instead of the burning coals of that eternal fire Neither shall they be Masters so much as of that broken pot wherein to contain a little water if it might be given them Jsai 30. For as Isaias sayes There shall not remain unto them so much as the shread of a broken pot to hold a little water from the pit nor shall there be any found to give it them That rich Glutton in the Gospel accustomed to drink in Cups of Chrystal to eat in Silver and to be cloathed in Silks and curious Linnens can tell us how far this infernal poverty extends when he demanded not wines of Candie but a little cold water and that not in Cups of Gold or Chrystal but upon the fingers end of a Leper This rich and nice Glutton came to such an extremity that he would esteem it a great felicity that they would give him but one drop of water although it were from the filthy and loathsome finger of a Leper and yet this also was wanting unto him Let the rich of the World see to what poverty they are like to come if they trust in ther riches let them know that they shall be condemned to the loss of all which is good Let them reflect upon him who was accustomed to be cloathed in precious Garments to tread upon Carpets to sleep upon Down to dwell in spacious Palaces now naked thrown upon burning coals and packt up in some narrow corner of that infernal Dungeon Let us therefore fear the riches of this World and the poverty of the other §. 4. This poverty or want of all good of the damned is accompanied with a most opprobrious infamy and dishonour when by publick sentence they shall be deprived for their enormous offences of eternal glory and reprehended in the presence of Saints and Angels by the Lord of Heaven and Earth This infamy shall be so great that St. Chrysostom speaks of it in these words A most intolerable thing is Hell Chrys in Math. 24. and most horrible are the torments yet if me should place a thousand Hells before me nothing could be so horrible unto me as to be excluded from the honour of glory to be hated of Christ and to hear from him these words I know you not This infamy we may in some sort declare under the example of a mighty King who having no Heir to succeed him in his Kingdom took up a beautiful Boy at the Church door and nourished him as his Son and in his Testament commanded that if at ripe years his conditions were vertuous and sutable to his calling he should be received as lawful King and seated in his Royal Throne but if he proved vitious and unfit for Government they should punish him with infamy and send him to the Gallies The Kingdom obeyed this Command provided him excellent Masters and Tutors but he became so untoward and ill-inclined that he would learn nothing flung away his books spent his time amongst other Boyes in making houses of dirt and other childish fooleries for which his Governors corrected and chastised him and advised him of what was fitting and most imported him but all did no good onely when they reprehended him he could weep not because he repented but because they hindred his sport and the next day did the same The more he grew in age the worse he became and although they informed him of the Kings Testament and what behooved him all was to no purpose until at last after all possible care and diligence his Tutors and the whole Kingdom weary of his ill conditions in a publick Assembly declared him unworthy to raign dispoiled him of his Royal Ornaments and condemned him with infamy unto the Gallies What greater affront and ignominy can there be than this to lose a Kingdom and to be made a Gally-slave for I do not know which of these things that young man would be more sensible of More ignominious and a more lamentable Tragedy is that of a Christian condemned to Hell who was taken by God from the gates of death adopted his Son with condition that if he kept his Commandments he should raign in Heaven and if not he should be condemned to Hell Yet he forgetting these obligations without respect of his Tutors and Masters who were the holy Angels especially his Angel Guardian who failed not to instill into him holy inspirations and other learned and spiritual men who exhorted him both by their doctrine and example what was fitting for a Child of God But he neither moved by their advices nor the chastisements of Heaven by which God overthrew his vain intentions and thwarted his unlawful pleasures onely lamented his temporal losses and not his offences and at the time of his death was sentenced to be deprived of the Kingdom of Heaven and precipitated into Hell What infamy can be greater than this of the damned Soul for if it be a great infamy to suffer death by Humane Justice for some crimes committed how great an infamy will it be to be condemned by Divine Justice for a Traitor and perfidious Rebel to God Besides this bitterness of pains the damned persons shall also be eternally branded with the infamy of their offences so as they shall be scorned and scoft at by the Devils themselves and not onely Devils but all rational creatures Men and Angels shall detest them as infamous and wicked Traitors to their King God and Redeemer Jsai 13. Facies combustae vultus eorum And as fugitive Slaves are marked and cauterized with burning irons so this infamy by some special mark of ugliness and deformity shall be stamped upon their faces and bodies so as Albertus Magnus sayes so ignominious shall be the body of a Sinner that when his Soul returns to enter it it shall be amazed to behold it so horrible and shall wish it were rather in the same state as when it was half eaten up by worms CAP. IX The Punishment of the Damned from the horribleness of the place into which they are banished from Heaven and made Prisoners in Hell ANother kind of punishment of great discomfort and affliction is that of Exile which the Damned shall suffer in the highest degree For they shall be banished into the profound bowels of the Earth a place most remote from Heaven and the most calamitous of all others where they shall neither see the Sun by day nor the Stars by night where all shall be horror and darkness and therefore it was said of that condemned person Cast him forth into utter darkness forth of the City of God forth of the Heavens forth of this World where he may never more appear into that land which is called in the Book of Job A dark land Job 10. covered with the obscurity of death a land of misery and darkness where the shadow of death and no order but everlasting horror inhabits a land according to Isaias Jsai 34. of sulphur and burning pitch a land of
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
been some revelations of great comfort It was revealed to St. Gertrude that as often as St. Joseph was named here upon Earth all the blessed in Heaven made a low bow What greater honour can be expected what comparison can all the expressions of respect and adorations of all the men in this World have with one onely inclination and reverence expressed by one Saint of Heaven What then shall be a reverence exhibited by them altogether The Church sayes of St. Martin that at his entrance into Heaven he was received with Celestial hymns that is with songs which the blessed sung in praise of his prowess and victory If Saul thought the honour too much which was given to David by the Damsels when they celebrated his Victory in their songs What shall it be to be celebrated by all the Saints and Angels in Celestial responsories Bellar. de aeter felic lib. 4. c. 2. Cardinal Bellarmine conceives that when a Servant of God enters into Heaven he shall be received with such musick all the blessed in Heaven often repeating those words in the Gospel Well done good servant and true because thou hast been faithful in a few things thou shalt be plac'd over much Enter into thy Lords joy which words they shall repeat in Quires This shall be a Song of Victory an honour above all the honours of the Earth conferred by so great so wise so holy and so authentique persons Whereupon St. Austin said Lib. 22. de Civit. c. 30. There shall be the true glory where none shall be praised by the error or flattery of the praiser and there the true honour which shall neither be denyed to the worthy nor granted unto the unworthy § 3. Although the honour and applause which the Just receive in Heaven from the Citizens of that holy City be incomparable yet that honour and respect with which God himself shall treat them is far above it Christ our Redeemer to express it uses no meaner a similitude than that of the honour done by the Servant unto his Lord and therefore sayes that God himself shall as it were serve the Blessed in Heaven at their Table It is much amongst men to be seated at the Table of a Prince but for a King to serve his Vassal as if he himself were his Servant who ever heard it Certainly with much reason David said unto God That his Servants were too much honoured And the same David when he caused Miphiboseth although the Grandchild of a King and the Son of an excellent Prince unto whom David ought his life to sit at his Table he thought he did him a singular honour but this favour never extended to wait on him Aman Esther 6. who was the most proud and ambitious man in the world could not think of a greater honour from King Assuerus than to ride through the Streets mounted upon the Kings own horse and that the greatest man in the Kingdom should lead him by the bridle but that the King himself should perform that service never entred into his imagination The honour which God bestows upon the Just exceeds all humane imagination who not satisfied with crowning all the Blessed with his own divinity giving himself to be possessed and enjoyed by them for all eternity does also honour their victories and heroick actions with new Crowns Lib. 10. Apum Thomas de Cantiprato writes of Alexander brother to St. Matilde and Son to the King of Scots that he appeared unto a certain Monk with two Crowns and being demanded why he had them doubled he answered This which I wear upon my head is common unto me with all the blessed but that which I carry in my hand is given me for renouncing my Kingdom upon Earth But above all the Martyrs Virgins and Doctors shall appear most glorious whom God shall honour with certain particular marks of honour by which they shall be known and distinguished from the rest of the Blessed which seals and marks shall be imprinted in their Souls like the indelible characters of Baptism Confirmation and Priesthood which are to endure for all eternity Of the Doctors the Prophet Daniel sayes They shall shine like the Stars in the Firmament giving us to understand that as the Stars excel the other parts of the Firmament by the advantage of their light so the Doctors shall be known in Heaven by a more glorious splendor which they shall cast from them And if the least Saint in Heaven shall shine seaven times more than the Sun what shall that light be which shall outshine so many Suns Apoc. 21. Of the Martyrs St. John saith That they went cloathed in white carrying palms in their hands in sign of victory For as Kings are honoured by wearing Purple and holding Scepters so Conquerors by their candid Garments and Palms Apoc. 21. The same St. John also sayes of Virgins That the name of Christ and his Father shall be imprinted in their foreheads which shall be as a token to distinguish them from the rest of Saints conformable unto that of the Prophet Isaias who sayes that a more noble and excellent name shall be given to Virgins than unto the rest of the Sons of God by which name St. Augustin sayes is meant some particular Devise which shall distinguish them from the rest as the more eminent men are distinguished from others by their several Titles of honour Besides this those members of the Blessed by which they have more specially served God or suffered for him Aug. 22. de Civit. Dei. shall as St. Austin notes cast forth some particular light and splendour so as every wound which St. Stephen received from his stoning shall cast forth a particular beam of light And with what a Garment of glory shall St. Bartholmew be clad who was flead from head to foot In the like manner St. James Intercisus who was hacked in pieces member by member for the faith of Christ Even the Confessors in those Senses which they have mortified for Christ shall have a particular Enamel of light St. John the Evangelist was shewed to St. Matilde with a particular splendour and glory in his eyes for not daring to lift them up to look upon our Blessed Lady when he lived with her for the great esteem and reverence he bore unto her There is no kind of honour which shall not then be given to the heroical acts of vertue performed by the Saints in this life which shall be to be read in the particular persons of the predestinate so as there shall be no necessity of Histories Annals or Statues to make known or eternize their memories as here in worldly honours which being short transitory and of small endurance have need of something to preserve them in the memory of men For this the Romans erected Statues unto those whom they intended to honour because being mortal there should something remain after death to make their persons and services which they had done
to the Common-wealth known to posterity But in Heaven there is no need of this artifice because those who are there honoured are immortal and shall have in themselves some character engraved as an evident and clear testimony of their noble Victories and Atchievements The honour of the Just in Heaven depends not like that of the Earth upon accidents and reports nor is exposed to dangers or measured by the discourse of others but in it self contains its own glory and dignity Cuiac ad tit de dignit The dignities in the Roma Empire as may be gathered from the Civil Law were four expressed by these four Titles Perfectissimus Clariffimus Spectabilis Illustris most Perfect most Clear Specious and Illustrious These Honours were onely in name and reputation not in substance and truth For He was often called most perfect who was indiscreet foolish passionate and imperfect He most clear who had neither clearness nor serenitity of understanding but was infected with dark and obscure vices Those specious and beautiful from whom a man would flye twenty leagues rather than behold them and those illustrious who were enveloped in the darkness of vice and ignorance without the least light of vertue That we may therefore see the difference betwixt the honours of Heaven and those of the Earth which are as farre distant from one another as truth from falsehood we must know that in Heaven the Blessed are not onely called most Perfect but really are so both in soul and body without the least imperfection or defect are not onely called most Clear but are so each one being adorned with that gift of brightness that they shall cast out beams more clear than the Sun and if the Sun be the most bright thing in nature what shall they be who seaventimes out-shine it Nor shall they be onely said to be spectabilis or specious and worthy to be looked upon but their beauty and comeliness shall be such as shall not onely draw the eyes of all to behold them but shall stirre up their affections to love and admire them In the like manner they shall not be titularly but really Illustrious for every one with his own light shall be sufficient to illustrate and enlighten many Worlds If one onely false title of those which are truely enjoyed by the Blessed were capable of making the Roman Empire to respect and honour the possessor what shall the truth and substance of them all do in Heaven 1 Mac. 2. With reason did Mathathias call the glory of this World dung and filth because all honours and dignities of the Earth in respect of those in Heaven are base vile and despicable What greater honour than to be Friends of God Sons Heirs and Kings in the Realm of Heaven Apoc. 4. St. John in his Apocalyps sets forth this honour of the blessed in the 24 Elders who were placed about the Throne of God and in that Honour and Majesty as every one was seared in his presence and that upon a Throne cloathed in white and lucid Garments in signe of their perpetual joy and crowned with a crown of Gold in respect of their dignities To be covered in the presence of Kings is the greatest honour they conferre upon the chiefest Grandees but God causes his Servants to be crowned and seated upon Thrones before him and our Saviour in the Day of Judgement makes his Disciples his fellow Judges §. 