peeces and he above all remained distracted in his wits raging with despite and madness Let us now consider Antiochus in all his pomp and glory glittering in Gold and dazling the eyes of the beholders with the splendor of his Diamonds and precious Jewels mounted upon a stately Courser commanding over numerous Armies and making the very earth tremble under him Let us then behold him in his Bed pale and wan his strength and spirits spent his loathsome body flowing with worms and corruption forsaken by his own people by reason of his pestilential and poisonous stink which infected his whole Camp and finally dying mad and in a rage Who seeing such a death would with the felicity of his life who with the condition of his misery would desire his fortune See then wherein the goods of this life conclude And as the clear and sweet waters of Jordan end in the filthy mud of the dead Sea and are swallowed up in that noysome Bitumen so the greatest splendor of this life concludes in death and those loathsome diseases which usually accompany it Act. 12. Vide Josephum Behold in what a sink of filth ended the two Herods most potent Princes Ascalonita and Agrippa This who cloathed himself in Tissue and boasted a Majesty above humane dyed devoured by worms which whilst he yet lived fed upon his corrupted and apostumated flesh flowing with horrible filth and matter Neither came the other Ascalonita to finish his dayes more happily being consumed by lice that nasty vermin by little and little bereaving him both of his life and Kingdom 3 Reg. 20. King Achab Conqueror of the King of Syria and 32 other Princes dyed wounded by a chance-arrow which pierced his body and stained his Royal Charriot with his black gore which was after licked up by hungry Dogs as it he had been some savage beast 3 Reg. 22. Neither dyed his Son Joram a more fortunate death run through the heart with a sword his body left upon the field to be devoured by birds and beasts of prey wanting in his death seaven foot of earth to cover him who in life commanded a Kingdom Who could have known Caesar who had first seen him triumph over the Conquered world and then beheld him gasping for a little breath and weltring in his own bloud which flowed from three and twenty wounds opened by so many stabs Who could believe it were the same Cyrus he who subdued the Medes conquered the Assyrian and Chaldaean Empire he who amazed the world with thirty years success of continued Victories now taken prisoner and put to an ignominious death by the Command of a Woman Who could think it were the same Alexander Plut. in ejus vita who in so short time subjugated the Persians Indians and the best part of the known world and should after behold him conquered by a Calenture feeble exhausted in body dejected in spirit dried up and parched with thirst without taste in his mouth or content in his life his eyes sunk his nose sharp his tongue cleaving to his pallat not being able to pronounce one word What an amazement is it that the heat of a poor Fever should consume the mightiest power and fortune of the world and that the greatest of temporal and humane prosperities should be drowned by the overflowing of one irregular and inordinate humour How great a Monster is Humane Life since it consists of so disproportionable parts the uncertain felicity of our whose life ending in a most certain misery How prodigious were that Monster which should have one arm of a Man and the other of an Elephant one foot of a Horse and the other of a Bear Truly the parts of this life are not much more sutable Who would marry a woman though of a comely and well proportioned body who had the head of an ugly Dragon certainly although she had a great Dowry none would covet such a Bed-fellow Wherefore then do we wed our selves unto this life which although it seems to carry along with it much content and happiness yet is in effect no less a Monster since although the body appear unto us beautiful and pleasant yet the end of it is horrible and full of misery And therefore a Philosopher said well that the end of things was their head and as men were to be known and distinguished by their faces so things by their ends and therefore who will know what life is let him look upon the end And what end of life is not full of misery Let no man flatter himself with the vigour of his health with the abundance of his riches with the splendor of his authority with the greatness of his fortune for by how much he is more fortunate by so much shall he be more miserable since his whole life is to end in misery Wherefore Agesilaus hearing the King of Persia cried up for a most fortunate and happy Prince reprehended those who extolled him saying Have patience Plutar. in ejus vita for even King Priamus whose end was so lamentable was not unfortunate at the age of the King of Persia Giving us to understand that the most happy were not to be envied whilest they lived by reason of the uncertainty of that end whereunto they are subject How many as yet appear most happy whose death will shortly discover the infelicity of their lives Plutar. in Apoph Graecis Epaminondas when they asked him who was the greatest Captain Cabrias Iphicrates or himself Answered that whilest they lived no man could judge but that the last day of their lives would deliver the Sentence and give each one their due Let no man be deceived in beholding the prosperity of a rich man let him not measure his felicity by what he sees at present but by the end wherein he shall conclude not by the sumptuousness of his Palaces not by the multitude of his Servants not by the bravery of his Apparel not by the lustre of his Dignity but let him expect the end of that which he so much admires and he shall then perceive him at best to die in his Bed dejected dismayed and strugling with the pangs and anxieties of death and if so he comes off Well otherwise wise the daggers of his enemy the teeth of some wild beast or a tyle thrown upon his head by some violent wind may serve to make an end of him when he least thinks of it This reason tells us although we had no experience of it But we see it daily confirmed by the testimony of those who are already in the gates of death and no man can better judge of life than he who stands with his back towards it Mago Dionysius Carth. de noviss Art 5. a famous Captain amongst the Carthaginians and Brother to the great Hannibal being mortally wounded confessed this truth unto his Brother saying O how great a madness is it to glory in an Eminent Command The estate of the most
punched him upon the body pluckt his beard from his chin drew him up and down by the hair of his head knockt out his teeth and for his greater affront scourged him on those parts where they use to whip children After which they brought him into the publick Market-place that all that would might abuse him and even women buffetted him which done they cut off hs right hand hurried him into prison and flung him into the common-hole where the most notorious Theeves and Murtherers were lodged leaving him nothing to feed on or so much as any to give him a jarre of water From thence some few dayes after they drew him forth pluckt out one of his eyes mounted him naked saving a little short cloak which covered nothing almost of his body upon a lean scabbed Camel his face backward holding the tayl in his hand instead of a Scepter and a halter in place of a Diadem In this equipage they brought him again into the Market-place where the injuries scorns and ignominies put upon him by the rascal multitude are not imaginable Some cast onions and rotten fruit at him others prickt him in the sides with spits others stufft his nostrils with filth and dung others squeezed upon his head and face sponges filled with urin and excrements some flung stones and dirt at him and called him by most opprobrious names and there wanted not an impudent baggage who running into the Kitchen fetcht a pot of scalding water and threw in his face There was no Tapster Cobler Tinker or base Tradesman which found not out some way or other to affront him At last they hung him by the heels betwixt two pillars and there left him to die But then did not his own Courtiers and houshold Servants pardon him one thrust his sword up to the hilts in his bowels two others to prove which had the sharpest sword tried them in his flesh At last the miserable Emperour although most happy if he were saved brought with much adoe that arm which had lost the hand and yet ran with blood to moisten his drie mouth and so expired In this manner ended the Monarch of the East but not yet his ignominy for during three dayes after they suffered his dead body to hang upon the Gibbet which was at last taken down more to free the living from horrour than for compassion to the dead whom they buried like a mad dog Let every one in this glass behold and consider what the things of this life are Let him compare Andronicus with Andronicus Andronicus Emperour and Augustus with Andronicus a Prisoner and publickly executed behold him first cloathed in Purple adored by Nations commanding the East his temples encircled with a Royal Diadem the Imperial Scepter in his hands and his very shooes studdied with Oriental Unions Then look upon him insulted over by the basest of his people buffetted by women and pelted with dirt and stones in his Imperial City Who would believe that he whom the people thronged to look upon as upon some God when he passed through the Streets of Constantinople in his Royal Chariot covered with plates of burnisht gold guarded with excellent Captains and waited on by the Princes of his Empire should by those very same persons who so lately had taken their oaths of loyalty and sworn to defend him be so traiterously and barbarously handled Finally he who had commanded justice to pass upon so many should himself come to be justized with greater infamy than any of them who could imagine that one subject should be so sodainly capable of such different extremes and that so great glory should conclude in so much ignominy This is enough to make us contemn all temporal goods and humane felicity which not onely passes away with time but often changes into greater misfortunes What esteem can that merit which stands exposed to so much misery which is by so much more sensible to the sufferer by how much it was less expected To this may be added another consideration of no small profit That if this Emperour passed to his salvation through so many affronts and cruel torments what hurt did they do him what imports it that he was so unhappy in this life if he were happy in the other certainly he gave sufficient hopes of his contrition for in all that lamentable and never to be paralell'd Tragedy no sign of impatience ever appeared in him neither spake he other words than these Lord have mercy on me and when they abused and wounded him with so much cruelty all he said was this Why do ye break this bruised Reed Certainly if he knew how to benefit himself as it seems he did by his misery he was more happy in it than in his Empire The eternal is that which imports As for the glory of his Empire and the misery of his ignominy they are now past A greater Emperour was Vitellius than he Fulgos l. 6. since not only the East but West acknowledged him for the Lord and Monarch of the whole World The riches he enjoyed were beyond estimation and gold abounded with him as stones of the Streets with others In Rome he was acknowledged Augustus and saluted with so glorious titles that he seemed to be all he could desire less than a God But wherein ended all this Majesty but in the greatest infamy that can be imagined for having tyed a rope about his neck and his hands behinde him torn his garments from his back and stuck a dagger under his chin they haled him ignominiously up and down the Streets of Rome cast filth in his face and reviled him with a thousand injurious speeches and at last killed him in the Market-place and threw him down the Gemonies where they used to fling the bodies of such offenders as were not lawfully to be buried A strange case to what end some men are born such care trouble and circumspection in bringing on a life to conclude in so disastrous a death He who should know the ends of Andronicus and Vitellius and should behold their birth breeding studies pretences and recreations should see them clad in silk and gold and acknowledged Emperours Would he say in his heart that so much adoe was necessary for such an end Folly is all humane greatness since at last it must end and perhaps in so disastrous a conclusion With reason did Pachimeras say It was safer to trust to a shadow than to humane happiness Who could imagine that the Emperour Valerianus Vide Platinam Baro. Fulgos whom the King of Persia taking prisoner kept inclosed in a Cage like some wilde beast used him as a footstool when he got on horseback and after flead his Souldiers and salted them as if they had been bacon could possibly come to such an end Compare here the different conditions that may happen to a Roman Emperour Behold Valerianus mounted upon a brave Courser trapped with Gold clad in Purple crowned with the Imperial Diadem adored by Nations and
