answered their desires For in this second Volumn I treat of the Courts of Constantine the Great the two Valentinians Gratian Theodosius the Elder Theodorick in Boetius his cause Clodoveus Clotilda Levigildus Hermingildus and Indegondis in such sort that I have selected the principal sanctities of Great-ones in the first six Ages of Christianity which will not be sleightly valued by those who better love to finish a Work than unboundedly distend it Moreover also to be better than my promise in my first Volumn having taken the Court in general I here descend into particulars and there being four sorts of persons which compose the life of Great-ones that is to say the Prelate the Souldier the States-man and the Court-Ladie I have made a brief Table of the conditions necessary in every state couched in four discourses pursued with as many Books of Histories which contain excellent models of virtues proper to all orders and states of life in persons most eminent I can assure my Reader these Summaries of Precepts which I have so contracted in so few words it being in my power to enlarge them in divers Volumns are not unprofitable and the Histories are so chosen that besides their majesty which unfoldeth the goodliest affairs and passages of Empires in the beginning of their Christianity they have also a certain sweetness which solid spirits shall find as much to transcend fables and modern eloquence as the satisfaction of truth surpasseth the illusions of Sorcerers You shall perpetually therein observe a large Theater of the Divine providence wherein God himself knoweth I have no other aim but to dignifie virtue and depress vice without any reflection upon the persons of these times no more than if I wrote in the Reign of Charlemain or St. Lewis I heartily entreat all those spirits of application who cannot hold their nose over a piece of work unless they find it to suit with their own fantasies imagining that all literature is the eccho of their own thoughts that if they have any Commentary to produce they would rather make glosses upon their own dreams than my Books We are not as yet God be thanked in so miserable an Age that we dare not offer sacrifice to truth without a disguise since it is the glory of Great-ones openly to wage war against vices as their greatest enemies For to speak truly after I had presented my First Tome at the feet of the sacred person of our great King I likewise considered in his Court rich and resplendent lights in all orders which might serve as models for my Treatises but to avoid affectation of all worldly complacence I have purposely declined it my nature and habit having already so alienated me from all worldly pretences that it would prove painfull to me to court any man if he had not Heaven and the Stars to give me for reward For so much as concerneth the form of writing observed by me in this Second Volumn I will truly confess to my Reader that I have therein proceeded rather guided by my proper Genius than art or cunning And although I heretofore have been curious enough to read and observe all what ever Greek or Roman eloquence hath produced of worth yet I confess there is a certain ray of God which encountering with our spirit and mixing with nature is more knowing than all precepts and I may affirm this for the instruction of youth which hath asked my opinion concerning the qualities and conditions of stile True it is I have handled many books written in all Ages and have found the wisest of them to be elevated in conceits and words above the ordinary strain but always free from affectation Others are so passionately enamoured of certain petty courtships of language which are capital enemies of perswasion and which we most especially ought to avoid in discourses of piety the nerves whereof they weaken and blemish the lustre since even those who speak to us out of Chairs by word or writing although in terms discreetly modest make the less impressions on our hearts and many times so seek after their own reputations as they forget how much they are engaged to truth We see some who through over-much wit search out strange ways conceptions different from common understanding words extravagant and in all other things so vehemently adore their own imaginations that they cannot endure any but themselves in paper which is the cause they very seldom meet with the habit of humane understanding as being true Citizens of Plato's Commonwealth of ability to controle all and to do nothing Some glory in barrenness and would willingly be displeased with God that he hath more plentifully sown stars in some parts of the Heaven than in others They can brook nothing that is generous without snarling at it and taxing it supposing beauties and splendours are defects because they surpass their capacities Finally there are some who so furnish themselves with the worth of others ceaseless allegations that they frame discourses like to those Helena's all of gold where we can behold nothing but drapery not being able to distinguish the hand from the foot nor the eye from the face I enter not into the consideration of our times having learned rather to regard the Works of the meanest Writers than censure them But to speak sincerely I never thought it fit to advise or pursue such courses And as in this Work I have not wholly declined learning nor ornament of language which I supposed apt for the purpose endeavouring many times to enchase them with seemly accommodation so have I been unwilling to replenish my leaves with Authours and forreign tongues this being undertaken rather to perswade virtue among men eminent than to fill the common places of young Students I likewise have so intermingled my style that not descending into a petty language of complement which had been below my subject I thought to make it intelligible yea even unto those who make no profession of arts or study My onely aim is to speak and to be understood perswaded thereunto by the saying of Philo That speech and thought are two sisters they youngest whereof is created that the eldest may be known I have more laboured upon the weight of sentences than ornaments of words not at all pretending to the honour of earthly pens which we daily behold to grow in so many Authours of this Age who would be much more absolute did they apply themselves to graver subjects and in some sort imitate the Sun who affording admiration to the world hath none himself Notwithstanding it often happeneth not with the most eminent Writers who ordinarily are endowed with much modesty but certain extreamly profane wits to idolatrize their own inventions to condemn all treatises of worth and value that it is impossible to be eloquent in our language but in the expression of vanities and impurities Truly if question were made to judge of French eloquence the riches of Babylon are not so exquisite as
