leave this life fully discover themselves as they are both in number and quality This is also signified unto us by the Prophet Daniel when he sayes That the Throne of the Tribunal of God was of flaming fire whose nature is not onely to burn but to enlighten and therefore in that Divine Judgment shall not onely be executed the rigour of his justice but the ugliness likewise of humane malice shall be discovered The Judge himself shall not onely appear severe and implacable but our sins shall be laid open before us and the sight of them shall make us quake and tremble with fear and astonishment especially when we shall perceive them to be manifest unto him who is both Judge and Party Wherefore it is said in one of the Psalms We are dismayed O Lord with thy wrath Psal 89. and troubled with thy fury and immediately giving the reason of that trouble he saith because thou hast set our wickedness before thee and placed them in thy sight The monstrousness of sin is now covered and we perceive it not and are not therefore much troubled but in that instant of death when the ugliness of it shall appear the very sight of it will wholly confound us Our sins now seem unto us but light and trivial and we see not half of them but in our leaving of this life we shall find them heavy grievous and unsupportable A great Beam whilest it floats upon the river a child may move and draw it from place to place and the half of it remains hidden and covered below the waters but draw it to land many men will not suffice to remove it and the whole bulk of it will be then clearly discovered so in the waters of this tempestuous and unstable life our faults appear not heavy and the half of them are conceal'd from us but this life once ended we shall then feel their weight discover their bulk and shall groan under so heavy and grievous a burthen These doubtless are the two swords which then shall mortally wound the conscience of a sinner First when he shall perceive the innumerable multitude of his sins and Then their monstrous deformity And to begin with their multitude how shall he remain amazed when he shall see a number of his actions to be sins which he never thought to be such and which is more when he shall find that to be a fault which he thought to be a laudable work For this it is said in one of the Psalms when I shall take time I will judge righteousness for many actions which in the eyes of men seem vertues will then be found vices in the sight of God If in humane judgments there be so great a difference that young men and those that follow the world often esteem that for a vertue which the wise and ancient repute as an errour how different shall be the divine judgment from that of men since the holy Ghost saith by his Prophet that the Judgments of God are a great Abyss and that his thoughts are as far distant from the thoughts of men as heaven is from earth And if spiritual men are so clear sighted that they condemn with truth what worldlings praise what shall be those Divine eyes which are able to perceive a stain in what appears Angelical purity And if as the Scripture sayes he found wickedness in the Angels what vice can remain hid in the Sons of men Our Lord himself saith by one of his Prophets I will search Jerusalem with a candle If so strict enquiry be to be made in the holy City of Jerusalem what shall be in Babylon If God shall use such rigour with the just how shall he dissemble with his enemies Then shall be brought to light the works which we have done and those which we have left undone the evil of that action which we have committed and the good of that which we have omitted Neither is there account to be taken onely of the evils which we do but of the good also which we do not well all will be strictly searcht and narrowly lookt into and must pass by many eyes The Devil as our accuser shall frame the Process of our whole life and shall accuse us of all he knows and if any thing shall escape his knowledge it shall not therefore be conceal'd for our own Conscience shall cry out and accuse us of it and least out Conscience might flatter us or be ignorant of some faults our Angel-Guardian who is now our Governor and Tutor shall then be the Fiscal and Accuser calling for Divine justice against us and shall discover what our own Souls are ignorant of And if the Devil our Conscience and Angel-Guardian shall fail in any thing as not knowing all the Judge himself who is both Party and Witness and whose Divine knowledge penetrates into the bottom of our wills shall there declare many things for vices which were here esteemed for vertues O strange way of Judgment where none denies and all accuse even the offender accuses himself and where all are Witnesses even the Judge and Party O dreadful Judgment where there is no Advocate and four Accusers the Devil thy Conscience thy Angel-Guardian and thy very Judge who will accuse thee of many things which thou thoughtest to have alleaged for thy defence O how great shall then be the confusion when that shall be found a sin which was thought a service who would have imagined but that Oza when he upheld the Ark in danger of falling had rather done a laudable action than an offence yet the Lord chastized it as a great sin with the punishment of a most disastrous death shewing thereby how different the Divine Judgments are from those of men Who would not have thought Davids numbring of his people to have been an act of policy and discretion yet God judged it an offence and punished it with an unexampled Pestilence which in so short a time destroyed threescore and ten thousand persons When Saul urged by his approaching enemies and the long delayes of Samuel offered sacrifice he thought he had done an act of the greatest vertue which is religion but God called it by the name of a grievous sin and for doing it reproved him and cast him off from being King Who would not have judged it for an act of magnanimity and clemency when Achab having conquered Benhadad King of Syria 3. Reg. c. 20. pardoned him his life and took him up to sit by him in his Royal Chariot But this which was so much esteemed and praised by men was so disagreeable unto God that he sent him word by his Prophet that he should dye for it and that he and his people should bear the punishment which was designed unto the Syrians and their King If then the Judgment of God in this life be so far different from that of man what shall it be in that most dreadful hour which God hath reserved for the executing of
Dion Chrys Orat. 10. And therefore Dion Chrysostomus is sayes He who knows not Man cannot make use of Man and he who knows not himself cannot make use of himself nor of those things which belong unto his nature But who can arrive unto the knowledge of himself It is so difficult that the Devil although he knew how important this knowledge was to Man and wisht nothing but his ruine and perdition yet confident in the impossibility of attaining it and desirous to gain the credit of a wife God among the Grecians he caused this Command Know thy self to be placed in his Temple of Apollo in Delphos And truly the light of Heaven is necessary for this knowledge and we guided by what faith dictates and the Saints inctruct us will endeavour to say something whereby we may at least be less ignorant of what we are It is then to be considered What Man is of himself and what he is of God that is what he hath of himself and what he hath received from God What he hath from God must needs be good since he gave it from whom can proceed no ill And if upon this score because it is good he hath less ground to humble himself I am sure he hath none to boast of since it is wholly the Divine benefit not having any thing of himself but what he hath received Onely he may consider that by the sin of Adam he hath put himself in a worse condition both for soul and body than when he received them from God His Soul is now full of ignorance and imbecility to what is good and subject to a thousand miseries which it then had not And his Body which is now mortal was then immortal and free from the corruption of those infirmities which as hath been already said accompany it until it end in dust worms and ashes But these although by the perverseness of our nature they are become much worse yet coming from God are good and are ah honour and glory in respect of what he possesses from himself This the Arausican Council declares in two words that is We are nothing of our selves but a Lye and Sin that is the nothing that we were and the evil we are A lye we are because what is a lye is not And from our selves we have onely a not being for what have we but what God hath given us take away what we have received and there remains nothing This is what is ours what is more is our Creators and therefore we are not to use it according to our own fancy but his pleasure Thou art also to consider that thou oughtest to humble thy self more for being nothing than for being but dust and ashes For those are something and betwixt something and nothing there is no proportion and as the Philosophers say an infinite distance Thou hast not from thy self so much as a possibility of being for if God were not God thou couldest not have been at all From this consideration thou hast great reason to humble thy self For to be nothing is a Well without bottom never to be drawn drie yet this Nothing is far better than what thou art by Sin Here the most holy Saints have sunk down in amazement and some unto whom our Lord hath revealed what they are have been so astonished as they had certainly died if they had not been comforted and upheld by the Divine hand For having sinned thou art as evil as sin it self Call to mind what we have said of the infinite malice and abomination of sin All this falls upon him who commits it With reason therefore did Dion the Philosopher say That it was most hard to know ones self because it was most hard to comprehend the malice of sin which being the chiefest evil becomes in a manner as difficult to be known as the chiefest good and therefore no better way to find what it is than to proceed after the same way we do in the knowledge of God §. 2. St. Dionysius Areopagita teaches us that in the knowledge of God we may proceed alter two manners either by the way of Affirmation attributing unto God all what is Good and perfect or by way of Negation denying unto him all what is good or perfect in the Creatures as being of a goodness and perfection infinitly above it In the same manner we are to proceed in the knowledge of Sin either by Affirmation in attributing unto it all the ill in all creatures whatsoever or by Negation denying it any ill as being a malice of another kind horrible and enormous above all other Evils imaginable Call together therefore all the evils thou hast seen heard or read of Joyn all these in one a mortal sin is worse then all these together The miseries of Job stilence in the time of David the torments of Phalaris Nero Dioclesian and all the Tyrants are farre short of it in malice Is it as bad as all those afflictions and miseries which they suffered who perished in the Deluge and those who were burnt alive in Sodome and the neighbouring Towns and as all they suffered who were put to the sword in Amalee and all those that were hunger-starved in the siege of Jerusalem One onely mortal sin goeth far beyond all the aforesaid miseries All the Plagues Warrs Sickness Famines all that hath been suffered since the World began come not near the ill of one sin Good God! how vast is that evil which is equivalent to so many evils where shall we find an evil that may equal it where shall we meet with an end of so much malice Certainly all the evils that have been since the World began or could succeed in a million of Worlds to come fall short of it If nothing then upon earth be comparable unto it let us seek it beneath the earth amongst those eternal evils which shall never have end Let us enter Hell and consider the torments there which are or have been suffered by Men or Devils even from the least and most unknown of the damned unto Lucifer and Antichrist Is there any thing there that may equal the evil of one sin No we shall not there find it Reflect I say again and mark if thou findest any torment amongst so many miserable creatures as suffer in Hell which may parallel the malice of one only mortal sin There is none to be found But I 'le give thee leave to make a collection of those many torments which may seem unto thee in reason comparable to a mortal sin and you shall finde that Sin does not onely equalize but exceed the malice of them Joyn then together and put in one heap all the torments that are inflicted upon all damned creatures Men and Angels and compare the malice of them all with that one of mortal sin and you shall find that the malice of sin doth farr surpass the malice of all those That gnashing of teeth that inconsolable weeping that burning fire which penetrates
by birth by divine inspiration became a Cistercian Monk He entred upon this course of life and continued with such great courage that he stuck not to challenge the Devil and bid him defiance The Enemy made his Cell the field of battail Here he assaulted him first with whips then upon a certain occasion gave him such blows that the blood burst out at his mouth and nose At the noise the Monks came in and finding him half dead they carried him to his Bed where he lay for the space of three dayes without giving any signes of life In which time in the company of an Angel he descended into a very obscure place where he saw a Man seated in a Chair of fire and certain Women very beautiful thrusting into his mouth burning torches drawing them out at other parts of his body which had been the instruments of his sins The Monk being astonished at this spectacle the Angel told him This miserable wretch was a very powerful man in the world and much given to Women and for this reason the Devils in shape of Women do torment him as thou seest Pasing a little farther he beheld another whom the infernal spirits were fleaing alive and having rubbed all his body over with salt they put him to roast upon a Gridiron This man said the Angel was a great Lord so cruel to his Vassals as the Devils are now to him A little farther they met with other persons of divers states and conditions which were tormented with several kinds of torments Many Religious both men and women whose lives had been contrary to their profession Talkers Censurers of other mens lives Slaves to their bellies defiled with lust and other such like vices To these the Ministers of vengeance in shape of most ugly fellows gave many blows in such sort that they dashed out their brains and made their eyes flye out of their heads because in their works they were blind and without judgement a chastisement Prov. 19. which the Wise-man appoints for such like persons Afterwards he lifted up his eyes and beheld one fastned to a horrible Wheel turning in such a dreadful manner that the Monk here was almost besides himself That thou seest is terrible said the Angel but far more terrible will be what thou shalt now see At the instant the Wheel began to run from alost down to the most profound depths with such horrid joggs and with such noise as if all the World Earth Heaven and all were breaking in pieces At this so sudden and direful accident all the Prisoners and Goalers of Hell brake out into great cries cursing and damning him that came in the Wheel This man said the Angel is Judas the Apostle who betrayed his Master and as long as he shall raign in glory which shall be world without end so long shall this miserable wretch lye thus tormented With these Representations God hath given us to understand the proportion his Justice observes in his chastisements to make us form some lively apprehension of the greatness of those pains they being indeed far greater than what ever we can conceive by all the rigour imaginable exhibited to the senses And in regard what enters by the senses prevails more with us for this reason he represents unto us the torments of the soul sutably to those so horrible to our senses as is to dash out the brains and make the brains flye out of the head For though it be true that this effect is not wrought indeed yet the torments inflicted upon the damned Souls are without companion greater then it would be for a man in this life to be so beaten about the head till his brains and eyes flew out Let us therefore fear the Divine justice and let us understand that in those parts of the body we offend God Almighty with greater delight we shall be sure to be punished with greater torment And here may be given this further instruction that as these and many such like stories related for more variety of discourse in this Treatise oblige us not to a full and absolute belief of them so they desire the favour of so much credit at least as is allowed to Livy Justine or other Chronicle-writers especially the Recorders of these being such as are no less grave and wise and acknowledge moreover a greater obligation of conscience not to wrong the World with lies or empty relations taken up upon the account of frivolous reports especially in matters of such concernment And as we think it not amiss to make use as occasion serves of profane Examples and Authorities in confirmation of what we usually either speak or write so without all doubt the same use of Sacred and Ecclesiastical occurrences may be no less available in such matters as these CAP. XII The fruit which may be drawn front the consideration of Eternal Evils ALl which hath been said of the pains in Hell is far short of that which really they are There is great difference betwixt the knowledge we have by relation and that which we learn by experience The Machabees knew that the Temple of the Lord was already prophaned deserted and destroyed They had heard of it and lamented it but when they saw with their eyes the Sanctuary lye desolate the Altar prophaned and the Gates burnt there was then no measure in their tears They tore their garments cast ashes upon their heads threw themselves upon the ground and their complaints ascended as high as Heaven If then the relation and discourse of the pains of Hell makes us tremble what shall be the sight and experience This notwithstanding the consideration of what hath been said may help us to form some conception of the terrour and horrour of that place of eternal sorrow Let us as St. Bernard sayes descend into Hell whilest we live that we may not descend thither when we are dead Let us draw some fruit from thence during our lives from whence nothing but torment is to be had after death The principal fruits which may be drawn from that consideration are these In the first place an ardent love and sincere gratitude towards our Creator that having so often deserved Hell he hath not yet suffered us to fall into it How many be there now in Hell who for their first mortal sin and onely for that one have been sent thither and we notwithstanding the innumerable sins which we have committed are yet spared What did God find in us that he should use a mercy towards us for so many sins which he did not afford to others for so few Why are we not then more grateful for so many benefits which we have no wayes deserved How grateful would a damned person be if God should free him from those flames wherein he is tormented and place him in the same condition we now are What a life would he lead what penance would he undergoe what austerity would not appear a pleasure unto him and how grateful
