and therefore reprehended his Nephew for spending a short time in walking for his recreation telling him that those hours might be better imployed and being present when the same Nephew caused one which in reading pronounced a word with an ill accent to repeat it again admonisht him that too much time was lost in that useless repetition Seneca esteemed time above all price and value and in this manner sayes Redeem thy self unto thy self recover and preserve that time which hitherto hath been taken surprised or slipt from thee For whom wilt thou give me that shall set a price upon time or give a value unto a day who understands himselt daily to die If therefore the Gentils who had no hope by time to purchase Eternity made so great account of it what shall we Christians unto whom it is an occasion of eternal happiness Let us therefore hear St. Bernard Serm ad Scho. There is nothing sayes he more precious than time But out alass nothing at this day is more vilified A day of salvation is past and no man reflects on it no man thinks no man complains that he hath lost a day which shall never râ—â—rn But as a hair from the head so a moment of time shall not perish The same Saint also grieving to see a thing so precious so much mispent speaks in this manner Let no man make a small esteem of the time which is spent in idle words Say some We may yet chat and talk untill this hour be past O wretched speech Vntil this hour be past This being the hour which the goodness of thy Creator hath bestowed upon thee that in it thou mayest do penance for thy sins obtain pardon acquire grace and merit glory O lamentable speech Whilst this hour passes this being the hour wherein thou mayst gain divine mercy and commiseration In another part he speaks much to the same purpose exhorting us to benefit our selves by the time of this life His words are these Serm. 75. in Cant. Whilest we have time let us do good unto all especially since our Lord said plainly that the night would come when no man could work Art thou perhaps to find some other time in the world to come wherein thou mayst seek God and wherein thou mayst do good This being the time wherein he hath promised to remember thee and is therefore the day of mercy because here our God and King hath long agoe wrought thy salvation in the middest of the earth goe then and expect thy salvation in the middest of hell What possibility doest thou dream of obtaining pardon in the middest of eternal flames when the time of mercy is already past No sacrifice tor sin remains tor thee being dead in sin no more shall the Son of God be crucified for thee Once he died and shall now die no more That blood which he spilt upon the earth shall not descend into hell The sinners of the earth have drunk it up There is no part left for the devils or for sinners which are the companions of devils wherewith to quench their flames Once descended thither not the blood but the soul of Christ This only visit made by the presence of the soul when the body hung without life upon the Cross was the portion of them who were in prison The blood watered the dry land the blood was poured upon the thirsty earth and did as it were inebriate it The blood wrought peace for those who were upon earth and those who are in heaven but not for those which were in hell beneath the earth Once only as we have said the soul went thither and made in part redemption speaking of the souls of the Holy Fathers who were in Limbo that even for that moment the works of charity might not be wanting but it passed no farther Now is the time acceptable now is the time fit wherein to seek God And certainly he that seeks him shall finde him if so be he seek him when and where he ought to do All this from St. Bernard § 2. Consider what an eternal repentance will follow thee if thou makest not use of this occasion of time for the purchasing of the Kingdom of Heaven especially when thou shalt see that with so little adoe thou mightest have gained that everlasting glory which to satisfie a short pleasure thou hast lost tor ever In what to fury and madness was Esau Gen. 19. when he reflected that his younger brother had gotten the Blessing of the first born by his own base selling his Birth-right for a dish of Lentils he cried out and tore himself for spite and anger Behold thy self in this mirrour who for one vile and short pleasure hast sold the Kingdom of Heaven If God had then thrown thee into hell what wouldest thou have done but lamented that with eternal tears which in so short a time was lost Cain when he perceived that he and his posterity were cursed and made infamous for not knowing how to benefit himself by that occasion Gen. 9. which was first offered unto him and made use of by his Brother what resentment had he then or ought to have had Measure by this the sense of a damned person who for not making use of the time of this lite shall see himself cursed by God for an Eternity and others far less than himself made blessed and rewarded in heaven The Sons-in-law of Loth when they saw they might have escaped the fire and that being invited they had rejected and laughed at the counsel of their Father-in-law when afterwards they perceived it to rain fire and sulphur upon them and their Cities what grief and vexation had they for refusing the benefit of so fair an occasion offered at their own doors O what sorrow what pain what madness what desperation shall seise upon a damned creature when he shall call to mind how often he hath been invited by Christ to salvation and shall now feel a tempest of fire and sulphur pouring down upon him for ever in hell King Hannon who had so good an occasion to preserve that peace whereunto he was intreated and invited by David when after he saw his Cities ruin'd the Inhabitants burnt like bricks in a furnace some thrasht to death others torn in pieces what would he have given to have made use in time of so fair an offer or of holding friendship with so great a King but what is this in respect of what a sinner shall feel when he shall see himself burnt in hell fire become an eternal enemy of the King of Heaven and deprived tor ever of raigning with his blessed Saints what despite what grief of heart shall he then have The evil Theef who was crucified with the Saviour of the world what doth he now endure for refusing that good occasion which his companion embraced what a repentance hath now the rich Glutton for not laying hold of so great an opportunity offered him at his own home
in it of a most intolerable stench What shall I then say of the Tongue which is the instrument of so many wayes of sinning flattery lying murmuring calumniating gluttony and drunkenness who can express that bitterness which the miserable shall suffer greater than that of wormwood or aloes insomuch as the Scripture sayes The gall of dragons shall be their wine and they shall taste the poison of Asps for all eternity Unto which shall be joyned an intolerable thirst and dog-like hunger conformable unto which David said They shall suffer hunger as dogs Quintilian sayes Quintil. Declam â—2 That Famine is the most pressing of all necessities and most deformed of all evils that Plagues and Warres are happinesses in respect of it If then a Famine of eight dayes be the worst of temporal evils what shall that Famine be which is eternal Let our Epicures and Belly-Gods hear what the Son of God prophesies Luc. 6. Wo unto you who are full for you shall be an hungred and with such an hunger as shall be eternal If the other evils of this world as Quintilian affirms may be esteemed not much in comparison of hunger even in this temporal life what will they be in respect of the hunger of the life to come Hunger in this life does bring men to such extremities that not onely they come to desire to eat Dogs Cats Rats and Mice Snakes Toads Leather Dung and eat them in effect but also Mothers come to eat their own Children and men the flesh of their own arms as it fell out to Zeno the Emperour If hunger be so horrible a mischief in this life how will it afflict the damned in the other without all doubt the damned would rather tear themselves in pieces than suffer it Neither shall thirst torment them less The sense of Touching as it is the most extended sense of all the rest so shall it be the most tormented in that burning fire Bar. ad an 191. We are amazed to think of the inhumanity of Phalaris who roasted men alive in his brasen Bull. This was a toy in respect of that fire of Hell which penetrates the very entrails of the body without consuming them The burning of a finger only does cause so great a torment that it is unsufferable but far greater were it to burn the whole arm and far greater were it besides the arms to burn the leggs and far more violent torment would it be to burn the whole body This torment is so great that it cannot be expressed in words since it includes or comprises as many torments as the body of man hath joints sinews arteries c. and especially being caused by that so penetrating and true fire of which St. Austin sayes that this temporal fire is but a painted fire in respect of that in Hell in so much that the fire of Hell does exceed ours by so many degrees as a thing in life and reality exceeds the same in a picture In conformity to what is here said venerable Peter Cluniacensis writes and when we read such like stories from the representations therein contained we are to raise our thoughts to the substance therein represented This venerable man then writes That a wicked Priest being ready to give up the ghost there appeared unto him two fiery Devils who brought with them a Frying-pan in which they told him they would fry him in Hell and a drop of hot liquor then falling out of the Frying-pan upon his hand in a moment burnt him to the very bones in the sight of all that were present who remained astonished to see the efficacy and violence of that infernal fire Whereupon Nicholas of Nice sayes that if there were a fire made of all the wood in the world it would not be able to cause so much torment as the least spark of Hell-fire Caesarius does also write Caesar l. 12. mirac c. 23. That Theodosius Bishop of Mastrick had a Servant by name Eberbach who in a raging fit of anger gave himself to the Devil upon condition he would help him to take revenge upon his Enemies Some years after this man fell grievously sick of a disease that brought him to the point of death and being now dead in all mens judgement his soul was cast into a sea of fire where he remained suffering until such time as an Angel of Heaven came unto him and said Behold what they are to suffer that serve the Devil But if so great a mercy should be shewed unto thee as to grant thee longer life wouldst thou not spend it in doing penance for thy sins He replyed There can be nothing so hard or painful which I would not undergoe to escape this torment Then the Lord used that mercy to him as to let him return to the use of life and senses and rising off the Biere where he was already placed to be carried to burial all that were present were astonished at him who at the same instant began a course of life of most austere and rigorous penance He went bare-foot upon thorns and briars store of blood issuing from the wounds received He lived onely on bread and water and that in a very small quantity What money he had he gave to the poor There were many who wondering at the rigour of his penance endeavoured to moderate the excess of his fervour and austerities to whom he answered Wonder not hereat for I have suffered torments of a far different kind and if you had been there you would frame a far different apprehension of them And for to explicate the excessive torment that fire caused he said That if all the trees in the world were put in one heap and set on fire I would rather burn there till the day of judgement than suffer onely for the space of one hour that fire which I have experienced Now what a miserable unhappiness will it be to burn in those flames of Hell not onely for one hour but till the day of Judgement yea even for all eternity and world without end Who would not esteem it an hideous torment if he were to be burnt alive an hundred times and his torment were to last every time for an hours space with what compassionate eyes would all the world look upon such a miserable wretch Nevertheless without all doubt any of the damned in Hell would receive this as a great happiness to end his torments with those hundred times burning For what comparison is there betwixt an hundred hours burning with some space of time betwixt every hour and to burn an hundred years of continual torment And what comparison will there be betwixt burning for an hundred years space and to be burning without interruption as long as God is God Let a Christian who hath ever committed a mortal sin consider this and let him see what can be difficult sharp and intolerable since thereby he deserved to be cast into Hell and let him see whether he think any