God but wayes likewise easie and yielding to natural inclinations Oblike love is that which holdeth of both the other and which imitating the Angels of Jacobs ladder climbs to God by creatures and descends to creatures by the love of God But behold a love of enemies commanded by God which seemeth not comprized in this division so much it seeketh out wayes alienated and inaccessible to nature yet I intend to shew it may be found in the third part of this list and that it is a love which by the love of God descendeth unto the love of man to love him according to God A love which I maintain to be possible Three proofs of this discourse glorious and necessarie in three proofs that shall make three heads of this discourse 2. To deny the possibility of the love of enemies is First reason possibility of the love of enemies Diligite inimicos vestros to bely the Gospel and reason the Gospel which commandeth it reason which fortifieth the justice of the commandment The words spoken by our Saviour Love your enemies is not a counsel but a commandment so explicateth the Councel of Carthage the fourth chap. 93. the Councel of Agde Can. 22. and all holy Fathers who lent the light of their stile to the first light in the Gospel Now to say God commandeth a thing impossible is to make a tyranny of the Divinity and to make a God like to the cruel duke of Muscovia named Basilides who commanded from his subjects a tribute of sweat and of nightingales in the midst of winter Reason dictateth to us this commandment is not Right of nature onely of Divine right but of nature so far is it from being contrarie to nature that to speak naturally we judge that should be done to our neighbour we would have done to our selves and we desire to be beloved by all the world yea by those whom we have offended we then necessarily conclude we are bound to love those who have done us some injury Besides we well see that to seek revenge by proper authority is to destroy the right of nature and to make of a civil life the life of a Cyclop which were to have no other reason than strength nor limit but the sword Some will say it were good could love as easily be Answer to an objection put on as a shirt but if we have much ado to love things indifferent how can we affect bad and offensive Love ever pursueth good as the shadow the body and God who made both love and nature will not that it settle it self unless there be some attractive or appearance of good which inviteth it to love Now what is lovely in an enemy in whose person all is odious yea the very name Behold how carnal Philosophy with strong passions and weak reasons strikes at the eternal Word as if in the worst man in the world there could not ever be found something which may be an object of reasonable love We are not commanded to affect him with a love of tenderness but of reason It is not said you must love him as vicious you must endear Omne animal diligit simile sibi sic omnis homo proximum sibi Eccl. 13. 19. him as injurious or wicked for that were to force nature but we are commanded to love him as a man to love him as a Christian to love him as the work of God and as a creature capable of life eternal All things in the world said an Ancient have two handles and two faces Take a good hold-fast look on the good countenance and you shall find that easie which you thought impossible Let us also pass with Divinity to a reason more eminent and say it is not a thing against nature to love above nature by the commandment of him who made nature It is asked whether a creature can naturally love God more than it self since all that nature loveth it loves as a thing united to it it self according to the Amicabilia ad alterum sumumtur ex amicabiltus ad se Arist Ehick l. 4. c. 8. D. Tho. 2. 2. q. 26. saying of Philosophers all well considered the most learned Divines answer that the soul of man remaining within the lists of natural reason should love the Creatour more than its own life because naturally the will well rectified hath a strong inclination to its end which is the Sovereign Good and the understanding necessarily judgeth the subsistence of essence increate and independent which ought rather to be preserved than that of essence create And if that be done by ways of nature how may one say it is against nature to love an enemy when there is the commandment and honour of God in it Nay it is so much otherwise that I will adde a reason which perhaps may seem strange but it is undoubted true I say it is much more hard to love ones self well than an enemy For I beseech you why was A remarkable consideration it that the Son of God so much spake laboured wept and bled if not to teach how we should aptly love our selves And wherefore were so many Saints fifty yea threescore years at school in desarts but to learn this hard lesson And who hath ever thought Self-love very hard to be repressed any thing more difficult to be repressed than self-love which powerful in fury and impotent within it self forgetful of God still mindful of its own interests ever gluttonous and still hungry swalloweth like a gulph sweepeth along like a torrēt beateth down like thunder and in the end is buried in the ruins it made If well to love ones self this monster be necessarily be to tamed who sees not there is much difficulty therein and that on the other side there is nothing to be done but to love the gift of God in man which cannot be ill but in your imagination Why create we so many impediments in the love of an enemy and find none in the love of our selves Were it not natural Effects of the love of enemies in the Law of nature Senec. l. 3. de irâ c. 38. why in the Law of nature did Cato smilingly wipe away tough phlegme which an enemy spit on his face when he pleaded a cause Why was Socrates content having received a blow on the cheek from an insolent man to set over his head the scroul used on ancient tables Lycus faciebat Why did Augustus in an absolute sovereign power of revenge tolerate with so much courtesy a certain writer named Timagenes who perpetually barked against him Traytours that we are to nature so to cover our neglect and weakness with the pretext of nature 3. Let us yet adde more force to truth and more Second point of proofs drawn from the glory of pardon scope to our pen. Let us enter into the second point of this discourse which teacheth us the greatness and glory of a man who