to mind eternity discoursing thus with himself How comes this to pass that thou canst not red one single night it being such a torture to be still without turning thy self What would it be if thou wert to remain in one posture three or four nights Certainly it would be a death unto me Truly I should never have believed one could suffer so much in a thing so easie Wo is me How little patience have I since a thing so small and trivial grieves me so much What would it have been if the had commanded me to lye watching many weeks What would it be if I had the Collick or were tormented with the Stone or Sciatica Far greater evils than these are prepared for thee in Hell whither thou posts by running into so many sins Consider what a Couch Is prepared for thee in that abyss of misery what Feather-bed what Holland Sheets Thou shalt be cast upon burning coals stames and fulphur shall be thy Coverlets Mark well whether this Bed be for one night onely Yea nights dayes moneths and years ages and eternities thou art to remain on that side thou fallest on without having the least relief to turn thy self unto the other That fire shall never die neither shalt thou ever die to the end its torments may last eternally After an hundred years and after an hundred thousand millions of years they shall be as lively and as vigorous as at the first day See what thou doest by not fearing eternal death by making no account of eternity by setting so much of thy affection on a temporal life Thou doest not walk the right way change thy life and begin to serve thy Creatour So did this man being convinced by this discourse He amended his life And let him do the like who comes to read this Let him know that if they should tell him that he were not to stir out of a Bed of roses for twenty years space he would not be able to suffer it How will he be able to lie upon a Bed of hot burning coals in flames of sulphur for all eternity § 2. Unto all those pains shall be joyned that of Talion which is To pay with proportion so much for so much which also shall not be wanting in Hell And therefore it is said in the Ayocalyps By how much she glorified her self and lived in delights Give her so much of torment There shall the delicious person be afflicted he who contemned others be despised and the proud trampled under foot it being most convenient for the Divine Justice that the damned in hell should be punished in the same manner wherein they have here offended as may appear by this example rehearsed by Henry Gran. A young Damsel Henric. Gran. d. 9. c. 200. as to outward appearance given to Prayer Fastings Watchings and Penance and for this reason esteemed by all for a Saint She fell dangerously sick and having made her confession died Within a short time after she appeared to her Confessarius in a black and fearful shape The priest not knowing her demanded Who she was I am quoth she that one that was held by all for a Saint I am none but a most miserable wretch since I am condemned to hell fire where I shall never cease to be tormented in company of the most abject and contemptible Fiends and that for the content and satisfaction I took in my self and for the pride I had esteeming my self far above others having a base and vile conceit of all For this vice I shall live in eternal torments Though God should drie up the Sea and fill up the empty places thereof with the smallest sand that can be imagined and should permit that a little Bird should but take one grain every hundred years God's wrath and Justice would not be satisfied with the torments my Soul shall suffer until such time as the said little Bird should take out every grain of the foresaid sand For were this granted I would most willingly suffer all the time required for the performance thereof all the pains and torments of all the damned Souls in Hell with this onely proviso that at last my Soul might come to obtain salvation But there is no remedy now And therefore Father do not put your self to the trouble to pray tor me being nothing can avail me In this History we have seen Pride chastised by humiliation In tills that follows we shall see Pleasures and delightful entertainments chastised with proportionable torments Cantip. l. 2. c. 49. p. 2. Joan Major v. Infernus Exemp 6. Cantipratensis writes That in the parts of Teutonia there was a Souldier very valiant and much given to Tilting and Running at the Ring And according as he lived so he died miserably His Wife who was a devout person and of exemplar life after the death of her Husband had in an Extasie manifested unto her the miserable state of her Husbands Soul It was represented unto her as if it were still united to the Body encompassed with a multitude of Devils Whereof the Principal in her hearing gave command they should furnish their new Guest with a pair of Shoes fit for his feet which piercing them might reach to his very head Then he commanded they should put him on a Coat of Male made full of sharp points which might pierce his whole body in all parts After this a third command was that they should put him on a Helmet with a sharp nail that might pierce his head and come to be clenched below his feet Finally by his command they hung a Target about his neck so heavy that it might crush all the bones in his body All this being punctually and speedily performed the Prince of darkness told his Officers This worthy person alter he had entertained himself in Tilting and the like menages of valour was accustomed to refresh his toyled limbs with sweet Baths and then to retire to some soft Bed sporting himself afterwards with other comfortable dalliances of sensuality Give him now somewhat of those refreshments which are usual here They presently hurl'd him into a fire prepared then to ease him they placed him in a Bed red hot where a Toad waited for him of an immense size with eyes most dreadful which clipped the Souldier very close kissing and embracing him in such a rueful manner that it was the most dreadful of all the torments he had suffered and brought him even to pangs of death That good woman who by Gods appointment had seen what past in her Husband had this vision so fresh in memory all the dayes of her life and with such continual oppressions of heart that none who had known her before beholding her afterwards could otherwise imagine but that she suffered some great and extraordinary affliction Many other pains and torments proportionable to the crimes committed may be seen in the works of Wermero A Gentleman of noble Parentage Wermer Mon. Carthu in fasciculo morum an English man
consider this Wherefore busie we our selves about Temporal things and the affairs of this life which we are instantly to leave and enter into a Region of Eternity Less are a thousand years in respect of Eternity than a quarter of an hour in respect of threescore years Why are we then negligent in that short time we are to live in acquiring that which is to endure for a world of worlds Death is a moment placed betwixt this life and the next in which we are to traffick for eternity Let us not therefore be careless but let us remember how much it imports us to die well and to that end let us endeavour to live well §. 3. Besides all this although one should die the most happy death that can be imagined yet it suffices to behold the dead Body when the Soul hath left it how ugly and noisome the miserable Carcass remains that even friends flye from it and scarce dare stay one night alone with it The nearest and most obliged Kindred procure it in all haste to be carried forth a doors and having wrapt it in some course Sheet throw it into the Grave and within two dayes forget it and he who in life could not be contained in great and sumptuous Palaces is now content with the narrow lodging of seaven foot of earth he who used to rest in rich and dainty Beds hath for his Couch the hard ground and as Isaias saith for his Mattress moths and for his Covering Worms his Pillows at best the bones of other dead persons then heaping upon him a little earth and perhaps a Gravestone they leave his flesh to be feasted on by the worms whilest his heirs triumph in his riches He who gloried in the exercise of Armes and was used to revel at Balls and Festivals is now stiffe and could his hands and feet without motion and all his senses without life He who with his power and pride trampled upon all is now trod under foot by all Consider him eight dayes dead drawn forth of his Grave how gastly and horrible a spectacle he will appear and wherein differ from a dead Dog thrown upon a Dunghil Behold then what thou pamperst a Body which shall perhaps within four dayes be eaten by loathsome vermin Whereupon doest thou found thy vain pretensions which are but Castles in the air founded upon a little earth which turning into dust the whole Fabrick falls to ground See wherein all humane greatness concludes and that the end of man is no less loathsome and miserable than his beginning Let this Consideration serve thee as it hath done many Servants of Christ to despise all things of this life Alex. Faya to 2. Joh. Major verbo Mors. Ex. 21. Alexander Faya writes that having opened the Vault wherein lay interred the Body of a principal Count they who were present perceived upon the face of the dead person a Toad of an extraordinary greatness which accompanied with many other filthy and loathsome wormes and vermin was feeding upon his flesh which caused so great a horror and amazement that they all fled The which so soon as it came unto the knowledge of the Son of that Count who was then in the flower of his age he would needs goe and behold the spectacle and looking seriously upon it he broke into these speeches These are the friends which we breed and provide for with our delicacies for these we rest upon soft Beds and lodge in gilt Chambers adorned with Tapestries and make them grow and encrease with the vanity of our dainties Were it not better to prevent them by Fasts and Penances and Austerities in our life that they may not thus insult upon us after death With this conderation quitting his fair Possessions and flying privately away accompanied onely with a lively desire of being poor for Christ which he accounted for the greatest riches he came to Rome where chastising the body with much rigour and living in the holy fear of the Lord he at last became a Collier and by his labour sustained his poor life Finally coming one day unto the City to sell his coles he fell into a grievous sickness which having endured with marvelous patience he at last delivered his most happy Soul into the hands of his Redeemer and that very instant of his death all the Bells of the City rung themselves with which Miracle the Pope and the Roman Court being marvelously astonished his Confessor related unto them all that happened and informed them both of the condition and sanctity of the dead person and there being at the same time in Rome some Gentlemen and Souldiers belonging to the same Prince who came in search of their Master and finding him deceased carried home his holy Body with much joy and reverence unto his Country The Sight of the dead Body of the Empress Donna Isabella Wife unto the Emperour Charles the fift wrought no less effect in the heart of Blessed Francesc◠de Borgia then Marquess of Lombay who being appointed to wait upon the Coarse unto Granada where it was to be interred and being to deliver it bare-faced according to custome to the end it might appear to be the same Body he caused the sheet of Lead wherein it was wrapped to be opened which immediately cast forth so horrible a stench that those who were present not able to endure it were forced to retire and withal the face appeared so foul and deformed that not any of the attendants durst take their oath that that was the Empress's Body Who sees not here the vanity of the world what is of more respect and esteem than the Bodies of great Kings and Princes whilest they live and now dead the Guards and Gentlemen which are to wait upon them flye from them Who are accounted more happy than they who have the fortune to be near their persons They are spoken unto upon the knee as if they were Gods but being dead all forsake them and even Toads Worms and Dogs dare approach and eat them A good testimony of this was Queen Jezabell whose pamperd Body adored whilest she lived was being dead ignominiously torn in pieces by Dogs But to return to our Story The Marquess remaining alone behind the rest began to consider what the Empress once was and what he now beheld her Where was the beauty of that face but become worms and putrifaction where that Majesty and gravity of countenance which made all reverence her and those people happy who beheld her but now grown so hideous that her most obliged Servants leave and abandon her Where is now the Royal Scepter but resolved into filth and corruption This consideration so changed his heart that despising what was temporal and now wholly seeking what was eternal he determined never after to serve that Lord who was mortal The very memory of the loathsomness of a dead Body may serve to make us despise the beauty of that which is living as St. Peter Damian advises