contempt of what is temporal since the first step unto Christian perfection according to the Counsel of Christ is to renounce all that we possess of earth that being so freed from those impediments of Christian perfection we may employ our selves in the consideration and memory of that Eternity which expects us hereafter as a reward of our holy works and exercises of vertue This horrid voice Eternity Eternity is to sound often in our hearts Thou not onely art to die but being dead eternity attends thee Remember there is a Hell without end and fix it in thy memory that there is a Glory for ever This consideration That if thou shalt observe the Law of God thou shalt be eternally rewarded and if thou break it thou shalt suffer pains without end will be far more powerful with thee then to know that the goods and evils of this life are to end in death Be mindful therefore of Eternity and resound in the inmost part of thy soul Eternity Eternity For this the Church when it consecrates the Fathers of it which are Bishops puts them in minde of this most powerful and efficacious memory of Eternity bidding them think of eternal years as David did And in the assumption and consecration of Popes they burn before their eyes a small quantity of flax with these words Holy Father so passes away the glory of the world that by the sight of that short and transitory blaze he may call to minde the flames eternal And Martin the fifth for his imprese and devise took a flaming fire which in short time burnt and consumed a Popes Tiara an Imperial Diadem a Regal Crown and a Cardinals Hat to give them to understand that if they complyed not with the duties of their places they were in a short time to burn in the eternal flames of hell the memory whereof he would preserve ever present by this most profitable Symbol §. 2. The name of Isachar whose Blessing from his Father was as we have formerly said to lye down and rest betwixt the two limits of Eternity signifies him That hath a memory or The man of reward or pay The Holy Ghost by this mystery charging us with the memory of eternal rewards And the Lord to shew how precious it was in his divine esteem and how profitable for us caused this name of Isachar to be engraven in a precious Amethyst which was one of those stones worn by the High-Priest in the Rational and one of those also rcveal'd unto St. John to be of the foundation of the City of God By it saith St. Anselme is signified the memory of Eternity which is the most principal foundation in the building of all perfection Truely if we consider the properties of this stone they are so many marks and properties of the memory of Eternity and of the benefits which that soul reaps Albert. Mag. Milius Ruiz v. Cesium de Min. lib. 4. p. 2. cap. 14. sect 14. which seriously considers it The Amethyst cause Vigilancy And what requires it more then the passage betwixt the two extreams of eternal glory and eternal pains What thing in the world ought to awake us more then the danger of falling into hell fire How could that man sleep which were to pass over a narrow plank of half a foot broad which served as a bridge betwixt two most high rocks the windes impetuously blowing and he if his foot slipt certain to fall into a most vast abyss No less is the danger of this life The way by which we are to pass unto Heaven is most streight the windes of temptations violent the dangers of occasions frequent the harms by ill examples infectious and the deceits of wicked Counsellors very many How then can a Christian sleep and be careless in so evident a peril Without all doubt it is more difficult to be saved considering the depravedness of our nature and the deceitful ambushes of the Devil then for a heavy man to pass over a heady and rapid river upon a small and bruised reed They say also of the Amethyst that besides the making him watchful who carries it it frees him from evil thoughts which how can that man have who bears Eternity in his mind how can he think upon the short pleasures of his senses who considers the eternal torments due unto his soul if he shall but consent to the least mortal sin The Amethyst also resists drunkenness preserving him that wears it in his senses and judgment and there is nothing that more preserves a mans judgment in the middest of the wine of delights in this life then the memory of the other and that for the pleasure of one moment here he is not only to suffer for hours for dayes for moneths for years but for worlds and a world of worlds hereafter The Amethyst besides this preserves the wearer from the force of poison And what greater Antidote against the poison of sin then to remember Hell which he deservs and Heaven which he loses by committing it The Amethyst also quiets a man and settles his thoughts And what can be more efficacious to free us from the disturbance of this life to bridle the insolence of covetousness to repress the aspiring of ambition then to consider the blessings of Eternity which attend the humble and poor in spirit Finally the Amethyst conferrs fruitfulness and this great thought of Eternity is fruitful of holy works For who is he that considers with a lively faith that for a thing so sleight and momentary he may enjoy the reward of eternal glory and will not be animated to work all he is able and to endure and suffer what shall happen for God Almighty and his Cause O how fruitful of Heroical works is this holy thought Eternal glory expects me the Triumphs of Martyrs the Victories of Virgins the Mortifications of Confessors are the effects of this consideration O holy thought O precious Amethyst that makes vigilant and attentive the negligent and careless that gives wisdom and judgment to the most deceived that heals those who are most ulcerated and corrupted with the poison of sin that quiets and pacifies the motions and troubles of our concupiscences that makes the most tepid and barren of vertues fruitful of holy works who will not endeavour to obtain and fix thee in his Soul O that Christians would so grave thee in their heart that thou mightest never be blotted out nor removed from thence How differently would they then live to what they now do how would they shine in their works for although the memory of Hell Heaven Death and Judgment be very efficacious for the reformation of our lives yet this of Eternity is like the quintescence of them all and virtually contains the rest CAP. IV. The Estate of Men in this life and the miserable forgetfulness which they have of Eternity BEfore we come to declare the conditions of Eternity whose consideration is so necessary for the leading of a holy
flourishing and pleasant Orchards consumed without power either to preserve them or themselves All shall burn and with it the World and all the fame and memory of it shall die and that which mortals thought to be immortal shall then end and perish No more shall Aristotle be cited in the Schools nor Vlpian alleaged in the Tribunals no more shall Plato be read amongst the Learned nor Cicero imitated by the Orators no more shall Seneca be admired by the understanding nor Alexander extolled amongst Captains all fame shall then die and all memory be forgotten O vanity of men whose memorials are as vain as themselves which in few years perish and that which lasts longest can endure no longer than the World What became of that Statue of maslie gold which Gorgias the Leontin placed in Delphos to eternize his Name and that of Gabrion in Rome and that of Borosus with the golden tongue in Athens and innumerable others erected to great Captains in brass or hardest marble certainly many years since they are perished or if not yet they shall perish in this great and general Conflagration Onely vertue no fire can burn Three hundred sixty Statues were erected by the Athenians unto Demetrius Phalareus for having governed their Common-wealth ten years with great vertue and prudence but of so little continuance were these Trophies that those very Emblems which were raised by gratitude were soon after destroyed by envy and he himself who saw his Statues set up in so great a number saw them also pulled down but he still retained this comfort which Christians may learn from him that beholding how they threw his Images unto the ground he could say at least They cannot overthrow those Vertues for which they were erected If they were true Vertues he said well for those neither envy can demolish nor humane power destroy and which is more the divine power will not in this general destruction of the World consume them but will preserve in his eternal memory as many as shall persevere in goodness and die in his holy grace for onely Charity and Christan Vertues shall not end when the World ends The sight of those Triumphs exhibited by Roman Captains when they conquered some mighty and powerful Kings lasted but a while and the memories of the Triumphers not much longer and now there are few who know that Metellus triumphed over King Jugurtha Aquilius over King Aristonicus Atilius over King Antiochus Marcus Antonius over the King of Armenia Pompey over King Mithridates Aristobulus and Hiarbas Emilius over King Perseus and the Emperour Aurelius over Cenâ—bia the Queen of the Palmirens If few know this but dumb Books and dead Paper when those shall end what shall then become of their memories How many Histories hath fire consumed and are now no more known then if they had never been Written neither to doe nor write can make the memory of man immortal Aristarchus wrote more than a thousand Commentaries of several Subjects of which not one line remains at present Chrysippus wrote seaven hundred Volumes and now not one leaf is extant Theophrastus wrote thre hundred and sarce three or four remain Above all is that which is reported of Dionysius Grammaticus that he wrote three thousand five hundred works and now not one sheet appears But yet more is that which Jamlicus testifies of the great Trimegistus that he composed thirty six thousand five hundred twenty five books and all those are as if he had not written a letter for 4 or 5 little and imperfect Treatises which pass under his name are none of his Time even before the end of time leaves no Books nor Libraries By the assistance of Demetrius Phalareus King Ptolomy collected a great Library in Alexandria in which were stored all the Books he could gather from Caldee Greece and Aegypt which amounted to seventy thousand bodies but in the Civil Wars of the Romans it perished by that burning which was caused by Julius Caesar Another famous Library amongst the Greeks of Policrates and Phisistratus was spoyled by Xerxes The Library of Bizantium which contained a hundred and twenty thousand Books was burnt in the time of Basiliscus That of the Roman Capitol was in the time of Commâ—dus turned into ashes by lightning and what have we now of the great Library of Pergamus wherein were two hundred thousand Books Even before the end of the World the most constant things of the World die And what great matter is it if those memorials in paper be burnt since those in brass melt and those of marble perish That prodigious Amphitheater Vide Lips In Amph. which Stability Taurus raised of stone was burnt in the time of Nero the hard marble not being able to defend it self from the soft flames The great riches of Corinth in gold and silver were melted when the Town was fired those precious mettals could neither with their hard-resist nor with their value hire a friend to defend them from those furious flames If this particular burning in the most flourishing time of the World caused so great a ruine what shall that general one which shall make an end of the World and all things with it § 5. Let us now consider as we have already in Earthquakes and Deluges what great astonishment and destruction hath sometime happened by some particular burnings that by them we may conceive the greatness of the horror and ruine which will accompany that general one of the whole world What lamentations were in Rome when it burnt for seven dayes together What shrieks were heard in Troy when it was wholly consumed with flames What howling and astonishment in Pentapolis when those Cities were destroyed with fire from heaven Some say they were ten Cities Strabo thirteen Josephus and Lira five that which of faith is that there were four at least who with all their Inhabitants were consumed What weeping was therein Jerusalem when they beheld the House of God the Glory of their Kingdom the Wonder of the World involved in fire and smoke And that we may draw nearer unto our own times when lightning from Heaven fell upon Stockholme the capital City of Sweden and burnt to death above 1600 persons besides an innumerable multitude of Women and Children who hoping to escape the fire at land fled into the ships at Sea but overcharging them were all drowned Imagin what that people felt when they saw their houses and goods on fire and no possibility of saving them when the Husband heard the shrieks and cries of his dying Wife the Father of his little Children and unawares perceived himself so encompassed with flames that he could neither relieve them nor free himself What grief Albert. Krant Suec l. 5. c. 3. what anguish possest the hearts of those unfortunate creatures when to avoid the fury of the fire they were forced to trust themselves to the no less cruel waves when by their own over-hasty crowdings and indiscretion they saw their Ships