the river of Silias wherein all sinks to the bottome and nothing floateth all passeth with them into the bottom of the soul nought stayes in the superficies which is the cause that the heart replenished with cares and apprehensions dischargeth it self what it may by the tongue Besides the materiall cause of Despair which is observed in Melancholy we find others efficient which ordinarily fasten upon great strong passions of Love of Ambition and of Avarice All histories are full of miserable people who having settled their affections upon objects whence they could not with reason expect any satisfaction after an infinite number of languors toils and pursuits have buried their love in Despair and drowned their ardour in the blood of their wounds Some have hanged themselves at the gate of their Mistresses others have thrown themselves headlong down into ruines others have been exposed to salvage beasts rather chusing to suffer the fury of tygers and lions then the rage of Love without fruition The Poet Virgil did her wrong to put Dido Queen Dido profâ—â—â— in alieno â—â—lo â—bi nuâ—â—ias regis 〈◊〉 optasâ—â— lebueratne tamen secundas experiretur maluitè contrario uri quà m nubere Tertul. in exhort ad castitatem of Carthage into the number of the Unhappy saying she sacrificed her self to the sword and flames out of a Despair conceived to see her self deprived of her Trojan Tertullian justified the Ashes of his Countrey-woman assuring us she was one of the most chaste Ladies in the world and did more in the matter of Chastity then S. Paul prescribeth For the Apostle having said That it is better to marry then to burn she rather chose to burn then to marry making her own funerall alive and rather entring upon the flaming pyle then to comply with the passion of a King who sought her in marriage after the death of her husband whom she had singularly loved The passion of Ambition is no lesse violent in proud and arrogant spirits who having been long born as on the wings of glory and seeing themselves on a sudden so unfortunate as to be trampled under foot by those who adored them cannot digest the change of their fortune anticipating that by violence which they ought rather to expect from mercy Such was Achitophel accounted to be one of the greatest States-men of 1 Reg. 17. 23 his time whose counsels were esteemed as of a Deitie when seeing himself faln from the great authority he had acquired after he had set the affairs of his house in order he took a halter with which he hanged himself And it is thought Pilate followed the like course Tantis irrogante Caio angâ—â—ibus coarctatus est ut se suâ transverberans manu malorum compendium mortis celeritate quaesierit Paul Oros l. 7. c. 4. when he saw himself to be discountenanced after the death of his master Tiberius and banished by Caius Caligula the successour to the Empire This calamity seemed unto him so intolerable that he sought to shorten his miseries by hastening his death which he gave himself by his own hand Yet Eusebius who seems to be the chief authour of this narration and who is followed by Paulus Orosius and others doth not assure it as a thing undoubtedly true but as a popular rumour For my part I think it not amisse to believe Pilatus jam tunc pro sua conscientia Christian Tertul. in Apoleg Tertullian who conceiveth that after the death of our Saviour Pilate was a Christian in his conscience when he in writing expressed to the Emperour Tiberius the things which occurred in the person of our Saviour with so much honour for our Religion that from that time the Emperour resolved to put Jesus Christ into the number of the Gods But if the opinion of this Author Yes that it might very well as many examples testifie were true It could not be credible that a man who had a tincture of Christianity should have ended his life by so furious a Despair Avarice in this point will nothing at all give place to Ambition for there are many to be found who seeing themselves unexpectedly deprived of treasures which they kept as the Griphons of Scythia would no longer behold the Sun after the Sun had seen the Gold which they hid in the bowels of the earth Witnesse that covetous man of the Greek Anthology who strangled himself with the same halter wherewith another man had determined to hang himself who by chance having found this caitiffs treasure was diverted from it This may very well teach us that it is very dangerous passionately to affect the objects of the world because as saith S. Gregory one cannot without immeasurable grief lose all that which with unlimitted love is possessed The evil spirit who soundeth each ones inclinations and discovereth their dispositions powerfully intermedleth in them and layeth snares for men in all the things wherein he observeth them to be with the most fervour busied To these occasions of Despair fear of pain and shame is added which is very ordinary and is the cause that many hasten their end before they fall into the hands of their enemies or are laid hold on by Justice which is as much as if one should die not to dye This was very common among Pagans who esteemed that a glory which we hold the worst of crimes and the like opinion crept very farre into the minds of the Hebrews who thought themselves to be sacred persons and imagined they did an act generous and profitable to the glory of God to kill themselves before the hands of Infidels were bathed in their bloud This is the cause if we believe the ordinary Glosse of the first Book of Kings and Glossa in 1 Reg. 31. Dicunt Hebraei aliqui etiam Christiani quod interficere seipsum inâ—uitu Divini honoris nè vituperium exerceatur in proprio corpore redundans in Dei vituperium sicut timebar Saul non esse illicitum the antient Interpreters of this Nation that we cannot conclude the damnation of Saul by an infallible demonstration for having strucken himself seeing that according to their opinion he was not sufficiently illuminated by the lights of the antient Law that it was a Mortall sin to hasten his death to save the honour of his Religion and to deliver himself from the scorn of Infidels Nay they assure us that he in this occasion ordered himself as a treasure of God refusing to deliver up unto enemies a Head honoured with sacred Unction to be alive defiled by their profane hands They add that he had before him the example of Samson who was admired by all his own Nation for being over-whelmed with the Philistims under the ruines of a house And that after him Razias esteemed a Saint Macch. 1. 12 and a courageous man gave himself the stroke of death and threw his bowels all bloudy from the top of a turret on the heads of his enemies But
