesse and in a humane shape deluded men with such enormous villanies My highest obedience most excellent Princes is due to truth and that obligation prompts me to proclaim this judgement That Contentions and Warre have not had any ingresse into the Church of God but by clandestine and undermining Policies Discipline resisting and Conscience standing agast at the monstrous object And indeed Paul exclaimeth against contentions Brother saith he goeth to law with brother and that under Infidels Now therefore there is altogether an infirmity in you in that you go to law one with another Why rather suffer you not wrong Why rather sustain you not fraud But ye your selves do wrong and exercise fraud and that to your brethren What do we hear an Edict published by an Apostle invested with thunder and lightning I beseech the revisitation of your thoughts what would he imagine were he lent again unto the world by providence that then wanted patience to see a controversie about a field perhaps or a house and should now behold among those that claim the title of the Faithful Ensigne against Ensigne Nation against Nation and not a House not a city not a Province but the whole Christian world precipitated into slaughters rapes and priviledged plunders would he countenance such an inhumane spectacle with a Declaration of allowance or would he perswade men to the violations of the Law of Nature and dictate encourgement to ruine and rapine But Tertullian also is very strict in this point and peradventure too rigid whilst he saith that our Lord by that injunction to Peter to sheath his sword disarmed all Christian Souldiers This in my judgement deserves a censure of extream severity if he conclude all warfare to be criminall this were to destroy the innocent in a detestation of the guilty should we perpetrate corrupt actions upon the order of the cruel and the petulancy of luxuriant villains What would Christianity then be but a prey to the insatiable and a laughing-stock to the insolent if it were not lawfull to revenge unfaithfull injuries with a just retaliation If it were not lawfull to defend Churches from Sacriledge Widows and Orphans from oppressions and disinteressed persons
her the news thereof The Empress saluted him very courteously and disposed her heart to speak to him touching a certain sum of money she desired to give for the entertainment of his Monks but the good man divining the thoughts of her heart saith to her Madame trouble not your self for this money there are other affairs which more concern you know you very shortly must depart out of this world and now you ought to have but one care which is to entertain your soul in that state you desire it should part out of this life Eudoxia at the first was amazed at this discourse It seemeth souls as Plato saith go not but with grief out of fair bodies but this was too much disengaged to do in the end of those days any unresigned act After she had a long time talked to Euthymius as one would with Angels she gave him the last adieu full of hope to see him at the Rendez-vous of all good men Returning into Ierusalem she had no other care but to set a seal upon all her good works then distributing whatsoever she had to the poor she expected the stroke of death freely and resignedly her soul was taken out of her body throughly ripened for Heaven as fruit which onely expects the hand of the Master to gather it She was about threescore years of age having survived Theodosius her husband and Pulcheria Flaccilla Marina Arcadia for all of them went before her into the other world she was married at twenty years of age she spent twenty nine in Court and as it were eleven in Jerusalem she deceased in the year of our Lord 459. the 21. year of Pope Leo and the 4. of the Emperour Leo Successour of Martianus A woman very miraculous among women who seemeth so much to have transcended the ordinary of her sex as men surpass beasts More than an Age is required ere nature can produce such creatures They are born as the Phenix from five hundred to five hundred yeare yea much more rare A great beauty great wit great fortune a great virtue great combats great victories to be born in a poor cottage as a snail in his shell and issue out to shew it self upon the throne of an Empire and die in an hermitage all is great all is admirable in this Princess But nothing more great nothing more admirable than to behold a golden vessel with sails of linnen and cordage of silk counterbuffed by so many storms over whelmed and even accounted as lost in the end happily to arrive at the haven Behold her Potraicture and Elogie AVGVSTA EVDOXIA EUDOXIA AUGUSTA THEODOSII JUNIORIS CONJUX EX HUMILI FORTUNA IN MAGNUM IMPERIUM TRANSCRIPTA SCEPTRUM VIRTUTIBUS SUPERAVIT CELESTIS INSTAR PRODIGII FOEMINA INGENIO