overwhelmed and themselves compell'd to escape the burning of their Country to struggle with the water and that which way soever they turned they perceived death still to follow them and were certain to perish What shall be then the streights and exigences of that general burning when those who shall escape Earthquakes Inundations of the Sea the fury of whirlwindes and lightning from Heaven shall fall into that universal Fire that Deluge of flames which shall consume all and make an end both of men and their memories Of those who lived before the Flood and were Masters of the World for so long a time except it be of some few which the Scripture mention we know nothing Those heroical actions which certainly some of them performed and gained by them incomparable fame lye buried in the waters and there remains no more memory of those who did them than if they had never been born No more permanent shall be the fame of those which now resounds in the ears of the whole World Cyrus Alexander Hannibal Scipio Caesar Augustus Plato Aristotle Hippocrates Euclid and the rest no more World no more Fame This Fire shall end all that smoke Nor is the World without convenient proportion to end in fire which is now so full of smoke There are few comparisons as hath been said in the beginning of this work which express better what the World is than that which St. Clement the Roman learned of St. Peter the Apostle who said the World was like a house full of smoke which in such manner blinds the eyes as it differs not those within it to see things as they are and so the World with its deceits so disguises the nature of humane things as we perceive not what they are Ambition and humane honour which the World so much dotes after are no more than smoke without substance which so blinds our understandings that we know not the truth of that we so much covet It is no marvail that so much smoke comes at last to end in flames The smoke of the Mountains Vesuvius and Aetna when it ends in fire and bursts forth into those innumerous flames hath amazed the World and rivers of fire have been seen to issue from their bowels Zon. In Tito Proc. l. 2. Vesuvius is near unto Naples and the fire hath sometimes sallyed forth with that impetuous violence that as grave Authors affirm the ashes have been seen in Constantinople and Alexandria And St. Augustine writes St. Aug. l. 3. de Civit. c. 31. that the ashes of Mount Aetna overwhelmed the City of Catanea and in our time when Vesuvius burst out the very flame of it terrified places far distant and secure And now lately in the year 1638. the third of July near the Island of St. Michael one of the Terceras the fire bursting out from the bottom of the Sea 150 fathomes deep and over-coming the weight of so huge a mass of water sent up his flames unto the clouds and made many places although far distant to tremble With what fury shen shall the general Conflagration of the World burst forth that part which shall issue forth of Hell and from beneath the Earth shall fill the World with ashes before it be involved in flames and when a crack of thunder or a flash of lightning amazes us so much that fire which falls from heaven what violence and noise shall it bring along with it Lot the Nephew of Abraham being secure in conscience and promised by the Angel of God that for his sake the City of Segor should not be burnt but that he might rest safe in it was notwithstanding so affrighted with the fire which fell upon other Cities in that Valley of Pentapolis that notwithstanding he saw it not yet he held himself not late but retired unto the Mountains What counsel shall sinners take in that extremity when their own Conscience shall be their accusors and when they shall behold the World all on fire about them whither shall they flye for safety when no place will afford it Shall they climb unto the Mountains thither the flames will follow them Shall they descend into the Valleys thither the fire will pursue them Shall they shut themselves up in strong Castles and Towns but there the wrath of God will assault them and that fire will pass their Fosses consume the Bulwarks and make an end both of them and their fortunes Besides the contempt of all things which the world esteems which we may draw from this general destruction of it by fire we may also perceive the abomination of sin since God to purifie the World from that uncleanness wherewith our offences have polluted it is resolved to cleanse it with fire as he anciently washt it with the waters of the Deluge Such are our sins that for being onely committed in the World the World it self is condemned to die what shall then become of those who sinned Less de perf div l. 13. c. 10. But from this so terrible a fire the Saints then alive shall be free that it may appear it was onely prepared for Sinners and that nothing can then avail but vertue and holiness The rich man shall not be delivered by his wealth nor the mighty by his power nor the crafty by his wiles onely the just shall be freed by his vertues none shall escape the terrour of that day by fast sailing ships or speed of horses the Sea it self shall burn and the fire shall overtake the swiftest Post onely holiness and charity shall defend the Servants of Christ unto whom the tribulations of those times shall serve to purifie their Souls by suffering that in this life with reward which they should otherwise have done for a time in the other without it Albertus Magnus observes the convenience of the two Elements by which God resolved twice to destroy the World The first by water against the fire of the flesh and heat of concupiscence which so inordinately tytannized over all vertue before the general Flood The second he hath appointed to be by fire against the coldness of charity which in those last dayes shall raign in the aged and decrepit World And as in the Deluge of waters onely the chaste Noah and his Wife who were most continent in Matrimony and his Sons and Daughters who observed chastity all the time they continued in the Ark escaped drowning so in that general fire of the World onely the Just who shall be replenished with charity shall be free from burning The Deluge of waters overwhelmed not him who was not burnt with the heat of carnal love neither shall the Deluge of fire destroy them who are enflamed with divine charity CAP. VIII How the World ought to conclude with so dreadful an end in which a general Judgment is to pass of all that is in it TO be subject to an end as hath been said were sufficient to breed in us a contempt of all things temporal for what is
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
bones heart and entrals but the fury of it shall search into the very soul and burn that with immortal flames The possession of its misery shall be Whole it shall be Perfect it shall be Full Whole because it shall suffer all sort of evils Perfect because it shall suffer them wholly and Full because it shall suffer in all the senses and in all the faculties that are capable of suffering This estate and life where we now are is not to last or to speak more properly this death is not to live but in the damned their death shall live as long as God shall have life and their miseries shall endure as long as God shall have glory CAP. VII Wherein is declared what Eternity is according to St. Bernard ST Bernard in another manner describes Eternity saying It is that which embraces all times past Serm. 1. in festo Omn. Sancto present and to come because no dayes no years no ages are able to fill up Eternity it is that which devours all times possible and imaginable and yet remains with a stomach unburthen'd still greedy of swallowing more It is said to embrace all time because it enjoyes all that in an instant which is to be enjoyed in all time Wherefore Marsilius Ficinus called Eternity an eternal moment and Lessius said it was both the longest and shortest of all things It was longest because it exceeded all time and lasted infinite spaces it was shortest because it contained all that in an instant which it was capable of containing in an infinite duration For as time is a fluid instant which flies and passes away insomuch as there is nothing of time in being but the present which is ever running and changing from one moment to another so Eternity is a permanent instant fixt and stable in which all things remain at once and are ever existent in the same manner and estate Before it all times pass the one succeeding the other whilest it stands present and perseveres the same unto them all Time and things temporal are like a Rapid river wherein the waves run rowling down each succeeding other in a perpetual vicissitude But Eternity is like a firm rock or like the bed of that river which remains settled and constant in the same place whilest the waters pass thorow it never to appear again In the like manner things temporal without permancy or consistency at all pass hastily in the presence of Eternity and never more return to salute the world And as the Bed of the river though standing still contains all the waters which run thorow it so Eternity embraces all times which passes by it Eternity may also be compared unto the Centre in a Circle which being indivisibly one corresponds unto the whole circumference and equally respects each particular point contained in it In the same manner Eternity corresponds unto all time and to each instant of it after a most marvelous way containing all that in present which time contains successively in a million of ages and is an instant equivalent unto an infinity of times not having one part after another but the whole extension amassed in one instant containing all that together in one moment which is extensible unto infinite distances of time For as the immensity of God contains in one point all the Divine greatness which without bound or limit is dilated over all parts real and imaginable in so much as it contains in one point as much as in a million of leagues even so Eternity recollects into one instant all the Divine duration although extended through an infinite time which also the reasonable creatures are to participate in the other life for as much as concerns their glory or pain and after such a manner as they are capable of Whence follows one thing very much to be considered that those goods unto which Eternity is annexed it makes infinitely better and that after two manners and as we may say with two infinities and contrariwise the bad it makes infinitely worse and that also after the same two manners The first in respect of the duration which it conferrs the which is infinite and every thing is to be esteemed so much the greater by how much the duration is longer The content of a day is not so great as that of a week nor is that equal to the content of a moneth or year and as the duration encreases so the value of the pleasure grows higher in so much as if it last infinitely it is infinitely to be esteemed In the like manner of pain the longer it lasts the worse it is and if it last infinitely it becomes an infinite evil which will infinitely exceed any temporal evil whatsoever though more in greatness and that in so high a degree that if it should be left to ones choice either to be thrown alive into a burning Furnace and at the same time to suffer all the infirmities and griefs which Physick knows and all the kindes of torments which Martyrs have endured and all the cruel punishments which have been executed upon the most hainous Offender and all this for the space of 200 millions of years but then to end and pass no further or to suffer a Migram or a Tooth-ach for a whole eternity certainly he ought rather to choose all those torments together for that time limited then either of these single pains for ever because although those exceed this in greatness yet this would infinitely exceed those in duration In summe if those although excessive were temporal and this though less were eternal which would infinitely encrease the malice of it there being hopes that those would at last find an end but this were without remedy I dare be bold to think that the lively apprehension of Eternity which the damned conceive is such that if it were in ones election either to be exempted from all the torments he now endures and to remain afflicted only with the Stone for an eternity or to have added unto his own particular torments all those which the rest of the damned suffer in all their senses but limited for a thousand millions of years he would choose this last for the lesser evil at least in reason he ought to choose it for although those pains were greater yet they were to have an end and this of the Stone though less was to be eternal Let now those levers and esteemers of transitory pleasures come to a reckoning with themselves If the torments of hell though so excessive were sufferable if they were only temporal nay to be chosen rather then so sleight a grief as the Stone that were eternal how happens it that they will not suffer with patience one small grief during the short time of this life in exchange of being freed from the eternal pains of hell fire during the other If a Giant in time that we may so speak hath no bulk or appearance in the presence of a Pigmey in eternity how