4. Certainly greater honour cannot be imagined than that of the Predestinate For if we look upon him who honours It is God If with what With no less joy than his own Divinity and other most sublime gifts If before whom Before the whole Theater of Heaven now and in the Day of Judgement before Heaven Earth Angels Men and Devils If the continuance For all eternity If the titles which he gives them it is the truth and substance of the things not the empty word and vain name By all this may appear the cause why eternal happiness being a mass and an assembly of all goods imaginable yet is called by way of excellence by the name of Glory because that although it contain all pleasures contents joyes riches and what can be defired yet it seems the Glory and honour which God bestows upon the Just exceeds all the other The honour which God gives in Heaven to glorious Souls may be seen by that which he gives to their worm-eaten bones upon Earth whereof St. Chrysostom speaks these words Where is now the Sepulcher of the great Alexander In 2. ad Corinth Hom. 26. shew it me I beseech thee and tell me the day whereon he died The Sepulchers of the Servants of Christ are so famous that they possess the most Royal and Imperial City of the World and the day whereon they died is known and observed as festival by all The Sepulcher of Alexander is unknown even to his own Countrymen but that of these is known to the very Barbarians Besides the Sepulchers of the Servants of Christ excell in splendor and magnificence the Palaces of Kings not onely in respect of the beauty and sumptuousness of their buildings wherein they also exceed but which is much more in the reverence and joy of those who repair unto them For even he who is clothed in Purple frequents their Tombs and humbly kisses them and laying aside his Majesty and Pomp supplicates their prayers and assistance with God Almighty he who wears the Diadem taking a Fisherman and a Maker of Tents for his Patrons and Protectors What miracles hath not God wrought by the Reliques of his Servants and what prodigies have not been effected by their bodies St. Chrysostome writes of St. Juventius Chrysost in Serm. de Juven Max. Sever. in Ep. ad Socrum and St. Maximus that their bodies after death cast forth such beams of light that the eyes of those who were present were not able to suffer them Sulpicius Severus writes of St. Martin that his dead body remained in a manner glorified that his flesh was pure as Chrystal and white as milk What wonders did God work by the bodies of St. Edward the King and St. Francis Xavier preserving them incorrupted for so many years and if he do those great things with their Bodies who are under the Earth what will he do with their Souls which are above the Heavens and what with them both when their glorious Bodies shall arise and after the Day of Judgement united to their Souls enter in triumph into the holy and eternal City of God CAP. III. Of the Riches of the eternal Kingdom of Heaven THe Riches in Heaven are no less than the Honours though those as hath been said are inestimable There can be no greater riches than to want nothing which is good nor to need any thing which can be desired and in that blessed life no good shall fall nor no desire be unsatisfied And if as the Philosophers say he is not rich who possesseth much
but he who desires nothing There being in Heaven no desire unaccomplished there must needs be great riches It was also a position of the Stoicks That he was not poor who wanted but he who was necessitated Since then in the Celestial Kingdom there is necessity of nothing most rich is he who enters into it By reason of these Divine Riches Christ our Saviour when he speaks in his Parables of the Kingdom of Heaven doth often express it under Names and Enigma's of things that are rich sometimes calling it the Hidden Treasure and sometimes the Precious Pearl and other times the Lost Drachma For if Divine happiness consist in the eternal possession of God what riches may be compared with his who enjoyes him and what inheritance to that of the Kingdom of Heaven What Jewel more precious than the Divinity and what Gold more pure than the Creator of Gold and all things precious who gives himself for a Possession and Riches unto the Saints to the end they should abhorre those Riches which are temporal if by them the eternal are endangered Let not therefore those who are to die to morrow afflict themselves for that which may perish sooner than they Let them not toyl to enjoy that which they are shortly to leave nor let them with more fervour pray for those things which are transitory than those which are eternal preferring the Creature before the Creator not seeking God for what he is but for what he gives Wherefore St. Austin sayes Aug. in Psal 52. God will be served gratis will be beloved without interest that is purely for himself and not for any thing without himself and therefore he who in invokes God to make him rich does not invoke God but that which he desires should come unto him for what is invocation but calling something unto him wherefore when thou shalt say My God give me riches thou dost not desire that God but riches should come unto thee for if thou hadst invoked God he would have come unto thee and been thy riches but thou desiredst to have thy Coffers full and thy heart empty and God fills not Chests but breasts § 2. Besides the possession of God it imports us much to frame a conception of this Kingdom of Heaven which is that of the Just where they shall reign with Christ eternally whose riches must needs be immense since they are to be Kings of so great and ample a Kingdom The place then which the Blessed are to inhabit is called she Kingdom of Heaven because it is a most large Region and much greater than can perhaps fall under the capacity of our understanding And if the Earth compared with Heaven be but a point and yet contain so many Kingdoms what shall that be which is but one Kingdom and yet extended over the whole Heavens How poor and narrow a heart must that Christian have who confines his love to things present sweating and toyling for a small part of the goods of this World which it self is so little why does he content himself with some poor patch of the Earth when he may be Lord of the whole Heavens Although this Kingdom of God be so great and spacious yet it is not dispeopled but as full of Inhabitants of all Nations and conditions as if it were a City or some particular House There as the Apostle said are many thousands of Angels an infinite number of the Just even as many as have died since Abel and thither also shall repair all who are to die unto the end of the World and after judgement shall there remain for ever invested in their glorious bodies There shall inhabit the Angelical Spirits distinguished with great decency into their Nine Orders unto whom shall correspond Nine others of the Saints Patriarchs Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors Pastors Doctors Priests and Levites Monks and Hermits Virgins and other holy Women This populous City shall not be inhabited with mean and base People but with Citizens so noble rich just and discreet that all of them shall be most holy and wise Kings How happy shall it be to live with such persons The Queen of Saba onely to see Salomon came from the end of the Earth and to see Titus Livius Nations and Provinces far distant came to Rome To behold a King issue out of his Palace all the People flock together What shall it then be not onely to see but to live and raign with so many Angels and converse with so many eminent and holy Men If onely to see St. Anthony in the Desert men left their Houses and Countries what joy shall it be to discourse and converse with so many Saints in Heaven If there should now descend from thence one of the Prophets or Apostles with what earnestness and admiration would every one strive to see and hear him In the other World we shall hear and see them all St. Romane at the sight of one Angel when he was a Gentile left the world and his life to become a Christian How admirable shall it then be to see thousand of thousands in all their beauty and greatness and so many glorious bodies of Saints in all their lustre If one Sun be sufficient to clear up the whole World here below what joy shall it be to behold those innumerable Sum in that Region of light From this multitude of Inhabitants the place of glory is not only called the Kingdom of Heaven but the City of God It is called a Kingdom for its immense greatness and a City for its great beauty and population It is not like other Kingdoms and Provinces which contain huge Deserts inaccessible Mountains and thick Woods nor is it devided into many Cities and Villages distant one from another but this Kingdom of God although a most spacious Region is all one beautiful City Who would not wonder if all Spain or Italy were but one City and that as beautiful as Rome in the time of Augustus Caesar who found it of Brick and left it of Marble What a sight were that of Chaldaea if it were all a Babylon or that of Syria if all a Jerusalem What shall then be the Celestial City of Saints whose greatness possesses the whole Heavens and is as the holy Scripture describes it to exaggerate the riches of the Saints all of Gold and precious Stones The Gates pf this City were as St. John sayes one entire Pearl and the foundations of the Walls Jasper Saphire Calcedon Emerald Topaz Jacinth Amethist and other most precious Stones The Streets of fine Gold so pure as it seemed Chrystal joyning in one substance the firmness of Gold and transparency of Chryftal and the beauty both of one and the other If all Rome were of Saphire how would it amaze the world how marvelous then will the holy City be which though extended over so many millions of leagues is all of Gold Pearl and precious Stones or to say better of a matter of farre more value
ever in Heaven And it is no marvel though this great thought of Eternity should make so holy a King to tremble when as the Prophet Abucâ—ch sayes the highest hills of the world bow down and quake at the ways of Eternity Damas in vita ejus The holy youth Josaphat at the representation of Eternity Hell being placed on one side and Heaven on the other remained astonished without strength not being able to raise himself in his bed as if he had been afflicted with some mortal sickness The Philosophers more barbarous and who had less light were yet daunted with the conception of it and in their Symbols made choice of things of the greatest of terror to express it some painted it in the form of a Basilisk a Serpent the most terrible of all other who kills with his onely sight there being nothing more horror then that eternity of torments whereinto we are subject to fall Conformable to this St. John Damascen represented eternal duration under the figure of a fierce Dragon which from a deep pit lay waiting with open jawes to swallow men alive Others figured it by a horrible and profound Cavern which at the entrance had four degrees one of iron another of brass the third of silver and the last of gold upon which many little Children of several sexes and ages stood playing and passing away the time without regarding the danger of falling into that bottomless dungeon This shadow they framed not only to set forth how worthy Eternity was of their fear and amazement but also to express their amazement at the folly of men who laugh and entertain themselves with the things of this life without remembring that they are to die and may then fall into the bottomless abyss of Hell Those children who were playing at the entrance of that dismal cave being no other than men in this life whose employments are but those of children and who being so near their death and therefore unto Eternity which succeeds it have neither fear nor care to leave the pleasures and vain entertainments of this world Truly it is a thing of great amazement that being in expectation of two such extreams as are eternal glory and torments without end we live as if there were neither The reason is because men set not themselves seriously to consider what Eternity is which is either hell whilest God is God or glory without end For this cause it is that they remain as setled and obstinate in their fading pleasures as if they were immortal the which was signified by these degrees of so hard Mettals But in David who seriously meditated and framed a lively conception what the eternity of years was it caused so great a fear and so awaked his spirits with care and diligence that it produced in him an extraordinary change of life in so much as he said with great resolution within himself Now I begin This is a change from the right hand of the most high Now I begin Comment in Psal 76. as Dionisius declares it to live spiritually to understand wisely to know truly perceiving the vanity of this present world and felicity of the future reputing as nothing all my life past nor all the progress I have hitherto made in perfection I will henceforth seriously take to heart with a new purpose a new fervour and a a more vehement endeavour the paths of a better life and entring the way of spiritual profit begin every day afresh And because he knew his heart to be so much changed he confessed his resolution to be miraculous saying This change is from the hand of the most high as if he had said according to the same Dionisius to have in this sort changed me out of the darkness of ignorance into the splendor of wisdom from vices unto vertues from a carnal man unto a spiritual is onely to be attributed to the ayd and most merciful assistance of God who by the knowledge of Eternity hath given so notable a conversion unto my heart This great thought of Eternity doth mightily enlighten the understanding and gives us a true and perfect knowledge of things as they are For this cause in some of the Psalms which David made with this consideration as we have already said he added this word understanding Psalm 6. or for the understanding that is to give understanding to those who meditate upon the end of this life and the eternity of the other and therefore despise the goods of the world By the experience of what happened unto his own soul the Prophet exhorts all men that they meditate with quietness and leasure upon the eternity of the two so opposite conditions which hereafter expect them that they may not only run but flie unto with profit and suffer with patience all the difficulty which attend upon vertue and therefore with great mystery promises on the part of God unto those who shall sleep between the two lots that is unto those who in the quietness of prayer shall meditate upon the eternity of glory and of hell that there shall be granted unto them the silver wings of the Dove and her shoulders of gold because the spiritual life consists not onely in the actions of our own good works but also in the patient suffering the evil works of others in lifting up our selves from the durt of this earth and and flying towards Heaven by performance of the Heroical and precious acts of vertue and not yielding unto the troubles and afflictions of this life which oppress us All which is by a lively conception of Eternity effected with great merit and perfection and for this reason did the Prophet express it by the similitude of those things which men esteem the most precious as of gold and silver But because to suffer is commonly more difficult then to do and consequently more meritorious although both be very precious for this cause he said that the shoulders should be of gold and the wings of silver This also did the Patriarch Jacob hold for so singular a good that he gave it unto his son Isachar for a blessing telling him that he should lye down betwixt the two borders that is that he should at leasure meditate upon the two extreams of happiness or misery eternal For this reason he calleth him a strong beast as having the strength of mind to overcome the difficulty of vertue to support the troubles and burdens of this life to suffer the scorns and disgraces of the world to undergo great penances and mortifications by considering the two eternal extreams which attend us And not onely amongst Saints but amongst the Philosophers did the quiet and calm consideration of Eternity produce a great love and desire of things eternal and as great contempt of all which was temporal even without looking upon those two so different extreams which Christian Religion proposes unto us Seneca complained much that he was interrupted in the meditation of Eternity into