something of the merits of the Passion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Then he said Now 't is well The Religious much admired that a young man so innocent should speak things so dreadful and with such a strange noise When the young man was returned to his senses they demanded of him to declare unto them the meaning of those words and great cryes He answered them I saw that in the Judgement of Almighty God so strict an accompt was taken even of idle words and other things that seemed very little and they weighed them so exactly that the merits in respect of the demerits were almost nothing at all And for this reason I gave that first terrible and sad outcry Afterwards I saw that the demerits were weighed with great attention and that little regard was made of the merits For this reason I spake the second words And seeing that the merits were so few and inconsiderable for to be justified I spake the third And in regard that with the merits of the Passion of Christ our Saviour the balance wherein my good works were weighed more than the other immediately a favourable sentence was given in my behalf For this reason I said now 't is well And having said this he gave up his ghost § 3. The third cause of the terribleness of the end of Temporal Life which is the charge which shall be given of divine benefits received THere is also in the end of life another cause of much terrour unto Sinners which is the lively knowledge which they shall have of the divine benefits received and the Charge which shall be laid against them for their great ingratitude and abuse of them This is also signified by what the Prophet Daniel spake of the Throne and Tribunal of God For he not onely said it was of flames of fire by which was given us to understand the rigour of divine justice against Sinners signified by the violence heat and activity of fire and the discovery and manifestation of sins signified by the light and brightness of the flames but he also adds that from the face of the Judge there proceeded a heady and rapid river which was also of fire signifying by the swiftness of the course and the issuing of it from God the multitude of his graces and benefits which flowing from the divine goodness are communicated and poured down upon his Creatures His saying that this so great river shall in that day be of fire is to make us understand the rigour of that Charge against us for our abuse of those infinite benefits bestowed together with the light and clearness wherewith we shall know them and the horrour and confusion which shall then seise upon us for our great ingratitude and the small account we have made of them in so much as Sinners in that instant are not onely to stand in fear of their own bad works but of the grace and benefits of God Almighty conferr'd upon them Another mourning Weed and confusion shall cover them when they shall see what God hath done to oblige and assist them toward their salvation and what they to the contrary have done to draw upon them their own damnation They shall tremble to see what God did for their good and that he did so much as he could do no more all which hath been mis-imployed and abused by themselves This is so clear and evident on the part of God Almighty that he calls men themselves as witnesses and Judges of the truth and therefore speaking under the Metaphor of a Vineyard by his Prophet Isay Isai 5. he saith in this manner Inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah judge betwixt me and my Vineyard what ought I to have done more unto my Vineyard and have not done it And after the incarnation of the Son of God the Lord turns again to upbraid men with the same resentment and signifies more fully the multitude of his benefits under the same Metaphor of a Vineyard Mat. 21. which a man planted and so much cherished and esteemed it that he sent thither his onely Son who was slain in the demand of it Let therefore men enter into judgement against themselves and let them be judges whether God could have done more for them and has not done it they being still so ungrateful towards their Creatour as if he had been their enemy and done them some notorious injury Coming therefore to consider every one of these benefits by its self The first which occurs is that of the Creation which was signified by our Saviour Jesus Christ when he said that He planted a Vineyard and what could God do more for thee since in this one benefit of thy Creation he gave thee all what thou art both in soul and body If wanting an arm thou wouldest esteem thy self much obliged and be very thankful unto him who should bestow one upon thee which were sound strong and useful why art thou not so to God who hath given thee arms heart soul body and all Consider what thou wert before he gave thee a being Nothing and now thou enjoyest not onely a being but the best being of the Elemental world Philosophers say that betwixt being and not being there is an infinite distance See then what thou owest unto thy Creatour and thou shalt find thy debt to be no less than infinite since he hath not onely given thee a being but a noble being and that not by necessity but out of an infinite love and by election making choice of thee amongst an infinity of men possible whom he might have created If lots were to be cast amongst a hundred persons for some honourable charge how fortunate would he be esteemed who should draw the lot from so many Competitors behold then thy own happiness who from an absolute nothing hast light upon a being amongst an infinity of creatures possible And whence proceeds this singular favour but from God who out of those numberless millions hath pickt out thee leaving many others who if he had created them would have served him better than thy self See then what God could have done for thee and has not having chosen thee without any desert of thine from amongst so many and preferred thee before those whom he foresaw would have been more thankful Besides this he not onely created thee by election and gave thee a noble being but supernatural happiness being no way due unto thy nature he created thee for it and gave thee for thy end the most high and eminent that could be imagined to wit the eternal possession of thy Creatour It was enough for God to create thee for a natural happiness conformable to what thou wert but he not to leave any thing undone which he could do created thee for a supernatural blessedness in so much as there is no creature which hath a higher end then thy self See then if God could do more for thee and has not and see what thou oughtest to do
an Angel should by thee be reputed as a Devil but no less dreadful is that which passed with the Bishop of Laodicia whose Conscience did not accuse him of any thing who thought he had complyed with his obligations that he exercised great vertues had no remorse of any grievous fault or matter of importance and yet for all this he was so contrary in the Divine sight that the Lord sayes he was a miser and miserable poor blind and naked of all vertue Well said the Wise-man That man knoweth not whether he be worthy of love or hate And David had reason to demand of God that he would cleanse him from the sins he knew not O most holy Lord and most righteous Judge how happens it that men fear thee not since for what they themselves know they ought to tremble and although they hold themselves for just and are not conscious of any enormous fault yet that which thou knowest onely is sufficient to condemn them Let us quake that God is to demand an account of those sins which we our selves are ignorant of as he did of this Bishop of Laodicia and also of sins committed by others as he did of him of Thiatira The divine eyes of Christ pierce not only into our secret sins and the sins of others but also discover those of Omission and therefore he reprehended the omission of the Bishop of Pergamus although he was very faithful unto God in all good works and sought his glory and the exaltation of his holy name and likewise searches into all our evil works as well known as hid as well our own as others and also into our good works when they are not done with fervour and perfection Let us tremble that in St. Timothy he found his works not fervent but much more that in the holy Bishop of Philadelphia who was irreprehensible and had not slackned nor fallen off from his first zeal yet he found wherein to reprehend him not for commission of what was bad not for omission of what was good not for remission of his former fervour but only because he had little vertue whereas in truth this most holy Bishop had great merits for which he was much favoured and beloved of God But as our obligations are infinite so there is no vertue no sancticty which in his fight appears not little So precise so exact is the Divine judgement that of seaven Bishops which were reputed Angels he found in six wherewith to judge and reprehend them in one negligence in another inconstancy and dismaidness in another slackness and remissness of zeal in another weariness and want of perseverance in another fear in another tepidness and indiscretion and in two at least that they were in mortal sin And if in such Angels his divine eyes found wherewith to be offended what will they find in us sinners The knowledge that Christ had judged them was of great profit unto those Bishops causing them ever after to comply with their duties with great fervour and for those who are known who they were it is certain that they died Saints and for such are celebrated by the holy Church It may also be profitable unto us to know that we are likewise to be judged with equal rigour that we may not offend him unto whom we owe so much that we may not be tepid in his service but perform our works fully perfectly and compleatly Let the tepid fear those words which our Saviour said unto one of those Bishops Apoc. 3. I would thou wert either hot or cold but because thou art luke-warm I shall begin to vomit thee out of my mouth Of this Menace an Interpreter notes that it is more dreadful Alcazar than if it had been of condemnation as intimating somthing more in particular than is to be found in the common sort of Reprobates which is signified by that Metaphor of Vomit which denotes an irreconcilable detestation on Gods part a casting off from his paternal providence a denying of his efficacious helps and a great hardness of heart in the offender Let us tremble at this threat be Careful also that so we may not hear from the mouth of Christ that which he said unto the Bishop of Sardis I find not thy works full before my God Let us therefore see how our Charity stands whether it be full or not For it is not full if we love this man and not that if we wish well unto our benefactor and abhorre him who does us injurie if we work onely and not also suffer let us see if we bear the burthens of our neighbour as if they were our own if we preferre the conveniency of others before our own if we embrace with a desire of pleasing God Almighty things hard and painful and if we love him not with words but deeds Let us see if our Humility be full if we do not onely hate honours but desire to be despised if we do not onely not preferre our selves before any but abase our selves below all Let us see if our Patience be full if we had not rather suffer this than that if we do not onely suffer but not complain Let us see whether our Obedience be full if we obey in things easie and not in difficult and troublesome if our equal and not inferiour if we look upon God and not upon Man if we do it with repugnancy and not with delight See if the rest of thy vertues be full thou art to give an account of all endeavour to give a good one see if thou be not found in that day with vain and empty works for thou shalt not onely be demanded if thou hast done them good ones but if thou hast done them well If even in this life God will chastize our carelesness what will he do in the other Let us draw strength out of weakness that we may with all our power and all our forces serve him who hath done so much for us Let us see what we have received that we may know what we are to return let us look upon the greatness of those benefits which have been conferred upon us that we may know how to measure our gratitude accordingly and as the benefits of God have been full and plentifully heaped upon us let not our thanks and services be short and nigardly Our Lord forgot not to put the seaven Prelates in mind of their obligation for his benefits and therefore said unto the Bishop of Sardis Apoc. 3. Keep in thy mind in what manner thou hast received because in divine benefits we are not onely to be thankful for the substance but for the manner and circumstances of them that our gratitude may not onely consist in the substance of good works but in the manner and circumstance of doing them performing them fully perfectly and compleatly and seeing God hath bestowed his benefits out of his infinite love upon us let us also serve him with a perfect and unfeigned affection and
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
the memory of this doth not burst our hearts with compunction In vit PP Let us take the counsel of a holy Father in the Desert who when one asked him What he should do to soften and mollifie his stony heart answered That he should remember that he was to appear before the Lord who was to judge him whose sight as another holy Monk said would be so terrible unto the wicked that if it were possible that Souls could die the whole world at the coming of the Son of God would be struck dead with fear and terrour At the side of the Throne of Christ shall be placed another Throne of great glory for his most holy Mother not then to intercede for sinners but for the greater confusion of those who when time served have not addressed themselves unto her nor reaped the benefit of her Protection that she may be honoured in the sight of the whole World There shall be also other Thrones for the Apostles and those Saints who poor in spirit have left all for Christ who sitting now as Judges with their Redeemer and condemning by their good example the scandalous lives of sinners shall approve the Sentence of the Supream Judge and declare his great Justice before the world with which the wicked shall remain confounded and amazed and it shall then be fulfilled which so many years since was prophesied by the Wiseman Sap. 5. The wicked beholding the just who were despised in this life to be so much honoured shall be troubled with horrible fear and shall wonder at their unexpected salvation saying amongst themselves with great resentment and much grief and anguish of Spirit These are they who sometime were unto us matter of scorn and laughter We fools imagined their life to be madness and that their end would be without honour but behold they are counted amongst the Children of God and their lot is amongst the Saints We err'd and wandred from the ways of truth and the light of Justice was not with us nor the Sun of wisdom did shine upon us We wearied our selves in the ways of wickedness and perdition and walked in paths of difficulty and knew not the way of the Lord. What hath our pride profited us and what hath the pomp of our riches availed us all those things have passed like a shadow or like a messenger who passes in haste or like a ship which cuts the instable waves and leaves no track where it went and are now consumed in our wickedness The Tyrants who have afflicted and put to death the holy Martyrs what will they now say when they shall see them in this Glory Those who trampled under foot the justice right of the poor of Christ what will they do when they shall behold them their Judges And what will the wicked Judges doe or say when they shall see themselves condemned for their unjust Sentences Eccl. 3. 