in time which are all but counterfeited and painted stuff in respect of those which are eternal See then how cheap thou hast a glory without end even for a short and transitory toyle a true and real happiness for a painted labour Certainly thou oughtest not onely to eschew the pleasures of this life but even to abhorre them and to seek Eternity through troubles fire and swords For as Eternity holds no comparison with Time so it ought during Time to be sought with fervour diligence and incomparable follicitude Salomon said of Wisdom Prov. 3. that in her right hand she held Eternity or length of dayes and in her left riches and glory to signify with what earnestness we ought to seek the eternal and to preferre vertue before wealth and honours For as the right hand is possest of more force and vigour than the left so we ought to hold fast and preserve the eternal with all our strength but not the temporal which how glorious soever they appear we are but sleightly to lay hold on since they profit nothing Things which have an end sink as it were into the abyss of nothing and are as if they had not been at all Neither speak I onely of the pleasures of life but even of life it self which is nothing but a shadow of a being in the middest of an Eternity Consider that thy pleasures before thou hadst them had for an Eternity no being and once past shall for another Eternity never be again What are they then more than if they had not been at all all of them begin and end in the middle of Eternity which neither hath beginning nor ending and are now sunk and drunk up in that vast abyss as if they had never been And therefore little shall what is temporal and passes away profit thee unless thou draw from it some fruit which is permanent and eternal CAP. XI What is Time according unto Aristotle and other Philosophers And the little consistence of life ALthough it may be collected out of that which is spoken what Time is and what temporal life and those things which pass along in Time are let us notwithstanding having already treated of Eternity consider it now more particularly that we may from thence frame a more lively conception of the baseness of things Temporal and greatness of Eternal Aristotle defines Time to be the Measure of Motion because where there is no change or succession there is no time This Speusippus declares more fully saying Time is the measure of the swift and speedy course of the Sun and Proclus will have it to be The number of the courses and revolutions of the Celestial Bodies The Pythagoreans of the motion of the highest Sphere which turns the rest of the inferior Orbs. Conformable unto which Albertus Magnus said it was The measure of the motion of the Primum Mobile Albert. Mag. in 3. phys tract 2. c. 3. Avicen suffi lib. 2. c. 13. in so much as all agree in this that Time is but an accident of a thing so unconstant as is motion Wherefore Avicenna not without reason affirmed that Time was more invalid vain and inconsiderable than Motion See then what it is to trust unto humane life since it is a member of that which is so unconstant and rapid as Time which runs and passes away according to the course of the Sun and revolutions of Stars in the Firmament whose swiftness not onely exceeds the flight of birds but even surpasses the wind it self Know then that death follows thee not with leaden feet it hath wings and comes flying in pursuit of thee with such swiftness as greater cannot be imagined it exceeds not only the birds of the air but a discharged Canon moves not with that fury as it runs after thee and will at last not fail to overtake thee Call to remembrance the swiftest things within thy apprehension and they all move but the pace of a Tortoise in comparison of Death A Falcon moves with great swiftness after a Heron but all her speed is flegm in respect of that of Time and Death which runs like an armed horseman to lay hold on thee More swift than the motion of the bird is that of the Fowlers arrow since it hits and kills her flying but dull and slow is the swiftest arrow in respect of that which Death aims at thee even from the first moment of thy birth What can be imagined more swift than a flash of lightning yet that moves leasurely in respect of Death which runs after thee with a motion equal to that of the Stars in the Firmament whose swiftness is so prodigious that according to the more moderate account of Clavius they run in one day more than a thousand seventeen millions and a half of leagues and in one hour more than forty two millions After this rate doth death pursue thee How is it that thou tremblest not how comes it that thou fearest it not now is the bow drawn now the arrow let loose and already in the way to hit thee Why doest thou strive to shun it and doest not rather humble and prepare thy self to receive it If one should tell thee that a whole tire of Artillery were immediately to be discharged against thee and no way left to avoid the stroaks how wouldest thou be amazed but if thou perceived that fire were already given the very noise perhaps would kill thee Know then that the Artillery of death with much more fury is already shot and there is no quarter of an hour wherein it flies not more than ten millions of leagues to overtake thee and yet from whence it parted and where it now is thou knowest not Wert thou certain it were far hence yet it runs with so precipitate a course that it will not fail in a short time to reach thee and therefore thou being ignorant of what distance it is thou oughtest every moment to expect it since every moment it may be with thee Besides this of swiftness we are to consider that other condition of time noted by Aristotle that it is The measure of motion accâ—rding to the precedent subsequent which is the same as it he should have said Time is the measure of motion in as much as it contains parts after parts in a continual succession the which as Averroes notes is essentially included in the definition of time as not having capacity to present things at once and together but successively and by parts some leaving to be that others may succced the first parts every moment dying that the second may possess their places Those goods of life which accompany our infancy leave us in our youth and those of our youth when we become old The candor sincerity and innocency of children is lost when they leave their coats and the strength and vigour of youth consists not with the wisdom and judgment of age It is not in the power of Time to give us altogether but
will it cause when a Sinner in the instant of Gods judgment shall see himself delivered over into the power of the infernal Dragon without all hopes of ever escaping from him who will seize upon a Soul and carry her to the abyss of hell Let us call to mind with dread that which the holy Prophet feared and said of the Devil God grant he lay not hold on my soul like a Lion when there will be none that will set me at liberty or relieve me O what a lamentable thing will it be for one to see himself in the power of Lucifer not onely abandoned by Men but also by the Angels and by the Queen of Men and Angels and even of God himself Father of all mercies Let us provide our selves in time for that which is to be done in a moment on which depends our Eternity O moment in which all time is lost if a Soul doth lose it self in it and remains lost for ever how much doest thou avail us Thou givest an assurance to all the good works of this life and causest an oblivion of all the pleasures and delights thereof to the end that Man may not wholly give himself over to them since they will then be of no benefit to him and persevere in vertue since it will not secure him unless he persevere in it to the last §. 2. How can men be careless seeing so important a business as is the salvation of their Souls to depend upon an instant wherein no new diligence nor preparations will avail them Since therefore we know not when that moment will be let us not be any moment unprovided this is a business not to be one point of time neglected since that point may be our damnation What will a hundred years spent with great penance and austerity in the service of God profit us if in the end of all those years we shall commit some grievous sin and death shall seise upon us before repentance Let no man secure himself in his past vertues but continue them until the end since if he die not in grace all is lost and if he doe what matters it to have lived a thousand years in the greatest troubles and afflictions this world could lay upon him O moment in which the just shall forget all his labours and shall rest assured of all his vertues O moment in which the pains of a Sinner begin and all his pleasures end O moment which art certain to be uncertain when to be and most certain never to be again for thou art onely once and what is in thee determined can never be revoked in another moment O moment how worthy art thou to be now fixed in our memory In vit PP l. 5. p. 565. apud Rot that we may not hereafter meet thee to our eternal mine and perdition Let us imitate the Abbot Elias who was accustomed to say That three things especially made him tremble The first when his Soul was to be pluckt out of his Body the second when it was to appear before God to receive judgment and the third when sentence was to be pronounced How terrible then is this moment wherein all these three things so terrible are to pass Let a Christian often whilest he lives place himself in that instant from whence let him behold on one part the time of his life which he is to leave and on the other the eternity whereunto he enters and let him consider what remains unto him of that and what he hopes for in this How short in that point of death did those near-hand a thousand years which Mathusala lived appear unto him and how long one day in Eternity In that instant a thousand years of life shall appear unto the Sinner no more than one hour and one hour of torments shall appear a thousand years Behold thy life from this Watch-tower from this Horizon and measure it with the eternal and thou shalt find it to be of no bulk nor extension Sec how little of it remains in thy hands and that there is no escaping from the hands of Eternity O dreadful moment which cuts off the thread of Time and begins the web of Eternity let us in time provide for this moment that we may not lose Eternity This is that precious pearl for which we ought to give all that we have or are Let it ever be in our memory let us ever be sollicitous of it since it may every day come upon us Eternity depends upon death death upon life and life upon a thread which may either be broken cut or burnt and that even when we most hope and most endeavour to prolong it A good testimony of this is that which Paulus Aemilius recounts of Charles King of Navarre Paulus Aemilius l. 9. Aâ—cidita anno 1387. who having much decayed and weakned his bodily forces by excess of lust unto which he was without measure addicted the Physicians for his cure commanded Linnens steeped in Aqua vitae to be wrapped close about his naked body He who sewed them having nothing in readiness to cut the thread made use of a candle which was at hand to burn it but the thread being wet in those spirits took fire with such speed as it fired the Linnen and before it could be prevented burnt the body of the King in that manner as he immediately dyed Upon a natural thread depended the life of this Prince which concluded in so disastrous a death and no doubt but the thread of life is as easily cut as that of flax time is required for the one but the other is broken in an instant and there are more causes of ending our life than are of breaking the smallest twist Our life is never secure and therefore we ought ever to fear that instant which gives an end to Time and beginning unto Eternity Wonderful are the wayes which death finds out and most poor and contemptible those things upon which life depends It hangs not only upon a thread but sometime upon so small a thing as a hair So Fabius a Roman Senatour was choaked with a hair which he swallowed in a draught of milk No door is shut to death it enters where air cannot enter and encounters us in the very actions of life Small things are able to deprive us of so great a good Valer. Max. lib. 6. A little grain of a grape took away the life of Anacreon and a Pear which Drusus Pompeius was playing with fell into his mouth and choaked him The affections also of the Soul and the pleasures of the Body become the high way unto death Homer dyed of grief and Sophocles of an excess of joy Dionysius was kill'd with the good news of a victory which he obtained Aurelianus dyed dancing when he married the Daughter of Domiâ—ian the Emperour Thales Milesius beholding the sports in the Theater dyed of thirst Vid. Andream Eborensem de morte non vulgari and Cornelius Gallus and