chief End which is God and his glory For as a Souldier when he is in health values not the Physician and his Medicines because they avail him not to the conquering of his Enemy and when he is sick or hurt cares not to put on his arms because they conduce not to the recovery of his health In the like manner we are to keep our hearts and wills free and disinterressed from any thing but that which leads to our End and Salvation The Traveller who is fixt in his determination of arriving to some certain place if he meet with two or three several wayes desires not this more than that but onely in as much as this may more readily bring him to his rest He cares not whether it be plain or hilly whether it lead to the right hand or to the left all is indifferent so it bring him whither he pretends After the like manner we are to behave our selves in the use of things temporal We are neither to love the Goods of this World nor fear the Evils of it but free from both make onely choice of that which leads to our Salvation If poverty bring thee to God imbrace it with both arms and esteem it If riches and greatness withdraw thee from him trample them under foot despise and cast them from thee as if they were poison If disgraces and neglect of men assist thee to gain Heaven rejoyce in thy affronts If honours make thee forget thy Creator abhorre them as death If pleasures distract thee from him unto whom thou owest so much deprive thy self of the contents of this life that thou mayest not lose those of the other And if grief or torments make thee know thy Redeemer receive them with all submison and willingness Wherefore thou art neither to desire or abhorre good or evil in this life but in as much as it unites or separates thee from God who is thy true and onely End This indifferency was well known unto David as he is explicated by St. Austin in that Psalm which he entitles and dedicates Unto the End where he considers himself as created by God for so high an End as to serve and enjoy him upon which supposition he utters this Sentence As are his darkness so is his light Psal 138. because we are no more to encline our affections to the lustre and splendor of this life than to the obscurity ignominy and afflictions no more to the light and prosperity than to the darkness and adversity of it and therefore the holy Father speaks in this manner In this night In this mortality of humane life men enjoy both light and darkness Light is prosperity and darkness adversity But when Christ our Saviour shall come and inhabit the Soul by Faith and shall promise another light and shall inspire and endow man with patience and shall so move him as not to be delighted with prosperity nor dejected with adversity The faithful man shall then begin to use this world with indifferency and shall not be puffed up when things succeed happily nor broken and dejected when they fall out crosly but shall bless God in all conditions Whether he abound or want Whether he be sick or in health and shall be ever ready to sing this Song I will bless the Lord at all times his praise shall be ever in my mouth Another condition of the Medium which is either the same that we have spoken of or united unto it is That we are not to enjoy the Medium but onely to use it For in enjoying the Soul rests and contents it self which is proper to the End but in the use it ayms at the attaining something further which is proper to the Medium We are therefore not to seek after any creature but in as much as it may be a Means to conduce to our End which is the Creator and he who seeks after things temporal for themselves does no less an injury unto God than to change basely his End leaving the Eternal for the Temporal and the Creator for the Creature and becomes so much a Sot and a Fool as he mistakes his true End and makes the Medium his End and submits himself to a vile Creature From whence may be understood that difference betwixt things which is noted by St. Austin and Divines that somethings are to be enjoyed and others onely made use of We are onely to enjoy the Eternal and use the Temporal onely so far as may help to save us and no further For as the same Saint saith The vicious life of man is no other than that which he uses ill and that which he enjoyes ill and to the contrary the holy and laudable life of the good is that which uses this World aright and enjoyes God aright From hence also may be resolved that doubt amongst the ancient Philosophers Which are the true goods which Controversie was also on foot amongst the faithful in David's time Wherefore he demands in one of his Psalms Quis ostendit nobis bona Who will shew us the good things This doubt is resolved and an answer is given to the question That those are the Goods which unite us unto God and those the only Evil which separate us from him Whereupon St. Austin sayes Aug. in Psalm 138. We now know no other evil than to offend God and not to obtain what he hath promised neither know we other good than to please him and attain unto what he hath promised What have we then to say unto the goods and evils of this life but to be indifferent unto either because being now drawn forth from the womb of our Mother Babylon esteeming them as indifferent we say Such is his darkness as is his light neither doth the prosperity of this life make us happy nor the adversity miserable Socrates said that the chiefest wisdom was to distinguish good from evil And Seneca knew no better rule to distinguish them than by their end and therefore sayes When thou wouldest know what thou hast to desire Sen. Ep. 71. and what to flye look upon the chief good and the end of thy whole life for unto that all which we do is to relate And so according to what we have said concludes that onely to be good which is vertuous and all other goods false and adulterate Thou art eternally so enjoy thy Creator Content thy self with this hope and place not thy joy in the Creature which is onely lawful for thee to use §. 5. But we are much to consider that the most excellent use of the Creatures for the attaining unto the Creator is the contempt of them God would have it so easie for thee to obtain thy End that thou couldest not miss the means since even the want of all things may further thee Let no man therefore complain of the necessities of life since though all things fail him the means of his salvation will not fail him for even that want may be a means
obtaining of things eternal without respect to any temporal or earthly commodity are as a sweet savour unto the Lord like that Rod of perfume so much celebrated in the Canticles Cant. 3. composed of incense myrrhe and spices which ascended streight unto heaven Whereupon St. Gregory sayes that prayer is called that little Rod of sweet smoke because whilest it onely supplicates for eternal blessings it mounts directly to heaven without inclining unto any thing that is earthly Well may it be seen how little our Saviour is pleased with earthly petitions by that answer he gave unto the Wife of Zebedeus when she desired that her two Sons might have the honour to sit one at the right hand of his Throne and the other at the left Our Saviour answered They know not what they asked because as St. Chysostome sayes Their petition was for the things temporal and not spiritual and eternal Certainly a fool he is who when he may have heaven for asking trifles away his time in demanding things of the earth A fool he is who when he needs but to demand eternal glory busies himself in praying for temporal honours A fool he is who having but to ask grace from God loses his time in asking favours from men Certainly he knows not what he prayes for who prayes to be rich He knows not what he prayes for who prayes for great Places and Commands Finally who prayes for honours accommodations pleasures or any thing that ends in time knows not what he prayes for because he knows not how little is all that which time consumes §. 2. Paludanus observes three errors in the Petition of the mother of St. James and St. John The first Palud Enarr 1. de S. Jacobo that she did not observe a due order in the petition The second that it was not clear and free from affections of flesh and blood And the third that the subject of it was vain and unprofitable All these errors are sound when not attending unto the eternal we petition for what is temporal For of the first who sees not that he who demands temporal things violates and perverts all order for what more disorderly proceeding than to demand little when we may obtain much to sue for that whereof we have no need and to neglect that which is extreamly necessary The necessities of the body hold no comparison with those of the soul The soul hath more necessity of divine grace than the body of food The soul hath more enemies and stands therefore in more need of the favour and assistance of heaven Gelas contra Pelag. Epis 5. lib. 6. It is against her that the infernal powers have conspired and therefore it is she who stands in most necessity of divine succour Gelasius the Pope speaking of our first Parents saith That when they were in the state of innocency replenished with all those gifts of graces wherewith God had enriched them and that they had not those adversaries which now we have for neither the world nor the flesh were then their enemies Yet because they did not pray for the divine assistance and favour that they fell into sin Having received saith this great Pope such abundance of grace yet because they did not pray as their is no mention that they did they were not secure How needfull is it then for us to pray who want that original justice have our nature weakned and corrupted by sin our flesh rebellious against the soul the World with all its instruments of vanity and deceit and so many occasions and dangers of sinning our enemies and the devil himself irritated by those singular favours exprest towards our nature by the Son of God more fierce against us then before So as it is not possible to declare the great need we have of divine grace And now to forget this great necessity and to forbear crying unto heaven for a remedy from whence we can onely hope it how great a folly and disorder is it If a man in the Dog-dayes were exposed naked in some Desert against the scorching beams of the Sun and ready to perish for thirst and should meet one who were furnished with plenty of cool water would he not ask some to refresh him or if he forbore to ask it would he demand a warm Jacket which were onely useful in Winter and in Summer a burthen and a trouble Certainly a greater madness and disorder cannot be imagined And yet ours is far worse if we demand temporal goods which can onely hinder and entangle us and neglect to pray for the water of divine grace without which we are certain to perish But even in temporal things themselves we know not what order to observe in our demands because we are ignorant which are most convenient for us Who knows whether it be better for him to be sick or in health since it may so happen that being in health he may fall into some grievous sin and be damned and being sick he may repent and be saved Who knows whether poverty or wealth may be more convenient for him since being in abundance he may forget God and being in necessity of all things he may have recourse unto his holy service Who knows whether it be better for him to be honoured or suffer confusion since honour may puff him up in vanity and humiliation may make him prudent and wary No man knows what is good or evil for him That which we desire is oftentimes our ruin and destruction and those evils which we weep for as often turn into our greatest happiness How can there then be any order in our prayers for temporal things whereof we are totally ignorant whether they are good or hurtful The second great errour in our prayers for temporal things is the disordinate affection and want of pure intention which accompanies such petitions whereas our prayers ought onely to proceed from a pure and mortified mind wholly intent upon the service of God To signify this The fire which was to burn the incense was fetcht from the Altar of Holocausts and that our prayers may be acceptable and of a sweet savour unto God they are to spring from an enflamed heart Sacrificed unto his divine Majesty in a true Holocaust of our whole will and affections And he who demands any temporal things from God Almighty after another manner may justly fear least they may be granted for his greater punnishment Therefore St. Thomas sayes St. Tho. 2.2 q. 83. art 19. that our Lord God grants unto sinners what they desire with an evil affection for a Chastizement of their desires So he granted Quails unto the murmuring Isrealites who died with the morsel in their mouths We ought therefore to be cautious in our prayers and tremble at our own desires since their success may prove so dangerous unto us And I wonder not at all that he who desires the goods of this world is often punished in the grant of his petition since
as well as Subject owe to the sin of our first Parents May you then being translated hence to the embraces of your Creator experimentally finde the true difference between things temporal and eternal in the blisful vision and fruition of our great All our all-mighty all-lovely all-glorious God who is all wonders at one sight all joyes and comforts in their sourse all blessings in their center the end of all labours the reward of all services the desire of all hearts and the accomplishment of all hopes and wishes May he then be to your Majesty all this which is here briefly expressed and infinitely more which is beyond expression And may he secure all these blessings to you for ever and crown them with his glorious Attribute of Eternity This is the no less hearty then dutiful prayer of MADAM Your Majesties Most humbly devoted In Christ Jesus J. W. A Summary of the Chapters in this Book LIB I. Cap. 1. OVr Ignorance of what are the true goods and not onely of things Eternal but Temporal pa. 1. Cap. 2. How efficacious is the Consideration of Eternity for the change of our lives p. 6. Cap. 3. The memory of Eternity is of it self more efficacious than that of Death p. 12. Cap. 4. The estate of men in this life and the miserable forgetfulness which they have of Eternity p. 18. Cap. 5. What is Eternity according to St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. Dionysius p. 25. Cap. 6. What Eternity is according to Boetius and Plotinus p. 29. Cap. 7. Wherein is declared what Eternity is according to St. Bernard p. 33. Cap. 8. What it is in Eternity to have no end p. 41. Cap. 9. How Eternity is without change p. 52. Cap. 10. How Eternity is without comparison p. 60. Cap. 11. What is Time according to Aristotle and other Philosophers and the little consistence of life p. 68. Cap. 12. How short life is for which respect all things temporal are to be despised p. 74. Cap. 13. What is Time according to St. Augustine p. 82. Cap. 14. Time it the occasion of Eternity and how a Christian ought to benefit himself by it p. 89. Cap. 15. What is Time according to Plato and Plotinus and how deceitful is all that which is temporal p. 98. LIB II. Cap. 1. Of the End of Temporal Life p. 104. Cap. 2. Remarkable Conditions of the end of Temporal Life p. 121. Cap. 3. Of that moment which is the Medium betwixt Time and Eternity which being the end of Life is therefore most terrible p. 140. Cap. 4. Wherefore the End of Life is most terrible p. 147. Cap. 5. How God even in this Life passes a most rigorous Judgement p. 174. Cap. 6. Of the End of all Time p. 181. Cap. 7. How the Elements and the Heavens are to change at the end of Time p. 185. Cap. 8. How the World ought to conclude with so dreadful an End in which a general Judgement is to pass upon all that is in it p. 205. Cap. 9. Of the last day of Time p. 213. LIB III. Cap. 1. The mutability of things temporal makes them worthy of contempt p. 228. Cap. 2. How great and desperate soever our Temporal evils are yet hope may make them tolerable p. 238. Cap. 3. We ought to consider what we may come to be p. 243. Cap. 4. The Change of humane things shews clearly their vanity and how worthy they are to be contemned p. 253. Cap. 5. The baseness and disorder of Temporal things and how great a Monster men have made the World p. 261. Cap. 6. The Littleness of things Temporal p. 269. Cap. 7. How miserable a thing is this Temporal Life p. 285. Cap. 8. How little is Man whilest he is Temporal p. 309. Cap. 9. How deceitful are all things Temporal p. 319. Cap. 10. The dangers and prejudices of things Temporal p. 326. LIB IV. Cap. 1. Of the Greatness of things Eternal p. 337. Cap. 2. The Greatness of the Eternal honour of the Just p. 347. Cap. 3. The Riches of the Eternal Kingdom of Heaven p. 359. Cap. 4. The Greatness of Eternal Pleasures p. 368. Cap. 5. How happy is the Eternal Life of the Just p. 378. Cap. 6. The Excellency and Perfection of the Bodies of the Saints in the Life Eternal p. 389. Cap. 7. How we are to seek after Heaven and to preferr it before all the goods of the Earth p. 399. Cap. 8. Of Evils Eternal and especially of the great Poverty Dishonour and Ignominy of the Damned p. 411. Cap. 9. The Punishment of the Damned from the horribleness of the place into which they are banished from Heaven and made Prisoners in Hell p. 422. Cap. 10. Of the Slavery Chastisement and Pains Eternal p. 429. Cap. 11. Of Eternal Death and Punishment of Talion in the Damned p. 450. Cap. 12. The Fruit which may be drawn from the consideration of Eternal evils p. 459. Cap. 13. The infinite guilt of Mortal Sin by which we lose the felicity of Heaven and fall into eternal evils p. 467. LIB V. Cap. 1. Notable difference betwixt the Temporal and Eternal the one being the End and the other the Means Wherein also is treated of the End for which Man was created p. 487. Cap. 2. By the knowledge of our selves may be known the use of things Temporal and the little esteem we are to make of them p. 506. Cap. 3. The value of goods Eternal is made apparent unto us by the Incarnation of the Son of God p. 515. Cap. 4. The baseness of Temporal goods may likewise appear by the Passion and Death of Christ Jesus p. 524. Cap. 5. The importance of the Eternal because God hath made himself a Means for our obtaining it and hath left his most holy Body as a Pledge of it in the Blessed Sacrament p. 540. Cap. 6. Whether Temporal things are to be demanded of God And that we onely ought to aym in our prayers at goods Eternal p. 553. Cap. 7. How happy are those who renounce Temporal goods for the securing of the Eternal p. 561. Cap. 8. Many who have despised and renounced all that is Temporal p. 569. Cap. 9. The Love which we owe unto God ought so to fill our souls that it leave no place or power to love the Temporal p. 581. Faults escaped in the Print P. 8. L. 25. more R. of more P. 46. L. 28. resting R. rosting P. 65. L. 20. knowest R. knewest p. 139. L. 23. are die R. are to die P. 198. L. 27. Borosus R. Berosus P. 200. L. 29. hard R. hardness P. 232. L. 24. Persians R. Assyrians P. 232. L. 26. Assyrians R. Persians P. 338. L. 10. intention R. intension P. 416. L. 35. the depriving R. in the depriving P. 555. L. 38. know R. knew What else may be faulty the Pen may mend Moreover P. 386. L. 35. after those words any thing to maintain it you may add if you please These representations are to be understood