be for our advantage There are who escape out of prison by fire others who are faln into precipices very gently and have in the bottome found their liberty others to whom poysons are turned into nutriment others to whom blows of a sword have broken impostumes so true it is that the seeds of good hap are sometimes hidden under the apparances of ill Besides this give your self the leisure to find out the To take things at the worst whole latitude of the evill which strikes you Take if you think good all things at the worst and handle your self as an enemy yet you shall find that this evil is not so bad as it is said that many have gone that way before you and that if God permit it he will give you strength to bear it The fear it self which is the worst of our evils is not so great a torment since it affordeth us precaution industry and fit means and suggesteth us wayes to fear no more If you never have experienced evil you have much to complain that you so little have been a man and if you have some experience of the time past it will much serve you to sweeten the apprehension of the evils to come Vanquish your own conceits as much as you can and pray them not to present unto you under so hideous a mask those pains which women and children have many times laughed at If you in the beginning feel any horrour and the first rebellions of nature lose not courage for Fiducia pallens Statius Theb. Rodericus Toletanus rerum Hisp l. 5. c. 23. all that since the Poet painted Boldnesse with a pale visage We have often seen great Captains as Garcias to quake in the beginning of dangerous battels because their flesh as they said laid hold of their courage and carried the imagination into the most hideous perils Lastly be it how it will be you shall find the remedy of your fears in the presence of that which you fear since there are some who in the irresolution of some affair do endure a thousand evils and so soon as the determination thereof succeedeth though to their prejudice they fell themselves much more lightned Many prisoners who stand on thorns in prison expecting the issue of their triall go very resolute to execution seeing it is better to die once then to live still in the apprehension of death David shook with fear Reg 2. 12. wept and fasted lay on the ground for the sicknesse of his young son But after the death was denounced him he rose up from the earth changed his habit washed and perfumed himself then having worshipped in the house of God he asked for his dinner and first of all comforted Bathsheba upon this accident whereat his houshold-servants were amazed But he taught them we must not afflict our selves for those things whereof there is no remedy I conclude with the last kind of fear which comes from things very extraordinary as are Comets Armies of fire Prodigies in the Heavens and the Air Thunders Lightnings Monsters Inundations Fires Earthquakes Spirits Spectres Devils and Hell Good God! what terrour is there in this miserable life since besides these which are so ordinary with us we must expect other from places so high and so low But howsoever we notwithstanding do find courages which surmount them with the assistance of God although it do not ordinarily happen without some impressions of fear otherwise we must be far engaged in stupidity Comets Eclipses flying fires and so many other Meteors do not now-a-dayes so much affright since we have discovered the causes which is a powerfull proof that ignorance in many occasions makes up a great part of our torments Pericles strook Stratagem of Pericles Polyaenus l. 3. a fire-steel in an assembly of his Captains and Souldiers who were astonished at a thunder and lightning happened in the instant of a battel shewing that what the heavens did was that he was doing before their eyes which marvellously satisfied them Superstition makes a thousand fantasies to be feared whereat we might laugh with a little wisdome The Euseb l. 1. de praeparat Evang. c. 7. Egyptians were half dead when the figure of a huge dragon which sometimes of the year was shewed them did not seem to look well on them and the Romans fell in their Courage when the Cocks which governed their battels did not feed to their liking Hecataeus Hecataeus apud Cunaeum l. 2. de Rep. Hebraeorum an antient Historian telleth that Alexanders whole army stood still to look on a bird from whence the Augur went about to derive some presage which being seen by a Jew named Mosellan he drew an arrow out of his quiver and kill'd it mocking at the Grecians who expected their destiny from a creature which so little knew its own As we laugh at this present at these fopperies so we should entertain with scorn so many dreams and superstitious observations which trouble them enough who make account of them Wild beasts inundation of rivers productions of mountains big with flames sulphur and stonas are other causes of terrour nor hath there ever been seen any more hideous then that which happened these late years in Italy in the last fiering of Mount Vesuvius The burning of Vesuvius in the year 1631. Julius Recupitus which is excellently described by F. Julius Recupitus Then it there can be nothing seen more able to excite terrour unlesse in an instant the bottome of Hell were laid open and all the hideous aspects of the torments of the damned Yet it is a strange thing how among waves of fire which ran on all sides clouds of Ashes which appeared like vast mountains continuall Earthquakes countrebuffs of Hillocks and of houses of Abysses of Gulphs and of Chaoses there were people to be found who yet thought upon their purses and took the way towards their houses to lay hold of their slender substances which makes us see that there is nothing so horrid where the soul of man returned to it self findeth not some leisure to breathe The monsters of the Roman Amphitheatre which in the beginning made the most hardy to quake were in the end despised by women who were hired to combat with them Things not seen which it seems should most trouble the mind because they are most hidden are also in some sort surmounted since we read how that many great Anchorets lay in Church-yards infested with ghosts and spectres and about solitudes in forrests and wildernesses the most retired in the midst of so many illusions of evill spirits as it is written in the Acts of Saint Anthony S. Hilarion and S. Macarius There is nothing but the day of Judgement Hell and the punishments of the damned we should reasonably fear and not out of visionary scruples to free us from all fear § 4. That the Contemplation of the power and Bounty of God ought to take away all our fears BUt if these reason