were to have an end shew us also by this signe that for their instability and inconstancy they were even before their end to be trodden under foot and despised But more lively is the same exprest by the same St. John Apoc. 15. Ribera Cornel when he beheld the Saints standing upon the Sea to note that whilest they lived they contemned and trampled under foot the transitory and fading things of this World and to declare it more fully he sayes the Sea was of glass then which nothing is more frail and although hard yet brittle Needs must the instability of things temporal be very great and therefore most despicable because it proceeeds from so many causes For as the Sea hath two several kinds of motion the first natural by which it riseth and falleth daily with continual ebbs and flows so as the waves when they are most quiet are yet still moving and inconstant the other violent when the waters are raised and incensed by some furious tempest in the same manner the things of this World are naturally of themselves fading and transitory and without any exteriour violence suffer a continual change and run rowling on toward their end but besides are also subject to other unthought of accidents and extraordinary violences which force nature out of her course and raise huge storms in the Sea of this life by which those things which we most esteem suffer shipwrack For as the fairest flower withers of it self yet is oftentimes before born away by the wind or perishes by some storm of hail The most exact beauties lose their lustre by age but are often before blasted by some violent Feaver The most costly Garments wear out in time if before not taken from us by the Theef The strongest and most sumptuous Palaces decay with continuance if before not ruined by Fire or Earthquakes In like manner both their own nature and extrinsecal violences deprive temporal things even of time it self and trail them along in perpetual changes leaving nothing stable Let us cast our eyes upon those things which men judge most worthy to endure Nazian in Monod Pli. l. 36. c. 8. and made them to the end they should be eternal How many changes and deaths have they suffered St. Gregory Nazienzen places the City of Thebes in Aegypt as the chiefest of those wonders which the world admired Pompâ—n Mela l. 1. c. 9. Most of the houses were of Alabaster Marble spotted with drops of gold which made them appear most splendid and magnificent Upon the walls were many pleasant Gardens Sur. in Comm. an 1517 Evag. l. 2. c. 1. which they called Horti pensiles or hanging Gardens and the Gates were no less than a hundred out of which the Prince could draw forth numerous Armies without noise or knowledge of the people Pomponius Mela writes that out of every Port there issued 10000 armed men Euseb de praepar Hieron in Dan. c. 1. Polusl 2. rerum Indic c. 68. which in the whole came to be an Army of a million Yet all this huge multitude could not secure it from a small Army conducted by a Youth who as St. Jerome writes took and destroyed it Marcus Polus writes that he passed by the City of Quinsay which contained fourscore millions of souls and Nicholas de Conti passing not many years after by the same way found the City wholly destroyed Nicol. de Com. in itin apud Ram. tom 1. and begun to be newly built after another form But yet in greater than this was the City of Ninive which according to the holy Scripture was of three dayes journey and it is now many ages since that we know not where it stood Plin. l. 6. c. 26. Sol. c. 3. No less stately but perhaps better fortified was the City of Babylon and that which was the Imperial City of the World became a Desert and a Habitation of Harpies Onocentaurs Satyrs Monsters and Devils as was foretold by the Prophets and the walls which were 200 foot in height and 50 in breadth could not defend it from time And yet the holy Scripture describes Ecbatana the chief City of Media to be more strong than that It was built by Arphaxad King of the Medes of square stone the Walls contained seventy cubits in breadth thirty cubits in height and the Towers which encompassed it were each in height a hundred cubits and yet for all this could not the Median Empire having such a head escape from rendring it self unto the Assyrians And the same Monarch who built it and made the World to tremble under him came to lose it and himself and having conquered many Nations became at last conquered and a Slave unto his enemies It is not much that Cities have suffered so many changes since Monarchies and Empires have done the same and so often hath the World changed her face as she hath changed her Monarch and Master He who had seen the World as it was in the time of the Persians would not have known it as it was in the time of the Assyrians and he who knew it in the time of the Persians would not have judged it for the same when the Greeks were Masters After in the time of the Romans it appeared with a face not known before and he who knew it then would not know it now and some years hence it will put on another form being in nothing more like it self than in its perpetual changes and alterations for which cause it hath been ever worthy of scorn and contempt and more now than ever Cyp. in Epist ad Demet since it becomes every day worse and grows old and decayes with age as St Cyprian notes in those words Thou art to know that the World is already grown old and doth not remain in that strength and vigour which it had at first This the World it self tells us and the daily declining of it into worse needs no other testimony The Winter wants the usual rains to fertilize the earth the Summer the accustomed heat to ripen the corn the Autumn is not loaden as heretofore with fruits nor the Spring glads us with the delight and pleasure of its sweet temperature out of the hollowed Mountains are drawn less pieces of marble and the exhausted Mines yield less quantities of gold and silver The Labourer is wanting in the Fields the Mariners in the Seas the Souldier in the Tents Innocency in the Market-places Justice in the Tribunals Sincerity in Friendship Skill in Arts and Discipline in Manners Necessary it is that that should decay which thus daily sinks into it self and approaches towards an end Immediately he adds This is the doom of the World This the ordinance of God all that is born must die all that increases must grow old the strong become feeble the great diminish and when diminished perish Anciently our lives extended beyond 800 or 900 years now few arrive unto an hundred We see boys grown gray and our
age ends not in decrepit years but then begins and in our very birth we draw near our ends and he who is now born with the age of the World degenerates Let no man therefore marvel that the parts of the World decay since the whole goes to ruine Neither is the World onely grown worse in the natural frame of it but is also much defaced in the moral the manners of men have altered it more than the violences and encounters of the Elements The Empire of the Assyrians much corrupted the primitive simplicity and innocence of it and what they wanted was effected by the Persians and wherein they failed by the Greeks and wherein they by the Romans and wherein they is abundantly made up by us For the pride of Monarchs is the ruine and destruction of good manners And therefore unto the four Monarchies may be fitly applyed that which was foretold by the Prophet Joel Joel 1. What was left by the Eruke was eaten by the Locust what was lest by the Locust was eaten by the Bruke and what was left by the Bruke was devoured by the Blast §. 2. More are the causes of alterations in the World than in the Ocean For besides the condition of humane things which as well intrinsecally and of their own nature as by the external violences which they suffer are subject to perish the very spirit and humour of man being fickle and inconstant is the occasion of great changes Not without grea◠proportion did the Holy Ghost say That the fool changed like the Moon which is not ouely mutable in figure but in colour The natural Philosophers observe three colours in the Moon pale red and white the first foreshews rain the second wind and the third chears up with hopes of fair weather In the same manner is the heart of man changed by three most violent affections represented by those three colours That of pale the colour of gold coveting riches more frail and slippery than waters That of red the colour of purple gaping after the wind of vain honours The last of white the colour of mirth and jollity running after the gusts and pleasures of this life With these three affections Man is in perpetual change and motion and as there are some Plants which follow the course of the Moon still turning and moving according to her course so these alterations in humane affections draw after them and are the cause of these great changes and revolutions which happen in the World How many Kingdoms were overthrown by the covetousness of Cyrus The ambition of Alexander did not onely destroy a great part of the World but made it put on a clear other face than it had before What part of Troy was left standing by the lascivious love of Paris who was not onely the ruine of Greece but set on fire his own Countrey That which time spares is often snatcht away by the covetousness of the Theef and how many lives are cut off by revenge before they arrive unto old age There is no doubt but humane affections are those fierce winds which trouble the Sea of this World and as the Ocean ebbs and flows according to the course of the Moon so the things of this life conform their motions unto humane passions There is no stability in any thing and least in man who is not onely changeable in himself but changes all things besides So unstable and variable is man that David unto some of his Psalms gives these words for a Title Psal 68. For those who shall change and St. Basil explicating the same Title saith It was meant of man whose life is a perpetual change unto which is conformable the translation of Aquila who instead of those words renders it Pro foliis For the leaves because man is moved by every wind as the leaves of a tree This mutability is very apparent in the Passion of Christ our Redeemer which is the subject of the 78. Psalme which beareth this Title They of Jerusalem having received him with greater honour than they ever gave to man within four dayes after treated him with the greatest infamy and villany that was possible to be exprest by Devils There is no trust in the heart of man now it loves now it abhors now it desires now fears now esteemes now despises Who is not amazed at the change of St. Peter who after so many promises and resolutions to die for his Master within a few hours swore as many false oaths that he knew him not What shall become of the Reed and Bulrush when the Oak and Ceder totters Neither is the change of Amnon a little to be wonderd at who loving Thamar with that violence of passion that he fell sick for her immediately mediatly after abhorred her so much that he barbarously turned her out of his chamber But I know nothing that can more evidently set forth the mutabilitie of humane affections than that memorable accident which happened in Ephesus Petron. Arbit tract de leg conmib leg non num 97. There lived in that City a Matron of an honest repute and conversation whose Husband dying left her the most disconsolate and sad Widow that ever was heard of all was lamentations tearing and disfiguring her face and breasts with her nails and not content with the usual Ceremonies of Widows of those times she enclosed her self with his dead Body in the Sepulcher which anciently was a Vault in the fields capacious and prepared for that use there she resolved to famish her self and follow him into the next world and had already for four dayes abstained from all manner of sustenance It happened that near that place a certain Malefactor was executed and lest his kindred should by night steal away his Body and give it burial a Souldier was appointed to watch it who being weary and remembring that not far off the Widow was enclosed in the Sepulcher resolved for a time to quit his charge and trye what entertainment he could find with her Whereupon carrying his supper along with him he entred the Vault and at first had much adoe to perswade the grieved Widow to take part with him to forsake her desperate resolution of famishing and be content to live but a while after having prevailed in this and passing further with the same oratory he perswaded her who had not denied to share with him in his supper to afford him the fruition of her person which she likewise did In the mean time whilest the Souldier transported with his pleasure forgot his duty the friends of the executed Malefactor stole away the Body which being perceived by the Souldier who now satiate with his dalliance was returned unto his guard and knowing his offence to be no less than capital he repairs with great fear and amazement unto his Widow and acquaints her with the mischance who was not slow in providing a remedy but taking the dead body of her Husband which had cost her so many