all goods and blessings without missing of any one and all of them at once it not being necessary for the enjoying of them to have them one after another but altogether The goods and blessings of this life have not this condition for although one were Master of them all yet he could not enjoy them all at once but successively some passing away and others succeeding in their place The Emperour Heliogabalus who most desired and most endeavoured to enjoy them for all the diligence and haste he used was hardly possest of three or four at once for whilst he was in his Banquets he could not attend his Masques and Dances whilst he was in these he enjoyed not the pleasures of the Shews and Spectacles of the Amphitheater whilst he was present at them he could not apply himself to Hunting and Sports of the field and whilst so imployed he could not satiate himself in Lust and Sensuality Finally to enjoy one he must of necessity quit the other insomuch as he could neither enjoy all pleasures those wanting which were enjoyed by others and of those which he might enjoy himself but few at a time But unto the just in Heaven no blessings or contents are missing no succession needful for their enjoying the blessed possessing them all and all together The possession of this happiness is also perfect in respect of the security it hath nothing being of force to disquiet it none to go to Law about it none to steal it none to disturb it and is likewise perfect because compleat not like the goods of the earth which cannot be enjoyed entirely for either the distance of place the imperfection of the sensible Organ the mixture of some grief or care or at least the multitude of Objects and their own opposition distract the perfect fruition of them But eternal happiness is by the blessed in its full extension perfectly possest the joy of it entirely relisht and the essence and sweetness of it wholly penetrated and imbibed into the essence of the Soul the which no mixture of pain no surprize of grief no incapacity of the subject no distance of position no greatness of the object can hinder for grief and care have there no place the subject is elevated above its nature the object accommodated and the eternal pleasure and delight of it not proportioned by space and distance â—â—n 1. â—â—b 7. 〈◊〉 1. Wherefore Plotinus likewise said that Eternity was A Life full and all at once because in it all that hath life shall be full and compleat the senses with the whole capacity of the soul shall be replenished with all happiness and delight there being no part oâ— life in man which shall not be full of sweetness joy and content The life of the hearing shall be full with the consort of most harmonious musick the life of the smell shall be full with the fragrancies of most sweet odours the life of the eyes shall be full feeding themselves with all beauty the life of the understanding shall be full with the knowledge of the Creator and the life of the will shall be full in loving rejoycing and delighting it self in him Temporal life is not capable of this fulness and satisfaction even in small matters the attention of one sense hinders that of another and the attention of the body that of the spirit This life cannot be here enjoyed but by parts and that also not compleatly but in that eternal felicity the life shall be full the possession total and the joy perfect where all is to live which here can die where neither the incompossibility of the objects nor the impediment of the senses nor the incapacity of the soul shall hinder us from enjoying all blessings together with all our senses and all our powers joyntly Over and above all this possession which is so total so perfect and so full is for life without death a space without limit a day eternal which is equivalent to all dayes and includes all years imbraces all ages and excels all times because in it nothing passes nor any good of it ever shall pass To the contrary it is with those wretched sinners whose eternal miseries have the same condition of bad which the eternity of the blessed hath of good unto whom their evill shall not be extrinsecal but in full possession of them and they shall remain in their torments with all their soul body powers and senses That is called possession which is acquired by a corporal and real presence These then unfortunate sinners are to continue in their torments with all what they have of being not as in a thing lent or distant from them but as in a thing so proper as it can by no possibility be parted or separated from them nothing being more proper and due then punishment is to sinners Wherefore all evils shall take possession of all what they are their senses their members the joynts of their bodies the powers of their soul their most spiritual faculties shall be possessed by fire bitterness grief rage despite miserie and malediction This possession of those unfortunate creatures shall be total because of all evils for no evil can be wanting where there is a concourse and meeting of all torments and unhappiness In the taste there shall not want bitterness in the appetite hunger in the tongue thirst in the sight horrour in the hearing astonishment in the smell stink in the heart pain in the imagination fear in every member grief and in the very bowels fire All evils are therefore to possess the damned and all totally their torments being so many that if they were to suffer them one after another many years would not suffice to finish them And this only were sufficient to make their condition most terrible But above all their unhappiness this is the greatest that they are to suffer them all at once The pain in one part of the body is not to hope it should cease in another the grief of the spirit is not to expect that the fire which burns the flesh should have an end all evils are to set upon them at once and all at one clap are to fall upon the heads of the damned The continuance of one little drop hollows a Stone and to ruine the world it was enough for God to rain for forty dayes What shall then be when his divine justice shall rain fire sulphur and tempest upon the heads of the damned not for forty dayes but whilst God is God Besides all this they shall not only be possest by all the the evils and all joyntly at once but by all of them fully in their whole force and vigour The sense of them shall not grow less by their multitude nor dull by their greatness but shall remain as quick and lively to them all and shall be as sensible of the rigour of each one of them as if they suffered but one onely for the fire shall not onely penetrate their
who esteems Eternity hath no more than to exercise himself in the practise of those three Vertues The first by quitting with spiritual poverty all that is temporal and changing it for the eternal not setting his heart upon any thing in this life that he may find it bettered in the other For as Eternity does infinitely augment that good or evil unto which it is annexed so time diminishes and draws violently after it all that is in it Things therefore which are to finish require not much to leave them and those that are to end in nothing are to be reputed for nothing For the second Vertue a Christian ought with patience and meekness to persist in doing well and in overcoming the difficulties of vertue since the slight troubles of this life are to be rewarded with eternal happiness in the other And who seeing hell open and the abyss of its evils without bottom would not bear with patience the rigour of penance and with meekness suffer the impertinency of an injury not troubling at all the interior peace of his Soul but attending wholly even through fire and water to live vertuously and please his Redeemer who looking upon Heaven which awaits him will not be animated to do what is good chearfully and to suffer all crosses for God Almighty's sake with fervour and courage Ruffi nu 107. Pelag. libel 7. n. 28. Ruffinus relates that a certain Monk coming unto the Abbot Aquilius complained unto him that he found much trouble and tediousness in keeping of his Cell To whom the discreet Abbot answered My son this proceeds from not meditating on the perpetual torments we are to suffer nor upon the eternal joy and repose which we hope for If thou shouldest seriously but think on that though thy Cell were filled and swarmed with worms and vermin and thou stoodst up to the throat in the middle of them yet wouldest thou persevere in thy recollection without weariness or trouble The third Vertue is with tears and grief of Soul to endeavour a recommpence for our sins past and to satisfie for them with a dolorous contrition and bitterness of heart that so the eternity of happiness which by them was lost may with repentance be regained contrition being a vertue so potent that it repairs what is ruin'd and although it is said that what is done hath no remedy and that there is no power over what is past yet this most powerful Vertue is able to undoe what is done and to prevail upon what is past since it takes away our sins and makes them as if they had never been committed CAP. VIII What it is in Eternity to have no end But all these definitions and declarations of Eternity are not yet sufficient to express and truly set forth the greatness of it neither is it well understood as Plotinus notes what the Authors who define it thought of it That may be rather said which was said by Simonides the Philosopher Cic. l. 2. de naturae deorum who when Hieron King of Sicily intreated him to declare what thing God was demanded a dayes space to think before he gave his answer the which past he said he had need of more time to consider it and required other two dayes at the end of those he asked four which also ended his answer was that the more he thought upon it the more he found he had to think and knew less how to express it and that the further he entred into the consideration of it the more it hid and obscured it self from him The same may be said of Eternity the which is an Abyss so profound that humane understanding finds no footing but hath still more to consider the more it ponders De Myst Theo. St. Dionysius Areapagita speakiug of God confesses that it cannot be said what he is but onely what he is not and beside what he is In like manner Eternity cannot better be declared then by what it is not and beside what it is Eternity is not time it is not space it is not an age it is not a million of ages but it is more then time space or millions of ages The life wherein thou now art and which must shortly have an end is not Eternity the health which thou at present enjoyest is not Eternal thy pleasures and entertainments are not Eternal thy possessions treasures revenues are not Eternal that wherein thou trustest is not Eternal the goods of this world in which thou so much delightest are not Eternal Thou must leave them all A far greater thing is Eternity above Kingdoms above Empires and above all felicities Whereupon Lactantius and other Authors Lact. de falsa rel lib. 1. c. 2. not being able to declare it by what it is declare it by what it is not some saying it is that which hath no end others that which endures no change others that which holds no comparison which is as much to say it is that which is unlimited immutable and not proportionable with any thing besides it self It shall suffice therefore to declare and as it were Anatomize these three conditions of Eternity if not to give a perfect knowledge of what it is yet at least to beget a fear and reverence of that which most concerns us and withal to create in us a contempt and scorn of all which is Temporal as being little limited and mutable § 2. For the first Condition Ces dialog 3. which is to have no end Cesarius says that Eternity is a Day which wants an evening because it shall never see the Sun of its brightness set which is to be understood of the Eternity of Saints that of sinners being a Night which wants a morning upon whom the Sun of Glory never shall arise wherein the damned shall remain in perpetual sadness and obscurity eternally tormented both in Soul and Body If he who is sick of a Calenture though laid upon a soft and downy Bed thinks each hour of night an Age and every minute expects and with impatience wishes for the day how shall it fare with those who because in this life they slept when they were to watch shall in the next lie awake for an eternal night in a Bed of burning fire without ever hoping for a morning And certainly if there were in Hell no other pain than to live in that eternal night and sadness it were enough to astonish and confound all humane understanding This very condition of wanting end the Ancients deciphered by the figure of a Ring which because a Circle is endless But with greater Mystery David calls it a Crown whose roundness also admits no end thereby signifying according to Dionysius Carthusianus that an Eternity without end is either to be the reward of our good works or the punishment of our bad We ought to tremble at the sound of this voice without end for them who do ill and to rejoyce at this without end for them who do well It
Thomas then a little vapour which in a moment vanishes And although it should endure a thousand years yet coming to an end it were equal unto that which lasted but a day For as well the felicity of a long as a short life is but smoke and vanity since they both pass away and conclude in death Guerricus the Dominican a great Philosopher and Physician and afterwards a most famous Divine hearing them reade the sift Chapter of Genesis wherein are recounted the Sons and Descendants of Adam in these terms The whole life of Adam was 930 years and he died The life of his Son Seth was 912 years and he died and so of the rest began to think with himself that if such and so great men after so long a life ended in death it was not sate to lose more time in this world but so to secure his life that losing it here he might find it hereafter and with this thought entred into the Order of St. Dominick and became of a most religious life O what fools are men who seeing life so short endeavour to live long and not to live well Epis 22. since it is a thing most certain as Seneca observes that every man may live well but no man what age soever he attains unto can live long This folly appears more plainly by that which is said by Lactantius Laae lib. 6. divin Instit that this life being so short the goods and evils of it must be likewise short as the goods and evils of the other must be eternal and that God being pleased to make an equal distribution of both ordained that unto the short and transitory goods which we enjoy unlawfully in this life should succeed eternal evils in the next and unto those short evils which we suffer here for Gods sake eternal goods and happiness should follow in the other Wherefore Almighty God setting before us this disserence betwixt good and evil and leaving us in liberty of choosing which we please how great a folly were it for the not suffering of a few evils and those so short to lose goods so great and eternal and for the enjoying of goods so short and transitory to endure evils without end CAP. XIII What is Time according to St. Augustine LEt us also see what the great Doctor of the Church Saint Augustine thought of the nature of Time Lib. 11. Confes ca. 25. the which in that great wit and understanding of his sound so little estimation and being that after he had with much subtilty disputed what it was at length comes to conclude that he knows not what it is nay that he knows not so much as what it is not to know it The most that he can reach unto is that no time is long and that that onely may be called time which is present the which is but a moment The same is the opinion of Antoninus in his Philosophie Aur. Anton l. 2. who speaks in this mauner If thou wert to live 3000 years and 30000 more above those yet oughtest thou to remember that no man lives any other life than what he lives at present and therefore the most long and the most short space of life is the same that which is present being the same unto all although not that which is already past So as it seems there is but one only point of time and that no man can lose either that which is past or that which is to come since no man can lose what he hath not wherefore these two things ought to be preserved in memory The one that from the beginning all things keep the same form and return as it were in a circle to the same estate so as there is no difference betwixt the beholding of them for a 100 for 200 years or much more incomparable The other is that he who lives long and he who dies shortly lose the same thing being both deprived of the present of which they onely are possest and and no man loses what he hath not So much from this wise Prince why found no other substance in time but onely this present moment Cap. 14. And St. Augustine informs us further of the being of this present moment of which it cannot be affirmed so much as that it is at all These are his words If the present that it may be called time is because it is to pass into the praeterit how can it be said to be since the onely cause why it is is because it shall not be so as we cannot affirm it to have a being but in as much as it is a way into a not being Behold then whereunto thou trusts thy felicity See upon what pillar of brass thou placest thy hopes even on so slight a thing that its whole existence is in leaving to be and receives its being if it have any from its passing into nothing For what can that have which is and is not ever leaving to be with that impetuous fury that thou art not able to detain it for one small moment since even during that moment it is in a perpetual motion Let him who is in the flower of his age tell me by what power he is able to detain the years of his life but for one day or whether he can keep the pleasure which he now enjoyes but one hour from leaving him Let him endeavour to lay hold on time But it is in vain He knows not where to fasten Time hath no substance and yet runs with that violence that it will sooner hale thee after it than thou shalt be able to keep it back Wherefore the same holy Doctor speaking of life sayes That the time of life is a Careere unto death the which is so swift and mixt with so many deaths that he began to doubt whether the life of mortals were to be called a life or death and therefore thus discourses From the instant that we begin to be in this body Lib. 13. de Civ ca. 10. which is to die there is nothing operated in it but what brings on death This is effected by the mutability of lite if that may be called a lite which onely works to bring on death For there is none who is not nearer his death this year than the last to day than yesterday now than a little while agoe and all the time we live is substracted from the time of living and every day that which remains becomes less and less in so much as the time of this lite is nothing else but a Careere unto death in which no man is permitted to make stay or to march with more leasure but all are driven on with equal speed Presently after he adds For what else is daily and hourly done until death which was still a working be consummated and that time which follows death begin to be which time was then in death whilest there was a continual decay of lite From hence it follows that man was