this change kindled again his antient vigour and rallied all his forces to oppose the Generalls of King Demetrius so that at first he defeated some of them with a very famous rout which more inflamed that Monarch not being able to endure that his Arms should be cryed down at the beginning of his Reign this made him send into the field Army upon Army with so great impetuousnesse that there was no more any means left to make resistance Yet the great heart of the Maccabee could not yield but sailed against wind and tide the thoughts of his valour making him forget those of his danger He had yet three thousand men very resolute fellows with which he promised himself to continue his victories but when Bacchides the Generall was seen appear with an army of two and twenty thousand men many withdrew themselves for fear of the danger into which the Maccabee following the ordinary tracts of his courage was about to precipitate them These run awayes beginning to wheel about to the other side stole away so handsomely from the Army that of three thousand there remained but eight hundred The Maccabee felt his heart much pierced seeing himself forsaken of his brethren and of his friends in his greatest need he burned with a desire to charge his enemies but when he considered the small forces he had about him his heart bled within him It was an evident peril to approach the enemy and death to retire from them divers thoughts about this combate contended in his heart but those that favoured his boldnesse had the upper hand Let us go sayes he to his men and try our fortune let us essay whether we shall have heart enough to encountre the army that comes against us The most considerate men replyed that they wanted not any courage but that their small appearance would not be able to affront an army of two and twenty thousand men with a Regiment not compleat and that it was expedient for them to retire that day to rallie some new troops and to return to the combate with hopes of greater advantages God forbid replyed the Maccabee that our enemies should have that contentment to see us turn our backs and flie before them this is a a thing I could never yet be taught since I took up arms Ha! Where is that gallantry that I have alwayes seen in you Ought we to be so much in love with life If our hour be come let us die valourously for our brethren and let us not leave a blemish upon the lustre of the honour that we have acquired He carries them away all by his authority and they are already resolved to conquer or to die The trumpets sounds on both sides the earth eccho's with the noise of the arms and shouts of the souldiers Bacchides causes his dragoons armed with arrows and with slings to advance who began the skirmish and lead up a great battle that endured from the morning to the evening the one combating by number and the other by valour And when the Maccabee saw that the best troops were on the right point about the person of Bacchides he resolved to make his way thither which he did with a prodigious violence making them lose their footing and beating them back with much confusion But those on the left point that were yet fresh seeing the disorder of their companions came to fall upon Judas and upon all his troop that were extremely wearied with having laid upon the place so many bodies of the enemies These defended themselves valiantly but the multitude of those that set upon them on all parts overwhelmed them and the incomparable Maccabee by having received many wounds opened as many bloudy gates to his generous soul to flie away into the other world There are neither Colossus's nor Pyramids that can equall the deeds of this gallant man Never did any man fight better or for a better Cause His heart was a source of generous flames his hand was the thunder it self his valour a miracle his life an example and his death was like to be that of his whole countrey that would have buried it self in his tomb if his brothers Jonathan and Simon had not enlarged his conquests by the imitation of his prowesse The good party was much weakned by the decease of him that was the soul of his whole countrey and it seemed that Judea would quickly be swallowed up by the great forces of King Demetrius but the succouring hand of the God of hosts was not wanting to his servants in the extremity of so many miseries The pernicious Alcimus that had raised that whole storm when he thought himself to be above his hopes was smitten with a stroke from heaven and died suddenly of a strange malady Demetrius after a Reign of some years saw a great faction raised against him from that coast whence he least expected it which deprived him of his Sceptre and his life His scornfull and haughty nature made him disdain the Kings his neighbours even so farre as to offend them by wayes of words and deeds He was also little affable and courteous to his Subjects that loved naturally to be caressed of their Prince and although at first he was of an humour good enough yet he was so much changed that having built a very sumptuous Castle near his capitall city he lived there constantly to take his pleasure and let himself be seen by very few His people of Antioch that was on the other side arrogant enough were incensed and wearied with his Reign They began to raise rebellions that were fomented under hand by the Kings of Egypt of Asia and of Cappadocia that distrusted him and thought to find him a successour He was quite astonished when he saw one Pompalus a young man before that time unknown that called himself the son of Antiochus the Illustrious and brother of Eupator come and demand the Kingdome of Syria as appertaining to him by right of birth Many Historians hold that it was a pure fiction and that that pretended was suborned by the artifice of those three Kings and namely of Ariarathes the Cappadocian yet since the Scripture names him the son of Antiochus the Illustrious I find that it is very probable to follow that which others have written and to say that that Antiochus had heretofore made love to a young Rhodian woman named Bala on whom he had begotten this naturall son with his sister Laodice He failed not to shew himself at Rome and to make himself be somewhat taken notice of by the practices of one Heraclides a wise and crafty man in managing businesses The enemies of Demetrius embraced this occasion to disturb him and carried as much as they were able this man to the Throne not by reason of Justice but because they believed they should have a better market for their pretensions by making a new creature then suffering any longer him they had rendred more absolute then they desired he should be It