10. fulfilling that which was said by Salomon I saw a great evil beneath the Sun that in the Throne of Judgement was seated impiety and wickedness in the place of Justice and I said in my heart God shall judge the good and evil and then shall be seen who every one is Here in this life the just and sinner have not always the place which they deserve many times the wicked takes the right hand and the holy the left Christ shall then rectifie all those grievances and shall separate the wheat from the tares The good he shall place upon his right hand elevated in the Air that all the world may honour them as holy And the wicked shall stand far at his left remaining upon the Earth to their own confusion and the scorn of all How shall the sinners envy the just when they shall see them so much honoured and themselves so much despised How confounded shall be the Kings of the earth when they shall behold their Vassals in Glory and Lords when they shall see their slaves amongst the Angels and themselves in equal rank with Devils For it seems the Devils then shall assume bodies of Air that they may be sensibly seen by the wicked and shall stand amongst them for their greater affront and torment § 3. Immediately the Books of all mens Consciences shall be opened and their sins publisht to the whole world The most secret sins of their hearts and those filthy acts which were committed in private Those sins which through shame and bashfulness were conceal'd in Confession or cover'd with excuses crooked and sinister intentions hidden and unknown treacheries counterfeit and dissembling virtues all shall then be manifested feigned friends adulterous wives unfaithful servants false witnesses shall all to their great shame and confusion be then discovered If we are now so sensible when people murmure at us or that some infamous act of ours is known to one or two persons how shall we be then troubled when all our faults together are made known unto all both men and Angels How many are there now who if they imagined that their father or brother knew what they had committed in secret would die with grief And yet in that day not onely fathers and brothers but friends and enemies and all the world shall to their confusion know it The virtuous actions of the just how secretly soever performed their holy thoughts their pious desires their pure intentions their good works which the world now either disesteems or calumniates as madness shall then be manifested and they for them shall be honoured by the whole world virtue shall then appear admirable in all her beauty and vice horrible in all her deformity It shall then be seen how decent and beautiful it is for the great to humble themselves for the offended to be silent and pardon injuries on the other side how insolent and horrid a thing it is to trample upon the poor to wrong the humble to desire revenge and Lord it over others Then shall be also discovered the good works of the wicked but for their greater affront in that they have not persevered in doing well and that calling to remembrance the good counsel and advice which they have given unto others which hath been a means of their salvation they may be now confounded to have neglected it themselves to their own damnation The sins also of the just shall be published but with all their repentance and the good which they have drawn from their faults in such sort as it shall no ways redound to their shame but be an argument of rendring thanks and divine praises to the Lord who was pleased to pardon them But nothing shall be of greater despite and confusion unto sinners than to behold those who have committed equal greater sins than themselves to be then in Glory because they made use of the time of repentance which they despised and neglected This confusion shall be augmented by that inward charge which God shall lay against them of his divine benefits unto which
reaping time they gathered not half so much as they sowed and sometimes nothing at all This Famine lasted without cease or intermission five whole years a thing so lamentable that it is impossible for them to imagine who have not seen it The people were so oppressed and afflicted with this mortal hunger and many other evils which accompanied it that it was pitiful to behold For many who were rented men and reasonable well to pass left their Houses and Granges and went from door to door like wanderers begging an alms for Gods sake Every day the number of the poor increased in such a manner as it was fearful to behold them going up and down in troops impossible to remedy and dangerous to suffer For besides the fear and hazard of being robbed to which necessity might without sin enforce them the air was filled with stench and corruption from their breaths and bodies To asswage their hunger they fill'd themselves with all sorts of hearbs good and bad wholesome and poisonous they ransackt all Gardens and Orchards not sparing so much as the roots and stalks of Cabbages and of them found not enough to satisfie their ravenous appetites and failing of Pot-hearbs in the Gardens they fell upon those which grew wilde in the Fields Many of them boiled great caldrons full of Mallows and Thistles mingling with them a little Bran if they could get it and with this stuffed their bellies like Porks It was a wonderful thing to see their many exquisite inventions of making bread of seeds of Hearbs of Roots of Fearn of Acorns of Hay-seeds forced and taught by hunger the Mistress of the sloathful verifying that which is commonly said Want and Necessity makes men seek out remedies not thought on as it made those miserable people seeing Hogs feed upon the roots of Fearn to trie whether they could make bread of it robbing the food even from Swine to sustain themselves Which evidently demonstrates the wrath of God against the impurity and filthiness of our sins since he permits men to fall into that necessity as to feed and feast with those unclean creatures From hence were ingendred many sorts of infirmities great companies of Men Women Boyes and Girles young and old of all ages went up and down the streets naked pale shivering with cold some swoln like Drums with Dropsies others stretcht upon the ground half dead and ready to draw the last gasp and of such the Stables and Dunghils were full others trembled as if they were infected with quicksilver so as they appeared more like unto Ghosts and Fantoms than living men But above all the greatest pity was to behold thousands of Women feeble pale and hunger-starved charged with an infinite number of their poor languishing Infants which dried up with hunger could not so much as weep or demand succour from their sorrowful and afflicted Mothers who could onely help them with their pitiful and compassionate looks of which rivers of tears which ran from their eyes were a sufficient witness and this certainly was the most lamentable Scene of this miserable Tragedy The same William Paradin writes that in Lonhans a Town of Burgundy he beheld a poor woman who with all the diligence she could use had gotten a little morsel of black bread which when she was about to have eaten her Infant unto whom she gave suck a boy of about a year old who had never until then eaten bit snatcht it out of her hand at which the sorrowful Mother admiring beheld with what greediness he devoured that little piece of drie bread as savourly as if it had been a March-pane which when he had eaten the Mother pickt up the crums that fell from his mouth intending to eat them her self but the Infant fell into so great unquietness and so violent a fit of crying that she was forced to leave them and truly it seemed the Child knew the scarcity of that kind of food and was therefore unwilling of a companion What heart so hard and inhumane that would not burst at the sight of so rueful a spectacle The same Author further writes That in another Village near unto this two women not finding any thing wherewith to asswage their hunger filled themselves with Sea Onions not knowing the property of that venemous hearb which in such a manner poisoned them that the extremities of their hands and feet became green as the skin of a Lizard and a corrupt matter flowed from betwixt their nails and flesh for which not receiving help so soon as was requisite they both died There was no creature which became not an executioner of the wrath of God The poor labourers left their Lands and Inheritances in hope to be relieved by the Rich who had long since heaped up great quantities of corn in their Granaries from whom at the first they bought bread at excessive rates afterwards money failing they sold and pawned their Lands and Inheritances for vile and low prices for that which was worth an hundred crowns was sold for ten Such was the abominable and greedy avarice of the Usurers as if it were not enough for the poor to be scourged by the wrath of God and to have the Elements and Creatures declared their enemies but Men themselves must become their Hangmen and persecute and afflict their own kinde The Extortioners perceiving the desired occasion which the perverseness of the time offered them lost it not but had Brokers and Factors in the Villages to buy the Inheritances of the poor at what price they pleased which the afflicted willingly parted with that they might have wherewith to eat and together with it sold their Cattle and Houshold-stuffe and the very necessaries of their persons and would with all their hearts have pawned their bowels to have had wherewith to feed them Besides this many of them saw not their Wheat measured and were forced to take it as the Sellers pleased who were no juster in their measure than the price There were some Usurers that bought a piece of Land for less money than the Notaries would take for drawing the Writings After all this the poor Peasants saw themselves their Wives and Children cast out of their Houses and to die in Hospitals All those miseries which fall not under imagination are found in the life of man §. 4. Evils of Warre GReater than all these calamities is that of Warre which of the three Scourges of God wherewith he uses to chastise Kingdomes is the most terrible as well because it is comonly followed by the other two as for that it brings along with it greater punishments and which is worse greater sins whereof plagues are free in which all endeavour to be reconciled with God and even those who are in health dispose themselves for death The Pestilence is sent by God who is all goodness and mercy not passing through the hands of men as warres doe Wherefore David held it for a mercy that his people suffered pestilence and not warre
the joyes shall be such as neither the eye hath seen nor the ear hath heard nor hath entred into the heart of man O baseness of temporal goods what proportion doe they hold with this greatness since they are so poor that even time from whence they have their being makes them tedious and not to be endured Who could continue a whole moneth without other diversion in hearing the choicest musick nay who could pass a day free from weariness without some change of pleasures But such is the greatness of those joyes which God hath prepared for them who love and fear him as we shall still desire them afresh and they will not cloy us in a whole Eternity §. 2. St. Anselme observes this difference betwixt the goods and evils of this life and the other Anselm lib. de simil that in this life neither of them are pure but mixt and confused The goods are imperfect and mingled with many evils and the evils short and mingled with some good But in the other life as the goods are most perfect and pure without the least touch of any ill and so can never weary us for that were an evil so to the contrary those evils of hell in which there is no good at all are horrible and above all sufferance Eternal glory therefore is great both in respect of its purity being free from any ill and in respect of its perfection being highly and excellently good David said Ps 102. That God had removed our sins from us as far as the East is distant from the West which he hath not onely verified in the guilt of sin but in the punishment which is as tar removed from the blessed as Heaven is from Earth And although the spiritual distance betwixt them be greater than the corporeal yet that we may from hence form some conception of that also we will say as much as our weakness is able to attain unto of this Clavius in Sphae 〈◊〉 1. Our famous Mathematician Christopher Clavius sayes that from the Sphere of the Moon which is the lowest Heaven unto the Earth are one hundred and twenty thousand six hundred and thirty miles and from the Heaven of the Sun four millions thirty thousand nine hundred and twenty three miles and from the Firmament or eighth Heaven one hundred sixty one millions eight hundred fourscore and four thousand nine hundred and fourty three miles Here Plato wills the Mathematicians to cease their enquiry for from hence there is no rule of measuring further but without all doubt it is much farther from thence to the Empyrial Heaven For the onely thickness of the Starry Sphere is said to contain as much as the whole space betwixt that and the Earth In so much as if a Milstone were thrown from the highest of the Firmament and should every hour fall two hundred miles it would be 90 years before it arrived at the Earth The Mathematicians also and some learned Interpreters of the holy Scripture affirm that the distance from the Earth unto the highest of the Firmament is less than that from thence to the lowest of the Empyrial Heaven and therefore conclude if one should live two thousand years and every day should travel a hundred miles he should not in all that time reach the lowest of the Firmament and if after that he