and work stupendious wonders and being of a great and generous spirit confessed his fear saying as we have it from St. Paul Heb. 12. That he was terrified and trembled Let a man now consider how memorable was that day unto the Hebrew Nation wherein they saw such Visions heard such Thunders and felt such Earthquakes as it is no wonder that the great fear which fell upon them in that day of Prodigies made them think they could not live Yet was all this nothing in respect of the terrour of that great day wherein the Lord of Angels is to demand an account of the violation of the Law For after the sending far greater plagues than those of Egypt after burning in that Deluge of fire the Sinners of the world the Saints remaining still alive that that Article of our Faith may be literally fulfill'd From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead The Heavens shall open and over the Valley of Josaphat the Redeemer of the World attended by all the Angels of Heaven in visible forms of admirable splendour shall with a Divine Majesty descend to judge it Before the Judge shall be born his Standard Chrys Tom. 3. Serm. de Cruce which St. Chrysostome and divers other Doctors affirm shall be the very Cross on which he suffered Then shall the just such being the force and vigour of their spirits as will elevate their terrene and heavy bodies meet as the Apostle sayes their Redeemer in the Air who at his issuing forth of the Heavens shall with a voice that may be heard of all the world pronounce this his Commandment Arise ye dead and come unto Judgement Which shall be proclaimed by four Angels in the four Quarters of the World with such vehemence that the sound shall pierce unto the infernal Region from whence the Souls of the damned shall issue forth and re-enter their bodies which shall from thenceforward suffer the terrible torments of Hell The Souls also of those who died onely in Original sin shall come and possess again their bodies free from pain or torment and the Souls of the blessed filling their bodies with the four gifts of Glory shall make them more resplendent than the Sun and with the gift of agility shall joyn themselves with those just who remain alive in the Air in their passible bodies which being yet mortal and therefore not able to endure those vehement affections of the heart of joy desire reverence love and admiration of Christ shall then die and in that instant behold the Divine Essence after which their Souls shall be again immediately united to their bodies before they can be corrupted or so much as fall unto the ground and thence forward continue glorious for in the moment wherein they die they shall be purified from those noxious humours and qualities wherewith our bodies are now infected And therefore it was convenient they should first die that being so cleansed from all filth they might by the restitution of their blessed Souls receive the gifts of Glory Considering then the so different conditions of the Souls of men who can express the joy of those happy Souls when they shall take possession of their now glorious and beautiful bodies which were long since eaten by worms or wild beasts some four some five thousand years agoe turned into dust and ashes What thanks shall they give to God who after so long a separation hath restored them to their antient Companions What gratulations shall the Souls of them who lived in austerity and penance give unto their own bodies for the mortifications and rigours which they have suffered for the hair-shirts disciplines and fasts which they have observed To the contrary the Souls of the damned how shall they rage and curse their own flesh since to please and pamper it hath been the occasion of their torments and eternal unhappiness Which miserable wretches wanting the gift of agility and so not able of themselves to go unto the place of Justice shall be hurried against their wills by Devils all trembling and full of fear § 2. The Reprobates being then in the Valley of Josaphat and the Predestinate in the Air the Judge shall appear above Mount Olivet Zach. 1. unto whom the clouds shall serve as a Chariot and his most glorious body shall cast forth rayes of such incomparable splendour as the Sun shall appear but as a coal for even the Predestinate shall shine as the Sun but the light and brightness of Christ shall as far exceed them as the Sun does the least Star The which most admirable sight shall be yet more glorious by those thousand millions of excellent and heavenly spirits which shall attend him who having formed themselves acreal bodies of more or less splendour according to their Hierarchy and Order shall fill the whole space betwixt Heaven and Earth with unspeakable beauty and variety The Saviour of the World shall sit upon a Throne of great Majesty made of a clear and beautiful Cloud his countenance shall be most milde and peaceable towards the good and though the same most terrible unto the bad In the like manner out of his sacred wounds shall issue beams of light towards the just full of love and sweetness but unto sinners full of fire and wrath who shall weep bitterly for the evils which issue from them Psa 109. 1 Cor. 15. Phil. 2. So great shall be the Majesty of Christ that the miserable Damned and the Devils themselves notwithstanding all the hate they bear him shall yet prostrate themselves and adore him and to their greater confusion acknowledge him for their Lord and God And those who have most blasphemed and outraged him shall then bow before him fulfilling the promises of the eternal Father That all things should be subject unto him That he would make his enemies his footstool and That all knees should bend before him Here shall the Jews to their greater confusion behold him whom they have crucified and here shall the evil Christians see him whom they have again crucified with their sins here also shall the Sinners behold him in glory whom they have despised for the base trifles of the earth What an amazement will it be to see him King of so great Majesty who suffered so much ignominy upon the Cross and even from those whom he redeemed with his most precious blood What will they then say who in scorn crowned the sacred temples of the Lord with thorns put a Reed in his hand for a Scepter cloathed him in some old and broken Garment of purple buffeted and spit upon his blessed face And what will they then say unto whose consciences Christ hath so often proposed himself in all his bitter passion and painful death and hath wrought nothing upon them but a continuance of greater sins valuing his precious blood shed for their salvation no more than if it were the blood of a Tyger or their greatest enemy I know not how
the memory of this doth not burst our hearts with compunction In vit PP Let us take the counsel of a holy Father in the Desert who when one asked him What he should do to soften and mollifie his stony heart answered That he should remember that he was to appear before the Lord who was to judge him whose sight as another holy Monk said would be so terrible unto the wicked that if it were possible that Souls could die the whole world at the coming of the Son of God would be struck dead with fear and terrour At the side of the Throne of Christ shall be placed another Throne of great glory for his most holy Mother not then to intercede for sinners but for the greater confusion of those who when time served have not addressed themselves unto her nor reaped the benefit of her Protection that she may be honoured in the sight of the whole World There shall be also other Thrones for the Apostles and those Saints who poor in spirit have left all for Christ who sitting now as Judges with their Redeemer and condemning by their good example the scandalous lives of sinners shall approve the Sentence of the Supream Judge and declare his great Justice before the world with which the wicked shall remain confounded and amazed and it shall then be fulfilled which so many years since was prophesied by the Wiseman Sap. 5. The wicked beholding the just who were despised in this life to be so much honoured shall be troubled with horrible fear and shall wonder at their unexpected salvation saying amongst themselves with great resentment and much grief and anguish of Spirit These are they who sometime were unto us matter of scorn and laughter We fools imagined their life to be madness and that their end would be without honour but behold they are counted amongst the Children of God and their lot is amongst the Saints We err'd and wandred from the ways of truth and the light of Justice was not with us nor the Sun of wisdom did shine upon us We wearied our selves in the ways of wickedness and perdition and walked in paths of difficulty and knew not the way of the Lord. What hath our pride profited us and what hath the pomp of our riches availed us all those things have passed like a shadow or like a messenger who passes in haste or like a ship which cuts the instable waves and leaves no track where it went and are now consumed in our wickedness The Tyrants who have afflicted and put to death the holy Martyrs what will they now say when they shall see them in this Glory Those who trampled under foot the justice right of the poor of Christ what will they do when they shall behold them their Judges And what will the wicked Judges doe or say when they shall see themselves condemned for their unjust Sentences Eccl. 3. 10. fulfilling that which was said by Salomon I saw a great evil beneath the Sun that in the Throne of Judgement was seated impiety and wickedness in the place of Justice and I said in my heart God shall judge the good and evil and then shall be seen who every one is Here in this life the just and sinner have not always the place which they deserve many times the wicked takes the right hand and the holy the left Christ shall then rectifie all those grievances and shall separate the wheat from the tares The good he shall place upon his right hand elevated in the Air that all the world may honour them as holy And the wicked shall stand far at his left remaining upon the Earth to their own confusion and the scorn of all How shall the sinners envy the just when they shall see them so much honoured and themselves so much despised How confounded shall be the Kings of the earth when they shall behold their Vassals in Glory and Lords when they shall see their slaves amongst the Angels and themselves in equal rank with Devils For it seems the Devils then shall assume bodies of Air that they may be sensibly seen by the wicked and shall stand amongst them for their greater affront and torment § 3. Immediately the Books of all mens Consciences shall be opened and their sins publisht to the whole world The most secret sins of their hearts and those filthy acts which were committed in private Those sins which through shame and bashfulness were conceal'd in Confession or cover'd with excuses crooked and sinister intentions hidden and unknown treacheries counterfeit and dissembling virtues all shall then be manifested feigned friends adulterous wives unfaithful servants false witnesses shall all to their great shame and confusion be then discovered If we are now so sensible when people murmure at us or that some infamous act of ours is known to one or two persons how shall we be then troubled when all our faults together are made known unto all both men and Angels How many are there now who if they imagined that their father or brother knew what they had committed in secret would die with grief And yet in that day not onely fathers and brothers but friends and enemies and all the world shall to their confusion know it The virtuous actions of the just how secretly soever performed their holy thoughts their pious desires their pure intentions their good works which the world now either disesteems or calumniates as madness shall then be manifested and they for them shall be honoured by the whole world virtue shall then appear admirable in all her beauty and vice horrible in all her deformity It shall then be seen how decent and beautiful it is for the great to humble themselves for the offended to be silent and pardon injuries on the other side how insolent and horrid a thing it is to trample upon the poor to wrong the humble to desire revenge and Lord it over others Then shall be also discovered the good works of the wicked but for their greater affront in that they have not persevered in doing well and that calling to remembrance the good counsel and advice which they have given unto others which hath been a means of their salvation they may be now confounded to have neglected it themselves to their own damnation The sins also of the just shall be published but with all their repentance and the good which they have drawn from their faults in such sort as it shall no ways redound to their shame but be an argument of rendring thanks and divine praises to the Lord who was pleased to pardon them But nothing shall be of greater despite and confusion unto sinners than to behold those who have committed equal greater sins than themselves to be then in Glory because they made use of the time of repentance which they despised and neglected This confusion shall be augmented by that inward charge which God shall lay against them of his divine benefits unto which
tears advised him to hang it upon the Gallows to supply the room of the Malefactor Such is the inconstancy of humane hearts more variable than seems possible which changing in themselves draw within their compass the rest of the hings of this World Philo considering and admiring so great vanity and change Philo. l. de Jos speaks after this manner Perhaps those things which concern the Body are they not dreams perhaps this momentary beauty does it not wither even before it flourish our health is uncertain exposed to so many infirmities a thousand griefs happening by divers occasions abate our strength and forces the quickness and vigour of our senses are corrupted by vitious humours Who then can be ignorant of the baseness of exteriour things One day often makes an end of great riches many Personages of great honour and esteem changing their fortune become infamous great Empires and Kingdoms have in a short time been ruined Of this Dionysius is a sufficient witness who thrust from his Throne from a King of Sicily became a School-master in Gorinth and taught boyes The like happened unto Craesus the most rich King of Lydia who being in hope to overthrow the Persians not onely lost his own Kingdom but fell into the power of his enemies and failed little of being burnt alive Particular persons are not onely witnesses that all humane things are dreams but Cities Nations Kingdoms Greeks and Barbarians the Isles and those who inhabit the Continent of Europe Asia the East and West nothing remains like unto it self Certainly as Philo sayes the instability of humane things makes them appear not onely a dream but as a dream of a shadow rather than of any thing solid and consistent Hom. de poenit Let us hear also what St. Chrysostome sayes and counsels us concerning the same matter All things present saith he are more frail and weak than the webs of spiders and more deceitful than dreams for as well the goods as evils have their end Since therefore we esteem things present but as a dream and we our selves to be but as in a Inn from whence we are sodainly to depart let us take care for our journey and furnish our selves with provision and a Viaticum for eternity let us cloath our selves with such garments as we may carry along with us For as no man can lay hold on his Shadow so no man retains things humane which partly in death and partly before death fly from us and run more swiftly than a rapid river To the contrary are those things which are to come which neither suffer age nor change nor are subject to revolutions but perpetually flourish and persevere in a continued felicity Take heed then of admiring those riches which remain not with their Masters but change in every instant and leap from one to another and from this to that It behooves thee to despise all those things and to esteem them as nothing Let it suffice to hear what the Apostle sayes The things that are seen are temporal but those which are not seen are eternal Things humane disappear more sodainly than a shadow CAP. II. How great and desperate soever our Temporal evils are yet hope may make them tolerable FRom this inconstancy of humane things we may extract a constancy for our selves First by despising things so frail and transitory which as we have already said is a sufficient ground for their contempt Secondly by a resolute hope and expectation of an end or change in our adversity and afflictions since nothing here below is constant but all mutable and unstable and as things sometimes change from good to evil so they may also from evil unto good And as great prosperity hath often been the occasion of greater misery so we may hope our greatest misfortunes may produce a greater happiness Wherefore as in eternal evils because immutable we want the hope of a happy condition so in temporal evils how great soever we ought not to despair which we daily see confirmed with most unexpected successes Let us therefore onely fear eternal evils which are not capable of remedy and let us not despair and afflict our selves for the temporal which hath it and imports little whether it have it or no. This is not ill exprest by that which happened unto the Roman Appius Fulgos l. 6. who being proscribed and condemned to banishment became by the treachery of his Slaves and Servants in danger of his life who out of covetousness to possess themselves of the goods and treasure which he carried along with him cast him forth into a small Shallop and sailed away with the Ship But from this misfortune sprung his deliverance For not long after the Ship sunk in which his Slaves were drowned and he himself who had perished if he had been with them escaped with this little loss and came safe into Sicily Aristomenes being taken by his enemies and cast into an obscure Dungeon was there at least by famine and unwholesomness of the place to end his dayes but in the middest of despair an unexpected accident gave him hope of delivery A Fox by chance passing through a little hole under ground entred into the Dungeon where he had made his Den which being espied by Aristomenes he laid fast hold on him with one hand and with the other enlarged the passage and voiding the loose earth as he went followed his guide who at last safely conducted him into the open field from whence he escaped in safety when his enemies thought he had been dead There is no condition of life so miserable wherein we ought to despair nay wherein we may not hope of bettering our fortunes To how many hath a seeming unlucky accident been the occasion of great preferment and a disgrace of honours Diogenes his being condemned for false money and held for an infamous person was the occasion of his receiving respect and honour from Princes Plin. l. 7. c. 50. ' Alexander the Master of the World coming to visit him Phalareus being wounded in his breast by his enemies was cured of an Imposthume held desperate by the Physicians Gal. l. de Sim. ca. 11. Galen writes of a Leper who was cured by drinking a little wine wherein a Viper was by chance drowned which the Reapers not being willing to drink themselves gave him out of compassion thinking to kill him quickly and rid him out of those grievous pains which he endured but that which they thought would be his death became his life for the drinking of the wine caused the scales and scurf of his flesh to fall and restored him to his health Benive c. 15. Benivenius testifies that he knew a Boy that was lame of both feet in such sort that he could not goe without Crutches but being struck with the plague and recovering his health he remained sound of his feet and without lameness The same Author writes of a certain Architect who had one leg shorter than
the joyes shall be such as neither the eye hath seen nor the ear hath heard nor hath entred into the heart of man O baseness of temporal goods what proportion doe they hold with this greatness since they are so poor that even time from whence they have their being makes them tedious and not to be endured Who could continue a whole moneth without other diversion in hearing the choicest musick nay who could pass a day free from weariness without some change of pleasures But such is the greatness of those joyes which God hath prepared for them who love and fear him as we shall still desire them afresh and they will not cloy us in a whole Eternity §. 