FORMA VITA SCRIPTIS ET RELIGIONE CLARISSIMA CUM VICENIS NUPTA ANNOS XXIX EGISSET IN IMPERIO ET UNDECIM FERME IN PALESTINA HIEROSOLIMIS RELIGIOSISSIMO EXITU VITAM CLAUSIT ANNO CHRISTI CDLX AETATIS LIX Upon the picture of EUDOXIA Fortune unparallel'd beauty her own A spirit that admits no Paragon Divine immense although it seem to be 'T was but the Temple of the Deitie HEr example drew an infinite number of great Ladies to contempt of pleasures and vanities of Court to seek the Temple of repose in the deserts of the holy Land Among others Queen Eudoxia her Grand-child who as we have said was married into Africk treading the world under foot with a generous resolution came with her Crown to do homage at the tomb of her Grand-mother kissed her ashes as of a holy Empress and was so ravished with the many monuments of virtue she had erected in the holy Land that there she would pass the residue of her days and choose her tomb at the foot of that from whence she derived her bloud and name It is a great loss to us that the learned books written by this Royal hand have been scattered for those varieties of Homer which are extant are not Eudoxia's Photius much more subtile than Zonaras to judge of the works of antiquity maketh no mention thereof in the recital of the writings of this divine spirit but of her Octoteuch which he witnesseth to be a worthy heroick and admirable piece Behold that which is most remarkeable in the Court of Theodosius And verily for as much as concerneth the person of the Emperour he did enough to make himself a Saint by living so mortified in his passions in the delights of a flourishing Court It is a meer bruitishness a very plague of mans soul to make no account of Princes but of certain braggards vain brain-sick and turbulent spirits who fill histories with vain-glorious bravadoes whoredoms murders and treacheries these are they of whom the spirit of flesh an enemy of God proclaimeth false praises and such an one seemeth to himself sufficiently great when there appeareth a power in him to do ill A calm spirit united docible temperate though he have not so many gifts of nature is a thousand times to be preferred before these vain-glorious and audacious who are onely wise in their own opinion valiant in rashness happy in vice and great in the imagination of fools It is good to have the piety of Theodosius and to let over-much facility work in praying and pray in working to have the beak and plumage of an Eagle and the mildness of a Dove to lay the hide of a Lion at the feet of the Stature of piety As for Pulcheria she was the mirrour of perfection among the great Princesses of the earth yet not without her spots but still giving water to wash them away And for Eudoxia you find in her what to take what to leave many things to imitate few to reject but an infinite number to admire Behold in the end the Fortunate Pietie which I have set before your eyes as a golden statue not onely to behold it in passing by but to guild your manners with the rays and adorn your greatness with the glory thereof Who will not admire the prosperity of the Empire of Constantinople in the manage of Theodosius of Pulcheria of Martianus under the rule of piety and not say Behold the world which trembleth in all the parts thereof under the prodigious armies of Barbarians who seem desirous to rend the earth and wholly carry it away in fire and bloud from the center Behold the Roman Empire which hath trodden under foot all Scepters and Crowns of the earth ruined dis-membred torn in a thousand pieces in the hands of a vitious Emperour who buried it under the shivers of his Scepter and behold on the other side God who preserveth his Theodosius his Pulcheria his Martianus among these formidable inundations which cast all the world into a deluge as heretofore he did Noe in the revengefull waters which poured down from Heaven to drown the impurities of the earth What nurse was ever so carefull to drive a flie from the face of her little infant while
it slept as the Providence of God shewed it self affectionate in the conservation of these elevated souls Observe the persons precisely and consider each in particular What happiness in the Empress Eudoxia whilest she laboureth for the glory of Altars God gave the heart of her husband into her hands the world in honour at her feet and a little Theodosius by her fide who in his infancy maketh all the hopes of his mother to bud But as soon as this poor Princess forgetting her duty and self contended with S John Chrysostom behold her cut down with the sythe of death carried away in her flower deprived of the contentment and glory which she possessed Behold she received a breach in her reputation which cannot in the memory of all Ages be repaired Her bones are in horrour and dread