should also travel other two thousand years he should not reach the highest of it and from thence four thousand years before he arrived at the lowest of the Empyrial Heaven O power of the grace of Jesus Christ which makes us in a moment dispatch so great a journey That noble Matron who was tormented and put to death in England said unto those with grief and honour that beheld her martyrdome So short is the way which brings us to heaven that within six hours I shall mount above the Sun and Moon tread the Stars under my feet and enter into the Heaven of the Blessed But there was no need of six hours one little instant brings the souls of the blessed thither which being purified from their sins and pains remain further distant from the one and the other than Heaven is from Earth Proportionable unto this distance of place is the advantage which the greatness of Heaven hath above that of Earth and the same holds in their blessings Let us mount then with this consideration thither and from that height let us disspise all this mutable World Ptolom in Praefa Almages since even the Gentils did it Wherefore Ptolome said He is higher than the world who cares not in whose hands the world is And Cicero What humane thing can seem great unto him Tull. in Som. Scip. unto whom eternity and the greatness of the other world are known All the earth seems so little unto me that I am sorry and ashamed of our Empire with which we have onely touched some little part of it All the Kingdoms of the Earth are but as a point and unto Boctius seemed but as a point of a point Bar. 3. But of Heaven Baruch could say How great is the house of God how large is the place of his possession it is great and hath no end high and immeasurable So great is the advantage of things eternal above temporal although they were not eternal O what fools then are they who for one point of Earth lose so many leagues of Heaven who for one short pleasure lose things so immense and durable O the greatness of the omnipotency and goodness of the divine liberality which hath prepared such things for the humble and little ones who serve him St. Austin whose thoughts were so sublime and whose understanding was one of the greatest in the world found himself unable to express them nay even to think of them For being desirous to write of Eternal Glory and taking pen in hand he beheld in his Chamber a great light and felt a sweetness so fragrant as almost transported him and withal heard a voice which said Austin what doest thou mean doest thou think it possible to number the drops in the Sea or to grasp the whole compass of the Earth or to make the Celestial bodies suspend their motion that which no eyes have seen wouldest thou behold that which no ear hath heard wouldest thou conceive that which no heart hath attained nor humane understanding imagined doest thou think that thou onely canst comprehend What end can that have which is infinite how can that be measured which is immense Sooner shall all those impossibilities be possible than thou understand the least part of that glory which is enjoyed by the blessed in Heaven If one who had been ever bred in an obscure dungeon and never had seen other light than that of some dimme Lamp were told that above the Earth there was a Sun which enlightned the whole world and cast his beams far above a hundred thousand leagues in Circumference all the discourses which could be made unto
conferring perfect happiness upon the Soul and beauty and immortality upon the Body § 3. Finally all those joyes of the Blessed both in Soul and Body which are innumerable have their sourse and original from that unspeakable joy of the clear vision of God And how can the joy be less which proceeds from such a cause who gives himself being the sweetness and beauty of the world to be possessed by man that joy being the very same which God enjoyes and which suffices to make God himself blessed with a blessedness equal to himself Wherefore not without great mystery in those words by which our Saviour admits the faithful into Heaven it is said Enter into the joy of thy Lord. he said not simply into joy but to determine the greatness of it sayes it was his own joy that joy by which he himself becomes happy and truly the immensity of this joy could not better be declared We are therefore to consider that there is nothing in this World which hath not for his end some manner of perfection and that those things which are capable of reason and knowledge have in that perfection a particular joy and complacencie which joy is greater or lesser according as that end is more or less perfect Since therefore the Divine perfection is infinitely greater than that of all the Creatures the joy of God which is in himself for he hath no end not perfection distinct from himself is infinitely greater than that of all things besides This joy out of his infinite goodness and liberality he hath been pleased to make the holy Angels and blessed Souls partakers of communicating unto the Just although no wayes due unto their nature his own proper and special felicity And therefore the joy of Saints which is that of the beatifical vision wherein consists the joy and happiness of God must needs be infinite and unutterable and all contents of this World in respect of it are bitter as alloes gall and wormwood Besides by how much a delectable object is more nearly and straightly united to the faculty by so much greater is the joy and delight which it produces Therefore God who is the most excellent and delightful object being in the beatifical vision united to the Soul with the most intimate union that can be in a pure creature must necessarily cause a most inexplicable joy incomparably greater than all the joyes real or imaginable which can be produced either by the Creatures now existent or possible For as the Divine perfection incloseth within it self all the perfections of things created possible and imaginable so the joy which it causes in the Souls of the Blessed must be infinitely greater than all other joyes which either have or can be caused by the Creature If the Greeks warred ten years and lost so much blood for the beauty of Helen And if it seemed a small thing unto Jacob to serve fourteen years a Slave for that of Rachel what trouble can seem great unto us to enjoy God in comparison of whose beauty all which the World affords is but deformity Absolon and Adonis were most beautiful and with their very sight drew love and admiration from their beholders But it looking upon Absolon another ten times more lovely should appear we should quickly leave to gaze upon Absolon and fix our eyes upon the other and if a third should come a hundred times more graceful than the second we should serve the second in the same manner and our eyes and delight would still follow him who was the most agreeable God being then infinitely more beautiful than we can either see or think and although he should create some other Creature ten hundred thousand times more beautiful than these we know yet that and one another million of times exceeding it would both fall infinitely short of God himself especially that beauty not being alone but accompanied with perfections without limit with an infinite wisdom omnipotence holiness liberality bounty and all that can be imagined good beautiful and perfect which must necessarily force the hearts of those who see him although before his enemies to love and adore him Which is an other proof of the joy which springs from the beatifical vision in regard it works so powerfully upon the will of him that enjoyes it that it compels it by an absolute necessity to a most intense love although it had before detested it because the joy must equalize the love which it caused It there were in the World a Man as wise as an Angel we should all desire to see him as the Queen of Saba did Salmon but if to this wisdom were joyned the strength of Hercules or Sampson the victories of Machabeus or Alexander the affability and curtesie of David the friedliness of Jonathan the liberality of the Emperour Titus and to all this the beauty and comeliness of Absolon who would not love and desire to live and converse with this admirable person Why then do we not love and desire the sight of God in whom all those perfections and graces infinitely above these are united which also we our selves if we serve him are to enjoy as if they were our own O how great and delightful a Theater shall it be to see God as he is with all his infinite perfections and the perfections of all Creatures which are eminently contained in the Deity How admirable were that spectacle where were represented all that are or have been pleasant or admirable in the World If one were placed where he might behold the seaven Wonders of the World the sumptuous Banquets made by Assuerus and other Persian Kings the rare Shews and Feasts exhibited by the Romans the pleasant Trees and savoury Fruits of Paradise the Wealth of Craesus David and the Assyrian and Roman Monarchs and all those joyntly together who would not be transported with joy and wonder at so admirable a sight but more happy were he upon whom all these were bestowed together with the assurance of a thousand years of life wherein to enjoy them Yet all this were nothing in respect of the eternal sight of God in whom those and all the perfections that either are or have been or possibly can be are contained What ever else is great and delightful in the World together with all the pleasures and perfections that all the men in the World have obtained or shall obtain to the World's end all the wisdom of Salomon all the sciences of Plato and Aristotle all the strength of Aristomenes and Milo all the beauty of Paris and Adonis if they should give all these things to one person it would have no comparison and would seem to be a loathsome thing being compared onely to the delight which will be enjoyed in seeing God for all eternity because in him onely will be seen a Theater of Bliss and Greatness wherein are comprised as in one the greatness of all creatures In him will be found all the richness of Gold the delightfulness
of the Meadows the brightness of the Sun the sweet taste of Honey the pleasantness of Musick the beauty of the Heavens the comfortable smell of Amber the contentfulness of all the senses and all that can be either admired or enjoyed To this may be added that this inestimable joy of the vision of God is to be multiplied into innumerable other joyes into as many as there are blessed Spirits and Souls which shall enjoy the sight of God in regard every one is to have a particular contentment of the bliss of every one And because the blessed Spirits and Souls are innumerable the joyes likewise of every one shall be innumerable Ansel de Simil. cap. 71. This St. Anselme notes in these words With how great a joy shall the Just br replenished to accomplish whose blessedness the joy of each other Saint shall concur for as every Saint shall love another equally as himself so he shall receive equal joy from his happiness to that of his own And if he shall rejoyce in the happiness of those whom he loves equally unto himself how much shall he rejoyce in the happiness of God whom he loves better than himself Finally the blessed Soul shall be surrounded with a Sea of joys which shall fill all his powers and senses with pleasure and delight no otherwise than if a Sponge that had as many senses of pleasures as it hath pores and eyes were steeped in a Sea of milk and honey sucking in that sweetness with a thousand mouths God is unto the Blessed a Sea of sweetness an Ocean of unspeakable joyes Let us therefore rejoyce who are Christians unto whom so great blessings are promised let us rejoyce that Heaven was made for us and let this hope banish all sadness from our hearts Pallad Hist ca. 52. Palladius writes that the Abbot Apollo if he saw any of his Monks sad would reprehend him saying Brother why do we afflict our selves with vain sorrow let those grieve and be melancholy who have no hope of Heaven and not we unto whom Christ hath promised the blessedness of his glory Let this hope comfort us this joy refresh us and let us now begin to enjoy that here which we are ever hereafter to possess for hope as Philo sayes is an anticipation of joy Upon this we ought to place all our thoughts turning our eyes from all the goods and delights of the Earth The Prophet Elias when he had tasted but one little drop of that Celestial sweetness presently lockt up the windows of his senses covering his eyes ears and face with his mantle And the Abbot Sylvanus when he had finished his prayers shut his eyes the things of the Earth seeming unto him unworthy to be looked upon after the contemplation of the heavenly in the hope whereof we onely are to rejoyce CAP. V. How happy is the eternal life of the Just BY that which hath been said may sufficiently appear how happy and blessed is the life of the Just But so many are their joys and so abundant that eternal happiness that we are forced to insist further upon this Subject When the Hebrews would express ablessed person they did not call him blessed in the singular but blessings in the abstract and plural and so in the first Psalm in place of Beatus the Hebrews say Beatitudines and certainly with much reason since the Blessed enjoy as many blessings as they have powers or senses Blessings in their understanding will and memory blessings in their sight hearing smell taste and touch Nay their blessings exceed the number of their senses and the very pores of their bodies so as that life is truly a life entire total and most perfect wherein all that is man lives in joy and happiness The Understanding shall live there with a clear and supreme wisdom the Will with an inflamed love the Memory with an eternal representation of the good which is past the Senses with a continual delectation in their objects Finally all that is man shall live in a perpetual joy comfort and blessedness And to begin with the