2. St. Anselme observes this difference betwixt the goods and evils of this life and the other Anselm lib. de simil that in this life neither of them are pure but mixt and confused The goods are imperfect and mingled with many evils and the evils short and mingled with some good But in the other life as the goods are most perfect and pure without the least touch of any ill and so can never weary us for that were an evil so to the contrary those evils of hell in which there is no good at all are horrible and above all sufferance Eternal glory therefore is great both in respect of its purity being free from any ill and in respect of its perfection being highly and excellently good David said Ps 102. That God had removed our sins from us as far as the East is distant from the West which he hath not onely verified in the guilt of sin but in the punishment which is as tar removed from the blessed as Heaven is from Earth And although the spiritual distance betwixt them be greater than the corporeal yet that we may from hence form some conception of that also we will say as much as our weakness is able to attain unto of this Clavius in Sphae 〈◊〉 1. Our famous Mathematician Christopher Clavius sayes that from the Sphere of the Moon which is the lowest Heaven unto the Earth are one hundred and twenty thousand six hundred and thirty miles and from the Heaven of the Sun four millions thirty thousand nine hundred and twenty three miles and from the Firmament or eighth Heaven one hundred sixty one millions eight hundred fourscore and four thousand nine hundred and fourty three miles Here Plato wills the Mathematicians to cease their enquiry for from hence there is no rule of measuring further but without all doubt it is much farther from thence to the Empyrial Heaven For the onely thickness of the Starry Sphere is said to contain as much as the whole space betwixt that and the Earth In so much as if a Milstone were thrown from the highest of the Firmament and should every hour fall two hundred miles it would be 90 years before it arrived at the Earth The Mathematicians also and some learned Interpreters of the holy Scripture affirm that the distance from the Earth unto the highest of the Firmament is less than that from thence to the lowest of the Empyrial Heaven and therefore conclude if one should live two thousand years and every day should travel a hundred miles he should not in all that time reach the lowest of the Firmament and if after that he should also travel other two thousand years he should not reach the highest of it and from thence four thousand years before he arrived at the lowest of the Empyrial Heaven O power of the grace of Jesus Christ which makes us in a moment dispatch so great a journey That noble Matron who was tormented and put to death in England said unto those with grief and honour that beheld her martyrdome So short is the way which brings us to heaven that within six hours I shall mount above the Sun and Moon tread the Stars under my feet and enter into the Heaven of the Blessed But there was no need of six hours one little instant brings the souls of the blessed thither which being purified from their sins and pains remain further distant from the one and the other than Heaven is from Earth Proportionable unto this distance of place is the advantage which the greatness of Heaven hath above that of Earth and the same holds in their blessings Let us mount then with this consideration thither and from that height let us disspise all this mutable World Ptolom in Praefa Almages since even the Gentils did it Wherefore Ptolome said He is higher than the world who cares not in whose hands the world is And Cicero What humane thing can seem great unto him Tull. in Som. Scip. unto whom eternity and the greatness of the other world are known All the earth seems so little unto me that I am sorry and ashamed of our Empire with which we have onely touched some little part of it All the Kingdoms of the Earth are but as a point and unto Boctius seemed but as a point of a point Bar. 3. But of Heaven Baruch could say How great is the house of God how large is the place of his possession it is great and hath no end high and immeasurable So great is the advantage of things eternal above temporal although they were not eternal O what fools then are they who for one point of Earth lose so many leagues of Heaven who for one short pleasure lose things so immense and durable O the greatness of the omnipotency and goodness of the divine liberality which hath prepared such things for the humble and little ones who serve him St. Austin whose thoughts were so sublime and whose understanding was one of the greatest in the world found himself unable to express them nay even to think of them For being desirous to write of Eternal Glory and taking pen in hand he beheld in his Chamber a great light and felt a sweetness so fragrant as almost transported him and withal heard a voice which said Austin what doest thou mean doest thou think it possible to number the drops in the Sea or to grasp the whole compass of the Earth or to make the Celestial bodies suspend their motion that which no eyes have seen wouldest thou behold that which no ear hath heard wouldest thou conceive that which no heart hath attained nor humane understanding imagined doest thou think that thou onely canst comprehend What end can that have which is infinite how can that be measured which is immense Sooner shall all those impossibilities be possible than thou understand the least part of that glory which is enjoyed by the blessed in Heaven If one who had been ever bred in an obscure dungeon and never had seen other light than that of some dimme Lamp were told that above the Earth there was a Sun which enlightned the whole world and cast his beams far above a hundred thousand leagues in Circumference all the discourses which could be made unto
all living Creatures of so great variety all the Birds so curiously painted the Fishes so monstrous the Mettals so rich all People and Nations farthest remote certainly it would be a sight of wonderful satisfaction But what will it be to see all this whatever there is in the Earth together with all that there is in Heaven and above Heaven Some Philosophers in the discovery of a natural truth or the invention of some rare curiosity have been transported with a greater joy and content than their senses were capable of For this Aristotle spent so many sleepless nights for this Pythagoras travelled into so many strange Nations for this Crates deprived himself of all his wealth and Archimedes as Vitruvius writes never removed his thoughts night nor day from the inquisition of some Mathematical demonstration Such content he took in finding out some truth that when he eat his mind was busie in making lines and angles If he bathed and annointed himself as was the custome of those times his two fingers served him in the room of a compass to make circles in the oyl which was upon his skin He spent many dayes in finding out by his Mathematical rules how much gold would serve to gild a crown of silver that the Goldsmith might not deceive him and having found it as he was bathing in a Vessel of brass not able to contain his joy he fetcht divers skips and cried out I have found it I have found it If then the finding out of so mean a truth could so transport this great Artist what joy shall the Saints receive when the Creatour shall discover unto them those high secrets and above all that sublime mysterie of the Trinity of persons in the unity of essence This with the rest of those Divine knowledges wherewith the most simple of the Just shall be endued shall satiate their Souls with unspeakable joyes O ye wise of the World and ignorant before God why do you weary your selves in vain curiosities busie to understand and forgetful to love intent to know and slow to work Drye and barren speculation is not the way to knowledge but devout affection ardent love mortification of the senses and holy works in the service of God Labour therefore and deserve and you shall receive more knowledge in one instant than the wise of the world have obtained with all their watchings travails and experiences Aristotle for the great love he bore to knowledge held that the chief felicity of man consisted in contemplation If he found so great joy in natural speculations what shall we find in divine and the clear vision of God There shall the Memory also live representing unto us the Divine benefits and rendring eternal thanks unto the Author of all the Soul rejoycing in its own happiness to have received so great mercies for so small merits and remembring the dangers from which it hath been freed by Divine favour it shall sing the verse in the Psalm The snare is broken and we are delivered The remembrance likewise as St. Thomas teaches of the acts of vertue and good works by which Heaven was gained shall be a particular joy unto the Blessed both in respect they were a means of our happiness as also of pleasing so gracious and good a Lord. This joy which results from the memory of things past is so great as Epicurus prescribing a way to be ever joyful and pleasant advises us to preserve in memory and to think often of contents past But in Heaven we shall not onely joy in the memory of those things wherein we have pleased God in complying with his holy will and in ordering and disposing our life in his service but in the troubles also and dangers we have past The memory of a good lost without remedy causes great regret and torment and to the contrary the memory of some great evil avoided and danger escaped is most sweet and delectable The Wise-man said the memory of death was bitter as indeed it is to those who are to die but unto the Saints who have already past it and are secure in Heaven nothing can be more pleasant who now to their unspeakable joy know themselves to be free from death infirmity and danger There also shall live the Will in that true and vital life rejoycing to see all its desires accomplished with the abundance and sweet satiety of so many felicities being necessitated to love so admirable a beauty as the Soul enjoyes and possesses in God Almighty Love makes all things sweet and as it is a torment to be separated from what one loves so it is a great joy and felicity to remain with the beloved And therefore the Blessed loving God more than themselves how unspeakable a comfort must it be to enjoy God and the society of those whom they so much affect The love of the Mother makes her delight more in the sight of her own Son though foul and of worse conditions than in that of her neighbours The love then of Saints one towards another being greater than that of Mothers to their Children and every one of them being so perfect and worthy to be beloved and every one enjoying the sight of the same God how comfortable must be their conversation Sen. Ep. 6. Seneca said That the possession of what good soever was not pleasing without a Partner The possession then of the chief good mus be much more delightful with the society of such excellent companions If a man were to remain alone for many years in some beautiful Palace it would not please him so well as a Desert with company but the City of God is full of most noble Citizens who are all sharers of the same blessedness This conversation also being with wise holy and discreet personages shall much increase their joy For if one of the greatest troubles of humane life be to suffer the ill conditions follies and impertinencies of rude and ill-bred people and the greatest content to converse with sweet pious and learned friends what shall that Divine conversation be in Heaven where there is none ill conditioned none impious none froward but all peace piety love and sweetness in so much as Saint Austin sayes Aug. lib. de Spirittu anima Every one shall there rejoyce as much in the felicity of another as in his own ineffable joy and shall possess as many joyes as he shall find companions There are all things which are either requisite or delightful all riches ease and comfort Where God is nothing is wanting All there know God without errour behold him without end praise him without weariness love him without tediousness and in this love repose full of God Besides all this the Security which the will shall have in the eternal possession of this felicity is an unspeakable joy The fear that the good things which we enjoy are to end or at least may end mingles wormwood with our joyes and pleasures do not relish where there is
Prosperous and the Lovers of the World who are those which for the most part people Hell The Prophet Baruch sayes Baruc. 3. Where are the Princes of the Nations which commanded over the beasts of the earth and sported with the birds of the air which store up silver and gold in which men put their trust and there is no end of their seeking who stamp and work silver who are sollicitous and their works are not found They are exterminated they have sunk down into hell Jac. 5. and others have risen in their places St. James sayes Weep you who are rich and lament the miseries which are to fall upon you St. Paul not onely threatens those who are rich but those who desire to be so saying Those who desire to be rich fall into the snare and temptation of the Devil 1 Tim. 6. and into many unprofitable and hurtful desires which drown them in death and perdition With this counterpoise then and hazard who would desire the wealth of the World since onely the desire of it is so poisonous Let those who dote upon the World hear St. Bernard Bernard in Medit. who sayes Tell me now Where are those lovers of the world who a little while agoe were here with us there is nothing remaining of them but dust and worms Mark diligently what they once were and what they now are They were men as thou now art they did eat drink laugh and pass away their times in mirth and jollity and in a moment of time sunk down into hell Here are their Bodies eaten by worms and their Souls condemned to eternal flames until united again they both shall sink together into everlasting fire that so those who were companions in sin may be also in torments and that one pain involve them who were consorts in the love of the same offence What did their vain glory profit them their short mirth their worldly power their fleshly pleasure their false riches their numerous families where is now their laughter their jests their boasting their arrogance how great shall be their sorrow when such misery shall succeed so many pleasures when from the height of humane glory they shall fall into those grievous torments and eternal ruine where according to what the Wise-man said the mighty shall be mightily punished If then those who most enjoy the World run the greatest hazard of being damned what can more induce us to the contempt of it than the consideration of so lamentable an end And what can more set forth the malice of temporal goods than to be the occasion of eternal evils If a curious built house be subject to some notable inconveniency no man will dwell in it if a couragious horse have some vitious quality no body will buy him and if a Chrystal cup have a crack it shall not be placed upon a Royal Cupboard yet the pleasures and goods of the World though subject to all those faults how are they coveted loved and sought after and in them our perdition Certainly if we should consider seriously the eternal evils which correspond to the short pleasures of this life we should have all humane felicity in horrour and trembling to see our selves in fortunes favour should flye from the world as from death The reverend and zealous Father Frier Jordan being desirous to convert a certain Cavalier to God and from the love of the world for his last remedy had recourse unto this consideration Seeing him a beautiful young man active and well disposed of body he said unto him At least Sir since God hath bellowed so comely a face and personage upon you think what pity it were they should be the food of eternal fire and burn without end The Gentleman reflected upon his advice and this consideration wrought so much with him that abhorring the world and quitting all his possessions and hopes he became poor in Christ and entred into Religion §. 2. Let us now come to the consideration of Eternal Evils that from thence we may despise all which is temporal be it good or bad The evils of Hell are truly evils and so purely such that they have no mixture of good In that place of unhappiness all is eternal sorrow and complaint and there is no room for comfort Aelian lib. 3. varia Hist c. 18. Aelian relates a History which being taken as a Parable may serve to illustrate what we are about to speak of He sayes in the utmost borders of the Meropes there is a cetrain place called Anostos which is as much to say from whence there is no return There was to be seen a great Precipice and a deep opening of the earth from whence issued two Rivers the one of Joy and the other of Sadness upon the brinks of which grew divers trees of so different fruits that those who eat of the one forgot all that might cause grief but those who eat of the other were so possessed with an unconsolable sadness that all was weeping and lamentations until they at last died with signs and shedding of tears What do those Rivers signifie but the one of them that whereof David speaks which with his current rejoyced the City of God the other that Flood of evil which enters the Prison of Hell and fills it with groans tears and despite without the least hope of comfort for there shall the door be eternally shut to all good or expectation of ease in so much as one drop of water was denied the rich Glutton from so merciful and pitiful a man as Abraham There shall not be the least good that may give ease nor shall there want a concourse of all evils which may add affliction There is no good to be found there where all goods are wanting neither can there be want of any evil where all evils whatsoever are to be found and by the want of all good and the collection of all evils every evil is augmented In the creation of the World God gave a praise to every nature saying It was good without farther exaggeration but when all were created and joyned together he said They were very good because the conjunction of many goods advances the good of each particular and in the same manner the conjunction of many evils makes all of them worse What shall Heaven then be where there is a concourse of all goods and no evils And what Hell where there are all evils and no good Certainly the one must be exceeding good and the other exceeding evil In signification of which the Lord shewed unto the Prophet Jeremias two little Baskets of Figs Jer. 24. in the one of which were excessively good ones and in the other excessively bad both in extremity He does not content himself in saying they were bad or very bad but sayes they were over-bad because they represented the miserable state of the Damned where is to be the sink of all evils without mixture of any good at all And for this
reason it is not a sufficient expression to say they are evils but they are to be tearmed evils excessively great No man will admire this who knows the grievousness of a mortal sin for committing of which as he is a man he deserves hell and as he is Christian according to St. Austin a new hell that is an Infidel merits one hell and a Christian two who knowing Christ incarnate and crucified for him durst yet sin and offend him Sin is an excessive evil because it is an infinite evil and therefore it is not too much if it be chatized with infinite evils It is an evil which is greater than the whole collection of all other evils and for this reason 't is not too much rigour that the sinner should be chastized with the collection of all evils together Those who wonder at the terribleness of eternal pains know not the terribleness of sin Whereupon St. Austin sayes Aug. lib. 21. c. 12. Therefore the eternal pains seem hard and injust unto humane apprehension because in the weakness of our natural understanding the sense of that eternal wisdom is wanting by which might be perceived the great malice of the first prevatication If then for that first sin committed when Christ had not yet died for man eternal damnation was not thought too much what shall it be when we know that our Redeemer was so gracious as to give his life because we should not sin From the necessity of so costly and precious a Medecine may be collected the greatness of the infirmity I say the greatness and danger of a disease is known by the extraordinary remedies which are applyed unto it and by the things which are sought out for the cure and without which the malady would be without remedy We may therefore gather the infinite malice of a mortal sin because there was no other means sufficient but one so extraordinary as was God to become Man and give his own life for Man dying a death so shameful and painful as he did offering a price so great as was the excessive worth and infinite price of his merits and passion Sin is an injurie against God and as the injurie increases according to the greatness and worth of the person offended so God being infinite the injury becomes of infinite malice and as God is a good which includes all goods so a mortal sin which is an injury done unto him is a mischief which exceeds all evils and ought to be punished with all pains and torments § 3. Let us now consider the several sorts of pains in Hell and the greatness of them In the Roman Laws according to Tully and Albertus Magnus we find mentioned eight several kindes of punishments Alber. Mag. l. 7. Comp. Theolog. c. 22. which are The punishment of Loss when one is mulcted in his goods The punishment of Infamy Banishment Imprisonment Slavery Whipping Death and the punishment of Talion To these may be reduced all the rest and we shall find the Divine Justice to exercise them all upon those who have despised his mercy and injured his infinite bounty and goodness In the first place there is the pain of Loss and that so rigorous that the depriving the damned Soul of one onely thing they take from him all good things For they deprive him of God in whom they are all comprised This is the greatest pain that can be imagined O how miserable and poor must the damned Soul be who hath lost God for all eternity He who is condemned by humane Laws to the loss of his goods may if he live gain others at least in another Kingdom if he flye thither but he who is deprived of God where shall he find another God and who can flye from Hell God is the greatest good and it is therefore the greatest evil to be deprived of him Because as St. John Damascen sayes evil is the privation of good and that is to be esteemed the greatest evil which is a privation of the greatest good which is God and must certainly therefore cause more grief and resentment in the Damned than all the torments and punishments of Hell besides And in regard there is in Hell an eternal privation of God who is the chief Good the pain of Loss whereby one is deprived for ever of the greatest of all goods this privation will cause the greatest pain and torment If the burning of a hand cause an insufferable pain by reason that the excessive heat deprives the Body of its natural temper and good constitution which is but a poor and short good how shall he be tormented who is deprived and eternally separated from so great a Good as is God If a bone displaced or out of joynt causeth intolerable grief because it is deprived of his due state and place what shall it cause in a rational creature to lye eternally separated from God who is the chief end for which he was created Chrys 24. in Math. Tom. 2. fol. 82 p. 2. St. Chrysostome gives us some understanding of this grief when he sayes He who burns in Hell loses also the Kingdom of Heaven which is certainly a greater punishment than that torment of flames I know many who are afraid of Hell but I dare confidently say that the amission of glory is far more bitter than all those pains which are to be suffered in Hell And no wonder that this cannot be exprest in words since we know not well the happiness of those divine rewards by the want of which we ought also to measure the infelicity of their loss but we shall then without doubt learn when we are taught by sad experience Then our eyes shall be opened then the vail shall be taken away then shall the wicked perceive to their greater grief and confusion the difference betwixt that eternal and chief good and the frail and transitory pleasures of this life If St. Chrysostome says this of the loss of the reward of eternal happiness that it is a greater evil than the torment of hell fire what shall the loss of God be not onely as our Good but also for as much that in himself he is the chief Good of which the damned are to be deprived for all eternity Moreover this condemnation of a Sinner unto the loss of God and all which is good shall extend so far that he shall be deprived even of the hope of what is good and shall be left for ever in that profound poverty and necessity without expectation of remedy or relief What greater want can any one have than to want all things and even hope of obtaining any thing We are amazed at the poverty of holy Job who from a Prince and a rich man came to lye upon a dunghil having nothing left but a piece of a broken pot to scrape away the putrifaction from his sores But even this shall fail the damned who would take it for a great Regalo to have a dunghil for their bed