controversie and urged them to appear the morrow after to offer Incense and to see how God would like their offering The Anti-Priests failed not to be at the door of the Tabernacle with their Censers in their hands to make a combination apart and to oppose the Pontificate of Aaron But the living God that authorises the true High Priests appeared upon the Tabernacle after a terrible and threatning manner The people that invironed the Mutiners suddenly separated themselves at the voyce of Moses the earth opens it self under the feet of Corah Dathan and Abiram to swallow them up alive with their Pavilions and all their riches The others were devoured by fire from heaven visibly with an extream affright of the whole Army and forasmuch as there remained some rebels that mourned for the dead and enflamed the division the hand of God yet smoaking over their heads was ready utterly to destroy them had not Moses prostrated himself before the Tabernacle praying for them and had not Aaron holding the Censer and beseeching the divine Majesty between the living and the dead appeased the wrath of Heaven But the punishment of these miserable men left much terrour in the souls of the people and an example of perpetuall memory to all those that resist the Powers that are lawfully established by God There were Combats at home and abroad for the Amalekites a salvage nation descended from Esau's children endeavoured to beat back the people of God and gave them battell which Moses accepted and making Joshua Generall of the Army contented himself to go to the top of the mountain to pray to the God of the living and to obtein the Victory His prayers were darts of fire shot upon the enemies for as long as he kept his arms lifted up to God in prayer the Israelites had the better but if he slacked them never so little they had the worst which made Hur and Aaron hold up his Arms to prevent a wearinesse in them and by this means he desisted not till such time as the Adversaries covered with their dead bodies all the field of battell Now because this great People would have been but a confused masse had they remained without law and without policy which is the soul of Assemblies Moses was powerfully inspired by God to make laws as well those that concerned Religion as others that regarded the Civil The Philosophers assure us that every thing that lives in Nature lives by the Light and that all life is nothing else but Light which spreads it self into the whole Universe and not content to guild it with its brightnesse communicates to it quickning spirits and secret influences which make all the productions in the bosome of Matter That which the Light doth in the naturall World the Law imitates in the Civill It is a participation of the first Reason of the ordination and Providence Divine which insinuates it self into the masse of Mankind embellishes it with its splendours and unites it in the point of Felicity by invisible chains of love and obedience Gods reason is the sovereign Law which resides in the Divine understanding in the treasures of his Wisdome and is as the Primum Mobile of all the regulated motions of the intellectuall nature Plato sayes That the World following that rule keeps an equall path with all the fitnesse and all the measures requisite to its preservation But as soon as it departs from it it falls of necessity into great disorders which cannot be surmounted but by the Divine ordination that re-calls Nature to the point of its Felicity And because the Eternall Law is so high and so sublime that it surpasses all our thoughts God hath caused a Rivulet to flow from that source which is the Law of Nature a true light of right Reason imprinted in the understanding of all men But it being so often darkened by the black vapours of the animall Passions there was a necessitie of humane Laws and Magistrates to put them in execution by the punishment of the wicked and the recompensing of the good God gave then a strong inspiration to Moses to prescribe Precepts and Rules to his People that have been admired by all Nations The Manichees by the relation of S. Augustine rejected the law of Moses as wicked and tyrannicall but in this they have been condemned by the Church for there is no doubt but that having been given by God that is the Father of all Goodnesse it was good and profitable to keep the Jews as under a Pedigogie till the grace of the Gospel And S. Paul himself in the Epistle to the Romans where he seems to go about to destroy it calls it for all that Holy Just and Good But if ye compare it to the Law of grace ye shall find it harsh and imperfect The Mosaicall Law saith that great Doctour conteins commands but that Jesus gives assistance the one bestows light to know the other strength to execute In the antient Law God sayes Do what I command thee In the new Law we say to God Give what thou commandest Moses divided that antient Law into three parts the first of which conteined the Morall and was included in the Decalogue the Second comprehended what ever belonged to Ceremonies and was called Ceremoniall the third regarded Justice between party and party and was Judiciall The first teaches how a man ought to carry himself with God and his neighbour to obtein salvation The second treats of the Temple of the Synagogue of the High-Priest of the Priests of the Levites of the Prophets of the Votaries Nazarites and Rechabites It deciphers the instruments of Gods worship as are the Tabernacle the Ark of Covenant the Propiciatory the Table of Shew-bread the Altar of the Perfumes and of the Burnt-offerings It prescribes the order of the Sacrifices and of the Sacraments of the divers observations of Vows of Fasts of Feasts of Jubilees of Shavings of Habits The third part speaks of Kings of Warre of Peace of Marriages of Polygamy of Divorce of Crimes of Theft of Usury of Adultery of Policy of Men-servants of Maid-servants of Hirelings of Strangers and of the Poor All this is read yet to this day in the Penteteuc and is sufficiently expounded by so many Interpreters of Scripture It would be an infinite tedious and unprofitable businesse to go about to decipher it here peece-meal Let us content our selves that as the Morning dyes by bringing forth the Day so the Law is expired by producing the light of the Gospel Moses undertook not so great a work by humane strength and trusted not to himself in so high an enterprise God would conduct it with his Authority and caused the People to be commanded to purifie themselves and to stand ready on the third day to hear his will That day being come from the morning were heard great Thunders and abundance of Lightnings seen that issued out of thick Clouds at the sound of an affrightfull Trumpet that seized all