life and joy of the Understanding the Blessed besides that supreme and clear knowledge of the Creatour whereof we have already spoken shall know the Divine mysteries and the profound sense of the holy Scriptures they shall know the number of Saints and Angels as if they were but one they shall know the secrets of the Divine providence how many are damned and for what they shall understand the frame and making of the World the whole artifice of Nature the motions of the Stars and Planets the proprieties of Plants Stones Birds and Beasts and shall not onely know all things created but many of those things which God might have created all which they shall not onely know joyntly and in mass but clearly and distinctly without confusion This shall be the life of the Understanding which shall feast it self with so high and certain truths The knowledge of the greatest Wisemen and Philosophers of the World even in things natural is full of ignorance deceit and apparence because they know not the substance of things but through the shell and bark of accidents so as the most rude and simple Peasant arriving at the height of glory shall be replenished with a knowledge in respect of which the wisdom of Salomon and Aristotle were but ignorance and barbarism Blos de Mon. Spirit c. 14. Ludovicus Blosius reports that a certain simple and silly Maid appeared after death unto St. Gertrude and began to instruct her in many high and sublime matters The Saint admiring such great and profound knowledge in so ignorant a person asked her from whence she had it to whom the Virgin answered Since I came to see God I know all things Wherefore St. Cregory said well It is not to be believed that the Saints who behold within themselves the light of God are ignorant of any thing without them What a content were it to behold all the Wisemen of the World and the principal Inventers and Masters of Sciences and Faculties met together in one Room Adam Abraham Mayses Salomon Isay Zoroastes Plato Socrates Aristotle Pythagoras Hâ—mer Trismegistus Solon Lycurgus Hipocrates Euclides Archimedes Theophrastus Dioscorides and all the Doctors of the Church How venerable were this Juncto how admirable this Assembly and what journies would men make to behold them If then to see such imperfect scraps of knowledge divided amongst so many men would cause so great admiration what shall be the joy of the Blessed when each particular person shall see his own understanding furnished with that true and perfect wisdom whereof all theirs is but a shadow Who can express the joy they shall receive by the knowledge of so many truths What contentment would it be to one if at once they should shew unto him what ever there is and what is done in the whole Earth the fair Buildings so sumptuous all the Fruit-trees of so great diversity
the light and beauty which he beheld that his heart not being able to contain it it struck forth into his face with a divine brightness what joy shall the blessed Souls receive from the sight of God himself when they shall behold him as he is face to face not in passage or a moment but for all eternity This joy by reason of their strict union their Souls shall communicate unto their happy Bodies Albert. Mag. in Comp. Theol. l. 7. c. 38. which from thenceforth shall be filled with glory and invested with a light seaven times brighter than that of the Sun as is noted by Albertus Magnus For although it be said in the Gospel that the Just shall shine as the Sun yet Isaias the Prophet sayes that the Sun in these dayes shall shine seaven times more than it now doth This light being the most beautiful and excellent of corporal qualities shall cloath the Just as with a garment of most exceeding lustre and glory What Emperor was ever clad in such a purple what humane Majesty ever cast forth beams of such splendour Joseph l. 19. c. 〈◊〉 Herod upon the day of his greatest magnificence could only cloath himself in a Robe of silver admirably wrought which did not shine of it self but by reflection of the Sun beams which then in his rising cast his raies upon it and yet this little glittering was sufficient to make the people salute him as a God What admiration shall it then cause to behold the glorious Body of a Saint not cloathed in Gold or Purple not adorned with Diamonds or Rubies but more resplendent than the Sun it self Put all the brightest Diamonds together all the fairest Rubies all the most beautiful Carbuncles let an Emperial Robe be embroidered with them all all this will be no more than as coals in respect of a glorious body which shall be all transparent bright and resplendent far more than if it were set with Diamonds O the basenese of worldly riches they all put together could not make a Garment so specious and beautiful If here we account it for a bravery to wear a Diamond Ring upon our fingers and women glory in some Carbuncle dangling at their breasts what shall it be to have our hands feet arid breasts themselves more glorious and resplendent than all the Jewels of the World The Garments which we wear here how rich soever are rather an affront and disgrace unto us than an ornament since they argue an imperfection and a necessity of our bodies which we are forced to supply with something of another mature Besides our cloathes were given as a mark of Adams fall in Paradise and we wear them as a penance enjoyned for his Sin And what fool so impudent and sottish as to bestow precious trimming upon a penitential Garment But such are not the Ornaments of the Saints in Heaven their lustre is their own not borrowed from their Garments not extrinsecal without them but within their very entrails each part of them being more transparent than Chrystal and brighter than the Sun It is recounted in the Apocalyps as a great wonder that a Woman was seen cloathed with the Sun and crowned with twelve Stars This indeed was far more glorious than any Ornament upon Earth where we hold it for a great bravery to be adorned with twelve rich Diamonds and a Carbuncle and what are those in comparison of the Sun and so many Stars Yet this is short of the Ornament of the Saints whose lustre is proper to themselves intrinsecally their own not taken and borrowed from something without them as was that of the Womans The State and Majesty with which this gift of splendor shall adorn the Saints shall be incomparably greater than that of the mightiest Kings It were a great Majesty in a Prince when he issues forth of his Palace by night to be attended by a thousand Pages each having a lighted Torch but were those Torches Stars it were nothing to the state and glory of a Saint in Heaven who carries with him a light equal to that of the Sun seaven times doubled and what greater glory than not to need the Sun which the whole World needs Where the Just is shall be no night for wheresoever he goes he carries the day along with him What greater authority can there be than to shine far brighter than the Sun carrying with him far greater Majesty than all the men of the Earth could be able to conferre upon him if they went accompanying him carrying lighted Torches in their hands St. Paul beholding the gift of Clarity in the humanity of Christ remained for some dayes without sense or motion And St. John onely beholding it in the face of our Saviour fell down as if dead his mortal eyes not being able to endure the lustre of so great a Majesty St. Peter because he saw something of it in the transfiguration of Christ was so transported with the glory of the place that he had a desire to have continued there for ever Neither was this much in Christ since the people of Israel were not able to suffer the beams which issued from the face of Moses though then in a frail and mortal body Caesar lib. 12. mir cap. 54. Caesarius writes of a great Doctor of the University of Paris who being ready to give up his ghost wondered how it could be possible that Almighty God could make his body composed of dust to shine like the Sun But our Lord being pleased to comfort and strengthen him in the belief of the Article of the Resurrection caused so great a splendor to issue forth of the feet of the sick person that his eyes not being able to suffer so great a splendor he was forced to hide them under his Bed-cloathes But much more is it that in bodies already dead this glory should appear The body of St. Margaret Daughter to the King of Hungary sent forth such beams of light that they seemed to be like those of Heaven The splendor also of other dead bodies of the Saints hath been such that mortal eyes were not able to behold them If then this Garment of light do beautifie those dead bodies without souls how shall it illustrate those beautiful and perfect bodies in Heaven who are alive and animated with their glorious spirits for all eternity St. John Damascen said that the light of this inferiour World was the honour and ornament of all things How shall then the immortal light of that eternal glory deck and adorn the Saints for it shall not onely make them shine with that bright candor we have already spoken of but with diversity of colours shall imbellish some particular parts more than others In the Crowns of Virgins it shall be most white in that of Martyrs red in that of Doctors of some particular brightness Neither shall those marks of glory be only in their heads or faces but in the rest of their members And therefore
because he who passes from nothing to be a Creature capable of reason and glory ought alwayes to look upon the end for which he was created and from that consideration to make a change of his life as David did of his who confesses in the same Psalm That his change came from the right hand of the most high Let us then as he did remember to change our customs from tepid to become fervent and from Sinners just because the end for which we were created is onely God This onely consideration of so high an end will be able to work a change in us And for this reason David gave this Title to another Psalme To the end For those that are to be changed or altered The holy Prophet well knew the importance of this mindefulness of our last end and therefore he repeated it in his Psalms to the end that having our attention alwaies fixed upon it we should not cease to ayme at it nor spoil our intentions by the mixture of other thoughts of less consideration as he gives to understand in the Inscription of his Psalm 74 which sayes Vnto the end Corrupt not Another Version saies To the end Lose not As if he should say Look upon the end for which thou art created to the end thou maist not lose it Let us also consider that glory being no wayes due unto our nature yet God out of his mercy created us to enjoy it and when he might have made us for a natural felicity and perfection was pleased to create us for a supernatural Other creatures he made for us but us for himself There is no creature hath a more noble end than we there is neither Seraphin nor Archangel that surpasses us in this Let us therefore know the value of it that we may not lose it and with it our selves Consider also that if God should not have made thee for himself nor to the end thou mightest serve him but had left the free and at liberty and had onely given thee a being yet even for that thou owest him all what thou art The Son although the Father be not his end yet ows him all respect and reverence because he begat him The Husbandman who plants a tree hath right unto the fruit God therefore who created and planted thee hath right unto thee and all that thou art And if his right be such for making thee it is no less for ordaining thee for himself There is no Dominion so absolute as both Divines and Philosophers affirm as that of the End over those things which are in order to it in so much as Marcilius Ficinus sayes Mar. Ficinus l. 1. Epis The end is a Lord more excellent then those things which as Servants and Ministers relate unto it For this reason man although he be neither the Creatour nor utmost end of Corporal things yet because he is their immediate end and that they were ordained for his use is their Lord and God who is the utmost end of man and them is the Lord of all Philo calls the End the head of things For as a Prince is the absolute head and Lord of his vassals and Kingdom so the End is Lord and head of those things which have a relation unto it and therefore man who is wholly from God and for God ought not to stir a hand or a foot but in order to his service One of the Philosophers calls the End The cause of causes another The principal of all causes If therefore unto God because he is thy efficient cause thou owest him what thou art for being thy final cause thou owest him more then thou art For this obligation looks not upon that which thou hast received which is thy finite and limited being but upon that for which thou art ordained which is a being divine infinite and without limit Even God himself as he is the efficient cause of things doth as it were serve himself as he is the chief good and Final cause of things and doth not make them but for this end What right then hast thou to work for any thing but God since God doth not nor will work for any thing but himself The End is the cause of causes and therefore if thou owest thy self unto God for being thy Maker thou owest thy self unto him for being thy End for he had not been thy Maker if it had not been for some End which was the cause of thy creation §. 2. Consider the force of the End in the several Orders of things Natural Artificial and Moral that thou maiest from hence gather what force it ought to have in things supernatural With what violence do the the Elements tend unto their centre because it is their End With what force doth a stone fall from high and with what violence doth it press unto its natural place and bears down all before it And the fire that it may attain his Sphere how it mounts above the highest hills and rocks Consider a great Stone hung in the air by some Cable how it strives to get loose and being at liberty with what violence it falls upon the earth with what speed and earnestness without stay or diversion to one part or other it tends straight to its Center In this manner thou oughtest to seek after thy Lord God with all the powers of thy soul with all the forces of thy body and all the affections of thy heart all thy inclinations are to tend that way thou art to go directly to him without diverting on either hand or looking upon any creature which may detain thee bearing down all things temporal before thee A stone that it may attain its end sticks not to fall in water fire or to be dasht in a thousaud pieces and thou that thou mayest attain thy God art not to stop at any thing not at the loss of goods or honour or at the very tearing of thy members in pieces and as our Saviour sayes If thy Eye scandalize thee pluck it out or cut off thy Foot or Hand if it offend thee for it is better to enter into heaven blind or lame then to fall into hell fire sound and entire Things natural find no quiet but in their Centre and the Mariners needle rests not but when it beholds the North no more shall the Soul ever meet with repose but in God And certainly the cause of the greatest miseries and afflictions in the world proceeds from our deviating from God who is our onely End and eternal happiness Let the heart of man therefore undeceive it self for it shall never finde quiet and content but in its Creatour If we come to things Artificial Those which are not directed to some end what are they but a disorderly confusion If a Painter should draw his lines without proposing any Idea unto himself what would be the issue of his work but a great blot If in painting some great Captain he should instead of a Sword place in