till such time as S. Chrysostom banished by her commandment and returning dead to Constantinople came to serve as an anker for the floating ashes of this unfortunate Empress Consider this little Theodosius who even at his birth maketh the Idols to fall the Pagan temples to sink and hell to howl under his feet What glory was it to bury the remainders of Idolatry what a trophey to extirpate under his reign so many monsters of heresies What celestial comfort to see in his time so many learned writings to be laid at his feet to see so many worthy men flourish so many Saints as Leo's Cyrils Chrysostoms Simeons Stilites to see the Church all garnished with stars and lights to sway a Scepter more than fourty years in a peaceful Kingdom among so many tempests and which is more to fall into some defects by sudden surprizal and expiate them by a happy repentance to see himself drawn by a powerfull hand from the brink of a precipice and in the end to yield up his soul in the midst of Palms and good odours of a glorious life See you not a Fortunate Piety Behold Pulcheria as an Eagle on the top of apyramide which ever hath her eye on the Sun and seeth all storms broken and confounded under her feet Was there ever a more fortunate Piety To say that a maid at fifteen years of age swaying Emperours and Empires enchaining all hearts of the world to make herself on earth a Crown might boast to have had the Universal Church for trumpet of her praises and from the government on earth to mount to Heaven by so happy death born as on a Chariot of liberality and magnificence Where may one more manifestly see the happiness of true and solid piety Behold Athenais a silly maid who had not so much as a poor cottage for shelter as soon as she embraceth piety and offereth the faculties of her soul to the honour of Altars behold her raised upon the throne of the prime Empire of the world afterward as she came a little to forget God he sent her a very sharp affliction but as soon as she hath again recourse to the arms of devotion the cloud of calumny cast on her forehead dissevereth the storm passeth away and her face all glittereth in glory and which is most admirable God layeth hold of her even in the gulph of errour whereinto a wicked hypocrite had cast her reconducteth her to Altars receiveth her soul in peace and causeth her to reign both in herself and bloud in all the three parts of the world for she held in person the Scepter of Asia her daughter Eudoxia was married to the Emperour of Rome the Capital Citie of Europe and her Grand-child was Queen of Africk miraculously finding a Kingdom in her own captivity Is not this a fortunate piety Adde also hereunto Martianus a poor peasant who now had his neck under the sword of the executioner falsely accused of a crime whereof he was innocent and God taketh him by one hair of the head delivereth him from shame and peril marvellously guiding him to the government of a great Empire giveth him innumerable prosperities and indeed maketh him another Constantine Ought not impiety to burst with rage and confess that happiness greatness benedictions and favours of Heaven are for piety Here it may be you will also have some rememberance of the Court of Herod where you have seen the poor Mariamne in virtue so ill intreated and will think that piety in this creature was unfortunate But if this thought occur would it not condemn all the Martyrs and all the Saints whose lives notwithstanding we ought to judge most happy since that vanquishing the petty misfortunes of the world she hath fallen into the bosom of felicity Tell me one hour of life in patience and tranquility of soul which this good Queen had among so many strange accidents is it not more worth than the thirty seven years of her husband all clouded with crimes disturbancies and fury Tell me is it not a happiness and an incomparable glory that God would pertake in persecutions with this good Princess suffering himself by this self-same man to be pursued who had been the hammer of all her afflictions Is it nothing to die in the Amphitheater of patience in the Theater of honour by the same sword which was afterward unsheathed against Jesus Christ Is it nothing to give up the life of a Pismeer in exchange of an immortal glory on earth and a happy repose in Heaven And if you besides desire to see her fortunate piety according to the world is it not a blow from Heaven to say that all the race of Herod issued from his other wives was unlucky miserable execrable deprived of their fathers Scepter chased away exiled scourged with whips from Heaven and the Grand-children of Mariamne remained last in royal thrones Tigranes her Grand-child descended from Alexander was King of Armenia crowned by the hands of the Roman Emperours Agrippa the Great issued