for him see whereunto thou art obliged For this onely benefit thou oughtest not to move hand nor foot but for the service of so good and gracious a God A labourer who plants a tree hath right unto the fruit and God who created thee hath right unto thy works which are the fruits of man For this reason at the Garment of the High-Priest which represented the benefit of our Creation were hung many Pomgranates which are the noblest fruit of trees and bears a Crown to signifie that the good fruits of holy works which we ought to produce are to be crowned with a perfect and pure intention See then if thou canst do more for God for God could do no more for thee than to create thee for so high and eminent an end as is the possession of himself being no wayes due unto thy feeble and frail nature It being then so great a benefit to have created thee it is yet a greater to have preserved and suffered thee untill this instant without casting thee into a thousand hells for thy sins and offences This grace of conservation our Saviour noted when he said that he compassed and enclosed his Vineyard which was for the preservation of it See then what thy Creatour in this matter of conservation could have done more than he hath done for thee since being his enemy he hath preserved thee as his friend From how many for one onely fault committed hath he withdrawn his preservation and suffered them to die in that sin for which they are now in hell some of them if they had been pardoned would have proved more grateful than thou Behold how many Angels for their first offence he threw head-long down from heaven and expected them no longer and yet still expects thee See if he could do more for thee and see what thou art to do for him Consider that thou owest him for preserving thee as much as for creating thee preservation being a continued creation and more for preserving and suffering thee although his enemy In thy creation although thou didst not deserve a being yet thou demerited it not but in thy preservation thou hast deserved the contrary which is to be forsaken and abandoned But above all what is said is the benefit which thou receivest by the Incarnation of the Son of God which Christ signified when he said that the Lord of the Vineyard sent his Son See if God could have done more for his own salvation than he did for thine sending into the world his onely begotten Son to be incarnated for thee A greater work than this could not be done by the omnipotent arm of God Consider that he did not this for the Angels and yet did it for thee see if then thou canst comply with the love thou owest him with being less than a Seraphin in thy affection Consider likewise that it being in his power to redeem thee by making himself an Angel and onely interceding for thee yet he would not deprive thy nature of this honour but made himself a Man see if he could do more for thy good By making himself an Angel he might have honoured the Angelical nature and have likewise benefited thee but he would not but making himself a Man conferred both the honour and profit upon thee And if it be true which some Doctors say that God having proposed unto the Angels that they were to adore a Man who was also to be God and to be exalted above all their Hierarchies and that because they would not subject themselves unto an inferiour nature they therefore fell and became disobedient see what thou owest unto God for this so singular a favour who would make himself a Man that thou shouldest not be lost although with the loss of so many Angels better than thee Behold from whence he drew thee by this benefit which was from sin and hell and at such a time when thy miserable condition was desperate of all other remedy behold unto what he exalted thee to his grace and â—he inheritance of the Kingdom of Heaven Behold in what manner and with what singular love and affection he did it even to his own loss and prejudice and as the Apostle saith by annihilating as it were himself that he might exalt thee taking upon him thy nature when it was not needful onely that he might conferre an honour upon thee which he would not upon the Angels See what God could do more for thee and see that thou mayest do much more for him and doest not Of the benefit of our redemption by the death and passion of Christ the Lord himself was not forgetful but signified it unto us even before he died saying That the Son whom the Lord of the Vineyard sent was slain in the pretense What could the Son of God do more for thee than die and shed his blood for thy benefit especially when it was not needful for thy redemption In the rigour of justice it was necessary that God should be incarnate or make himself an Angel to redeem thee but to suffer and die not at all But such was his infinite love as he would needs suffer and not with an ordinary death but would die so ignominiously as it seems he could not suffer more Set before thy eyes Christ crucified upon Mount Calvarie see if a Man more infamous be possible or imaginable executed publickly between two Theeves as a Traitor and an Heretick for broaching false Doctrine and making himself King as a Traitor unto Caesar Two crimes so infamous as they not onely defame the person who commits them but stain and infect his whole Stock and Linage Behold in what poverty he died if greater can be thought on to the end thou mayest see if it were possible he should doe more for thee than what he did Whilest he lived he had not whereon to repose his head but yet had cloathes wherewith to cover decently his nakedness but when he died even his garments failed him neither found he one drop of water to refresh his sacred lips even the earth refused him wanting whereon to rest his reverend feet Behold with what grief and pains he expired since from head to foot he was but one continued wound his feet and hands were pierced with nails and his head with thorns All was a high expression of an excessive love and to do for thee what he could see then what thou oughtest to doe and suffer for him who died and suffered for thee what he could and could do what he would After all these benefits consider his giving himself unto thee for food and sustenance in the most holy Sacrament the which was noted by Christ when he said That the Lord of the Vineyard built a Press for the Wine in which he gave his most precious blood It seems that the persons of the most holy Trinity were in competition and strove amongst themselves who should most oblige Man with their benefits and favours Let us express
since he hath employed his omnipotency for our good and profit let us employ our forces and faculties for his glory and service CAP. VI. Of the End of all Time BEsides the end of the particular time of this life the universal end of all time is much to be considered that since humane ambition passes the limits of this life and desires honour and a famous memory after it Man may know that after this death there is another death to follow in which his memory shall also die and vanish away as smoke After that we have finisht the time of this life the end of all time is to succeed which is to give a period unto all which we leave behind us Let man therefore know that those things which he leaves behind for his memory after death are as vain as those which he enjoyed in life Let him raise proud Mausoleums Let him erect Statues of Marble Let him build populous Cities Let him leave a numerous Kindred Let him write learned Books Let him stamp his Name in brass and fix his Memory with a thousand nails All must have an end his Cities shall sink his Statues fall his Family and Linage perish his Books be burned his Memory be defaced and all shall end because all time must end It much imports us to perswade our selves of this truth that we may not be deceived in the things of this world That not only our pleasures and delights are to end in death but our memories at the farthest are to end with Time And since all are to conclude all are to be despised as vain and perishing Cicero although immoderately desirous of fame and honour Cieer in Ep. ad Luc. as appears by a large Epistle of his written unto a friend wherein he earnestly entreats him to write the conspiracy of Cataline which was discovered by himself in a Volume apart and that he would allow something in it unto their ancient friendships and Publish it in his life time that he might enjoy the glory of it whilest he lived yet when he came to consider that the world was to end in Time he perceived that no glory could be immortal and therefore sayes By reason of deluges and burnings of the earth In Somn. Scip. which muâ—â— of necessity happen within a certain time we cannot attain glory not so much as durable for any long time much less eternal In this world no memory can be immortal since Time and the World it self are mortal and the time will come when time shall be no more But this truth is like the memory of death which by how much it is more important by so much men think lest of it and practically do not believe it But God that his divine providence and care might not be wanting hath also in this taken order that a matter of so great concernment should be published with all solemnity first by his Son after by his Apostles and then by Angels Apoc. 10. And therefore St. John writes in his Apocalyps that he saw an Angel of great might and power who descended from heaven having a Cloud for his Garment and his head covered with a Rainbow his face shining as the Sun and his feet as pillars of fire with the right foot treading upon the Sea and with the left upon the Earth sending forth a great and terrible voice as the roaring of a Lyon which was answered by seaven thunders with other most dreadful noises and presently this prodigious Angel lifts up his hand towards Heaven But wherefore all this Ceremony wherefore this strange equipage wherefore this horrid voice and thunder all was to proclaim the death of Time and to perswade us more of the infallibility of it he continued it with a solemn Oath conceived in a Set form of most authentique words listing up his hand towards Heaven and swearing by him that lives for ever and ever who created Heaven and Earth and all which is in it There shall be mo more time With what could this truth be more confirmed than by the Oath of so great and powerful and an Angel The greatness and solemnity of the Oath gives us to understand the weight and gravity of the thing affirmed both in respect of it self and the importance of us to know it If the death of a Monarch or Prince of some corner of the world prognosticated by an Eclipse or Comet cause a fear and amazement in the beholders what shall the death of the whole World and with it all things temporal and of Time it self foretold by an Angel with so prodigious an apparition and so dreadful a noise produce in them who seriously consider it For us also this thought is most convenient whereby to cause in us a contempt of all things temporal Let us therefore be practically perswaded that not onely this life shall end but that there shall be also an end of Time Time shall bereave Man of this life and Time shall bereave the World of his whose end shall be no less horrible than that of Man but how much the whole World and the whole Race of mankind exceeds one particular person by so much shall the universal end surpass in terrour the particular end of this life For this cause the Prophecies which foretell the end of the World are so dreadful that if they were not dictated by the holy Spirit of God they would be thought incredible Christ therefore our Saviour having uttered some of them unto his Disciples because they seemed to exceed all that could be imagined in the conclusion confirmed them with that manner of Oath or Asseveration which he commonly used in matters of greatest importance Math. 13. Luc. 21. Amen which is By my verity or verily I say unto you that the world shall not end before all these things are fulfilled Heaven and earth shall fail but my words shall not fail Let us believe then that Time shall end and that the World shall die and that if we may so say a most horrible and disastrous death let us believe it since the Angels and the Lord of Angels have sworn it If it be so then that those memorials of men which seemed immortal must at last end since the whole Race of man is to end let us only strive to be preserved in the eternal memory of him who hath no end and let us no less despise to remain in the fading memory of men who are to die than to enjoy the pleasures of our senses which are to perish As the hoarding up of riches upon earth is but a deceit of Avarice so the desire of eternizing our memory is an errour of Ambition The covetous man must then leave his wealth when he leaves his life if the Theef in the mean time do not take it from him and fame and renown must end with the World if envy or oblivion deface it not before All that is to end is vain this World therefore and all which
hills to hide them within their Caverns But all this is rather to be imagined then expressed and the very thought of it is enough to make us tremble The creatures now groan to see themselves abused by man in contempt of his and their Creator but they shall then shake off their yoaks and shall revenge themselves of the agrievances which they suffer under him and the injuries he hath done unto the Creator of all The violences of the Elements and disturbances of Nature which have and may happen hereafter are nothing in respect of those which shall be in the last dayes the which St. Augustine sayes shall be much more horrible and dreadful than those which are past And if those single and alone were so terrible as we have already seen what shall they be when they come all together and from all parts when the whole world shall rebel against man when all shall be confusion when Summer shall be changed into Winter and Winter into Summer and no creature shall keep the prefixed law with them who have not observed the Law of their Creatour that so they may revenge both God and themselves §. 3. But that this most fearful alteration of the creatures which shall happen may be yet more apparent we will specifie some of them out of the Apocalyps of St. John Very dreadful is that which he mentions in the eighth Chapter of hail and fire with a rain of blood so general and in such abundance that it shall destroy the third part of the Earth of trees and green herbs How horrible an amazement shall so general a rain cause amongst men But it is not so to end For immediately shall appear in the Air a huge mountain of fire which shall fall all at once into the Sea and dividing it self into several bodies shall burn the third part of the Fishes the third part of Ships and of what else shall be in the Ocean The like effect shall proceed from a flame or prodigious Comet which falling into the Rivers and Fountains and there dividing it self into several parts shall turn the waters bitter as wormwood and make them so pestilential as they shall infect those who drink them and many shall die with their taste An Angel shall then smite the Sun Moon and Stars Apoc. 9. and deprive them of a third part of their light But mote horrible than all is that which follows that after so many calamities the bottomless pit which is hell shall burst open and out of his profound throat belch forth so thick a smoke as shall wholly darken the Sun and Air from which smoke shall sally forth a multitude of deformed Locusts which in great swarms shall disperse themselves over the face of the whole earth and leaving the fields herbs and what is sown fall upon such men as have been unfaithful unto God and shall for five moneths torment them with greater rage than Scorpions Some Doctors understanding those Locusts according unto the Letter Lessius de Perf. div l. 13. c. 18. Cornel. in Apoc. that they shall be a certain kind of true Locusts but of a strange figure and fierceness others that they shall be Devils of hell in the shape of Locusts and it is no marvel that in the destruction of the world Devils shall appear in visible forms since in the destruction of Babylon they appeared in divers figures of beasts as was prophesied by Isaias But after what manner soever St. John sayes that this Plague shall be so cruel Isa c. 34. 13. that men shall seek death and shall not find it and shall desire to die and death shall flye from them Many other plagues shall happen in those last dayes For as before that God drowned the Aegyptians and delivered his people he sent such plagues upon Aegypt as are recorded in Exodus so before the general destruction of Sinners in that universal Deluge and Sea of fire which shall cover the whole Earth and out of which the Saints are to escape free so much greater plagues shall proceed as the whole World is greater than Aegypt For not onely the Rivers and Fountains shall then ce turned into blood but the whole Sea shall be converted into a most black gore The Lord shall also in those days send horrible botches and sores upon men and the Sun shall scorch them in that manner as they shall lose their senses and some of the wicked shall turn against God and blaspheme as if they were already in hell The Earth also shall tremble and that not being the greatest which is recounted in the sixth Chapter of the Apocalyps yet the Apostle relates such things of it as are able to strike a fear and amazement into those who hear it His words are these There was a great Earthquake Apoc. 6. and the Sun became as sackcloth and the Moon at blood the Stars fell from Heaven as a Fig-tree cast off its green siggs when it it shaken by a violent wind The Heavens were folded up as a book or as a roll of parchment and all Mountains and Islands moved from their places I leave unto the consideration of every one what shall then become of those who remain alive in that conflict St. John sayes that Kings and Princes the Rich and Strong Slaves and Free-men shall hide themselves in Caves and Rocks and shall say unto the Mountains and Hills Fall upon us and cover us And the same S. John sayes further that there shall be yet a greater Earthquake which shall be the greatest that ever happened since the foundation of the World was laid in which the Islands shall sink and the Mountains shall be made even with the Plains Horrible lightnings and thunders shall affright the Inhabitants of the Earth and hailstones shall fall of the weight of a Talent which is of 5 Arrobas an Hebrew Talent weighing 125 Roman pounds This Plague joyned with so strange an Earth-quake how shall it astonish those who are then alive § 4. But how shall it then fare with Sinners when after all shall come that general fire so often foretold in holy Scripture which shall either fall from Heaven Vide P. Grana De novissi Alb. Mag. in comp or asseend out of Hell or according to Albertus Magnus proceed from both and shall devour and consume all it meets with Whither shall the miserable flye when that River of flames or to say better that Innundation and Deluge of fire shall so encompass them as no place of surety shall be left where nothing can avail but a holy life when all besides shall perish in that universal ruine of the whole World What shall it then profit the wordlings to have rich Vessels of gold and silver curious Embroideries precious Tapestries pleasant Gardens sumptuous Palaces and all what the world now esteems when they shall with their own eyes behold their costly Moveables burnt their rich and curious pieces of Gold melted and their