to last for ever in regard he had the good fortune to save his Soul Wherefore if one onely disastrous day after the enjoying of so much felicity and greatness of the world for twenty years space is sufficient to cause a contempt of all that pomp and make the same appear as smoke not onely one year of affliction not a thousand ages but eternity in torments how will it make all humane prosperity to seem nothing else but a shadow and a dream If the sad death of one though he saves his soul shews the vanity of all humane felicities The lamentable death of one who is damned to Hell and an eternity of unspeakable misery how will it make evident that all felicity and humane greatness is nothing but smoke a shadow and nothing Let us reflect a thought upon the Emperour Heliogabolus who gave so great a scope to all his sensual appetites and was most exactly industrious in making use of time to the advantage of his pleasures What account are we to make of his two years and eight moneths raign if we give credit to Aurelius and Eutropius turning our consideration to the other Scene of his miserable death For the Pretorian Souldiers having drawn him out of a Sink or Privy where he had hid himself then haling him upon the ground they threw him into an other Sink most filthy and abominable but in regard there was not room enough for his whole body they pull'd him out again and dragging him through the great place called Circus and other publick Streets of Rome at last they cast him into the Tyber having first tied great stones about him to the end he might never appear more nor obtain interrement All this was done to the great content of the people and approbation of the Senate Who should see this nice and effeminate Prince wallowing in the Sink abused by his Souldiers and drowned in the Tyber what estimate would he frame of all his greatnese But see him now in the horrid Sink of Hell abused by the Devils and plunged into that pit of fire and brimstone where he is to suffer excessive torments for all eternity what will that short time of his Empire seem being compared I do not say with three hundred thousand millions of years but with an eternity of pains which he is to suffer causing all the past glory of his Empire and splendour of his fortunes to vanish into smoke You may look upon a Wheel of Squibs or Fireworks which whilst it moves casts forth a thousand lights and splâ—â—dours with which the beholders are much taken but all at last ends in a little smoke and burnt paper So it is Whilst the Wheel of felicities was in motion according to the stile of St. James that is to say whilst our life lasts its fortune and prosperity appeared most glorious but ceasing all comes to end in smoke and he that fares best in it becomes a firebrand of Hell Rabanus said well that when a strong fever Raban in Eccl. or some great unexpected change in his estate happens to one it makes him forget all his former contents in health and wealth his sickness and adversity taking up so the whole man as that he has no leasure to employ his thoughts upon any thing else and if perhaps any passage of his former condition chance to come to his minde it gives him no satisfaction but rather augments his pain Wherefore if even temporal evils though very short are sufficient to make former felicities of many years vanish what impression will temporal goods make in us if we employ our thoughts upon eternal evils Besides this the eternity of torments in hell which is to be suffered hereafter without profit may move us to husband the short time of this life most to our advantage and with the greatest fruit How many miserable Souls now suffer those eternal pains for not employing one day in pennance nor endeavouring to make one good confession What would a damned Soul give for one quarter of an hour out of so many dayes and years which are lost and shall not have one instant allowed him Thou who now livest and hast time lose not that which imports so much and once lost can never be redeemed Peter Reginaldus writes that an holy Religious man being in prayer heard a most lamentable voice whereupon demanding Who he was and Why he lamented it was answered I am one of the damned And thou must know That I and the rest of the damned Souls lament and bewail nothing more bitterly than to have lost time in the sins we have committed O miserable creatures who for having lost a short space of time lose an eternity of felicity They come to know too late the importance of that which they have lost and shall never come to regain it Let us now make use of time whilest we may gain eternity and let us not lose that with pleasure which cannot be recovered with grief Let us now weep for our sins with profit that we way not weep for our pains without fruit Let us hear what St. Bernard sayes Bernard Serm. 16. in Cant. Who shall give water unto my head and who shall give a fountain of tears unto mine eyes that I may prevent weeping by weeping Let us now weep in time and do penance with sorrow that our tears may be dried up and our sorrow forgotten since eternal happiness is no less efficacious to make us forget the tears and grief of this life than hell the pleasures of it Wherefore Isaias saith My former cares are forgotten Isai 65. and are hid from mine eyes Upon which words St. Jerome glosses It is the effect of mirth and confession of the true God that an eternal oblivion shall succeed precedent goiefs For if former evils shall be forgotten it is not with the oblivion of memory but with the succession of so much good according to that In the good day an oblivion of evil Lastly let us draw from the consideration of hell a perfect hatred to all mortal sin since from the evil of sin proceeds that evil of pain Terrible is the evil of sin since it cannot be satisfied even with eternal flames But this requires a larger consideration which we are now come unto CAP. XIII The infinite guilt of mortal Sin by which we lose the felicity of heaven and fall into eternal evils THe horrible and stupendious malice of mortal sin is so foul and accursed that though committed in an instant it deserves the torments of hell for all eternity and an unlawful pleasure enjoyed by a sinner but for one moment deprives and disinherits him of eternal felicity Because therefore the scope of this work is to beget such disesteem of temporal goods as for them we may not lose the eternal I thought it not besides my purpose to procure as much as I could a horror and detestation of sin which is the occasion of the loss of heaven and
therefore intend in this place to say something of the malice of it the rather because it conduces much to the knowledge of those differences which are betwixt things temporal and things eternal Whereof the most notable is that as temporal goods are of that nature that he who loves and seeks them with sollicitude most commonly falls into that horrible evil of sin So he who loves and sets his heart on things eternal secures himself against it Besides having treated of the eternal pains of hell that we may not wonder at the severity of the Divine Justice it was necessary that we should say something of the horrible and grievous malice of sin for which so infinite a punishment is inflicted Many admire that a sin committed in an instant should deserve the eternal punishment of so terrible and cruel torments But this proceeds from their ignorance because they know not the malice of a mortal sin St. Austin whose deep understanding was enlightned by an especial grace wondered rather that there were not two Hells and that a new one was not created for that Christian who durst offend his God after he was incarnated for his redemption And Divines generally affirm that the chastisement of sin in hell is much less than it deserves Who will not then admire this Monster of mischief that being but one evil draws after it so many and that one sin should deserve so many punishments and yet have a malice capable of more A terrible case that for a sin which past onely in thought which none knew but God and he who committed it and perhaps not he neither as being uncertain and doubtful of his own consent and which endured no longer than an instant should yet be punished with so real and eternal pains The reason is That such is the intension of malice in sin that it is equivalent to the extension of an infinite evil The punishment and the sin are like the shadow and the body The sin is the body and the solid evil The punishment but as the shadow And in the reason of a true and real evil the sin as far exceeds the punishment of hell fire as a man exceeds his shadow For as that is truly and really a man and this but a man in appearance so sin is truly an evil the pain onely appears so but is in truth a good being an act of justice caused by God who can cause no evil Hence you may trace the malignity of a sin in comparison whereof the pains of hell although so terrible are not evils but their shadow and may also learn that the commission of a mortal sin is asmuch to be feared above the pains of eternity as a real sword before its shadow The sword kills the shadow at most can but fright So a mortal sin is that which takes away the life of the Soul the pains can onely fear us but without sin the torments of hell are not of power to kill or hurt us See then what a fool thou art if to avoid some temporal evil thou presumest to commit a mortal sin which is as great a folly as to stye from the shadow of a sword and run thy selt upon the point It is true that sin is really an evil and the eternal fire of Hell in comparison of it but a shadow but by this shadow we may judge the greatness of the substance and by the terribleness of the punishment the grievousness of the sin For as by the shadow we know the bulk of the body although we see it not so by the pains of Hell we conjecture the malice and enormity of sin which appears not What would we say of a body which the Sun being at midday and in his height should cast a shadow of an infinite extension This could not be unless the height of that body should rise unto the Sphear of the Sun and being placed opposite unto it should thence produce so vast a shadow In this manner sin causeth a pain of infinite extension because the intension of its malice reaches so high as to oppose it self unto God who being the chief good sin must needs become the chief evil I speak of mortal sin If we therefore tremble at the thought of Hell we may shake at that of sin Who is not amazed that God should behold a creature of his own burning in flames and should there leave him without compassion for all eternity But this is not caused by want of goodness in God but by excess of malice in sin not because the mercy of God hath limits but because the wickedness of man hath none So hainous then is the offence of a mortal sin that eternal flames cannot purge it nor torments give a greater satisfaction than what is due unto the Di-Justice This is that which the Lord said by Oseas Osee 12. Ephraim provoked me to wrath in his bitternesses That is us St. Jerome interprets it with his wickedness he made me bitter and rigorous who of my self was sweet and merciful Such is the grievousness of sin that it makes the sweetness bounty and divine pity of God not to companionate that Soul which is in the bitterness of Hell § 2. Sin is then an infinite offence against God Let it not therefore appear much unto him who knows the ineffable greatness and perfection of the Divine essence that though committed in an instant it should deserve an eternity of punishment For by how much greater is the Majesty of God which is despised by so much greater is the injury offered him and therefore as the Majesty of God which is despised by sin is infinite so the despite of it must contain in it self a certain kinde of infinity By how much greater is the reverence due to a person by so much greater is the disrespect and affront offered him And as to God there is due an infinite reverence so the injurie done him is of an inexplicable malice which with no good works of a pure creature how many and great soever can be expiated Less de perfec divi li. 13. cap. 16. nu 187. So great saith a grave Doctor is the malignity of a mortal sin that being put in the ballance of Divine Justice it would out-waigh all the good works of all the Saints although they were a thousand times more and greater than they are Which consideration although most fearful yet it ought not to seem incredible because the good works with which God is honoured by his Saints although considered in themselves they are of great value and by his grace worthy of eternal life yet in respect of God unto whom they add nothing and who is nothing better by them they are not valuable Unto whose divine goodness not onely they but infinitely more and greater are but a debt But for God to be despised by his Creature who by infinite titles is obliged to serve him and who ought to bear him if he could an infinite love and
reverence him with an infinite honour is a thing so highly repugnant to his Majesty and benefits that he apprehends it more in the nature of evil than all the good works of the world in the nature of good and if God were capable of grief would more afflict him than all the pious actions of the Saints content him Certainly amongst men the honour which is given to one who deserves it takes not so much as a contempt done unto him who merits it not A King values not much the honour which is given him by his Vassals because he takes it not for a courtesie but a duty but to be outraged and scorned by one especially whom he had favoured with his benefits sticks near unto his heart for not onely Kings but all men think honour due unto them and disrespect an injurie And as fire being inordinately applyed to the hand makes it sensible of a greater grief that it can receive delight by being sound because excessive heat is repugnant and a natural temper due unto it so disrespects and affronts offered to a noble personage which are repugnant to his worth grieves him more than he can be pleased with all the honours and respects due unto him There is no resentment amongst men so quick as that of dishonour nor any thing which causes more grief and vexation If some person of quality should have his hat pluckt off from his head in scorn and receive a dozen of bastonadoes from some base fellow that affront would not be recompensed although a thousand should put off their caps to him and kiss his hand By this may in some sort appear the stupendious irreverence and incivility towards God in a mortal sin in so much as St. Paul calls it kicking or spurning the Son of God And therefore it is no marvel if one onely grievous offence over-weigh all the service and honours done by the Saints and holy Angels and that all that they have or can do cannot in rigour satisfie for one mortal sin This is the reason why it was necessary that God should become man being the Divine Justice could not be appeased with less than the satisfaction of a Divine person Let those therefore cease to marvel that a momentary sin should be punisht with eternal torments who see that for sin God was made man and died for man And certainly it is a far greater wonder that God should die for the sin of another than that man should for his own sin suffer an eternal punishment And if the malice of sin be so exorbitant that nothing could satisfie for it less than God it is nothing strange that that which hath no limit nor bound in evil should have no limit in punishment but should exceed all time and be eternal And if a treason committed against a temporal Prince be chastised with loss of life and goods of the Traitor and with the punishment also of his posterity which in as much as concerns the Prince is eternal Why should not the offence of a vile worm against his Creator be tormented with eternal pains The greatness of honour decreases and grows less according to the height and dignity of the person honoured so as that honour which done to an ordinary person would seem excessive given unto a Prince is nothing And to the contrary the greatness of an injury rises and grows higher according to the worth of him who is injured so as God who is infinite being the person offended deserves that the injury done unto him should be chastised with an infinite punishment at least in time or that he who satisfies for it should be a person of infinite worth and perfection From hence it follows that the guilt of mortal sin being so horrid there can be no satisfaction of a pure creature sufficient to expiate it nor any merit which can deserve the pardon Let us grant that Adam had never offended nor contaminated the whole race of mankind with his sin Let us grant that there had never been a sin of David St. Paul St. Austin St. Mary Magdalene or any other Man or Angel whatsoever and that there had been but one onely mortal sin the least of all others committed by a man in a wilderness without witness by night and that onely in thought yet such were the grievousness of this one sin that for it no punishment of the creatures were sufficient to satisfie the Divine Justice If God should ruine Heaven throw down the Stars drie up the Sea confound the Elements and strike whole mankinde with thunder all would not give an equal satisfaction to the Divine Justice for this one sin For this destruction of Heaven and Earth and Man were but of things finite and limited and the injured person is God who is infinite and betwixt finit and infinite there is no proportion In like manner no merit of meer creatures were sufficient to deserve pardon for it If all mankind should cloath themselves in sackcloth and fast with bread and water If all the Martyrs should offer up their torments and all the Confessours their penances and the very Mother of God all her vertues and should dissolve her self into tears all were not enough to deserve the pardon of that one sin Onely the Son of God could be sufficient satisfaction Let men consider this let them weigh the grievousness of a sin against God and let them tremble at the very thought that possibly they may commit it §. 3. The offence which is done to God Almighty by a mortal sin is in it self and in its own substance most grievous as we have already observed yet there are certain Circumstances which do much encrease the good or evil of that action whereunto they are annexed And that of sin is so accursed and abominable on all parts that not one or two but all circumstances joyned together concurre to make the insolence and malice of it most insupportable We will therefore consider them Tull. in Rhet◠S. The. 1.2 q. 7. ar 3. one by one Tully whom St. Thomas and the rest of Divines follow makes them seaven which contribute much to the qualification of a moral action The first Who it is that doth it The second What it is he doth The third Where he does it The fourth With what helps The fifth Wherefore The sixth After what manner and The seaventh When he does it Aristot Eth. 3. Unto these seaven Aristotle adds another About what it is These circumstances are in absolute actions which have no relation to another For in actions which have a respect to a third person another circumstance ought much to be considered which is Against whom it is Let us now see how in all those circumstances sin is most abhominable and accursed For if we consider Who it is that sins it is a most vile and wretched man who presumes to lift up his hands against his Creator And what is Man but a Vessel of dung a Sink of