from Aristobulus who having been fettered with an iron cain through the cruelty of Tyberius was sent back to his Kingdom by Caius Caesar and honoured with a golden chain of like weight with the same of iron wherewith he had been fettered Agrippa the youngest under whom S. Paul pleaded his cause was preserved from the horrible sack of Jerusalem as Lot from the flames of Sodome and reigned in Tyberiade and Juliade even to decrepit age Berenice grand-child of Mariamne was extreamly courted by the Emperour Titus entituled the worlds darling Another called Drucilla was married to Faelix Governour of Judea of whom is spoken in the Acts God likewise recompencing the virtue of the mother in the children by some temporal favours and all those who disposed themselves to virtue were fortunate to make it appear by evident testimonies that unhappiness ariseth from nothing but impiety These two Courts the histories of which we have here represented in my opinion sufficiently shew the unhappiness of impiety and fortunate success in the lives of Great-ones when they are guided according to the laws of Heaven If I hereafter shall continue this work I will
stept far into age bear the torch before youth Let women endeavour to establish piety which is the ornament of their sex Let children be well bred and trained within the laws of modesty Let the doctrine of Jesus Christ be sealed with the seal of good manners there is no Libertine but will be daunted at the sight of a life led according to the laws of Christianity For it is a mirrour which killeth basilisks by reverberation of their proper poison But if blasphemers continue still so impudent as to vomit forth unclean and injurious words against the Religion we profess have not laws which are in the power of the Sovereign Princes on earth and of their Ministers of State iron hands able to stay their most daring impudencies I call you hither O holy Prelates O Monarchs To the great-ones of all Christendom Princes and Potentates who are in the world as the great Intelligences who make the Heavens move and who by diversity of your aspects cause calms and storms in this inferiour region wherein we live I pray tell me where do you think hath glory which you naturally love placed its throne and state if not in the bosom of true piety By what degrees are those immortal spirits of your Ancestours mounted up to the joys and delights of God having replenished the earth with the veneration of their memory if it were not by making the honour of the Sovereign Master march in the front of all their designs and thinking nought their own but what was acquired for God Remember you are not altogether like the Angel Apo. 10. of the Apocalyps which beareth the Sun and Rainbows and all the garnishments of glory on feet of brass you enjoy dignities and supereminencies that draw the Great-ones into admiration astonish inferiours attract people evict honour and wonder from all the world But consider if so you please that all this is onely supported on feet of clay and morter Time changeth you cares consume you maladies assail you death takes and despoileth you They who adored you in thrones may one day trample on you in sepulchers Alas if it happen you carry all your own interests with violence of passion to the height of your pretensions and that you hold Religion and the glory of Jesus in a perpetual contempt what will your soul one day answer when it leaves the body unto the thundering voice of a living God saying to you as he did to Cyrus in Isaiah Assimilavi te non cognovisti Isaiah 45. me I called thee by thy name I created thee like unto my self I made thee a little God on earth and thou hast forgotten me I so many times marched before thy standards many times have I humbled the most glorious of the earth for thee I brake brazen gates pulled down iron bars to afford thee hiden treasures and the wealth of Ages which nature for thee preserved in her bosom The Sun seemed not to shine in the world but to enlighten thy greatness the seas surged for thee and for thee the earth was wholly bent to honour and obedience Admirer of thy self and ignorant of Gods works thou hast so ill husbanded my goods that thou hast changed them all into evils I gave thee rays and thou hast made arrows of them to shoot against me Did I seat thee on thrones that there thy passions might sway Did I imprint on thy forehead the character of my greatness that thou mightest authorize crimes Thou hadst a feeble pretext of Religion and hast neglected the effects Thy interests reigned and my honour suffered in thy house At what aimed thy ambition so strong of wing and so weak of brain which onely thought how to envy what was above the more to oppress any thing below it What did that burning avarice that profuse riot that spirit