we can carry nothing but our good works and let us not add unto our evil ones that of vain-glory in seeking to leave behind us a vain Fame and Renown Plin. l. 56. c. 13. What remains unto King Porsenna of that heavy burthen wherewith he grieved and afflicted his whole Kingdom in rearing him a Sepulchre of that rare and sumptuous workmanship but a testimony of his pride and folly In like manner the Monument of the Emperour Adrian which was the Beauty and Glory of Rome shall be then changed into a scorn Lastly St. Thomas teaches us that Temporal things on which we place our affections because some last a longer and some a shorter time after death shall all enter with us into Divine judgement Let us take heed therefore whereon we set our hearts since the accomplishing of what we wish may be a punishment of our desires Those things of the Earth which we most love and desire should continue if they be taken from us it is a chastisement of our earthly affection and if we be permitted to enjoy them let us fear that they be not the temporal Reward of some good Work which may either diminish or deprive us of the Eternal Besides this because not onely the Soul of man hath offended but the whole man both in Soul and Body it was fit that both Soul and Body should be judged and appear before the Tribunal of Christ and that in publique because none should presume to sin in secret since his sins are to be revealed and made known to all past present and to come A terrible case it is that this passage of Divine judgement which according as we have said out of holy Job appears unto the Saints more terrible than to suffer all the pains of Hell is twice to be acted and this so bitter trance to be again repeated the second time being unto sinners of greater horrour and confusion than the first CAP. IX Of the last day of Time THat we may now come to handle the manner of this universal Judgement which is to pass upon time and men we are to suppose that this fire which is to precede the coming of Christ is at his descent to continue in assistance of his Divine justice and after his return unto Heaven attended by all the just to remain until it hath purged and purified these inferiour Elements the which is noted by Albertus Magnus Albert. Magn. in comp Theol. lib. 7. c. 15. Less de perf div lib. 13. c. 30. 23. and collected from divers places of the Divine Scriptures We are also to suppose that this coming of Christ is to be with greater terrour and Majesty than hath been yet manifested by any of the Divine persons either in himself or any of his Creatures If an Angel which represented God and was onely to promulgate the Law came with that terrour and Majesty unto Mount Sinay as made the Hebrew people though purified and prepared for his coming to quake and tremble what shall the Lord of the Law doe when he himself comes to take an account of the Law and to revenge the breach of it With what terrour and Majesty shall he appear unto men plunged in sin and unprepared for his reception who are then to be all present and judged in that last day of time The day in which the Law was given was very memorable unto the Hebrews And this day where an account of the Law is to be given will be horrible and ought perpetually to remain in the memory of all mankind But before we declare what shall pass in this let us say something of what hath already passed in that that from the horrour of the first appearance we may gather something of what shall happen in the second and from the Majesty wherewith an Angel appeared when he gave the Law collect something of the Majesty of the Lord of Angels when he judges the Law Fifty dayes after the departure of the Sons of Israel out of Egypt after so many plagues and punishments poured upon that Kingdom after the burying of the unbelieving Egyptians who pursued them in the bottom of the Red Sea and that the Hebrews having escaped their enemies were lodged round about Mount Sinay Deut. 33. Vid. Barrad l. 6. itin c. 5. Ps 65. Deut. 33. There was seen to come in the Air from far that is from Mount Seir in Idumea a Lord of great power attended with an infinite multitude of Angels In so much as David sings that ten thousand compassed about his Chariot And Moses speaking of many thousands which attended him says also that he carried in his right hand the Law of God all of flaming fire and yet he who came in this height of Majesty waited on with those Celestial Spirits was not God Act. 7. but as we learn from St. Stephen onely an Angel and believed to be St. Michael who because he came in the Name of God the holy Scriptures calls the Lord. This Angel thus accompanied came seated on a dark condensed Cloud which cast forth frequent flashes of Lightning and resounded with dreadful cracks of Thunder Deut. 33. from Mount Seir unto Mount Haran in the Land of the Ishmaelites and from thence with the same Majesty passed through the Air unto Mount Sinay where the Children of Israel lay encamped who at the dawning of the day astonisht with that fearful noyse stood quaking and trembling in their Tents No sooner was the Angel arrived unto Mount Sinay which as the Apostle says Heb. 42. was covered with rain whirlwinds storms and tempests but he descended in flames which raught betwixt Heaven and Earth from whence issued forth a smoke black and thick as from a furnace during which time a Trumpet was heard to sound with that piercing vehemence that as it encreased in loudness so fear encreased in the amazed Israelites who now stood quaking at the foot of the Mountain but were by the Angel so much would he be respected commanded by the mouth of Mâ—ses not to approach it lest they died After which the Angel began with a dreadful voice to proclaim the Law which was pronounced with so much life and vigour that not withstanding the horrid noyse of Thunder the flashes of lightning and the shrill and penetrating sound of the Trumpet still continued yet all the Hebrews who with their Tents overspread those vast deserts and many thousands of Egyptians who were converted and followed them heard conceived and understood it clearly and distinctly Nay so piercing was the voyce that it entred and imprinted it self in their very bowels speaking unto every one of them as if it had spoken to him only which caused so great a fear and reverence in the people that they thought they could not live if the Angel continued speaking and therefore besought it as a grace that he would speak unto them by the way of Moses lest they should die Nay Moses himself accustomed to see
and work stupendious wonders and being of a great and generous spirit confessed his fear saying as we have it from St. Paul Heb. 12. That he was terrified and trembled Let a man now consider how memorable was that day unto the Hebrew Nation wherein they saw such Visions heard such Thunders and felt such Earthquakes as it is no wonder that the great fear which fell upon them in that day of Prodigies made them think they could not live Yet was all this nothing in respect of the terrour of that great day wherein the Lord of Angels is to demand an account of the violation of the Law For after the sending far greater plagues than those of Egypt after burning in that Deluge of fire the Sinners of the world the Saints remaining still alive that that Article of our Faith may be literally fulfill'd From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead The Heavens shall open and over the Valley of Josaphat the Redeemer of the World attended by all the Angels of Heaven in visible forms of admirable splendour shall with a Divine Majesty descend to judge it Before the Judge shall be born his Standard Chrys Tom. 3. Serm. de Cruce which St. Chrysostome and divers other Doctors affirm shall be the very Cross on which he suffered Then shall the just such being the force and vigour of their spirits as will elevate their terrene and heavy bodies meet as the Apostle sayes their Redeemer in the Air who at his issuing forth of the Heavens shall with a voice that may be heard of all the world pronounce this his Commandment Arise ye dead and come unto Judgement Which shall be proclaimed by four Angels in the four Quarters of the World with such vehemence that the sound shall pierce unto the infernal Region from whence the Souls of the damned shall issue forth and re-enter their bodies which shall from thenceforward suffer the terrible torments of Hell The Souls also of those who died onely in Original sin shall come and possess again their bodies free from pain or torment and the Souls of the blessed filling their bodies with the four gifts of Glory shall make them more resplendent than the Sun and with the gift of agility shall joyn themselves with those just who remain alive in the Air in their passible bodies which being yet mortal and therefore not able to endure those vehement affections of the heart of joy desire reverence love and admiration of Christ shall then die and in that instant behold the Divine Essence after which their Souls shall be again immediately united to their bodies before they can be corrupted or so much as fall unto the ground and thence forward continue glorious for in the moment wherein they die they shall be purified from those noxious humours and qualities wherewith our bodies are now infected And therefore it was convenient they should first die that being so cleansed from all filth they might by the restitution of their blessed Souls receive the gifts of Glory Considering then the so different conditions of the Souls of men who can express the joy of those happy Souls when they shall take possession of their now glorious and beautiful bodies which were long since eaten by worms or wild beasts some four some five thousand years agoe turned into dust and ashes What thanks shall they give to God who after so long a separation hath restored them to their antient Companions What gratulations shall the Souls of them who lived in austerity and penance give unto their own bodies for the mortifications and rigours which they have suffered for the hair-shirts disciplines and fasts which they have observed To the contrary the Souls of the damned how shall they rage and curse their own flesh since to please and pamper it hath been the occasion of their torments and eternal unhappiness Which miserable wretches wanting the gift of agility and so not able of themselves to go unto the place of Justice shall be hurried against their wills by Devils all trembling and full of fear § 2. The Reprobates being then in the Valley of Josaphat and the Predestinate in the Air the Judge shall appear above Mount Olivet Zach. 1. unto whom the clouds shall serve as a Chariot and his most glorious body shall cast forth rayes of such incomparable splendour as the Sun shall appear but as a coal for even the Predestinate shall shine as the Sun but the light and brightness of Christ shall as far exceed them as the Sun does the least Star The which most admirable sight shall be yet more glorious by those thousand millions of excellent and heavenly spirits which shall attend him who having formed themselves acreal bodies of more or less splendour according to their Hierarchy and Order shall fill the whole space betwixt Heaven and Earth with unspeakable beauty and variety The Saviour of the World shall sit upon a Throne of great Majesty made of a clear and beautiful Cloud his countenance shall be most milde and peaceable towards the good and though the same most terrible unto the bad In the like manner out of his sacred wounds shall issue beams of light towards the just full of love and sweetness but unto sinners full of fire and wrath who shall weep bitterly for the evils which issue from them Psa 109. 1 Cor. 15. Phil. 2. So great shall be the Majesty of Christ that the miserable Damned and the Devils themselves notwithstanding all the hate they bear him shall yet prostrate themselves and adore him and to their greater confusion acknowledge him for their Lord and God And those who have most blasphemed and outraged him shall then bow before him fulfilling the promises of the eternal Father That all things should be subject unto him That he would make his enemies his footstool and That all knees should bend before him Here shall the Jews to their greater confusion behold him whom they have crucified and here shall the evil Christians see him whom they have again crucified with their sins here also shall the Sinners behold him in glory whom they have despised for the base trifles of the earth What an amazement will it be to see him King of so great Majesty who suffered so much ignominy upon the Cross and even from those whom he redeemed with his most precious blood What will they then say who in scorn crowned the sacred temples of the Lord with thorns put a Reed in his hand for a Scepter cloathed him in some old and broken Garment of purple buffeted and spit upon his blessed face And what will they then say unto whose consciences Christ hath so often proposed himself in all his bitter passion and painful death and hath wrought nothing upon them but a continuance of greater sins valuing his precious blood shed for their salvation no more than if it were the blood of a Tyger or their greatest enemy I know not how