it prepares for us are eternal whose greatness though it were not otherwise to be known might in this sufficiently appear that to free us from so many evils and crown us with so many goods it was necessary that he who was eternal should make himself temporal and should execute this great and stupendious work so much to his own loss CAP. IV. The baseness of Temporal goods may likewise appear by the Passion and Death of Christ Jesus THe greatness of eternal goods and evils is by the Incarnation of the Son of God made more apparent unto us then the Sun beams since for the freeing us from the one and gaining for us the other it was necessary so great a work should be performed and that God judged not his whole omnipotency ill imployed that man might gain eternity Yet doth not this great work so forcibly demonstrate unto us the baseness of things temporal and the contempt which is due unto them as the Passion and Death of the Son of God which was another work of his love an other excess of his affection another tenderness of our Creator and a most high expression of his good will towards us wherein we shall see how worthy to be despised are all the goods of the Earth since to the end we might contemn them the Son of God would not onely deprive himself of them but to the contrary embraced all the evils and incommodities this life was capable of Behold then how the Saviour of the world disesteemed temporal things since he calls the best of them and those which men most covet but thorns and to the contrary that which the world most hates and abhorrs he qualifies with the name of blessings favouring so much the Poor who want all things that he calls them blessed and sayes Of them is the Kingdom of heaven And of the Rich who enjoy the goods of the earth he sayes It is harder for them to enter into heaven then for a Camel to pass the eye of a needle And to perswade us yet more he not onely in words but in actions chose the afflictions and despised the prosperity of this life and to that end would suffer in all things as much as could be suffered In honour by being reputed infamous In riches by being despoyled of all even to his proper garments In his pleasures by being a spectacle of sorrow and afflicted in each particular part of his most sacred body This we ought to consider seriously that we may imitate him in that contempt of all things temporal which he principally exprest in his bitter death and passion This he would have us still to keep in memory as conducing much to our spiritual profit as an example which he left us and as a testimony of the love he bore us leaving his life for us and dying for us a publick death full of so many deaths and torments Zcnophon in Cyro lib. 3. Tigranes King of Armenia together with his Queen being prisoners unto Cyrus and one day admited to dine with him Cyrus demanded of Tigranes What he would give for the liberty of his wife to whom Tigranes answered That he would not onely give his Kingdom but his life and blood The woman not long after requited this expression of her husband For being both restored to their former condition One demanded of the Queene What she thought of the Majesty and Greatness of Cyrus to whom she answered Certainly I thought not on him nor fixt mine eyes on any but him who valued me so much as he doubted not to give his life for my ransom If this Lady were so grateful onely for the expression of her husbands affections that she looked upon nothing but him and neither admired nor desired the greatness of the Persians What ought the Spouse of Christ to do who not onely sees the love and affection of the King of Heaven but his deeds not his willingness to die but his actual dying a most horrid and cruel death for her ransom and redemption Certainly she ought not to place her eyes or thoughts upon any thing but Christ crucified for her Sabinus also extolls the loyalty and love of Vlysses to his Wife Penelope in regard that Circe and Calypso promising him immortality upon condition that he should forget Penelope and remain with them he utterly refused it not to be wanting to the love and affection he owed unto his Spouse who did also repay it him with great love and affection Let a Soul consider what great love and duty it owes to its Spouse Christ Jesus who being immortal did not onely become mortal but died also a most ignominious death Let us consider whether it be reasonable it should forget such an excessive love and whether it be fit it should ever be not remembring the same and not thankful for all eternity hazarding to lose the fruits of the passion of its Redeemer and Spouse Christ Jesus Upon this let thy Soul meditate day and night and the spiritual benefits which she will reap from thence will be innumerable Albertus Magnus used to say Lud. de Ponte P. 4. in introduc That the Soul profited more by one holy thought of the Passion of Christ than by reciting every day the whole Psalter by fasting all the year in bread and water or chastizing the Body even to the effusion of blood One day amongst others when Christ appeared unto St. Gertrude to confirm her in that devotion she had to his Passion he said unto her behold Daughter if in a few hours which I hung upon the Cross I so enobled it that the whole world hath ever since had it in reverence how shall I exalt that Soul in whose heart and memory I have continued many years Certainly it cannot be exprest what favour devout Souls obtain from Heaven in thinking often upon God and those pains by which he gained tor us eternal blessings and taught us to despise things temporal and transitory But that we may yet reap more profit by the holy remembrance of our Saviours passion we are to consider that Christ took upon him all our sins and being to satisfy the Father for them would do it by the way of suffering for which it was convenient that there should be a proportion betwixt the greatness of his pains and the greatness of our sins And certainly as our sins were without bound or limit so the pains of his torments were above all comparison shewing us by the greatness of those injuries he received in his passion the greatness of those injuries we did unto God by our inordinate pleasures We may also gather by the greatness of those pains and torments which were inflicted upon him by the Jews and Hangmen the greatness of those which he inflicted upon himself for certainly those pains which he took upon himself were not inferior to those he received from others But who can explicate the pains which our Saviour wounded by the grief he conceived at
thousand three hundred and five And afterwards in time of his Passion he shed from his sacred eyes as Peter Calentinus writes to the number of seaventy two thousand two hundred drops of tears and this for our sins begging the Eternal Father for pardon and our salvation In lib. inscrip Faustus annus Joan. Aquilan Serm. de Pass Lansperg hom 50. de Pass Ansel in Spec. Evan Ser. 1. c. 22. Vide Joan Burg. p. 2. c. 7. p. 3. c. 3. The lashes he received from those barbarous fellows past in number five thousand Some say it was reveal'd to St. Bernard how they amounted to six thousand six hundred seaventy six Lanspergius writes that a Servant of God understood from Heaven that if one for the space of twenty years should every day say an hundred times the Lords prayer in reverence of those stripes our Saviour received for every drop or blood would correspond one prayer and according to this account those drops amount to seaven hundred and thirty thousand five hundred He that has numbred the multitude of the stars the sands of the sea the drops of rain might well keep an account and give also an exact knowledge of the aforesaid numbers as being of more account The Crown of thorns was another Torment very cruel of which St. Anselm says that it pierced his venerable head with a thousand wounds And who can express the unspeakable torment of hanging upon the Cross the whole weight of his body sustained by his nailed hands and feet Finally so strange and horrible were his pains that not only to suffer them but even to imagin them caused St. Lidwine to bewail them even with tears of blood Cantip. l. 1. c. 25. Cantipratensis writes of a devout person who died of meer sorrow upon consideration of the excessive torments undergone by the Son of God And there is no doubt but the blessed Virgin if it had not been for her eminent constancy fortified by divine grace Albert. Mag. super Mis as Albertus Magnus said had expired in those tears of blood she poured forth at the foot of the Cross And if the sword of grief which pierced the heart of the Mother was so sharp what was the grief of the Son The passion of torments was in him real in her but for his sake and certainly the compassion he had of us sinners was greater than the compassion she could have of him And if the grief of the Virgin was so terrible Ansel de Excess Virg. that as St. Anselme sayes all the torments endured by all bodies whatsoever were in comparison of it little or nothing And St. Bernard thinks that her pains were a thousand times double to those of Child-birth Bernard de lament Virg. Bernardin Ser. 61. art 3. ca. 2. And Sr. Bernardine exceeding all this is confidedent that if the grief of the Virgin were divided amongst all the creatures that can suffer all would sodainly die as uncapable of it If such then and so great were the pains of the Virgin what shall be said of those which Christ suffered and felt since no sorrow was as his no pain could stand in competition with his If then in Torment he suffered so much as none but he could suffer in Honour and reputation he suffered no less and in all manners that the fury and envy of his Enemies assisted by the Devils could invent And if he suffered so much by the compassion of his torments he suffered much more by the compassion of our offences Thirdly the grief of his pains was much augmented by the place Where he suffered which was the Court of Judaea a place where he had heretofore been much esteeemed and of late received in triumph as a man come from Heaven And certainly to pass sodainly from one extream to another from the height of honour to the bottom of contempt and scorn increases much our afflictions For he became the most infamous man in the world arraigned and condemned to suffer between two Theeves in a publique place designed for wicked persons and murtherers and in the presence of his Mother which doubled the grief of his heart Fourthly the persons by whom he suffered was a great aggravation unto his grief It was by them of his own Nation such as he had favoured with infinit benefits and finding some compassion in Strangers he found none in his Countrymen The rage and madness wherewith his enemies desired his death being such as the Scripture compares them to Doggs wild Beasts and Unicorns The fifth Circumstance and that which most increaved his sorrow was To see those excessive pains and torments misbestowed foreseeing that the greatest number would not benefit themselves by them For as the hope of profit which is a main end in all our labours is a great comfort unto us so the despair of it as great an affliction And Christ our Redeemer suffering that his merits bloud and passion might profit all men when he knew that the hundredth part would not lay hold of it and that innumerable persons would prove ungrateful for so great a benefit it was a grief which beyond all apprehension pierced his tender and most loving heart Sixthly the Manner of his suffering was most grievous For it was by being generally abandoned of all things not having any thing whatsoever to comfort him His own people procured his death with great injustice the Gentils executed it with as great cruelty and the Priests and the learned in the Law were the leaven that sowred the whole lump The Princes blew the coals and kindled such a flame in the People as could not be quenched with those infinite injuries and affronts which were heaped upon him nor were they satisfied with seeing him hang upon the Cross whom they had so unjustly punished but rent his very bowels with their taunts and scoffs And which was more than all even in his own Disciples which he had bred up in his own School he found little firmness and loyalty Amongst his twelve chosen Apostles One sold him and became the Captain of those who apprehended him Another unto whom he had given the principality over the rest denied him thrice before his face cursing himself if he knew him and the Rest forsook him in the power of his enemies O never to be paralelled example of the inconstancy of humane things and of the constancy which a Christian ought to preserve in all events What felt that blessed heart of our Saviour when he saw himself surrounded by so many enemies and so few friends left him Psal 21. Of him it was truly written My heart became as melted wax in the middest of my bowels True it is that his blessed Mother when she could neither assist or defend him yet forsook him not but alas her presence did not mitigate but encrease his sorrow The eternal Father who could onely help him would not then appear for him but gave him over to suffer with all rigour