of bloud and flesh employed in the advancement of thine own house to the contempt of mine For an inch of land a wretched matter of profit the fantasie of an affront jealousie onely subsisting in a body of smoke all the elements must be troubled men and swords drawn forth for revenge and bloud of so many mortals shed but for my Name which is blasphemed it is sufficient to wag the finger to shew onely a cold countenance a slight touch of that great authority whilst I was neglected having done no other fault but to have paid ingratitudes with benefits O you Great-ones who sit at the stern of Churches and temporal Estates how far will you become accountable to Gods justice if you place not his honour in the first rank of all your intentions Alas Ought not you to entertain an ardent zeal towards the Religion which our Ancestours consigned unto us with so many examples of piety that Heaven hath not more stars than we lights before our eyes Can we well endure that the verities and maxims of God which the Prophets foretold us the Apostles pronounced the Confessours professed the Martyrs defended in the piece-meal mangling of their bodies amidst combs and iron hooks burning cauldrons wheels armed with keen razours should now adays be the sport of certain giddy spirits and the aim of profane lips who void of wit or shame dare invade holy things Is it not for this O France the beloved of God and orient pearl of the world thou hast seen in thy bosom so many hostilities such contagions famines monsters and devastations that had not the arm of God supported thee thou wouldst have been long since drenched in irrecoverable confusions O you who bear the sword of justice and have authority in your hands will you not one day say All Omnis qui zelum habet legis statuens testamentum suum exeat post me they who have the zeal of the law and the pietie of our Ancestours follow us couragiously for behold we are readie to revenge the quarrels of God and to account his glorie on earth in the same degree the Angels hold it in Heaven This was the conceit of the valiant Machabee the Prince of Gods people who having seen an Apostate of his Nation offer incense to an Idol slew him with his own hand on the very same Altar saying aloud He who hath the zeal of the law let him Vae mihi quis natus sum videre contritionem populi mei Sancts in manu extrantcrum facts sunt c. Nunc ergo silii aemulatores estote legis date animas vestras protestamento Patrum Moriamur in virtule propter fratres nostros non inferamus crimen gloriae nostre follow me Wo to me since I am born to behold the desolation of my people Holy things are in the hands of strangers The Temple hath been handled as the most wicked man on earth Our mysteries our beauties our glories are desolated To what purpose do I still lead a miserable life Fathers of families will you not say to your children what he did to his Children be ye emulatours
of the law and yield your souls up for the testament of your Ancestours Children will you not answer what the holy Machabees did by the lips of their elder brother Let us die in virtue for our brethren and not defile our glory by any crime which may be objected against us Let war be proclaimed against Libertines and blasphemers who will still persevere with deliberate malice in their impiety Let these infernal mouthes be stopped and condemned to an eternal silence Let the standard of the Cross be adored by all Nations and the enemies of Jesus dissolved as wax melted on the flames of burning coals as smoke scattered in the air Let a chast and sincere worship of God flourish every where and sacrifices of praise mount to Heaven to obtain benedictions on earth But you SIR who most near approch to the Kings person having given so many testimonies of your prudence your courage and fidelity seem to speak unto him with the same tongue which holdeth ears enchained by the charms of your eloquence and say what France pronounceth 7. GReat King for whom our Altars daily smoke An Apostrophe of France to the King in Sacrifices and for whom our lips cease not to send forth thanksgivings of prosperitie to Heaven The monsters are not all as yet vanquished Behold the last head of Hydra which God hath reserved to this triumphant sword which the Cross guideth valour animateth justice moderateth and the stars crown Needs must impietie be crushed under those feet which have already trampled on so many Dragons and be fettered with an hundred iron chains under the Altars we daily charge with our vows When Libra the constellation of your birth ariseth the Ram falleth It is not time O Monarch of flower-de-luces that appearing on the throne of justice with Ballance in hand all sparkling with the rays of glorie which environ you after so many battel 's concluded by your