purified in that general burning and then shall be renewed the Earth the Heavens the Stars and the Sun which shall shine seaven times more than before and the creatures which have here been violated and oppressed by the abuse of man whereof some had taken armes against him to revenge the injuries of their Creatour and others groaned under their burthen with grief and sorrow shall then rejoyce to see themselves freed from the tyranny of sin and sinners and joyful of the triumph of Christ shall put on mirth and gladness This is the end wherein all time is to determine and this the Catastrophe so fearful unto the wicked where all things temporal are to conclude Let us therefore take heed how we use them and that we may use them well let us be mindful of this last day this day of justice and calamity this day of terrour and amazement the memory whereof will serve much for the reformation of our lives Let us think of it and fear it for it is the most terrible of all things terrible and the consideration of it most profitable and available to cause in us a holy fear of God and to convert us unto him Joh. Curopol in hist apud Rad. in opusc in vitis PP Occidentis John Curopolata writes of Bogoris King of the Bulgarians a Pagan who was so much addicted to the hunting of wilde beasts that he desired to have them painted in his Palace in all their fury and fierceness and to that end commanded Methodius the Monk a skilful Painter to paint them in so horrible a manner as the very sight might make the beholders tremble The discreet Monk did it not but in place of it painted the Day of Judgement and presented it unto the King who beholding that terrible act of Justice and the coming of the Son of God to judge the World crowning and rewarding the just and punishing the wicked was much astonished at it and being after instructed left his bad life and was converted to the faith of Christ If onely then the Day of Judgement painted was so terrible what shall it be executed Almost the same happened unto St. Dositheus Anon. in Elog. Dorothei Dosithei who being a young man cokored and brought up in pleasures had not in his whole life so much as heard of the Day of Judgement until by chance he beheld a Picture in which were represented the pains of the damned at which he was much amazed and not knowing what it was was informed of it by a Matron present which he apprehended so deeply that he fell half dead upon the ground not being able to breath for fear and terrour after coming to himself he demanded what he should doe to avoid that miserable condition it was answered him by the same Matron that he should fast pray and abstain from flesh which he immediately put in execution And though many of his house and kindred endeavoured to divert and disswade him yet the holy fear of God and the dread of eternal condemnation which he might incurre remained so fixt in his memory that nothing could withdraw him from his rigorous penance and holy resolution until becoming a Monk he continued with much fruit and profit Let us therefore whiles we live ever preserve in our memory this day of terrour that we may hereafter enjoy security for the whole eternity of God THE THIRD BOOK OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWIXT THE TEMPORAL and ETERNAL CAP. I. The mutability of things temporal makes them worthy of contempt HItherto we have spoken of the shortness of time and consequently of all things temporal and of the end wherein they are to conclude Nothing is exempted from death and therefore not onely humane life but all things which follow time and even time it self at last must die Wherefore Hesichius Damas in Par. l. 1. as he is translated by St. John Damascen saith That the splendour of this world is but as withered leaves bubles of water smoke stubble a shadow and dust driven by the wind all things that are of earth being to end in earth But this is not all for besides the certainty of end they are infected with another mischief which renders them much more contemptible than that which is their instability and continual changes whereunto they are subject even whilest they are For as time it self is in a perpetual succession and mutation as being the brother and inseparable companion of Motion so it fixes this ill condition unto most of those things which pass along in it the which not onely have an end and that a short one but even during that shortness of time which they last have a thousand changes and before their end many ends and before their death many deaths each particular change which our life suffers being the death of some estate or part of if For as death is the total change of life so every change is the death of Come part Sickness is the death of health sleeping of waking sorrow of joy impatience of quiet youth of infancy and age of youth The same condition hath the universal world and all things in it for which cause they deserve so much contempt that Marcus Aurelius the Emperour wondered that there could be found a man so senseless Aur. Anton l. 6. de vita sua as to value them and therefore speaks in this manner Of that very thing which is now in doing some part is already vanisht changes and alterations continually innovate the world as that immense space of time by a perpetual flux renews it self Who therefore shall esteem those things which never subsist but pass along in this headlong and precipitate river of time is as he who sets his affection upon some little bird which passes along in the air and is no more seen Thus much from this Philosopher This very cause of the little value of things temporal proceeding from their perpetual changes together with the end whereunto they are subject is as St. Gregory notes signified unto us by that Woman in the Apocalyps Greg. l. 34. moral who had the Moon under her feet and her head adorned with twelve Stars Certainly the Moon as well as the Stars might have been placed in her Diadem but it was trod under foot by reason of the continual changes and alterations which it suffers whereby it becomes a figure of things temporal which change not onely every Moneth but every day the same day being as Euripides sayes now a Mother then a Stepmother The same was also signified by the Angel Apoc. 10. who crowned with a Rainbow descended from heaven to proclaim that all time was to end with his right foot which presses and treads more firmly he stood upon the Sea which by reason of its great unquietness is also a figure of the instability of this World And therefore with much reason did the Angel who had taught us by his voice that all time and temporal things
of wayes but spiritual goods can onely be forsaken and are then onely lost when we leave them by sin This may make us tremble that they are lost because we will lose them and not being mutable in themselves they change because we are mutable That which hath happened in this kind is most lamentable St. Peter Damian writes that he knew a Monk in the City of Benevento named Madelmo Petr. Dami l. 1. c. 10. who arrived at so great sanctity of life that being upon a holy Saturday to fill a dozen of Lamps and oyl failing for the lust he with great faith filled it with water and lighting it it burned as the rest Many other miracles he wrought in our Lord for which he was in great esteem both of the Prince and Citizens But wherein ended this miraculous and venerable man a strange change God withdrawing his holy hand from him he fell into such dishonesty of life that he was taken and publickly whipt and his head for his greater ignominy shaved like a Slave A lamentable tragedy is the life of man wherein we behold so contrary extremes Ibidem The same St. Peter Damian writes that he knew in the same City a Priest of so great sanctity that every day when he celebrated Mass the Prince of Benevento beheld an Angel descend from heaven who took the Divine Mysteries from his hands to offer them unto the Lord. Yet this man so favoured from above fell into the like vice that all might fear and none be assured in any state whatsoever S. John Climacus relates the story of that young man Clim gr 15. of whom we read in the Lives of the Fathers who mounted unto so high a degree of vertue that he commanded the wild Asses and compell'd them to serve the Monks of the Monastery whom blessed St. Anthony compared to a Ship laden with rich Merchandize sailing in the middest of the Ocean whose end was uncertain Afterwards this so fervent youth fell most miserably and bewailing his sin said unto some of the Monks who passed by Speak unto the old man that is St. Anthony that he pray unto God that he would grant me yet ten dayes of repentance The holy man hearing this toar the hair from his head and said A great Pillar of the Church if fallen and five dayes after the Monk died in so much as he who heretofore commanded the wild beasts of the Wilderness became a scorn to the Devils and he who preserved himself by bread from heaven was afterward deprived of his spiritual sustenance Heracl in Parad. Lamentable also is the accident related by Heraclides of Hieron Alexandrinus who having flourished many years in great vertue and fame of sanctity Andr. Ebor Ex. mem t. 2. de mor. for mut left off all and became a haunter of publick Stews In the same manner Ptolomee the Egyptian having passed fifteen years in the Desert in continual prayer sustaining himself only with bread and the dew which fell from heaven came to leave all and lead a most scandalous life If we look into the holy Scriptures we shall find greater changes and more lamentable falls Who would think that Saul chosen of God for very good of an humble and patient spirit should end in a Luciferian pride and in a mortal hatred against the best man in Israel Who would think that a man so wise and so religious as Salomon should in his latter times be seduced by women and erect Temples unto false Gods Finally who would imagine that an Apostle of Christ should die in despair and hang himself What man can then presume so much of himself that he needs not stand in fear of what he may be CAP. IV. The change of humane things shews clearly their vanity and how worthy they are to be contemned THis inconstancy and change of things serve as a testimony of their vanity Witness those who have had the largest experience of humane greatness and felicity Gilimer King of the Vandals was of great power wealth and valour but overcome by Belisarius and deprived of his Kingdome was led in triumph through the Streets of Constantinople When he approached the place where Justinian the Emperour was seated in a Throne of incomparable Majesty cloathed in his Imperial Robes and compassed with the great Princes of his Empire the Captive King beholding him in so great glory and himself a Slave abandoned of the whole world neither wept nor complained nor shewed the least sign of sorrow or resentment Procop. li. 2. de bello Vandalorum but onely uttered that most true sentence of the Wise-man Vanity of vanities and all is vanity He who knew this no marvail though in so great a misfortune he had drie eyes For if he knew that all humane greatness was vanity wherefore should he grieve for that which was nothing That is not worthy of grief which deserves not love Things so mutable are those below that as they merit not our affections when we enjoy them so they ought not to vex and afflict us when we lose them This apprehension was the cause of the great equality of mind which this Prince exprest in all his actions who was so far from shewing any grief in the loss of his Kingdom and fortunes that he rather seemed to laugh and rejoyce and therefore when he was overthrown in battail and forced to flye into Numidia where he fortified himself in one of the Mountains the Enemy besieging and streightning him with want of victuals he sent to the Captain who commanded in chief to demand of him Bread a Sponge and a Cittern Bread to sustain his life which was now like to perish for want of food a Sponge to drie his eyes for that having now entred into the consideration of the vanity of humane things and ashamed at his grief for the loss of them he was resolved to change his passions and rather laugh than weep for what being possest afforded no security the same being lost brought no prejudice and to this end demanded a Cittern for that having wiped his eyes from their fruitless tears he was now resolved to change his complaints into songs and his grief into content which consists not so much in the abundance of a great fortune as in the sufficiency of a moderate And with reason might he take the Cittern for if he well considered he might rejoyce even in his mishap since his loss made him understand that deceit of the World which his most ample Kingdom never could and freed him not onely from cares and troubles but from sins which in the prosperity of this life have a larger field than in an adverse fortune Possessed of this truth they took him prisoner and brought him to the conquering Belisarius The Captive King came with those expressions of joy and mirth that the General seeing him laugh whom he judged to have so great a cause of tears thought his grief had distracted him and
with which the rich man remained amazed and was taught that to give himself over to gluttony and the immoderate pleasure of his taste was no less hurtful for him than to feed on poisonful creatures or to have to do with Lions Serpents and Tygers And it is certain that Lions and the most furious beasts have not kill'd so many as have died by surfeits and pleasing too much their pallats CAP. VI. Of the littleness of things Temporal SEtting aside how vain the things of this World are let us particularly consider how little they are and we shall perceive that though their vanity which swells and blows them up seems to extend them yet they are in themselves poor short and little especially if we compare them with things eternal Beginning therefore with that temporal good which seems to have the greatest bulk and makes the greatest noise to wit Honour Fame and Renown we shall see how narrow it is Men desire that their fame should ring through the whole World and that all should know their names and if they did what are all in respect of those in the other World since the whole Earth in respect of the Heavens is but a point But who is he that can be known of all who live Millions of men there are in the World who know not whether there be an Emperour of Germany or a King of Spain Let no man then afflict himself for this vain honour for even in his own Country all shall not know him Many thousand years are past and no man knew thee and of those who shall be born hereafter few shall remember thee and although thou remainest in the memory of those yet they also in the end must die and with them thine and their own memory must perish and thou shalt as before thou wert continue a whole eternity without being known or celebrated by any And even now whilest thou livest there are not many who know thee and of those most of them so bad that thou oughtest to be ashamed that such mouthes should praise thee who speak ill even of one another Wherefore then doest thou torment thy self for a thing so short so vile and so vain All these things are so certain that even the Gentils acknowledged them Hear onely one who was placed in the highest degree of glory and dignity in the whole World Marc. Anton. l. 3. p. 200. since he was Lord of it the Emperour Marcus Antoninus who speaks in this manner Perhaps thou art sollicitous of honour Behold how quickly oblivion blots out all things Behold a Chaos of eternity both before and after How vain is the noise of fame how great inconstancie and uncertainty of humane judgements and opinions in how narrow a compass are all things inclosed The World is but a point and of it how small a corner is inhabited and who and how many are those in it who are to praise thee And a little after he adds He who desires fame and honour after death thinks not that he who is to remember him shall shortly die also and in the same manner he who is to succeed after him untill that all memory which is to be propagated by mortal men be blotted out But suppose that those who are to remember thee were immortal what could it import thee being dead nay even alive what could it profit thee to be praised all that is fair is fair of it self and is perfected within it self and to be praised is no part of the beauty He therefore who is celebrated is for that reason neither better nor worse These Antidotes are drawn by the Pagan Prince against the poison of ambition Why therefore should we Christians esteem any honour but that of God What shall I say of the vanity of those titles which many have assumed against all reason and justice onely to make themselves known in the World Let us judge how it will fare with us of Europe by those who have taken titles upon them in Asia For if the fame of those in Asia arrive not to the knowledge of us in Europe no more shall ours in Europe to theirs in Asia The name of Echebar was thought by his Subjects to be eternal and that all the World did not only know Jarricus in Thesau Indic but fear him But ask here in Europe who he was and no man hath heard of him and demand now of the most learned and few shall resolve you unless perchance he find here in my writing that he raigned in Mogor How few have heard of the name of Vencatapadino Ragiu he imagined that there was no man in the World who knew him not The same thought had his Servants and called him The Lord of Kings and supreme Emperour The titles which he arrogated to himself and put in his Edicts were these The Spouse of good fortune King of great Provinces King of the greatest Kings and God of Kings Lord of all the Horsemen Master of those who cannot speak Emperour of three Emperours Conquerour of all he sees and Preserver of all he conquers Formidable unto the eight Regions of the World Lord of the Provinces which he overcomes Destroyer of the Mahometan Armies Disposer of the riches of Zeilan He who cut off the head of the invincible Viravalano Lord of the East South North and West and of the Sea Hunter of Elephants He that lives and glories in his military valour These titles of honour are enjoyed by the most excellent in warlike forces Vencatapadino Ragiu which rules and governs this World How many can tell me before I declare it here that he was the King of Narsinga If then these warlike and potent Princes are not known in Europe No more shall Charles the Fift and the Grand Captain and many other Excellent men in arms and litterature which have flourished in these parts be known in Asia and Africa If we shall reflect upon the truth of those titles which many arrogate unto themselves we shall perceive them all to be vain How many are called Highness and Excellence who are of a base and abject spirit and continue in mortal sin which is the meanest and lowest thing in the World How many are called Screnissimi who have their understanding darkened and their will perverted Others call themselves most Magnificent with as much reason as Nero might be called most Clement This vanity hath proceeded so far that men have not feared to usurp those titles which only belong to God and have thereupon raised great warres and slain innumerable people Wherefore St. John said that the Beast which rose out of the Sea had upon his head names of Blasphemy and afterwards that the purple Beast was full of names of Blasphemy in regard of the blood that hath been spilt in the World for those vain titles and some of them contrary unto the essence of God as the calling of Rome Eternal and deifying her Emperours which was no better than blasphemy The things wherein