wherewith God hath entrusted them and abuse it to outward pomp rather then exercise it to the advantage of good men Let the fear of misdemeanours and obliquities banish all fiercenesse from them and let them esteem it the greatest impotence to boast a Priviledge of Injustice or a Power to hurt The cause of the Warre must first be balanced by an accurate examination lest the affections obtain precedence over Equity and Reason lest iniquity be predominant in the better part and force and fury comply to cheat the world under the specious title of Injustice I am both sad and ashamed to consider with my self what frivolous occasions have prevailed with many whereon to ground a Warre The Trojan Warre that common Sepulchre of Asia and Europe flamed out from the impetuous flagrancies of a noble Whore By a thousand ships she was re-demanded and for her that had lost all modesty vast numbers of gallant Hero's lost their neglected lives So many chaste lay open to the lust of the enemies that an unchaste might be restored Alexander being yet a child was reprehended by his Tutour for his profusion of Frankincense in his Sacrifices to the Gods but being arrived to mans estate that he might wash away this admonition of his master he invadeth Arabia and there the second time offereth up Sacrifice for the conquest of the Countrey The Egyptians for a slain Cat rose up in arms against the Romans and fourty destroyed many thousand men Caligula with a mighty noise of armed men and a great preparation of all Military ornaments hasteneth to the Ocean there to gather cockles The Romans being contumeliously upbraided with this ridiculous Expedition conspired and almost effected the utter ruine of the scoffing Tarentians The people of Alexandria rebelled against Galienus because of a sottish contention between the Master and the Servant concerning the elegancy and neatnesse of a pair of shoes And to omit many examples which I could commemorate William of England sirnamed the Conquerour who was victorious over all men but himself revenged a pleasant conceit of Maximus the Prince with innumerable destructions The Conquerour was of a corpulent habit and his belly was somewhat prominent thorow a plenty of Hydropick humours wherefore when Philip the King of France heard of the nature of his disease We will allow him time saith he to provide for his lying in which by the bulk of his belly appeareth to be near at hand The Conquerour being mad with fury replyed That he would rise up after his delivery and kindle five hundred fires in France to adorn his up-sitting Nor was he unmindfull of his resolution for presently upon his recovery he entred France with a stupendious army wholly addicting himself by fire famine and horrible slaughters to the satisfaction of his revenge Shall we suppose that he playes and trifles with the bloud of men who upon such slight provocations can enterprize such mournfull Tragedies May we suppose those people miserable with whom the scoffs of furious men must be expiated with such a direfull destruction No man ought to believe himself or another concerning the cause of a Warre but let him weigh it with the exquisite prudence of the principall men whose advices are the more fruitfull of truth the lesse they are espoused to affection A right intention must necessarily be coveted to a just Cause and all these things are estimated by a sober and moderate conclusion or a justifiable end Be such a thought eternally banished from the head and heart of a Christian Prince that he should array himself in a Military posture to oblige some light affections of a luxuriant mind that he should run on slaughters command the burning of towns prosecute and seem to rejoyce in devastations that he should destroy he should extinguish and bury his own glory in the overthrow of others This is the indelible ignominy of Centaures and the Lapathae who in warring seek nothing but Warre The wisest Kings thorow tumults and intestine jarres have made a progresse unto Justice Equity and Concord and being themselves in Arms have sacrificed undefeigning vows to Peace They think of an Enemy as a Physician sometimes of his Patient that he must be recovered by corrosives and sharp remedies Oh that he would have been cured with a diet or asswaged with fomentations But when against the Law and Right of Nations he hath persisted in his obstinacy and contemned the reiterated offers of composing the present differences then you must bind then you must cut then you must burn him yet all this to restore not to exterminate him And all things composed behold like the scourge of a deadly and destructive Warre a Northern tempest rageth in the miseries of Germany there they wallow in bloud and in their night-marches they are conducted by the hideous light of burning Cities some few making a resistance and all men being astonished at the ferall prodigy The Altars are polluted with sacrifice Virgins with rapes the chains of Church-men are heard louder and further then the drums of their persecutours holy things are profaned and the abomination of desolation is consummated their very King who had appointed them thither being either ignorant of those outrages or unconsenting Now can any man conceive that this was devised by a Christian mind Can it be imagined that he who hath any reverence unto or sense of Religion can give such directions It is not credible such a monster could not have been brought forth had not hell conceived the bottomelesse-pit exhaling the fuliginous vapours and the devils themselves torturing mens minds into such uncouth diversities All things cannot properly have a reflected reference unto men The Privado's and Ministers of Princes are not at all times to be accused as though they had cast off all humaniry and covered themselves with brutish cruelty There are certain vagabond and deceitfull spirits destinated to revenge who being themselves lost in misery cease not to comfort their malice by driving others into a participation of those miseries which reason greatest Princes ought so much the more to invite yea to admonish you to leagues of Peace because our Omnipotent God in his secret counsel hath determined to subdue Satan by your hands and to cast him under your feet The highest circumspection and vigilancy are therefore requisite least matter be suppeditated to the Devil who altogether watcheth for destruction from the affections and vices of men Jealousie that tinder of Kingdomes and Nations easily taketh fire if it be fomented onely with an animal wisdome and be not mixed with the prudence of the Saints They who are addicted to one part say that the Spaniards do too much expose their power to Envy that it is hatefull unto equalls terrible to inferiours and if not prevented destructive unto all There is amongst them say they such an epidemicall itch after domination such intentive and indefatigable cares of their ambition such a luxurious wit to enlarge their Empire so vast a