for himself in the Incarnation and Passion for th◠salvation of man was a high expression of his love but yet it was God who was served and who made use of one of the divine persons for the end which he pretends of his glory but that man should make use of God for his own glorie is beyond what we can think What a wonder is it that Christ should equal himself with Water Oyle and Balsome For as we use Water in Baptisme to justify our selves in Confirmation of Balsom to sanctify and fortify our selves of Oyle in extream Unction to purifie our selves so in this Sacrament we may use Christ for the acquiring of greater grace and increase of holiness A great matter then is the salvation of man since for this purpose God who is his End was content to be his Means I know not how the incomprehensible goodness and charitie of God can extend beyond this Let man therefore reflect how much it imports him to be saved Let him not stick at any thing that may further it Let him leave no stone unremoved let him leave no meanes unattempted since God himself becomes a Means of his salvation and to that end subjects himself to the disposition and will of a Creature Let nothing which is temporal divert him since God was not diverted by what was eternal If therefore to quit thy honours deny thy pleasures distribute thy riches unto the Poor be a means to save thee stick not at it since God stuck not at the greatness of his being which is above all but gave himself for thee The blessed Sacrament was also left us as a Pledge of future glory and eternal happiness For when Christ our Redeemer preached unto the world the contempt of temporal goods for the gaining of the eternal and pronounced that comfortable sentence Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven not saying Theirs shall be but Theirs is giving it them in present It was convenient that since they could not then enter into the possession of those heavenly joyes which they had purchased with all they had upon earth that some equivalent pledge should now be given them in the time of their forbearance This pledge is the most blessed Body of our Redeemer Christ Jesus Son of the living God which is of greater worth and value then the heavens themselves Well may we then despise the fading goods of this life when we receive in hand such a pledge of the eternal Well may we renounce the perishing riches and the pleasures of nature when the treasure of grace is bestowed upon us The blessed Sacrament is also out Viaticum here upon earth Whereby we are given to understand that this life is but a pilgrimage wherein we travel towards eternity and that therefore we are not to stay and rest in what is temporal And because we are neither to enjoy the goods of this temporal life nor yet to enter upon those of the future to the end we may better suffer the renuntiation of the one and sustain the hopes of the other this blessed Sacrament is given us as a Viaticum so as the soul wandring in this valley of tears wherein she is not to please or detain her self in the delights of the world since her journey is for heaven might have somthing to comfort her in this absence from her Celestial Country Let us then consider the value of the End whereunto we travel since the journey is defrayd with so precious a Viaticum and that the pleasures of this world are so prejudicial unto our Salvation that this Pledge is given us from heaven to the end we should not so much as taste them The Israelites in their peregrinaon in the wilderness had Manna for their Viaticum which supplyed all their necessities for it not onely served to sustain their bodies but whilest they fed upon it they were not subject to infirmities neither did their garments decay with wearing insomuch as having it they had all things All this is but a shadow of our Divine Viaticum having which we need nothing and being provided of so Celestial a good may well spare what is temporal §. 2. A most principal end also of the institution of this most admirable Sacrament is to be a memorial of the Passion of the Son of God which being so efficacious a motive unto the contempt of things temporal as we have already said our Saviour hath almost in all the things of nature left us a draught of it For this reason in the holy Shrowd Paleot adm Hist de Christi stigmat Adricom 2. par descr Hiero. n. 44. Lansp hom 19. de Passione Andrad in descrip Terraesanctae Petrus de P. A. Consil Reg. Francis lib. 5. in Const in lib. inscrip Fraustus Annus wherein his wounded body was wrapt when they took him from the Cross there remained miraculously imprinted the signes of his Passion For this when loaden with his Cross the pious Veronica presented him with her Vail he returned it enriched with the Portraicture of his sacred countenance And as Lanspergius notes the fingers of the armed Souldier who gave him the blow were imprinted in the same Vail For this when he fell prostrate in the Garden and in a sweat of blood prayed unto his Father he left ingraved upon the stone whereon he prayed the print of his feet knees and hands And not farr from thence is found another stone where after he was apprehended the Souldiers throwing him down upon the ground he left imprinted the end of his toes his hands and knees which stone as Borcardus notes is so hard as 't is not possible to raze or cut any thing out of it even with iron instruments and this to the end the memory of his ineffable meekness and partience should be perpetual In like manner where he past the brook of Cedron he left another mark of his sacred feet as likewise of the rope wherewith they carried him tied So firmly would our Saviour have the memory of his Passion fixt in our hearts that he hath left the signes of it in the very rocks There hath been also seen an Oriental Jasper accidentally found whereon the dolorous countenance of our Saviour hath been exactly formed And blessed Aloysius de Gonzaga walking upon the Sea-shore found with great content of his spirit a pibble whereon were distinctly figured the five wounds of Christ our Redeemer And not onely in stones but in several other peeces of nature Anast Sinaita in Hexamer as St. Anastatius Sinaita observes he hath left us no obscure remembrances of his Cross and Passion In the flower Granadilla are perfectly represented the Nails Pillar and Crown of thorns In dividing the fruit of the tree Musa appears in some of them the Image of a Cross in others of Christ crucified and in Gant they hold in great esteem the root of a beautiful flower brought from Jerusalem wherein is also lively represented a
1. Tertullian said The greatness of some goods were intolerable the which according to the Prophet Isaias is verified in this Divine good and benefit which we were not able to support Wherefore it is called in holy Scripture The good or the good thing of God because it is a good and a benefit which more clearly than the Sun discovers the infinite and ineffable goodness of God to the astonishment and amazement of a humane heart and therefore the Prophet Oseas sayes Osee 3. They shall be astonished at the Lord and at his Good because his Divine benefit amazes and astonishes the Soul of man to see how good the Lord is and how great the good which he communicates unto us All which tends to no other end than to make us despise the goods of the Earth and to esteem onely those of Heaven which we attain unto by this Divine mysterie For this therefore did Christ our Redeemer institute this most blessed Sacrament that by it we might withdraw our hearts from things temporal and settle our affections upon those which are eternal for which it is most particularly efficacious as those who worthily receive it have full experience §. 3. Wherefore let that Soul who goes to communicate consider Who it is that enters into him and Who he is himself who entertains so great a Guest Let him call to mind with what reverence the blessed Virgin received the Eternal Word when he entred into her holy Womb and let him know it is the same Word which a Christian receives into his entrails in this Divine Sacrament Let him therefore endeavour to approach this holy Table with all reverence love and gratitude which ought if possible to be greater than that of the blessed Mother For then the obligation of Mankind was not so great as now it is For neither she nor we were then indebted unto him for his dying upon the Cross Let him consider that he receives the same Christ who sits at the right hand of God the Father That it is he who is the supreme Lord of Heaven and Earth He whom the Angels adore He who created and redeemed us and is to judge the living and the dead He who is of infinite wisdom power beauty and goodness If a Soul should behold him as when St. Paul beheld him and was struck blind with his light and splendour how would he fear and reverence him Let him know that he is not now less glorious in the Host and that he is to approach him with as much reverence as if he saw him in his Throne of glory With much reason did St. Teresa of Jesus say unto a devout Soul unto whom she appeared after death That we upon earth ought to behave our selves unto the blessed Sacrament as the blessed in Heaven do towards the Divine Essence loving and adoring it with all our power and forces Consider also that he who comes in person to thee is that self same Lord that required so much reverence that he struck Oza dead because he did but touch with his hand the Ark of his Testament and slew 50000 Bethshamits for their looking on it And thou not onely seest and touchest but receivest him into thy very bowells See then with what reverence thou oughtest to approach him The Angels and Seraphins tremble before his greatness and the Just are afraid Do thou then tremble fear and adore him S. John standing but near unto an Angel remained without force astonisht at the greatness of his Beauty and Majesty and thou art not to receive an Angel but the Lord of Angels into thy entrails It adds much to the endearment of this great benefit of our Saviour that it is not onely great by the greatness of that which is bestowed but by the meaneness of him who receives it For what art thou but a most vile creature composed of clay and dirt full of misery ignorance weakness and malice If the Centurion held himself unworthy to receive Christ under his roof and St. Peter when our Saviour was in this mortal life deemed himself not worthy to be in his presence saying Depart from me O Lord for I am a sinful man and St. John Baptist thought himself not worthy to unloose the latchet of his shoe How much more oughtest thou to judge thy self unworthy to receive him into thy bowels being now in his glory seated at the right hand of God the Father The Angels in heaven are not pure in his sight What purity shouldest thou have to entertain him in thy breast If a mighty King should visit a poor Beggar in his Cottage what honour what respects would it conferre upon him Behold God who is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords comes to visit thee not in thy house but within thy self Seaven years did Salomon spend in building a Temple wherein to place the Ark of the Testament Why doest thou not spend some time in making thy self a Temple of God himself Noah was a hundred years in preparing a Vessel wherein to save those who were to escape the Deluge Why doest thou not spare some dayes or hours to make thy self a Sacristy for the Saviour of the World Behold thy own unworthiness and what thou goest a-about Moyses when he was to make an Ark for the Tables of the Law not onely made choice of precious wood but covered it all with gold Thou miserable and vile Worm why doest thou not prepare and adorn thy self to receive the Lord of the Law Consider also what is the end for which thy Saviour comes unto thee It is by communicating his grace to make thee partaker of his Divinity He comes to cure thy sores and infirmities he comes to give remedy to thy necessities he comes to unite himself unto thee he comes to Deifie thee Behold then the infinity of his Divine goodness who thus melts himself in communication with his Creatures Behold what is here given thee and for what it is given thee God gives himself unto thee that thou mayest be all divine and nothing left in thee of earth In other benefits God bestows his particular gifts upon thee but here he gives thee himself that thou mightest also give thy self unto him and be wholly his If from the Incarnation of the Son of God we gather the great love he bore unto mankind passing for his sake from that height of greatness unto that depth of humiliation as to inclose himself in the Womb of a Virgin Behold how in this he loves thee since to sustain thee in the life of grace he hath made himself the true food of thy Soul and comes from the right hand of the eternal Father to enclose himself in thy most impure breast Jesus Christ comes also to make thee one body with himself that thou mayest after an admirable manner be united unto him and made partaker not onely of his spirit but of his bloud That which this Consideration ought to work in the breast of a