Gregory explicates in these words He is first troubled with a weariness in seeking how to compass sometimes by flattery sometimes by terrours what his covetousness desires and having obtained it the sollicitude of keeping it is no less vexatious He fears Theeves and is afrighted with the power of great ones lest they should by violence take his wealth from him and if he meet one in want presently suspects he may rob him and those very things which he hath gathered together he fears lest their own nature may consume them Since then the fear of all these things is a trouble and vexation the miserable wretch suffers in as many things as he fears St. Chrysostome also sayes that the rich man must needs want many things because he is content with nothing and is a slave of his avarice still full of fears and suspicion hated envied murmured at and made the enemy of all men whilest the poor life which walks the Kings high-way secured and guarded from Theeves and Enemies is a Port free from storms a School of wisdom and a life of peace and quietness Hom. 47. in Mat. And in another place he sayes thus If thou shalt well consider the heart of an avaritious and covetous man thou shalt finde it like a Garment spoiled and consumed with moths and ten thousand worms so corrupted and overcome with cares that it seems not the heart of a man Such is not the heart of the poor which shines like gold is firm as a rock of diamonds pleasant as a rose and free from fear theeves cares and sollicitudes lives a an Angel of heaven present onely to God and his service whose conversation is more with Angels than Men whose treasure is God not needing of any to serve him since he onely serves his Creator whose slaves are his own thoughts and desires over which he absolutely commands What more precious than this what more beautiful But the little help which humane life receives from temporal riches cannot be better exprest than by that which David sayes Psal 33. The rich have wanted and were a hungred but those who seek the Lord shall not be defrauded of all good If then the abundance of wealth cannot free us from the necessities of the body how shall they rescue us in the griefs and cares of the minde Neither are honours more favourable unto humane life What anguish of heart doth the fear of losing them cost us and what shifts are we put to to preserve them great are the inconveniences which many suffer to sustain them even to the want of necessary food Exod. 5. For as Pharao exacted things impossible from the Children of Israel commanding that no straw should be allowed them for the burning of their bricks and yet that the same Tax and number should be imposed as before The same tyranny is exercised over many by the World which takes away the stock and substance which they formerly had to sustain themselves and yet commands them still to maintain the same pomp and equipage which they did when they enjoy'd it so that many are forced by their honour as they term it to maintain a Coach and Lackies which they need not when they have scarcely wherewith to feed their hungry bellies In others what melancholly and sadness is sometimes caused by a vain suspicion that some have thought or spoken ill of them so many are the mischiefs and vexations which this counterfeit good draws along with it that many have given thanks to God that he hath taken this burthen of honour from them that so they might live in greater quiet and repose Plutarch sayes That if a man were offered two wayes whereof the one led to Honour and the other to Death he should choose the latter Lucian desiring to express it more fully feigns that one of the Gods refused his Deity because he would not be troubled with being alwayes honoured He invents this lye to make us believe the truth which we have spoken The excess also of pleasures what miseries doth it heap upon us what infirmities doth it engender in our bodies what torments and resentments in our consciences for as he who wanders out of his way without reflecting on it is by the briers bushes pits and unevenness of the ground put in minde that he hath lost himself which although he be otherwise well accommodated yet troubles and afflicts him So the wayes and paths of a delicious man cry out unto him that he goes astray and must therefore cause a melancholly and a sadness in his heart Hom. 10. in Ezechiel Well said St. Gregory that he was a fool who looked for joy and peace in the delights of the world for those are the effects of the Holy Ghost and companions of righteousness which are farre removed from the cares and vanities of the earth Besides all our pleasures are so intermixt with trouble and importunities that it is the greatest pleasure to want them Epicurus who was a great studier of pleasures Hieron contra Jovinian did as St. Jerome writes enrich all his books with sentences of temperance and sobriety and he hath scarce a leaf which is not filled with pot-herbs fruits roots and other mean food of small trouble the sollicitude in setting forth of banquets being greater than the delight we receive in their abuse Diogenes in the same manner and other Philosophers despised pleasures as prejudicial to the commodities of life passing for that cause their lives in great poverty Crates flung all his goods into the Sea and Zeno was glad his were drowned with a Tempest Aristides would not admit the bounty of Calicias and Epaminondas was content with one Coat living in poverty and temperance to the end he might live with content and honour and free from necessities which are often greater amongst the rich than the poor Riches make not their Masters rich who live in perpetual covetousness and are never satisfied with their Coffers Wherefore the Holy Ghost speaking of those who are called Rich and of the Poor of the Gospel sayes those are as it were rich and enjoy nothing and these are as it were poor and possess all things For which reason St. Gregory noted that our Saviour Christ called not the Riches of the world absolutely Riches but false and deceitful Riches False in regard they cannot continue long with us Deceitful because they cannot satisfie the necessities of life § 3. It is more to be feared when the goods of this life cause the evils of the other and that they not onely rob us of the content of the present but occasion the torments of the future and after one hell in this life throw us down into another after death Well said St. Jerome in one of his Epistles that it was a difficult thing to enjoy both the goods present and to come to passe from temporal pleasures to eternal and to be great both here and there for he who places his whole
such a one would hardly make him conceive the brightness and beauty of the Sun much less can the glory of those things of the other world be made to appear unto us though exemplified by comparisons of the greatest beauty the world affords So ineffable blessings are contemned by a Sinner and all to make himself despicable and accursed .. § 3. After the same manner the evils and pains of this World are nothing comparable unto those which are eternal and therefore as the three hundred years enjoying of one heavenly pleasure seemed unto that Servant of God no longer than three hours so to the contrary three hours of eternal pains will appear unto the damned as three hundred years and much more since even of the temporal pains in Purgatory this notable accident is written by St. Antoninus St. Anto. 4. p. §. 4. A man of an evil life was visited by our Lord with a long infirmity to the end he might repent and reflect upon his sins which took effect But his sickness by continuance grew so grievous and tedious unto him as he often with great earnestness recommended himself unto God and besought him to deliver him from the prison of his body Whereupon an Angel appeared unto him with this choice either to continue two years sick in that manner he was and then to goe straight to Heaven or to die instantly and remain three dayes in Purgatory He was not long in his election but presently chose the latter and immediately died but had not been an hour in those pains when the same Angel appeared unto him again and after some encouragement and consolation demanded if he knew him he answered No. I am said he the Angel who brought thee that choice from Heaven either to come hither or to remain in thy infirmity for two years To whom the afflicted soul replied It is impossible thou shouldest be the Angel of the Lord for good Angels cannot lie and that Angel told me I should remain in this place but three dayes and it is now so many years that I have suffered those most bitter torments and can yet see no end of my misery Know then said the Angel that it is not yet an hour since thou left thy body and the rest of the three dayes yet remain for thee to suffer To whom the Soul replied Pray unto the Lord for me that he look not upon my ignorance in making so foolish a choice but that out of his Divine mercy he will give me leave to return once more unto life and I will not onely patiently suffer those two years but as many as it shall please him to impose upon me His Petition was granted and being restored unto life his experience of Purgatory made all the pains of his infirmity seem light unto him in so much as he endured them not onely with patience but joy Much like unto this as appears in the Chronicles of the Minorits happened unto a religious person of the Order of St. Francis Chron. S. Fran. 2. p. l. 4. c. 8. who demanded the same of God Almighty in regard of the much trouble he put his religious brebren unto as also for what he suffered himself An Angel appeared unto him and gave him his choice either of suffering one day in Purgatory or remaining a whole year longer sick as he was He made choice to die presently and had scarce been one hour in Purgatory when he began to complain of the Angel for having cozened him The Angel appeared unto him again certifying him that his body was not yet buried because there was one onely hour past since his death He gave him his choice the second time His Soul was presently reunited to the body and he rose out of his Bed to the great astonishment of all If this then pass in Purgatory it will not be less in hell and if an hour seem a year which contains above eleven thousand hours an eternity in hell will appear eleven thousand eternities O how dearly bought are the short pleasures of the senses which are paid for with so long and so innumerable torments For if pain should last no longer than the pleasure that deserved it it would seem to those who are to feel it ten thousand times longer What will it do being eternal O pains of this World infirmities griefs and troubles how ridiculous are ye compared with those which are eternal since the time which you endure is but short and it is not much that you can afflict us nay if by temporal punishments we may escape the eternal you are most happy unto us and ought to be received with a thousand welcoms CAP. II. The greatness of the eternal honour of the Just LEt us now in particular consider the greatness of those goods of the other life in which are contained Honours Riches Pleasures and all the blessings both of soul and body of each whereof we shall say something apart and will begin with that of Honour Certainly the reward of honour which shall be conferred upon the Just in the other life is to be wonderful great First in respect that amongst all the appetites of a reasonable creature that of honour is the most potent and prevalent Secondly because our Saviour exhorts us unto humility as the way by which we are to enter into glory and promiseth honours and exaltations unto the humble and there is no question but in that place of satiety remuneration and accomplishment of all that can be desired the honour of the Servants of Christ and followers of his humility shall be inexpressible of which there are many promises in holy Scripture He himself sayes That his Father will honour them in Heaven and David sings Thou hast crowned him with glory and honour and Ecclesiasticus as it is applied by the Church A Crown of Gold upon his head graven with the seal of holiness and the glory of honour Besides all the tribute which those who serve God are able to pay him is onely to laud and honour him His eternal joy happiness and all his intrinsecal perfections are so excellent that they can receive no addition onely this glory and honour as they are an exteriour good are capable of augmentation And this is that which he receives from the Saints who serve him With which God is so pleased that he pays them again in the same money and honours those who honoured him and this honour arrives at that height that Christ himself expresses it in these words Apoc. 3. He who shall overcome I will give him to sit with me in my Throne even at I have overcome and have sitten with the Father in his Throne At the greatness of which promise a Doctor being amazed cries out Bell. l. 1. de aterna felici c. 4. infine How great shall be that glory when a just Soul shall in the presence of an infinite number of Angels sit in the same Throne with Christ and shall by the