that his loathsome smel infected his whole Army and his body as hath been said flowed with lice and vermin Consider here the end of Majesty when the greatest power of the Earth cannot defend it self against so noisome and so contemptible an enemy In the same manner Feretrina Queen of the Barcaeans all the flesh of her body turned into maggots and grubbs that swarming every where at last consumed her Some have had serpents bred in their arms and thighs which have devoured their flesh even whilest they lived With reason then does man enter into the World with tears as divining the many miseries which he shall have time enough to suffer but not to lament and therefore begins to weep so early §. 2. Strange Pestilences Vide Pet. Bon. l. 3. Theatr. mundi WHat shall I say of those strange pestilential infirmities which have destroyed whole Cities Provinces Many Authors write that in Constantinople there happened so strange a Plague that those who were infected with it thought they were kill'd by their next neighbours and falling into this frenzie died raging with fear and imagination that they were murthered by their friends In the time of Heraclius there was so mortal a Pestilence in Romania that in a few dayes many thousands died and the greater part of those who were struck flung themselves into the River to asswage that excessive heat which like a fire burnt their entrails Thucidides a Greek Author writes that in his time there was such a corruption of the air that an infinite of people died and no remedy could be found to mitigate that disaster and which was most strange if any by good hap recovered they remained without memory at all of what was past in so much as the Fathers forgot their Sons and Husbands their Wives Marcus Aurelius an Author worthy of credit speaks of a Plague in his time so great in Italy that it was easier to number the quick than the dead The Souldiers of Avidius Cassius being in Seleucia a City within the Territories of Babylon entred into the Temple of Apollo and finding there a Coffer which they imagined might contain some treasure opened it from whence issued so pestilential and corrupted an air that it infected the whole Region of Babylon and from thence passed into Greece and so to Rome still corrupting the air as it went in so much as the third part of mankinde remained not alive The calamities of the times nearer ours have been no less For as our sins decrease not so the justice of God in punishing us slakes not A year after Francis King of France was married to Donna Leonora of Austria there raigned in Germany strange infirmity Those who were infected with it sweating forth a pestilential humour died within four and twenty hours It began in the West but passing afterwards into Germany it raged with such fury as if it meant to extirpate all mankinde for before any remedy could be found there died so many thousands of people that many Townes and Provinces remained desert Such was the putrifaction of the air that it left almost nothing alive and those few that remained in signe of pennance and to avert the wrath of God went signed with red Crosses They write that it was so violent in England that not onely men died but birds left their nests their eggs and young ones the wilde beasts quitted their Dennes and snakes and moles were seen to goe in companies and troopes not being able to endure the poyson enclosed in the bowells of the earth and many creatures were found in heapes dead under trees their bodies broken out into blanes and botches The yeare 1546. the last of May began in Stix a City of Provence a most mortal pestilence which lasted nine moneths in which died an infinite number of people of all ages in so much as the Church-yards were so full of dead bodies as there was no room left to bury others The greatest part of those who were infected the second day became frantick and flung themselves out of windowes or into wells others fell into a flux of blood at the nose which if they stanched they instantly died Married women became abortive or at four moneths end they and what they went with died whom they found covered over with spots something blewish on one side which seemed like blood sprinkled over their body The evil was so great that Fathers forsook their Children and Women their Husbands Riches did not preserve them from dying of hunger a pot of water being not sometimes to be had for money If they found by chance what to eat the fury of the sickness was such as they often died with the morsel in their mouths The contagion became so great that many took it by being onely looked upon and the ayr of the City was so corrupted by the grievous heat of this pestilential evil that wheresoever the steam of it came it raised great blisters mortal sores and carbuncles O how monstrous and horrible a thing it is to hear the relation of the Physician who was appointed for the cure and government of the sick This infirmity saith he was so sharp and perverse that neither Bleeding Purging Treacles nor other Cordials could stay it it kill'd and bore down all before it in so much as the onely remedy which the infected persons hoped for was death of which being certain so soon as they found themselves ill they began to make their Winding-sheets and there were ten thousand who wore them whilest they yet lived knowing certainly that the remedy and end of their evil was to die and in this manner stood expecting the departure of the soul and the fearful separation of the two so dear friends and companions which he affirms to have seen in many persons especially in one woman who calling him at her window to appoint something for her infirmity he saw sewing her Winding-sheet and not long after those who were appointed to interre the dead entring the house found her stretched out upon the floor her Winding-sheet not yet finished To all this is humane life subject Let those therefore who are in health and jollity fear what may befall them § 3. Notable Famines FAmine is no less a misery of mans life than Pestilence which not onely particular persons but whole Provinces have often suffered Such was that which afflicted the Romans when Alaricus that arch-Enemy of Mankind after the destruction of all Italy besieged Rome The Romans came to that poverty famine and want of all things that having nothing left of that which men commonly use to eat they began to feed on Horses Dogs Cats Rats Dormice and other vermin where they could lay hold on them and when those failed they eat one another A horrible condition of humane nature that when God suffers us to fall into those straights our necessity forces us to feed upon our own kind Nay Fathers spare not their Sons nor Women those whom they have
added to their other torments Hell is the Prison of God a most rigorous Prison horrid and stinking wherein so many millions of men shall for ever lye fettered in chains for chains or something answerable unto them shall not there be wanting Whereupon St. Austin sayes and is followed by the Schoolmen Aug. l. 1. de Civit. Cap. 10. that the malign spirits shall be fastned to fire or certain fiery bodies from which the pain which they receive shall be incredible being thereby deprived of their natural liberty V. Less de Perfec Divin l. 13. c. 30. as it were fettered with manicles and bolts so as they are not able to remove from that place of mishap and misery It were a great torment to have burning irons cast upon our hands and feet but this and much more shall be in Hell where those fiery bodies which are to serve instead of shackles and fetters are as grave Doctors affirm to be of terrible forms proportionable unto their offences and shall with their very sight affright them Besides the bodies of the Damned after the final Judgement past shall be so streightned and crowded together in that infernal Dungeon that the holy Scripture compares them to grapes in the Wine-press which press one another until they burst Most inhumane was that torment inflicted upon three Fathers of the Society of Jesus by their Enemies at Mastrick They put certain rings of iron stuck full of sharp points of needles about their arms and feet in such manner as they could not move without pricking and wounding themselves Then they compassed them about with fire to the end that standing still they might be burnt alive and if they stirred the sharp points pierced their flesh with more intolerable pains than the fire What shall then be that torment of the Damned where they shall eternally burn without dying and without possibility of removing from the place designed them where whatsoever they touch shall be fire and sulphur into which their bodies shall at the latter day be plunged as their souls at present swim in the middle of that lake or pond of fire as the Scripture calls it like fishes in the Sea which enters into their very substance more than the water into the mouth nose and ears of him who is drowned Neither shall unsavoury smells so proper unto Prisons be wanting in that infernal Dungeon For first that fire of sulphur being pent in without vent or respiration shall send forth a most poisonous sent and if a match of brimstone be so offensive here what shall such a mass of that stuffe be in Hell Secondly the bodies of the damned shall cast forth a most horrible stench of themselves and that more or less according to the quality of their sins It happened in Lions that a Sexton entring into a certain Vault where the body of a man not long before dead lay yet uncovered there issued forth so pestilential a smell that the dead man killed the living If one mans body then cause such a stink what shall proceed from a million of bodies which though alive for their further evil yet are dead in the second death besides as hath been said all the uncleanness and filth of the World when it is purified must fall into that eternal Sink which shall infinitely encrease this noisome quality Paulus Jovius writes that the Enemy of mankind Actiolinus the Tyrant had many Prisons full of torments misery and ill smells insomuch as men took it for a happiness rather to die than to be imprisoned because being loaden with irons afflicted with hunger and poisoned with the pestilential smell of those who died in Prison and were not suffered to be removed they came to end in a slow but most cruel death The Messenians also had a most horrible Prison under earth full of stench and horror into which offenders were let down with a cord never after to see the light But what are these Prisons to that of Hell in respect of which they may be esteemed as Paradises full of Jessemy and Lillies Victor Afric l. 2. de Persec Vandal Victor Africanus relating the torments which the Arian Vandals inflicted upon the holy Martyrs accounts the stench and noisomness of the Prison to be the most hidious and unsufferable of all the rest There were saith he in one Prison 4996 Martyrs which was so straight and narrow that they flung the holy Confessors into it one upon another who stood like swarms of Locusts or to speak more piously like precious grains of Wheat In this want of room they had not place to comply with the necessities of nature but were forced to ease themselves where they stood which caused so horrid a savour as exceeded all the rest of their afflictions One time saith the Author giving a good summe of money to the Moors we had leave whilest the Vandals slept to see them and at our entrance sunk up to the knees in that filth and loathsomness It seems that the stink of Hell could not be more lively expressed than in the uncleanness and stench of this Prison but without doubt all this was but a rough draught and a dead image of that which shall be there in respect whereof this here was Perfume and Amber If one were cast into some deep dongeon without cloathes exposed to the inclemency of the cold and moysture of the place where he should not see the light of Heaven should have nothing to feed on but once a day some little peece of hard barley bread and that he were to continue there six yeares without speaking or seeing of any body and not to sleep on other bed but the cold ground what a misery were this one week of that habitation would appeare longer than a hundred years Yet compare this with what shall be in that banishment and prison of Hell and you shall finde the miserable life of that man to be a happiness There in all his troubles he should not meet with any to scoff and jest at his misfortunes none to torment and whip him but in Hell he shall finde both The Devils shall not cease to deride whip and cruelly torment him There should be no horrid fights no fearefull noyses of howlings groanings and lamentations In hell the eyes and eares of the damned shall never be free from such affrights There should be no flames of fire to scorch him In hell they shall burn into his very bowels There he might move and walk In hell not stirr a foot There he may breath the ayr without stink In hell he shall suck in nothing but flames stink and sulphur There he might hope for coming forth In hell there is no remedy no redemption There that little peece of hard bread would every day seem a dainty But in hell in Millions of yeares his eyes shall not behold a crum of bread nor a drop of water but he shall eternally rage with a dog-like hunger and a burning thirst