is with so much impudence contempt of God and such a Luciferian pride After having heard so many examples of his chastisements executed upon sinners After having seen that the most beautiful and glorious of all the Angels and with him innumerable others were thrown from Heaven and made firebrands in Hell for one sin and that onely in thought After having seen the first man for one sin of gluttony banisht from the Paradise of pleasure into this valley of tears dispoyled of so many supernatural endowments and condemned to death After having seen the World drowned and the Cities of Pontapolis burnt with fire from Heaven After having seen those seditious against Moyses swallowed by the earth and with their Children Goods and Family sink alive into Hell After having known that so many have been damned for their offences After that the Son of God had suffered upon the Cross for our sins After all this to sin is an impudence never heard of and an intolerable contempt of the Divine Justice Besides what greater scorn and contempt of God than this that God who is worthy of all honour and love and the Devil who is our professed enemy pretending both to our Souls the one to save them the other to torment them in eternal flames yet we adhere to Satan and preferre him before Christ our Saviour and Redeemer and that so much to our prejudice as by the loss of eternal glory and captivating our selves unto eternal torments and slavery No way of injuring can be imagined more injurious than when by the interposing of some other vile and infamous he who is worthy of all love and honour is put by and slighted The manner also of sinning aggravates the sin as the sinner doth by losing thereby eternal goods Though he who sinneth lost nothing yet the offence against God were great and the affront to Reason it self not inconsiderable But well knowing the great damages and punishments likewise that attend sin and the evident hazard he runs and yet to sin is a strange temerity and impudency If we shall likewise consider When it is that we sin we shall sinde this circumstance no less to aggravate our offences than the former Because we now sin When we have seen the Son of God nailed unto the Cross that we should not sin When we have seen God so sweet unto us as to be incarnate for our good humbling himself to be made man and subjecting himself to death even the death of the Cross for our redemption having instituted the holy Sacraments for a remedy against sin especially that of his most holy Body and Blood which was a most immense expression of his love To sin after we had seen God so good unto us so obliging unto us with those not to be imagined favours is a Circumstance which ought much to be pondered in our hearts and might make us forbear the offending of so loving a Lord. And that Christian who sins after all this is to be esteemed worse than a Devil For the Devil never sinned against that God who had shed his blood for him or who had been made an Angel for him or who had pardoned so much as one sin of his When those sinned who were under the law of nature they also had not seen the Son of God die for their salvation as a Christian hath for which as St. Austin sayes There ought a new Hell to be made for him And there is no doubt but Christians will deserve new torments and greater than those who have not had the knowledge of God nor received so many benefits from him This is confirmed by what is written of St. Macarius the Abbot who finding in the Desert a dead mans head and removing it with his staffe out of the way it began to speak which he hearing demanded Who it was It answered I am a Priest of the Gentils which heretofore dwelt in this place and am now together with many of them in the middle of a burning fire so great that the flames encompass us both above and beneath And is there replyed the Saint any place of greater torment Yes said the dead Greater is that which they suffer who are below us For we who knew not God are not so severely dealt with as those who knowing have denied him or not complyed with his holy will These are below us and suffer far greater torments than we These are the Circumstances observed by Tully and are all found to aggravate the guilt of our sins Neither is that added by Aristotle wanting which is About what About what do we offend God About what happens this great presumption but about things which import not but rather endamage us About complying with a sensual gust which in the end bereaves us of health of honour of substance and even of pleasure it self suffering many dayes of grief for a moment of delight About things of the earth which are vile and transitory and about goods of the world which are false short and deceitful What would we say if for a thing of so small value as a straw one man should kill another No more than a straw are all the felicities of the world in respect of those of heaven and for a thing of so small consideration we are Traitors to God and crucifie Christ again and that a thousand times as often as we sin mortally against him Lastly Against whom we offend much aggravates our sins For besides that God is most perfect most wise beautiful immense omnipotent infinite we sin against him who infinitely loves us who suffers us who heaps his benefits and rewards upon us To do evil to those who make much of them even wilde beasts abhorre it What is it then for thee to injure him who loved thee more then himself who hath done thee all good that thou shouldest do no evil Fear then this Lord reverence his Majesty love his goodness and offend him no more This onely consideration To have sinned against so good a God was so grievous unto David that in his penitential Psalms he exclaims with tears and cries out from the bottom of his heart Against thee onely have I sinned For although he had sinned against Vrias and against all Israel by his ill example yet it seemed unto him he had onely sinned against God when he considered the infinity of his being the immenseness of that love which he had so grievously offended Sin then is on all parts most virulent on all parts spits forth venome Behold it on every side it still seems worse for being the chiefest evil it can on no part appear good all is monstrous all poison all detestable all most evil and therefore deserves all evil And it is not much that that should be chastised with eternal torments which opposes it self unto the sweetness of an infinite holiness § 4. Sin is so evil that it is every way evil It is not onely evil as it is an injury to God but it is
this should be done for man so vile a creature made of a little earth and of so small importance to God This was a work to be reserved for God himself if his own divinity life or salvation if it were possible should come in question let it be lawful to speak in this manner to express in some sort that which is inexplicable and to set forth this ineffable mystery and the incomprehenssible goodness of God But to do this for the life of a Traytor for the salvation of a Faith-breaker to advance an Enemy who could once hope or dare to imagin it If man for the service of God had as a faithfull servant hazarded his person and run himself into that miserable and sad condition it might have been presumed that God out of his goodness and acknowledgment would have stretched his power for his freedom but that man having rob'd God of his honour contemned him and made himself equal unto him and that God should yet after all this humble himself for him debase himself so low as to be made man and that for his Enemy who could think it But such is the goodness of God that he overcame our hopes with his benefits and did that for us which would have onely sufficed for himself and for himself he could have done no more O most stupendious love of God! O most immense charitie of our Creator who so much loved man that he stuck not to do what he could for him O ineffable goodness which would discharge that debt which his enemy owed O divine nobleness that would so much to his own cost do good to man from whom he had received so much evil To redeem man though it had cost him nothing had been much but at so great a rate who could imagin it But the thoughts of God are farr different from those of men §. 2. Let us now look upon the Greatness of this work great after divers manners great by the humbling of God so much below himself great in it self so great as the omnipotent power of God could work no greater Here the divine Attributes were drawn dry For as St. Austin sayes neither God could do a greater work nor knew how to determin it better there was found the bottom of the whole omnipotency of God for a greater work then this was neither possible nor imaginable For as nothing greater then God is possible so no work can possibly be greater then that whereby man is made God See then what thou owest him for this excess of favour that being his Enemy he did all for thee that his omnipotency could that his wisdome knew or his divine goodness and love could will All his Attributes thy Creator employed for thy good imploy thou all thy powers in his service God did all he could for thee do thou all thou canst for him He wrought the work of thy redemtion with all his forces and omnipotency do thou then with all thy power and forces observe his divine will and pleasure loving and serving him in all things Seest thou not here his infinite love and goodness made apparent and laid down before thine eyes doest thou yet doubt to love him with all thy powers and faculties who loved thee with all his omnipotency See what a love was this when he did that for thee being his enemy greater than which he could not do for his friend nor for himself if his own glory were at stake Seest thou not clearly his infinite goodness that overcame so infinite a malice man not being able to do a work against God of so stupendious wickedness but God would do a work for man of a more stupendious goodness not suffering his divine goodness to be overcome by humane malice God saw that man did a work so profoundly evil that there could not possible be a worse for nothing can be so bad as mortal sin He therefore determined to do a work so infinitely good that in goodness it was impossible to be a better and this for accursed Thee what sayest thou to it What sayest thou to such an overflowing bounty To such an excess of love Hear what the Apostle sayes If thy Enemy be a hungred Ad Roman 11. feed him if he be thirsty give him to drinks so shalt thou heap coales of fire up in his head Be mt overcome with evil but overcome evil with good This did thy Creator fully performe with thee although his enemy Yield thy self then vanquished and blush that thou lovest him not better then the Angels Thy estate was not onely necessitated by hunger and thirst but thou wast plunged into eternal miserie and want of all things that were good deprived of glory and eternal happiness If then to bestow a bit of bread or a Cup of water upon a necessitated enimie be sufficient to call colour into his face and are as coals to enflame him in love and charitie What is it for God to have communicated his Divinity unto man and to have given his life for him when he was his Enemy How comes not this to make us blush for shame and set us afire in his divine love These benefits are not to be coals but flames which ought to kindle in us the fire of true love and charitie Give thy self then for overcome and love that divine goodness which for thee being the worst of all his Creatures did the best work of his omnipotency O nobleness of God Almighty O divine sense of honour that I may so speak Man had overcome all works good or bad in malice but such was the immense goodness of God that he would not suffer man to do a work so excessive in evil but he would do a work for the salvation of traitorous and false man more excessive in good Wherefore O Lord did'st thou not this when the Angels sinned who were better then man What goodness is this that thou forbearest so fowl a sinner Is it perhaps that thy work might appear the greater Wouldest thou expect until man had first set up his rest in impudence and malice that thou mightest then set up thy rest in mercy and goodness Who sees not here O Lord the infinitness of thy love and the immenseness of thy bounty After all manners this excellent work proclaims thy excess of bounty because it is after all manners infinitly good and opens as many parts to the understanding of our souls to adore and admire thee For this work is not onely infinitely good in substance but in each particular circumstance In it self it is infinitly good For no work can be better than that which makes man so good as it makes him God It is good because by it the Divinity is communicated unto a creature and which is more unto the lowest and most vile of those who are capable of reason For as it is the propertie of what is good to be comunicative so here we see the infinite goodness of God who wholly and all what
he is issues forth of himself and is communicated unto man Who is not amazed that the same Divinity which the eternal Father communicates unto the eternal Word who is God as he is should after an admirable manner be communicated unto human nature which was enemy unto him O Sea of divine goodness that thus powrest forth thy self to do good without regarding unto whom O Ocean of bounty that thus overflowest in benefits even towards thine enemies This work is likewise infinitly good because with goodness it overcoms an infinitly malice and frees him who was so evil that he deserved an infinit punishment It is infinitly good because it sets forth God with an infinit desire to pardon and do good even unto the greatest Traytour and who least deserved it It shewes him also infinitly good and compleat in all vertue and perfection that rather then to fail the least jot in his Justice he would take upon him that which was due unto a most unjust and accursed offender and humbled himself unto death that he who was condemned to die should not perish eternally I know not any thing that can set forth God as a more exact and perfect pattern of all vertue then a work of so much Justice and Mercy Who would not be amazed at the goodness and piety of a great Emperour who having a desire to pardon a notorious Traytour should rather then abate one jot of his inflexible justice take upon him the habit and shape of that Traytour and die publiqnely in the market place that the offender might be spared This did God taking upon him the form of a Servant and dying upon the Cross to free condemned man from eternal death O God every way most perfect and good which art so scrupulous in thy justice and so indulgent in thy mercy rigorous with thy self that thou mightest be merciful with us O God infinitly good infinitly holy infinitely exact and perfect in all Let the Angels praise thee for all thy perfections since all are transcendent and infinitely good §. 3. To this maybe added the excellent Manner by which a work every way so excellently good was performed and with what love and desire of thy benefit it was wrought From whence could a work of so much goodness issue but from a furnace of love in the divine brest And if by the effect we may know the cause that love which made God resolve upon a work so admirable strange and high could not be other then immense in it self for since the work was infinitly good it could not proceed but from an infinite love nor that love but from an infinite being Besides this it was a great prerogative and honour to humane nature that God should rather make himself a man than an Angel With being an Angel he might have freed Man and honoured the Angels communicated his divine goodness unto the Creatures and done a work of infinite bounty and favour This notwithstanding he was so passionate a lover of man and if I may so say so fond of humane nature that he would not onely oblige man by redeeming him but in the manner of his redemption he would not only that Man should be redeemed but that he should be redeemed by a Man and so would not onely give the remedy but conferre also the honour upon our nature Neither was he content in honouring man more than Angels but would redeem him and not the Angels This was a demonstration of his affection unto Man beyond all expression that not pardoning the Angels who were of a more excellent and supream being then ours he yet took pitie of us and not of them and would do that for us which he did not for them Unto this add that when Man sinned and the whole stock of mankind was ruin'd there remained no just man to commiserate and intercede for him But when the Angels fell there remained thousands rightious who might pitie those of their own nature and be sensible of their loss and yet he would do this for Man and not for Angels The time also when this great work of mercy was put in execution shews not a little the sweetness of God Almighty to our nature It was in a time when mankind was most forgetful of God when men strove to make themselves adored for Gods and those who could not attain unto it themselves adored other men worse then devils Then did God think of making himself Man and for Man who would make himself God This was a love indeed to do most for us then when we most offended him But let us see what good we received by this great work Certainly if we had received no good at all it was much to free us from those evils whereunto we were plunged to deliver us from the ignominy of Sin from the slavery of the Devil and from the horrour of Hell To free us from these evils without any other benefit might be held an infinite good And though there had been no evils to be freed from nor goods to be bestowed upon us yet the honour which our nature received in having God to become one of us was an incomparable blessing But joyning to this honour our deliverance from those horrid and desperate evils what happiness may be compared to ours Justin writes that Alexander the Great beholding Lysimachus wounded in the head and that he lost much blood took his Diadem and bound it about his temples to stay his bleeding This was a great favour from so mighty a Prince as well in the care he took of him as in the manner taking the Ensigne of Majesty from his own head and giving it to his vassal But Lysimachus had not injuried Alexander he had served him faithfully and received that wound in his quarrel Neither did Alexander give him his Diadem for ever but suffer'd him onely to wear it upon that present occasion But the mortal wound of sin was not received by man in defence of God or in his quarrel but in rebellion against him Yet God vouchsafes to cure the Traytor honors him with his own Diadem which is his Divinitie communicating it upon him not for a short space and then to take it from him but bâ—stowing it upon him for all eternity What a bounty is this unto an enemy that in freeing him from such a miserie crowns him with so great happiness But if to all this we shall add those other blessings which he bestows upon us giving us his grace adopting us the Sons of God and making us Heirs of heaven how infinitly will our obligations increase since we are not onely freed from so great evils but enriched with unspeakable benefits and our nature honoured by his favours above that of Angels All is marvailous all is great all is transcendent in this unspeakable goodness The work it self is transcendent the manner and love by which it was performed is transcendent The evils from which it frees us are eternal the rewards which