just Sentence of God be praised for a Conqueror over the World and the invisible Powers of Hell and how shall that Soul rejoyce when it shall see it self being freed from all danger and troubles to triumph over all its enemies What can it desire more than to be partaker of all those divine goods and even to accompany Christ in the same Throne O how chearfully do they combat upon Earth O how easily do they bear all afflictions for Christ who with a lively faith and certain hope apprehend so sublime honours Certainly with much reason may the happiness of Saints be called by the name of Glory since the honour which they receive is so transcendent What an honour shall that be when the Just in the other lise shall receive no less a recompence of his holiness than God himself The nature of honour is to be a reward of vertue and by how much greater the reward is which a powerful King bestows upon some valorous Captain by so much greater is the honour which he confers upon him What honour shall it then be when God shall give unto those who have served him not onely to tread upon the Starres to inhabit the Palaces of Heaven to be Lords of the World but transcending all that is created and finding amongst his whole riches nothing sufficient to reward them shall give them his own infinite essence to enjoy not for a day but to all eternity The highest honour which the Romans bestowed upon their greatest Captains was to grant them a day of triumph and in that permission to wear a Crown of grass or leaves which withered the day following O most honoured vertue of Christians whole triumph shall be eternal and whose never fading Crown is God himself O most happy Diadem of the Just O most precious Garland of the Saints which is of as great worth and value as is God! Sapores King of the Persians was most ambitious of honour and would therefore be called the Brother of the Sun and Moon and Friend to the Planets This vain Prince erected a most glorious Throne which he placed on high and thereon fat in great Majesty having under his feet a certain Globe of glass whereon were artificially represented the motions of the Sun the Moon and Stars and to sit crowned above this phantastical Heaven he esteemed as a great honour What shall be then the honour of the just who truly and really shall sit above the Sun the Moon and Firmament crowned by the hand of God himself If the applause of men and the good opinion which they have from others be esteemed an honour what shall be the applause of Heaven and the good opinion not onely of Saints and Angels but of God himself whose judgements cannot erre David took it for a great honour that the Daughter of his King was judged as a reward of his valour God surpasses this and honours so much the services of his Elect that he pays their merits with no less a reward than himself O happy labour of the victorious and glorious combat of the just against the vices and temptations of the World whose victory deserves so inestimable a Crown Clemens Alexandrinus reports that there were in Persia three Mountains He who came to the first heard as it were a farre off the noise and voice of them who were fighting he who attained at the second heard perfectly the cries and clamours of Souldiers engaged in the fury of a Battail but he who attained unto the third heard nothing but the joyful acclamations of a victory This happens really with the just who are likewise to pass three mystical Mountains which are Reason Grace and Glory He who arrives at the knowledge of Reason gives an alarm unto Vice which he combats and overcomes by Grace and in Glory celebrates his victory with the joy and applause of all the Inhabitants of heaven and is crowned as a Conquerour with such a Crown as we have already spoken of §. 2. Besides this he who is most known and is praised and celebrated for good and vertuous by the greatest multitude is esteemed the most glorious and honourable person But all this World is a solitude in respect of the Citizens of Heaven where innumerable Angels approve and praise the vertuous actions of the Saints and they likewise are nothing and all creatures Men and Angels but as a solitary Wilderness in respect of the Creator What comparison betwixt that honour which may be given by some particular Kingdom or by all Europe and that which shall be heaped upon the just by all the blessed Men and Angels nay even by the damned and Devils in the Day of Judgement What is the approbation of a created understanding in respect of the Divine What man so glorious upon earth whose worth and valour hath been known to all Those who were born before him could not know him no more shall many of those who are to follow him But the Predestinate in heaven shall be known by all past and to come by all the Angels and by the King of Men and Angels Humane fame is founded upon the applause of mortal men who besides being less than Angels may be deceived may lie and are most part of them sinners and wicked How farre then must that honour exceed it which is conferred upon the Just by the holy Angels and by those blessed and pure Souls who cannot be deceived themselves nor will deceive us If we esteem it more to be honoured by the Kings of the Earth by the Great men of the World and by the Learned in Universities than by the barbarous and ignorant Peasants of some poor Village how ought we then to value the honou rwhich shall be bestowed upon us by the Saints in Heaven who are the Kings and Grandees of the Court of God and are all replenished with most perfect and divine wisdom All the honour of men is ridiculous and his ambition no wiser who seeks it then as St. Anselme sayes if one worm should desire to be honoured by another Lib. de Sim. c. 65. All the Earth is but as a Village or rather as some poor Cottage in respect of Heaven Let us not therefore strive for a name upon Earth but that our names may be written in Heaven in comparison whereof it is too much to say that the Earth is a point as Seneca called it Lib. 2. de Consol and therefore Bottius proves that it is less and sayes If from this little particle of Earth you shall take what Seas Lakes and uninhabited places full of wild beasts take up you shall leave unto men but a narrow dwelling Being therefore penn'd up in so small a point of a point how canst thou think to extend thy renown and publish thy name Compare the honour of Heaven with that of Earth and thou shalt find the difference betwixt them to be as great as is their distance Of this incomparable honour in Heaven have
and peopled with such a multitude of beautiful Citizens as are as farre above any imaginable number as the capacity of the City is above any imaginable measure Some famous Mathematicians say of die Empyrial Heaven that it is so great that if God should allow unto every one of the blessed a greater space than the whole Earth yet there would remain as much more to give unto others and that the capaciousness of this Heaven is so great that it contains more than ten thousand and fourteen millions of miles What wonder will it be to see a City so great of so precious matter The Divines confess the capaciousness of this Heaven to be immense but are more willing to admire it than bold to measure it Joan. Gailer in suo Peregrino Howsoever there wants not one who sayes that if God should make each grain of sand upon the Sea-shore as big as the whole Earth they would not fill the Concave of the Empyrial Heaven and yet this Holy City possesseth all that space and is all composed of matter far more beautiful and precious than Gold Pearl and Diamonds For certain our thoughts cannot conceive so great riches and wonders for which we ought to undergoe all the pains and necessities of this World St. Francis of Assisium being afflicted with a grievous pain of his eyes in so much as he could neither sleep Chron. Frat. Min. p. 1. c. 60. nor take any rest and at the same time molested by the Devil who filled his Cell with Rats which with their Careers and noise added much unto his pain with great patience gave thanks unto the Lord that he had so gently chastized him saying My Lord Jesus Christ I deserve greater punishment but thou like a good Shepherd suffer me not to stray from thee Being in this meditation he heard a voice which said unto him Francis if all the Earth were of Gold and all the Rivers of Balsame and all the Rocks of precious Stones wouldest thou not say that this were a great treasure Know that a treasure which exceeds Gold as farre as Gold does Dirt Balsam Water or Precious-stones Pibbles remains as a reward for thy infirmity if thou be content and bear it with patience Rejoyce Francis for this treasure is Celestial glory which is gained by tribulations Certainly we have reason to suffer here all pains and poverty whatsoever since we are to receive in glory so much the greater riches Wherefore we ought to lift up our souls and weaning our hearts from the frail felicity of these temporal goods of the Earth to say with David Glorious things are said of thee City of God So did Fulgentius who entring Rome when it was yet in its lustre and beholding the greatness beauty and marvelous Architecture of it said with admiration O Celestial Jerusalem how beautiful must thou be if Terrestrial Rome be such A shadow of this was shewed unto St. Josaphat whose History is written by St. John Damascen In vita Josaph Barl. St Josaphat being in profound prayer prostrate upon the earth was overtaken with a sweet sleep in which he saw two men of grave demeanour who carried him through many unknown Countries unto a Field full of flowers and plants of rare beauty laden with fruit never before seen The leaves of the trees moved with a soft and gentle wind yielded a pleasant sound and breathed forth a most sweet odour there were placed many Seats of Gold and precious Stones which shined with a new kind of brightness and a little Brook of Chrystal water refreshed the air and pleased the sight with a most agreable variety From thence he was brought into a most beautiful City whose Walls were of transparent Gold the Towers and Battlements were of Stones of inestimable value the Streets and places shone with Celestial beams of light And there passed up and down bright Armies of Angels and Seraphins chanting such songs as were never heard by mortal ears Amongst other he heard a voice which said This is the repose of the Just this the joy of those who have given a good account of their lives unto God But all this is no more than a dream and a shadow in comparison of the truth greatness and riches of that Celestial Court. In regard that all the Blessed together with Christ are to raign in this most rich City and Kingdom how great shall the riches be who was ever so rich as to have at the entrance of his House a massie large piece of Gold two or three yards long What riches will those be of Heaven because all the Kingdom of Heaven is to be of pure Gold all the Streets and all the Houses of that Holy City and not only Gold but more than Gold The holy Scripture to make us on one part understand the riches of this Kingdom of God and on the other part to know that they are of a higher and more excellent nature than those of the Earth expresses them with the similitude of the riches of this World as Gold Pearl and precious Stones because by these names we understand things of great wealth and value but withall sets them forth for such as are not to be found upon earth so as when it speaks of Pearls it sayes they were so great as they served for the Gates of a City when it speaks of Emeralds and Topaz's it makes them to suffice for the foundatian of high Walls and Turrets when of Gold it makes it transparent as Glass or Chrystal All this is to signifie that in Heaven there are not onely greater riches but of a more sublime and high quality than ours upon Earth And with reason is that Holy City called the Kingdom of Heaven to let us know that the same advantage that Heaven hath above Earth the same have Celestial honours riches and joyes above those which are here below If the whole Earth is no more than a point in respect of the Heavens what can those short and corruptible riches be in respect of the eternal § 3. Of those incomparable riches the Blessed are not onely to be Lords but Kings as appears in many places of holy Scripture Neither is the Celestial Treasure â—or this Kingdom of Heaven less or poorer by having so many Lords and Kings It is not like the Kingdoms on Earthy which permit but one King at once and if divided become of less power and Majesty but is of such condition that it is wholly possessed by all in general and by each one in particular like the Sun which warms all and every one and not one less because it warms many The effects of riches are much greater and more noble in Heaven than they can be upon Earth Wealth may serve us here to maintain our power honours and delights but all the Gold in the world cannot free us from weakness infamy and pain The power of a rich King can reach no further than to Command his Vassals and those
that it may not onely be said to be joyful but joy it self The multitude of joyes in Heaven is joyned with their greatness and so great they are that the very least of them sufficient to make us forget the greatest contents of the Earth and so many they are as that though a thousand times shorter yet they would exceed all temporal pleasures though a thousand times longer but joyning the abundance of those eternal joyes with their immense greatness that eternal B iss becoms ineffable Wherefore St. Bernard sayes The reward of Saints is so great that it cannot be measured so numerous that it cannot be counted so copious that it cannot be ended and so precious that it cannot be valued Albert. Mag. in Comp. Theol. l. 7. c. 8. 1 Cor. 2. Isai 64. And Albertus Magnus to the same purpose So great are the joyes of Heaven that all the Arithmaticians of the Earth cannot number them The Geometricians cannot measure them nor the most learned men in the world explicate them because neither eye hath seen nor ear hath heard neither hath it entred into the heart of man what God hath prepared for those who love him The Saints shall rejoyce in what is above them which is the vision of God in what is below them which is the beauty of Heaven and other corporal Creatures in what is within them which is the glorification of their bodies in what is without them which is the company of Angels and men God shall feast all their spiritual senses with an unspeakable delight for he shall be their object and shall also be a mirrour to the sight musick to the ear sweetness to the taste balsam to the smell flowers to the touch There shall be the clear light of Summer the pleasantness of the Spring the abundance of Autumn and the repose of Winter §. 2. The principal joy of the Blessed is in the possession of God whom they behold clearly as he is in himself For as Honourable Profitable and Delectable according to what we have already said are not divided in Heaven so the blessed Souls have three gifts essential and inseparable from that happy state which correspond to those three kinds of blessings which the Divines call Vision Comprehension and Fruition The first consists in the clear and distinct sight of God which is given to the Just as a reward of his merits by which he receives an incomparable honour since his works and vertues are rewarded in the presence of all the Angels with no less a Crown and recompence than is God himself The second is the possession which the Soul hath of God as of his riches and inheritance And the third is the ineffable joy which accompanies this sight and possession The greatness of this joy no tongue can tell and I believe that neither the Blessed themselves who have experience of it nor the Angels of Heaven are able to declare it Yet it will not be amiss if we as much as our ignorance and rudeness is able to attain unto consider and admire it This joy hath two singular qualities by which we may in some sort conceive the immensity of it The first that it is so vigorous and powerful that it excludes all evil pain and grief This onely is so great a good that many of the Philosophers held it for the chief felicity of man Cicero de Fin. 5. Tuscul And therefore Cicero writes that Jeronymus Rhodius a famous Philosopher and a great Master to whom may be joyned Diodorus the Peripatetick speaking of the chief happiness of man taught that it consisted in being free from grief It being the opinion of those Philosophers that not to suffer pain or evil was the greatest and most supreme good But herein was their errour that they judged that to be the good it self which was but an effect and consequent of it For so powerful is that love and joy which springs from the clear vision of God that it is sufficient to convert hell into glory in so much as if to the most tormented Soul in hell were added all the torments of the rest of the Damned both Men and Devils and that God should vouchsafe him but one glympse of his knowledge that only clear vision though in the lowest degree were sufficient to free him from all those evils both of sin and pain So that his Soul being rapt by that ineffable beauty which he beheld would not be sensible of any grief at all O how potent a joy is that which cast into such an abyss of torments converts them all into consolations How mighty were that fire whereof one spark would consume the whole Ocean There is no joy in this World so intense which can suspend the grief we suffer from a finger that is in sawing off Griefs do more easily bereave us of the sense of pleasure than pleasures do of pains Yet such is the greatness of that soveraign joy in Heaven that it alone is sufficient to drown all the griefs and torments both in Earth and Hell and there is no pain in the World able to diminish the least part of it The other stupendious wonder which proceeds from the greatness of this joy is the multitude of those pleasures which as from a most fruitful root spring from it Who would not be astonisht that the happiness of the Soul should cause so many and so marvelous effects in the bodies of the Blessed So excellent is that beatifical vision which with ineffable joy possesses the spirit that it bursts forth into the body with all the evident demonstrations of beauty lustre and the other gifts of glory We see here that the heart is not able so farre to dissemble a great joy conceived as that it appears not by some signe in the body but that joy is so weak and feeble that it extends no further than to express some little chearfulness and mirth in the countenance But the beatifical Vision is so immense a joy that it wholly changes the body making it beautiful as an Angel resplendent as the Sun immortal as a Spirit and impassible as God himself working great miracles and prodigies in the body by the redundancie of that unspeakable comfort which the spirit feels O if one could place before the eyes of the World the body of some blessed Saint enendowed with the four gifts of glory full of clearness splendor and beauty casting forth a fragrancy infinitely more sweet unto the senses than that of Musk and Amber that men might see by this shadow how immense is that light and joy which thus illustrates and beautifies the flesh O mortals why do ye covet other pleasures with loss of Soul and Body and do not rather seek after these with the profit and glory of both O how different are temporal delights from eternal those especially if they be unlawful blemish and destroy the Soul and weaken and corrupt the body but these beautifie and embellish them both