tribulation and affliction would be too great to give satisfaction Well may he say I deserved to suffer greater torments and therefore will not complain of this my light suffering Beda de Gest Anglorum l. 5. Venerable Bede doth also write of one to whom the pains and torments as also the joyes and bliss of the other life were shewn and having obtained leave to return to this world again he renounced all he had in this life and betook himself unto a Monastery where he persevered in a most rigid manner of life to his dying day in so much that his manner of living gave perpetual testimony that although he was silent yet he had seen horrible things and that he had hopes to obtain other great ones which did indeed deserve to be thirsted after He entred into a frozen River which was near the Convent without putting off his cloathes having first broke the ice in several places that he might be able to get into the water and afterwards let his cloathes to dry upon his back Some admired that a man's body was able to suffer so great cold in the Winter time And to those who demanded How he could possibly endure it He replyed I have seen colds far greater And when they said unto him How can you so constantly keep such a rigorous and austere manner of life He replied I have seen far greater austerity Neither did he relent in the rigour of his penance even in his decrepit age but was very careful to chastise his flesh with continual fasts and his exemplar conversation and wholsome admonitions were such as he did much good to many and efficaciously stirred them up to the amendment of their lives We must make use of this self-same consideration to encourage our selves to suffer in this life all that can be suffered in regard that in the other we should suffer more than can be suffered Hell certainly is more unsufferable than fasting with bread and water farre more than a rough hair-cloth or a discipline though never so bloody far more than the greatest injuries or disgraces that can be put upon us Let us then suffer that which is lesser to be freed from that which is greater especially being so much greater by how much a living creature exceeds a painted one Let us not complain of any thing that may happen unto us in this life But let us rather be comforted that we who have deserved to be in those eternal flames without profit or hope of reward may by our patient suffering here some temporal afflictions expect an everlasting reward for them in Heaven The Mother of St. Catharine of Siena carried her to certain Baths to divert and recreate her because she was very weak Hist S. Dom. 2. p. lib. 2. and disfigured with leanness But the Saint could find in this entertainment a sharp cross which was that entring into the Bath alone she went to the Bathhead where the water came out in a manner boyling hot and there suffered her self to be scalded to that degree that it seemed impossible for a weak Damsel to have been able to endure it Her Confessarius asked her afterwards How she had so much courage to abide such heat and for so long a space She replyed That when she placed her self there she also placed her consideration in the pains of Purgatory and Hell-fire and withall begged of God Almighty whom she had offended that he would be pleased to change the punishments she had deserved by her sins into temporal pains and sufferings whereby all the pains of this life seemed very easie unto her to suffer and the great heat of the scalding water of the Bath seemed a refreshment to her in respect of the fiery Furnace of Hell in which the damned are for ever and ever to be tormented And in regard holy Scripture calls Hell a Poole or Lake of fire Pet. Damian l. 2. ep 15. ad Desid c. 4. I will here rehearse a story out of St. Petrus Demianus which will give us to understand the terribleness of this torment In Lombardy saith he there was a man cunning and crafty of a notable talking tongue and a friend of breaking jests on all occasions and commonly by reason of his quick wit he came off with credit And if at any time it happened to him otherwayes he knew how to put it off very handsomely In fine he was one of those that knew very well how to live in the world But what end had all his tricks and slights he died for against this stroak he had no defence His body was buried in the Church and his soul in the place which God grant no body may ever come in An holy Religious man being in prayer he saw in spirit a great Lake not of water but of fire which boiled like a Pot and cast flames now and then up into the heavens which sent forth sparks in so great quantity and with such fearful noise that it caused great horrour to hear and see it What would it be to suffer it The miserable foul of this man we speak of did suffer it in all extremity Moreover he saw that the Lake was encompassed round about with fearful Serpents and terrible Dragons which had their mouths open towards the Lake with many rows of sharp teeth to guard the Lake In this confusion of fire and cruel beasts the Soul of the miserable Babler was howling and crying and swimming upon the flames endeavoured to get to the banck and drawing nigh the comfort he found was that a Serpent stretching out a long neck and a wide mouth was ready to tear him in pieces and swallow him He endeavoured to turn another way in the Lake and drawing near the side he lighted upon a Dragon the onely sight whereof made him make more haste back again than he had done to come thither He swam in the Lake burning alive and where-ever he came he found the like encounter but which is worse he shall remain there whilest God is God without any remedy at all And with much reason saith St. Peter Damianus he suffered this punishment of not being able to get out of that Lake of fire in regard he in this life got so cunningly out of any adversity by his many shifts In this manner God Almighty gave to understand by this revelation the extremity of this torment But it is to be noted that it is farre greater than is here expressed because this was not so much to tell us what hell is as to declare by some similitude or representation which may remain fixt in our senses that which indeed exceeds all similitude or resemblance § 3. The pains of the Powers of a damned Soul THe Imagination shall no less afflict those miserable offenders encreasing the pains of the Senses by the liveliness of its apprehension For if in this life the imagination is sometimes so vehement that it hurts more than real evils in the other the torment
shall with great grief remember how often he might have gained Heaven and did it not but is now tumbled into Hell and shall say unto himself How many times might I have prayed and spent that time in play but now I pay for it How many times ought I to have fasted and left it to satisfie my greedy appetite How many times might I have given alms and spent it in sin How many times might I have pardoned my enemies and chose rather to be revenged How many times might I have frequented the Sacraments and forbore them because I would not quit the occasion of sinning There never wantted means of serving God but I never made use of it and am therefore now justly paid for all Behold accursed Caitiff that entertaining thy self in pleasures thou hast for toyes and fooleries lost Heaven If thou wouldest thou mightest have been a companion for Angels if thou wouldest thou mightest have been in eternal joy and thou hast lost all for the pleasure of a moment O accursed and wretched fool thy Redeemer courted thee with Heaven and thou despisedst him for a base trifle This was thy fault and now thou sufferest for it and since thou wouldest not be happy with God thou shalt now be eternally cursed by him and his Angels The Understanding shall torment it self with discourses of great bitterness discoursing of nothing but what may grieve it Aristotle shall not there take delight in his wisdom nor Seneca comfort himself with his Philosophy Galen shall find no remedy in his Physick nor the profoundest Scholar in his Divinity A certain Doctor of Paris appeared after death unto the Bishop of that City and gave him an account that he was damned The Bishop demanded of him if he had there any knowledge He answered That he knew nothing but onely three things The first that he was eternally damned The second that the Sentence past against him was irrevocable The third that for the vain pleasure of the world he was deprived of the vision of God And then he desired to know of the Bishop if there were any people in the world remaining The Bishop asking him the reason of that question he answered that within these few last dayes there have so many souls descended into Hell that me-thinks there should not any be left upon earth In this power of the Soul is engendered tho worm of conscience which is so often proposed unto us in holy Scripture as a most terrible torment and greater than that of fire Onely in one Sermon or rather in the Epilogue of that Sermon Christ our Redeemer three times menaces us with that Worm Marc. 9. which gnaws the consciences and tears in pieces the hearts of the Damned admonishing us as often That their worm shall never die nor their sire be quenched For as the worm which breeds in dead flesh or that which breeds in wood eats and gnaws that substance of which they are engendered so the Worm which is bred from sin is in perpetual enmity with it gnawing and devouring the heart of the sinner with raging desperate and now unprofitable grief still putting him in mind that by his own fault he lost that eternal glory which he might so easily have obtained and is now fallen into eternal torments from whence there is no redemption And certainly this resentment of the loss of Heaven shall more torment him than the fire of Hell Of an evil conscience even in this life St. Austin said Aug. in Psal 45. Quint. Declam 12. Senec. ep 97. that amongst all the tribulations of the Soul none was greater than that of a guilty conscience Even the Gentils knew this and therefore Quintilian exclaims O sad remembrance and knowledge more grievous than all torments And Seneca sayes that evil actions are whipt by the conscience of themselves that perpetual vexation and resentment brings great afflictions and torments upon the Actors that wickedness drinks up the greatest part of its own poison and is a punishment unto it self Certainly it were a great rigour if a Father should be forced to be present at the execution of his Son but more if he should be compelled to be the Hangman and yet greater if the Gallows should be placed before his own door so that he could neither go in or out without beholding that affront and contumely but far greater crueltie if they should make the guilty person to execute himself and that by cutting his body in pieces member after member or tearing off his flesh with his own teeth This is the cruelty and torment of an evil Conscience with which a sinner is racked and tortured amongst those eternal flames not being able to banish his faults from his memory nor their punishment from his thoughts The envy also which they shall bear towards those who have gained Heaven by as small matters as they have lost it shall much add to their grief Those who are hungry if they see others meaner than they feed at some splendid and plentiful Table and cannot be admitted themselves become more hungry so shall it fare with the damned who shall be more afflicted by beholding others sometimes less than themselves enjoy that eternal happiness which they through want of care are deprived of Esau though a Clown having understood that his Brother Jacob had obtained his Fathers Benediction cried out and roared like a Lion and consumed himself with resentment and horror What lamentations shall those of the damned be when they shall see that the Just have gained the Benediction of God not by any deceit or cozenage used by them but that they lost it through their own neglect Those who with opinion of merit earnestly aim at some vacant Dignity if at length they see themselves neglected and with shame put off their grief and indignation swells above measure In like manner I say shall it be with those damned wretches who will be far more afflicted by the consideration of those great goods and eternal felicities which they see themselves have lost and those to enjoy them whom they deemed far inferiour to them in merit Let us now therefore have remorse of conscience whilest we may kill the Worm lest it then bite us when it cannot die CAP. XI Of Eternal Death and the Punishment of Talion in the Damned AFter all this there shall not want in Hell the pains of Death which amongst humane punishments is the greatest That of Hell is a living Death and doth as far exceed this of earth as the substance doth a shadow The Death which men give together with death takes away the pain and sense of dying but the Eternal Death of sinners is with sense and by so much greater as it hath more of life recollecting within it self the worst of dying which is to perish and the most intolerable of life which is to suffer pain And therefore St. Bernard calls the pain of the damned a living Death and a dead Life and Pope Innocent the