it prepares for us are eternal whose greatness though it were not otherwise to be known might in this sufficiently appear that to free us from so many evils and crown us with so many goods it was necessary that he who was eternal should make himself temporal and should execute this great and stupendious work so much to his own loss CAP. IV. The baseness of Temporal goods may likewise appear by the Passion and Death of Christ Jesus THe greatness of eternal goods and evils is by the Incarnation of the Son of God made more apparent unto us then the Sun beams since for the freeing us from the one and gaining for us the other it was necessary so great a work should be performed and that God judged not his whole omnipotency ill imployed that man might gain eternity Yet doth not this great work so forcibly demonstrate unto us the baseness of things temporal and the contempt which is due unto them as the Passion and Death of the Son of God which was another work of his love an other excess of his affection another tenderness of our Creator and a most high expression of his good will towards us wherein we shall see how worthy to be despised are all the goods of the Earth since to the end we might contemn them the Son of God would not onely deprive himself of them but to the contrary embraced all the evils and incommodities this life was capable of Behold then how the Saviour of the world disesteemed temporal things since he calls the best of them and those which men most covet but thorns and to the contrary that which the world most hates and abhorrs he qualifies with the name of blessings favouring so much the Poor who want all things that he calls them blessed and sayes Of them is the Kingdom of heaven And of the Rich who enjoy the goods of the earth he sayes It is harder for them to enter into heaven then for a Camel to pass the eye of a needle And to perswade us yet more he not onely in words but in actions chose the afflictions and despised the prosperity of this life and to that end would suffer in all things as much as could be suffered In honour by being reputed infamous In riches by being despoyled of all even to his proper garments In his pleasures by being a spectacle of sorrow and afflicted in each particular part of his most sacred body This we ought to consider seriously that we may imitate him in that contempt of all things temporal which he principally exprest in his bitter death and passion This he would have us still to keep in memory as conducing much to our spiritual profit as an example which he left us and as a testimony of the love he bore us leaving his life for us and dying for us a publick death full of so many deaths and torments Zcnophon in Cyro lib. 3. Tigranes King of Armenia together with his Queen being prisoners unto Cyrus and one day admited to dine with him Cyrus demanded of Tigranes What he would give for the liberty of his wife to whom Tigranes answered That he would not onely give his Kingdom but his life and blood The woman not long after requited this expression of her husband For being both restored to their former condition One demanded of the Queene What she thought of the Majesty and Greatness of Cyrus to whom she answered Certainly I thought not on him nor fixt mine eyes on any but him who valued me so much as he doubted not to give his life for my ransom If this Lady were so grateful onely for the expression of her husbands affections that she looked upon nothing but him and neither admired nor desired the greatness of the Persians What ought the Spouse of Christ to do who not onely sees the love and affection of the King of Heaven but his deeds not his willingness to die but his actual dying a most horrid and cruel death for her ransom and redemption Certainly she ought not to place her eyes or thoughts upon any thing but Christ crucified for her Sabinus also extolls the loyalty and love of Vlysses to his Wife Penelope in regard that Circe and Calypso promising him immortality upon condition that he should forget Penelope and remain with them he utterly refused it not to be wanting to the love and affection he owed unto his Spouse who did also repay it him with great love and affection Let a Soul consider what great love and duty it owes to its Spouse Christ Jesus who being immortal did not onely become mortal but died also a most ignominious death Let us consider whether it be reasonable it should forget such an excessive love and whether it be fit it should ever be not remembring the same and not thankful for all eternity hazarding to lose the fruits of the passion of its Redeemer and Spouse Christ Jesus Upon this let thy Soul meditate day and night and the spiritual benefits which she will reap from thence will be innumerable Albertus Magnus used to say Lud. de Ponte P. 4. in introduc That the Soul profited more by one holy thought of the Passion of Christ than by reciting every day the whole Psalter by fasting all the year in bread and water or chastizing the Body even to the effusion of blood One day amongst others when Christ appeared unto St. Gertrude to confirm her in that devotion she had to his Passion he said unto her behold Daughter if in a few hours which I hung upon the Cross I so enobled it that the whole world hath ever since had it in reverence how shall I exalt that Soul in whose heart and memory I have continued many years Certainly it cannot be exprest what favour devout Souls obtain from Heaven in thinking often upon God and those pains by which he gained tor us eternal blessings and taught us to despise things temporal and transitory But that we may yet reap more profit by the holy remembrance of our Saviours passion we are to consider that Christ took upon him all our sins and being to satisfy the Father for them would do it by the way of suffering for which it was convenient that there should be a proportion betwixt the greatness of his pains and the greatness of our sins And certainly as our sins were without bound or limit so the pains of his torments were above all comparison shewing us by the greatness of those injuries he received in his passion the greatness of those injuries we did unto God by our inordinate pleasures We may also gather by the greatness of those pains and torments which were inflicted upon him by the Jews and Hangmen the greatness of those which he inflicted upon himself for certainly those pains which he took upon himself were not inferior to those he received from others But who can explicate the pains which our Saviour wounded by the grief he conceived at
at the pleasure of his enemies which was the more tenderly resented as I may say by our blessed Lord because his enemies cast it in his teeth saying He trusted in God let him deliver him if he will have him But for all this his Father would not then free him or afford him any comfort which our Saviour most lovingly complained of when he said My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Even a cup of water failed him to quench his scorching thirst so as the whole manner of his passion was the most grievous and opprobrious that could be imagned Lastly the Time of his Passion made it much more grievous It was the Eve of the Passover when the whole Nation was assembled when there was the greatest concourse of people to behold him It was at a time when he was known to all by the fame of his great works and miracles It was in the flower of his age and O what pity was it to behold so flourishing so beautiful so excellently composed a body reduced by the grievousness of his torments to such an exigent that as the Scripture sayes his tongue stuck to the pallat of his mouth so fallen in flesh that all his bones might be numbred the whole structure of his body so discomposed that he became as Melted wax or Spilt water resolved into the dust of death drie as a piece of an earthen pot insomuch as he seemed a Worm and not a Man the Scorn of the people and Shame of humane nature It is also worthy our admiration that in that short process of the Passion of Christ he suffered so many griefs and pains in so many kinds and with such circumstances to aggravate them as no man in the whole success of time since hath suffered any sort of calamity or adversity which our Redeemer did not then suffer in a more bitter manner In all circumstances were the pains of Christ most grievous because in all circumstances the offences of men were most hainous It was convenient that he who came to do us all good should suffer so much evil that he who had no sin of his own should undergoe the punishment due unto the sins of others and that he who was infinitely good should suffer the evil of so much grief and torment to the end we might be instructed that those are not evils which the world fears but those which sin brings along with it and that the goods of the world are so far from being real goods that they are rather to be esteemed as evils since the Redeemer of the world deprived himself of the goods and burthened himself with the evils to the end that we imitating in our lives his most precious death might despise all temporal goods which are so short and false that even the evils of the world are more true and real goods than they Let us then be ashamed seeing Christ in so much sorrow to seek after pleasures Let us have at least as great respect unto our Redeemer as Ethay the Gethite had to David who when the holy King fled from his Son Absolon and perswaded him not to follow him in that dangerous condition made him this answer The Lord live and my Lord the King live in what place soever thou shalt be either dead or alive there also shall thy servant be If this was spoken by a Stranger what ought to be the loyalty of a natural Subject Let us bear that faith unto our Saviour which Vrias did to Joab his General when he said The Ark of Gad and Judah and Israel lodge in Tents and my Lord Joab and the Servants of my Lord remain upon the earth and shall I enter into my house and eat and drink and sleep with my Wife by thy health and the health of thy Soul O King I will do no such thing If Christ remain upon the Cross and in sorrow how comest thou to seek for ease If Christ be poor why doest thou abound If Christ suffer why doest thou pamper thy flesh If Christ humble himself why doest thou swell in pride If Christ be in afflictions why art thou in delights Remember what he taught thee from the Cross and esteem onely that which he so much valued as to deprive himself of the transitory goods of this life Consider the afflictions and penance which the most innocent Jesus took upon him for thy sins that thou mayest undergoe some for thy self When the Jews were freed from the captivity of Babylon Esdras knowing the great sins they had fallen unto by their conversation with the Gentils out of a sense and feeling of their transgressions rent his garments and tore the hair off his head and beard afflicted himself and abstained from food praying unto the Lord and weeping for the sins of the people which resentment and penance of his for the sins of others so mored the Jews that they began to weep and do penance themselves for their own sins and that with so great compunction that they trembled for sorrow and publickly confest their offences Why are not Christians then moved with sorrow and repentance when they behold not an Esdras but the Son of God so overcharged with grief and sorrow for the sins of the world that he distilled drops of blood from the pores of his blessed body and rent his garments not of wooll but of his sacred humanity which he willingly offered to be torn with scourges thorns and nails suffered himself to be pluckt by the hair of the head and beard and his sacred face to be buffetted and spit upon would not taste eat or drink any thing but gall and vinegar weeping from the Cross for the sins committed by us wretches Let us then weep afflict our selves and do penance for our own sins since we see our innocent Saviour did it for the sins of others that imitating him in submitting our selves to those temporal afflictions we may be partakers of his eternal glory § 3. Those seaven Circumstances which so much aggravate the pains and torments of our Saviour Jesus Christ in his passion ought to pierce our very hearts and souls with grief and sorrow But if they should not prevail with us to despise the world and love him onely who so infinitely loved us yet there are other Circumstances which with new obligations will not onely move but force us if we be not more hard than stones to love and die for him Whom would not the sweet manner of his passion move seeing the Son of God suffer with so much love and patience without complaint of any thing loving us with that fervour that what he did seemed little unto him ready if it had been necessary to suffer as much more for us yea such was his burning charity towards Mandkind that if there had been no other way left for our Redemption he would not have refused to continue in those bitter torments till the day of Judgement The affection of Jesus Christ what gratitude doth
it not deserve And if in benefits the good will wherewith they are conferred is most to be esteemed When the benefit is infinite and the will of infinite love what shall we do If when that Traitor who murthered Henry the Fourth King of France was justly sentenced to those cruel torments wherein he died the first begotten Son of the dead King and Heir unto his Kingdom had cloathed himselt in the habit of the Murtherer and offered to be torn in pieces for him and to die that he might be freed from his torments and not only offered but actually performed it What love and thanks would the Prince deserve from that Caitiff O King of Glory and onely begotten Son of the eternal Father in as much as lay in us we were desirous to murther thy Father and to destroy his Divine essence and being and therefore were most worthy of death and eternal flames But thou wert not onely willing to die for us but effectually gavest thy blood and life with so inhumane torments for us and wert prepared to suffer more and greater for our good How shall we repay so great a love what thanks what gratitude for so immense a benefit Let us also consider What we our selves are for whom he suffered For he suffered not for himself or because it imported him he suffered not for another God nor for some new creature of a superiour nature to all those who now are not for a Seraphin who had faithfully served him for an eternity of years but for a miserable vile creature the lowest of all those which are capable of reason composed of dirt and his Enemy This should make us more grateful that God suffered so much for us who least deserved it To this may be added that he suffered thus much for us not that his suffering was necessary tor our redemption and freedom out of the slavery of sin but took upon him all these pains and torments onely to shew his love unto us and to oblige us to imitate him in the contempt of the world and all humane felicity Let us then behold our selves in this Mirrour and reform our lives Let us suffer with him who suffered so much for us Let us be thankful unto him who did us so much good and so much to his own cost Let it grieve our very souls that we have offended so good a God who suffered so many evils that we should not be evil Let us admire the Divine goodness who being the honour of Angels would for so vile a creature abase himself to the reproach of the Cross Let us love him who so truly loved us Let us put our trust in him who without asking gave us more than we durst desire Let us imitate this great example proposed unto us by the Eternal Father upon Mount Calvarie Let us compose our lives conformable unto the death of his Son our Saviour in all humility and contempt of temporal felicity that we may thereby attain the eternal that humbling our selves now he may exalt us hereafter that suffering here he may in his good time comfort us that tasting in this life what is bitter we may in the other be satiated with all sweetness and that weeping in time we may rejoyce for all eternity To which end our Saviour said unto the great Imitator of his Passion St. Francis Francis take those things that are bitter in lieu of those that are sweet if thou intendest to be happy And accordingly St. Austin Brethren Augus Ser. 11. ad fra Know that after the pleasures of this life are to follow eternal lamentations for no man can rejoyce both in this world and the next And therefore it is necessary that he who will possess the one should lose the other If thou desirest to rejoyce here know that thou shalt be banisht from thy Celestial Country but if thou shalt here weep thou shalt even at present be counted as a Citizen of Heaven And therefore our Lord said Blessed are those who weep for they shall be comforted And for this reason it is not known that our Saviour ever laught but it is certain that he often wept and for this reason chose a life of pains and troubles to shew us that that was the right way to joy and repose CAP. V. The Importance of the Eternal because God hath made himself a means for our obtaining it and hath left his most holy Body as a Pledge of it in the Blessed Sacrament ANother most potent motive to induce us to the estimation of what is Eternal and the contempt of what is Temporal is That God hath in the most holy and venerable Sacrament of his body and blood made himself a means that we might attain the one by despising the other Which holy Mystery was instituted That it might serve as a Pledge of those eternal goods and therefore the holy Church calls it a Pledge of future glory and That it might also serve us as a Viaticum whereby we might the better pass this temporal life without the superfluous use of those goods which are so dangerons unto us Our Lord bestowing this Divine bread upon us Christians as he did that of Manna heretofore unto the Hebrews And therefore as we gave a beginning unto this work with a presentation of that temporal Manna which served as a Viaticum unto the children of Israel in the wilderness so we will now finish it with the truth of this spiritual Manna of the blessed Sacrament which is a Pledge of the eternal goods and given as a Viaticum unto Christian people in the peregrination of this life Let a Christian therefore know how much it imports him to obtain the Eternal and with what earnestness his Creator desires it that having obliged us by those high endearments of his Incarnation and Passion in suffering for us so grievous and cruel a death would yet add such an excess of love as to leave himself unto us in the most blessed Sacrament as a means of our Salvation Who sees not here the infinite goodness of God since he who as God omnipotent is the beginning of all things and as the chief good of all goods and most perfect in himself is likewise their utmost end would yet for our sakes make himself a Medium which is common to the creatures and argues no perfection Our Lord glories in the Scripture that he is the beginning and end of all And with reason for this is worthy of his greatness and declares a perfection whereof only God is capable But to make himself a Medium and such a Medium as was to be used according to humane will and subject to the power and despose of man was such a complyance with our nature and such a desire of our salvation as cannot be imagined the Means of our salvation may be considered either as they are on Gods part or on Mans part for both God and Man work for mans salvation That God should serve himself