victories you humble the horns of this Ram of insolent impiety which dares so confidently oppose both by words and actions the Religion which crown you the spirit which possesseth you and the power which directeth you Alas Alas SIR To what purpose were it to have walked on the smoking ruins of so many rebellious Cities What would it avail to have thrown down in one Rochel so many surly rocks with the help of so great so faithfull and happy counsel and opening one gate there at your enterance to have shut up a thousand against factions and civil wars What contentment could your Majesty have by wiping away the sweats on the Alps you had gotten on the Ocean and to have gathered palms perpetually verdant for you as well in the frozen ice of winter as the scorching beats of summer if you must again behold at your return that Religion you so often defended trodden under the feet of impiety wounded by slanderous tongues outraged by blasphemies and contaminated by insolent spirits who know not God but to dishonour him It now at this time presenteth it self to you with sighs in the heart and tears in the eyes It sheweth unto you the robe which Clodovaeus Charlemaigne and S. Lewis your Predecessours gave you with so much splendour now torn in pieces with such violence it imploreth your assistance it expecteth your power it breaths an air much the more sweet in the confidence conceived of your zeal and courage I call to witness that great Angel which hath led you by the hand to so many conquests and triumphs making you dreadfull to your enemies helpfull to your Allies awfull to your subjects and amiable to all the world it is not here where he will limit your actions and fix the columns of your memorie We still hope quickly to see the day which shall drie up the tears of the poor shall ease their burdens shall sweeten their pains shall â—our oyl on their yokes And from whom should we expect all this but from a Prince so pious so benign We promise our selves to see a Clergie which shall speedily put it self into so good a way under your favour entirely purified from the dregs of simonie ignorance and the liberty of evil actions Who can give us this happiness but a King who hath under his heart a Temple for true piety We sigh for that great day that day which shall for ever wash away the stains of bloud impressed on the foreheads of French Nobilitie which shall dissipate disorders shall stop the current of so many dissolutions and what can assure us of it but the certainty of your Edicts We most earnestly desire to behold an absolute regularitie in justice and in all Officers that a golden Age may shine again which hath so often been varnished through the corruption of souls set at sale And who shall do it but a King that from his most innocent years so much hath cherished the title of Just that be for it contemned the name of a Conquerour which his valour presented him and of Most Sacred which the veneration of his virtues afforded him Impiety vanquished beareth the keys of all these hopes nor shall we have any thing more to fear or desire when that shall be throughly suppressed throughout all the parts of the Kingdom Dear delight of Heaven is it not for this God drew you the last year from the gates of a sepulcher and restored you to life to render us all to our selves Alas Great God what a stroke of thunder was the news of this maladie What a terrour to all Cities What astonishment in all Orders What a wound in the heart of the whole Kingdom Your poor France remembered the 27. day of September made sacred by your royal birth It considered this nativitie had done to your state what the infusion of the soul into a bodie and saw you almost taken hence at the same time that your Majestie entered It beheld all that greatness and those comforts readie to be shut up within your tomb The Queens drenched in their deep sorrow could not speak but by their tears and sobs Your good Officers dissolved in lamentations at the foot of your bed which was become at the Altars of grief All humane hopes were cut off by the violence of the maladie Nothing was expected but the fatal blow which all the world deplored and which no man could divert But who knoweth not SIR God permitted it to let us see your virtues by their bright reflection The lustre of beautifull paintings must be suffered a little to mortifie before we can judge of them We could not sufficiently know your Majestie in the bright splendours of fortune and such good success of arms Needs must we have a character from God of men afflicted and a mark of the Cross of Jesus to consummate so excellent qualities And what heart was not then seized with admiration when we saw a young King so great so flourishing so awfull to look death in the face with a confident eye to expect it with