would he be unto so merciful a benefactor He hath done no less for us but much more For if he hath not drawn us out of Hell he hath not thrown us into it as we deserved which is the greater favour Tell me if a Creditor should cast that Debtor into prison who owed him a thousand Duckets and after the enduring of much affliction at last release him or should suffer another who owed him fifty thousand Duckets to goe up and down free without touching a thread of his garment Whether of the Debtors received the greater benefit I believe thou wilt say the latter More then are we endebted unto God Almighty and therefore ought to serve him better Consider how a man would live who should be restored to life after he had been in Hell Thou shouldst live better since thou art more indebted to Almighty God Lib. 4. Dialog cap. 36. St. Gregory writes of one who though he had not been released out of Hell but onely was upon the point of damnation yet led afterwards such a life that the change was admirable The Saint sayes that a Monk called Peter who before he retired to the desert was in a trance for some time as dead and being restored to his senses made this relation That he had had a sight of Hell and that he had seen in it great chastisements and innumerable places full of fire and that he knew some who had been very powerful in the World hanging in the midst of the flames and himself being now at the brink to be cast into the same he saw on the sudden a bright shining Angel who withheld him faying Return to thy body and confider well with what care and diligence it suits with thy profession to lead thy life from hence forwards So it was that being returned to his body he treated it with such austerity of penance watches and fasts that although he should not have spoken a word his manner of life did publish sufficiently what he had seen Secondly we are taught to exercise an invincible patience in suffering the afflictions and troubles of this life that by enduring these thankfully we may escape those of the other He who shall consider the eternity of those torments which he deserves will not grumble at the pains of this short life how bitter soever There is no state or condition upon earth how necesitous how poor how miserable soever which the damned would not endure and think it an infinite happiness if they might change with it Neither is there any course of life so austere which he who had once experienced those burning flames if he might live again would not make more rigorous He who hath once deserved eternal torments let him never murmure at temporal evils let his mouth be ever stopt from complaining of the crosses or petty injuries offered him in this life who hath committed offences worthy the pains of the other From this consideration there was nothing which the Saints would not willingly suffer no penance which they would not undergoe Apoc. 14. Wherefore St. John the Evangelist after he had spoken of the smoke which ascended from the torments of the damned for a world of worlds and and that they did not rest by day nor night presently adds Here is the patience of the Saints because seeing that all the troubles of this life were temporal and the torments of the other eternal nothing that they endured seemed much unto them Chrysost To. 5. Epist 5. ad Theod. So did St. John Chrsostome and advises us to do the like bearing with patience all temporal pains whatsoever with the consideration of the eternal From the consideration of little thing saith he let us frame a conjecture of the great If thou goe into a Bath and shalt find it excessive hot think on Hell If thou art tormented with the heat think on Hell If thou art tormented with the heat of some violent Fever pass unto the consideration of those eternal flames which burn without end and think that if a Bath or Calenture so afflict thee how shalt thou endure that River of fire Homil. 2. in 1. Ep. ad Thess And further the same Saint When thou shalt see any thing great in this present life think presently of the Kingdom of Heaven and so thou shalt not value it much and when thou shalt see any thing terrible think on Hell and thou wilt laugh at it When the concupiscence or desire of any temporal thing shall afflict thee think that the delight of sin is of no estimation and that the pleasure of it is nothing For if the fear of Lawes which are enacted upon earth be of that force that they are able to deterre us from evil actions much more will the thought of things to come and that immortal chastisement of eternal pain If the fear of an Earthly King divert us from many evils how much more shall the fear of a King eternal If the fight of a dead man detain us much more shall the thought of hell and that eternal death If we often think of hell we shall never fall into it We ought also often to call to minde the evils of the next life that we may more despise the pleasures of this because temporal felicity uses often to end in eternal miserie All that is precious in the world honour wealth fame pleasure all the splendour of the Earth is but smoke and a shadow if we compare the small duration of them with the eternity of those torments in the other world Put all the Silver in the world together in one heap all the Gold all the Precious-stones Diamonds Emeralds with all other the richest Jewels all the Triumphs of the Romans all the Dainties of the Assytians c. all would deserve to be of no other value than dirt ignominy and gall if to be possessed with hazard of falling at last into the pit of Hell Let us call to mind that sentence of our blessed Saviour What will it avail a man to gain the whole world if he lose his soul If they should make us Lords and Masters I say not of great wealth but of the whole world we should not admit of it with the least hazard of being damned for ever Let one enjoy all the contents and regalo's imaginable let him be raised up to the highest pitch of honour let him triumph with all the greatness of the world All this is but a dream if after this mortal life he finds himself at length plunged into hell-fire Whosoever should consider the lamentable day in which two Sons and three Daughters and his Wife the Emperess were put to death in presence of the Emperor Mauritius and afterwards himself was bereaved of life by command of a dastardly Coward and vicious fellow no doubt but he would esteem as very vain and of no worth all the twenty years of his Raign in his powerful Empire and Majesty though his punishment was not
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
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
his hand a Distaff what a ridiculous figure would he make If a Statuary should give a number of great strokes upon a piece of wood without intention of making an Image he would do nothing but weary himself and spoil the wood and his instruments This thou dost in all thy works when thou lookest not upon God and eternitie as thy end thou dost only make a blot of thy life and loosest thy self and those creatures which thou usest otherwaies then for the obtaining of heaven God created thee according to his image to the end thou shouldst perfect that image and make it every day more like unto thy Creatour But thou not looking upon him in thy actions makest thy self a monster and confoundest and blotest out his divine Image Finally as all which is done in art without order to the end is errour so all that thou dost without looking upon God as thy utmost end is confusion and perdition of thy self Reflect then wherein thou mayest at last conclude since thou hast so often forgotten God and wandred from thy end If we look upon Moral works or humane actions When they are not proportioned to their Ends what are they but madness and indiscretion for what is madness but a diversion of things from their end If one who were desirous to avoyd cold should strip himself naked and flie from the fire would not all say this man were mad and wherein consists his madness but in not fitting things to the end he ayms at Thou art no wiser thy self if desiring and seeking thy own good and happiness thou flyest from God and doest not follow him in all thy actions This as St. Austin notes is the errour of man who naturally loving happiness by mistaking the way to find it becomes miserable Who but a fool or a mad man fit to be bound in chains having great thirst would fill himself with Salt and yet all this folly consists in nothing but not proportioning the means unto their end He who is dry ought to go to some fountain and there to quench his thirst and man who desires to ease his heart is to repair unto God and there he shall find rest To divert himself after the creatures and there to feed his pleasures is no other then to eat Salt which encreases his thirst and appetite and scorches his Entrails We are fools therefore in not looking upon God in all our actions and not ordering them unto him as to our end He were to be esteemed a Sot who being to light a Lamp would fill it with water instead of oyle and yet strive and trouble himself to make it burn These follies we commit every day when we use the Creatures to other ends then the service of God so as they can neither kindle in us the fire of his love nor sustain the luster and dignity of the reasonable Soul From all then which is said it follows That what is not adapted to its proper end is contemptible monstrous and unprofitable For this reason David said All have declined that is All have wandered from their end which is God and are made unprofitable Man therefore whilst he servs not his Creatour is a thing vain and stands for nothing and it were much better for him not to be then not to order himself to his end The Labourer who hath planted a tree to the end it should bring him fruit if it yield none plucks it up by the roots and burns it And in the Gospel the barren Figtree was commanded to be cut down § 3. This force of the Final cause is such that things ordering themselves unto it receive a better being and a more noble estimation from their end how mean soever then from any thing they can attain which is not their end though never so precious A Spade receives his value from digging the earth and for that end is esteemed and bought by the Labourer but if you give it a Painter to limm with he will not allow it a place in his shop The Sick man whilst he is infirm will pay any thing for a bitter purge which being well he hates Even vessels for unclean offices being placed in Corners are of use and sought for but set upon a Cupboard are a scorn So much it imports things to be accommodated unto their proper End which how vile and base soever giv's them estimation but severed from it though they mount unto the Clouds they loose their value Mark then in what condition is that man who seeks not after God and addresses not his actions unto him who is so high an End It is also to be considered That as there is nothing so base which being applyed unto his proper end hath not some good so there is nothing how precious soever which being diverted from his end looses not his worth He who is ready to die for thirst will esteem a little water out of a ditch more then all the treasures of the world so Lisimachus valued a Jarr of water above his Kingdom From whence it follows that it is the End which gives things their value and estimation Open then thine eyes and consider That thou art not in the world for nothing That thou wert not created without a Wherefore and for What thou hast an end and oughtest to pursue it and if thou neglectest it thou art worse then when thou wert not Thou hast an End and the greatest and most high that can be thought of which is the glorie of God Certainly if God had onely created thee to serve him without hope to enjoy him or ever to attain unto his glory yet thou oughtest to have esteemed it highly The Queen of Saba when she beheld the greatness 3 Reg. 10. wisdom and majesty of King Salomon cryed out with wonder Blessed are thy Servants which stand here in thy presence If this wise Lady held it for a happiness to serve Salomon what an honour and felicity is it to serve God But that infinite goodness was not content that thy End should be onely to serve but that thou should pass so farre as to enjoy him and be partaker of his own blessedness In this high End thou art not onely equal unto Angels but a sharer with God who as he hath no other end or blessedness but himself so he would not that thou shouldst have a less End or happiness then thy Creatour Thou wert born then for a great good since thou wert born sor the chiefest good Mal. l. 2. Sent. Whereupon the Master of sentences sayes God created the rational nature that he might know the chief good and knowing and loving it might possess it and possessing it enjoy it God created the Elements for those natures which have life He created the hearbs of the field for those creatures which have sense Those which have sense for Man and man for an End which should surpass all as being created not for an end within nature but for one above it