their jubilations but see how they destroy one another see how they butcher one another see how they prosecute and persecute one another with endlesse hatred Either they are without Christ or Christ is without Peace It is a hard saying yet hath it more of truth then wonder The Cause of God suffereth diminution in these discords the Church mourneth for many and horrid things either the Religion we professe accuseth our errours or we the Professours accuse our Religion By us Infidels insult over the Elect the Profane over the godly the Jews over Christ and Barbarians over the Church If our honour be cheap in our own valuation why do we betray the Honour of God why do we batter his inheritance Moreover to what short consideration is it not evident that Christian dissentions have been alwayes the occasion of Heathenish rejoycings Whilst our own Armies are conflicting one with the other the Turks have taken Rhodes from us and usurped Constantinople May we not think it a miraculous indulgence of our mercifull God to divert so potent and cruel an enemy from our destruction by engaging him in the Persian Warre But this is much to be feared lest if such whirlwinds of wrath continue among us he should flie upon the torn and scattered remainder of our Kingdomes with fury and violence It is also to be feared lest the Providence being so often provoked by our renewed injuries should cast us out as a prey to the roaring and the ravenous lion The greatest Empires have been often lost in ruine for the same causes and the same offences and the wicked Kings have been subjected to a forreign domination their posterity hath been cut off and all their glories have vanished into a reproachfull scoffe What constant glories have they possessed what dry deaths hath the check of Providence allowed them by whose means it hath come to passe that the Kingdome of Christ hath devolved into the hands and power of the Sarazens Adde to these things O you Princes the unregarded grievances of your Subjects and the laborious servitude of your people Necessity compels you to devour your own members that you get into your grasp the members of another Such a numerous people as the omnipotent God hath delegated to your care and piety that they should be kneaded and compounded into one substantiall felicity by Peace and concord by holy laws and religious adoration of the Deity are either exposed as unfortunate and succourlesse oblations to the fury of their enemies or groan under the pressures of taxations and are tilted in their fortunes by the unappeased and insatiable avarice of exactours Those who have escaped the Sword Famine depopulates by lingring deaths or else they live oppressed under some tyrannous calamity They are sequestred from light and conversation they have neither countrey nor habitation neither rest nor food Fecundity the most desired blessing of their former hopes is now both hated and feared because they cannot leave an inheritance of good things to their children they would not propagate them to become heirs of misery That life which they have been carefull to preserve amidst so many dangers they now detest as unprofitable to you uncomfortable to themselves To be plundred of all things at once is their deliberate wish lest every day they should be plundred But in the mean time they are infested with a diversity of evils the amission of all things and the capitation of each particular thing an Excise upon every thing an undoubted property in nothing They fall under the cruel command of necessity where they are neither permitted to live with the honest nor to die with the quiet they are made gazing-stocks to others and are formidable to themselves whilst their estates perish to themselves their affections are lessened to you which formerly adorned and confirmed your Crowns with a loyall valour Consider Greatest Princes that next to the Honour and Worship of God the most supreme Law that binds you is the safety of the People It was once the speech of a valiant Emperour Non mihi sed exercitui sitis You are not so much born for your selves as for your subjects Their cares if you be wise must be your crosses their oppressions your burdens their miseries your infelicities and their discouragements your complaints What doth it advantage disconsolate men to be defended from the expectations of a greedy enemy by being rifled and impoverished by those of his own Nation He is a miserable Pastour from whom the tutelary Gods of the flock require more things then wolves can devour But this is the soul of misfortune the estate being exhausted the mind is dejected and the virtues are disheartned the Laws are silent among Swords the Blasphemer and the Hypocrite have the uncontrolled liberty of speaking Sword-men licenciously swagger Robbers and Plunderers are the onely Ranters Murderers are the merry-men and all variety of lust is predominant the beauty of Churches is disgraced and sullied with Sacrilegious hands Altars are overthrown Justice is vilipended and Injustice blusheth in scarlet robes Religion fainteth Piety languisheth Charity is counted scandalous and not onely all things are perverted but perverse things are neglected as if it were expedient that things should be so necessity that fruitfull mother of impieties so commanding And if you will reflect upon your own affairs I beseech you Princes among so many funeralls of Warre what can be pleasant to you You must stirre the earth adde disquiet to the sea and by many dangers you must arrive at greater danger Death that is obvious to every person must be sought for by hard labours no erroneous or reproveable course indeed if a happy Peace were unfeignedly pursued Many things are unfaithfull at home infested abroad great Armies are hard to raise costly to maintain easie to be destroyed the fate of Battels is common and the chance of Warre uncertain Prosperity doth not satisfie adversity striketh with a steep wounding dart and pierceth the very heart Many times victories themselves are the seeds of new contentions the brooding of new sorrows It is not lawfull for them that are up to keep their station nor for those that were overcome to lie still Discords increase with a prodigious fertility being once begun and many times the conquered draw the Conquerours and an inconcocted excesse of fortune obstructeth all their glories all things are intermixt with fear that depend upon expectation Many times fallacious events delude well-grounded hopes and horrid Catastrophe's befall the desperate The ingresses of Warre are troublesome the progresses doubtfull the egresses commonly deplorable Many is exhausted to make good the baffles of force by underming fraud lost Commanders are lamented to whom nothing was wanting but immortality Cyprus disappoints the Laurel and Funerals are distinguished by Palms The Conquerours stand over the ruines of the oppressed being themselves wasted by the expence of bloud and strength and nearer to their Tombs then Triumphs You would believe that a Kingdome