pestilence and corruption and a land of uncleanness and misery S. Tho. in 4. Sent. St. Thomas sayes that in the last purification of the World there shall be a separation made in the Elements in such a manner as the pure and refined parts shall remain above for the glory of the Blessed and the impure dross and dregs shall be thrown into Hell for the punishment of the Damned Wherefore as every creature is matter of joy to the Blessed so every creature shall add unto the torments of the Damned This appertains unto Divine Justice that as separating themselves by sin from him who is one they placed their ends in material things which are many so from many things they should receive their affliction Into this Sewer and Sink of all the Elements into this land of punishment and torments shall be banished the enemies of God The punishment of Exile was most grievous unto the Roman Citizens when for some enormous fault they were cast forth of the City and banished into some desolate Island or barbarous Nation Ovid when he was sent into Pontus did not cease from lamenting his misfortune still sighing after his own Country And Cicero when he returned from banishment as if he had entred into a new World whereof they had made him Lord cried out with admiration and joy O what beauty is this of Italy what civility of People what Fields what Vines and Crops of Corn what decency of the City what humanity of the Citizens what dignity of the Commonwealth If men were thus transported by the difference betwixt some Countries and others and betwixt some Men and others what difference shall the Damned find betwixt Heaven and Hell and betwixt the conversation of Angels and of Devils What a grief shall it be to see themselves deprived of the Palaces of Heaven the society of Saints and that happy Country of the Living where all is peace quietness charity and joy where all shines all pleases and all parts resound with Alleluja's David being absent from his Country amongst barbarous Nations although his life were preserved by his banishment yet could not choose but resent it as his death And the People of Juda whilst they remained in Babylon thought it impossible for them to sing being an action of mirth whilest they were in a strange Country Certainly if the Damned had no other punishment than to see themselves banisht amongst Devils into a place far distant from Heaven sad as night without the sight or comfort of Sun or Moon for all eternity it were a torment unsufferable Seneca Justin Valerius Suidas It was a great Tyranny in Alexander after he had cut of the nose ears and lips of Calistenes to cast so worthy a person into a Dungeon onely accompanied with a dog A spectacle indeed lamentable to see so discreet a man used like a brute and not have the company of one who might comfort him But the Damned would take it as a favour to have the company of Dogs or Lions rather than that of their own Parents The Tyrants of Japonia invented a strange torment for those who confessed Christ They hung them with their heads downwards half their bodies into a hole digged in the earth which they filled with Snakes Lizards and other poisonous vermin But even those were better companions than those infernal Dragons of the pit of Hell whereunto not half but the whole body of the miserable sinner shall be plunged The Romans when they punisht any as a Parricide Isid l. 5. Etymo c. 47. to express the hainousness of the fact shut him up in a Sack with a Serpent an Ape and a Cock What a horror shall it be in Hell where a damned person shall be shut up with so many malicious spirits Here if a house be haunted with a Goblin none dare dwell in it There they shall be forced to dwell with millions of Devils Here none will live near a Pest-house or ill Neighbours Think upon what neighbourhood is in Hell Cato counselled those who were to take a Farm to have a special care what Neighbours it had And Themistocles being to sell a certain Manour Plutar. in Them caused the Cryer to proclaim That it had good Neighbours How com's one then to purchase Hell at so dear a rate as the price of his Soul having such cursed Neighbours where all scoff and decide him all will abhorre him all will be irksome and troublesome their disquietness and ranting will be insufferable and the very sight and ugliness of them will fright and astonish him How grievous is the banishment into that place where none wishes well unto another where the Fathers hate their Sons and the Sons abhorre their Fathers This may appear by this example which is rehearsed in the lives of the Ancient Fathers of the Desert A Son of an Usurer being converted to penance by a Sermon wherein that vice was reprehended begged of his Father and of another Brother of his that forsaking that infamous vice they would restore all that they had unlawfully gained They not hearkning to him but as they use to say being deaf of that ear he retired into the Wilderness and became a Monk in company of other Servants of Almighty God His Father and Brother died without repentance of their sins The holy Monk was much afflicted for the miserable condition he feared they were in and begged earnestly of Almighty God he would please to reveal unto him their state and condition Being one day persisting in this prayer an Angel appeared unto him and taking him by the hand carried him to the top of a high Mountain from whence he discovered a deep valley full of fire whence having first heard a fearful cry he presently saw his Father who boiled in the fire like a pea in a boiling pot and his Brother swimming as it were in the flames now above and now below The Son spake unto his Father saying Cursed be thou Father for all eternity because by an unjust inheritance thou hast been the cause of my damnation And the Father answered him Cursed be thou Son for to the end I might leave thee a rich Inheritance I stuck not to gain it by unjust means They disappeared and the Monk much astonished returned home to his Monastery where he lived in very rigorous penance till death In other banishments when Parents or Friends meet in a Country far from home they endeavour to comfort one another and even enemies are then reconciled But in this banishment of Hell friends abhorre Friends and Parents hate and are hated by their Children § 2. To this may be added that in this banishment of the Damned the exiles are not allowed the liberty of other banished persons who within the Isle or Region of relegation may goe or move whither they please but not so the Damned in Hell because the place of their exile is also a Prison that so this grievous sort of punishment may be also
in it of a most intolerable stench What shall I then say of the Tongue which is the instrument of so many wayes of sinning flattery lying murmuring calumniating gluttony and drunkenness who can express that bitterness which the miserable shall suffer greater than that of wormwood or aloes insomuch as the Scripture sayes The gall of dragons shall be their wine and they shall taste the poison of Asps for all eternity Unto which shall be joyned an intolerable thirst and dog-like hunger conformable unto which David said They shall suffer hunger as dogs Quintilian sayes Quintil. Declam â—2 That Famine is the most pressing of all necessities and most deformed of all evils that Plagues and Warres are happinesses in respect of it If then a Famine of eight dayes be the worst of temporal evils what shall that Famine be which is eternal Let our Epicures and Belly-Gods hear what the Son of God prophesies Luc. 6. Wo unto you who are full for you shall be an hungred and with such an hunger as shall be eternal If the other evils of this world as Quintilian affirms may be esteemed not much in comparison of hunger even in this temporal life what will they be in respect of the hunger of the life to come Hunger in this life does bring men to such extremities that not onely they come to desire to eat Dogs Cats Rats and Mice Snakes Toads Leather Dung and eat them in effect but also Mothers come to eat their own Children and men the flesh of their own arms as it fell out to Zeno the Emperour If hunger be so horrible a mischief in this life how will it afflict the damned in the other without all doubt the damned would rather tear themselves in pieces than suffer it Neither shall thirst torment them less The sense of Touching as it is the most extended sense of all the rest so shall it be the most tormented in that burning fire Bar. ad an 191. We are amazed to think of the inhumanity of Phalaris who roasted men alive in his brasen Bull. This was a toy in respect of that fire of Hell which penetrates the very entrails of the body without consuming them The burning of a finger only does cause so great a torment that it is unsufferable but far greater were it to burn the whole arm and far greater were it besides the arms to burn the leggs and far more violent torment would it be to burn the whole body This torment is so great that it cannot be expressed in words since it includes or comprises as many torments as the body of man hath joints sinews arteries c. and especially being caused by that so penetrating and true fire of which St. Austin sayes that this temporal fire is but a painted fire in respect of that in Hell in so much that the fire of Hell does exceed ours by so many degrees as a thing in life and reality exceeds the same in a picture In conformity to what is here said venerable Peter Cluniacensis writes and when we read such like stories from the representations therein contained we are to raise our thoughts to the substance therein represented This venerable man then writes That a wicked Priest being ready to give up the ghost there appeared unto him two fiery Devils who brought with them a Frying-pan in which they told him they would fry him in Hell and a drop of hot liquor then falling out of the Frying-pan upon his hand in a moment burnt him to the very bones in the sight of all that were present who remained astonished to see the efficacy and violence of that infernal fire Whereupon Nicholas of Nice sayes that if there were a fire made of all the wood in the world it would not be able to cause so much torment as the least spark of Hell-fire Caesarius does also write Caesar l. 12. mirac c. 23. That Theodosius Bishop of Mastrick had a Servant by name Eberbach who in a raging fit of anger gave himself to the Devil upon condition he would help him to take revenge upon his Enemies Some years after this man fell grievously sick of a disease that brought him to the point of death and being now dead in all mens judgement his soul was cast into a sea of fire where he remained suffering until such time as an Angel of Heaven came unto him and said Behold what they are to suffer that serve the Devil But if so great a mercy should be shewed unto thee as to grant thee longer life wouldst thou not spend it in doing penance for thy sins He replyed There can be nothing so hard or painful which I would not undergoe to escape this torment Then the Lord used that mercy to him as to let him return to the use of life and senses and rising off the Biere where he was already placed to be carried to burial all that were present were astonished at him who at the same instant began a course of life of most austere and rigorous penance He went bare-foot upon thorns and briars store of blood issuing from the wounds received He lived onely on bread and water and that in a very small quantity What money he had he gave to the poor There were many who wondering at the rigour of his penance endeavoured to moderate the excess of his fervour and austerities to whom he answered Wonder not hereat for I have suffered torments of a far different kind and if you had been there you would frame a far different apprehension of them And for to explicate the excessive torment that fire caused he said That if all the trees in the world were put in one heap and set on fire I would rather burn there till the day of judgement than suffer onely for the space of one hour that fire which I have experienced Now what a miserable unhappiness will it be to burn in those flames of Hell not onely for one hour but till the day of Judgement yea even for all eternity and world without end Who would not esteem it an hideous torment if he were to be burnt alive an hundred times and his torment were to last every time for an hours space with what compassionate eyes would all the world look upon such a miserable wretch Nevertheless without all doubt any of the damned in Hell would receive this as a great happiness to end his torments with those hundred times burning For what comparison is there betwixt an hundred hours burning with some space of time betwixt every hour and to burn an hundred years of continual torment And what comparison will there be betwixt burning for an hundred years space and to be burning without interruption as long as God is God Let a Christian who hath ever committed a mortal sin consider this and let him see what can be difficult sharp and intolerable since thereby he deserved to be cast into Hell and let him see whether he think any
shall with great grief remember how often he might have gained Heaven and did it not but is now tumbled into Hell and shall say unto himself How many times might I have prayed and spent that time in play but now I pay for it How many times ought I to have fasted and left it to satisfie my greedy appetite How many times might I have given alms and spent it in sin How many times might I have pardoned my enemies and chose rather to be revenged How many times might I have frequented the Sacraments and forbore them because I would not quit the occasion of sinning There never wantted means of serving God but I never made use of it and am therefore now justly paid for all Behold accursed Caitiff that entertaining thy self in pleasures thou hast for toyes and fooleries lost Heaven If thou wouldest thou mightest have been a companion for Angels if thou wouldest thou mightest have been in eternal joy and thou hast lost all for the pleasure of a moment O accursed and wretched fool thy Redeemer courted thee with Heaven and thou despisedst him for a base trifle This was thy fault and now thou sufferest for it and since thou wouldest not be happy with God thou shalt now be eternally cursed by him and his Angels The Understanding shall torment it self with discourses of great bitterness discoursing of nothing but what may grieve it Aristotle shall not there take delight in his wisdom nor Seneca comfort himself with his Philosophy Galen shall find no remedy in his Physick nor the profoundest Scholar in his Divinity A certain Doctor of Paris appeared after death unto the Bishop of that City and gave him an account that he was damned The Bishop demanded of him if he had there any knowledge He answered That he knew nothing but onely three things The first that he was eternally damned The second that the Sentence past against him was irrevocable The third that for the vain pleasure of the world he was deprived of the vision of God And then he desired to know of the Bishop if there were any people in the world remaining The Bishop asking him the reason of that question he answered that within these few last dayes there have so many souls descended into Hell that me-thinks there should not any be left upon earth In this power of the Soul is engendered tho worm of conscience which is so often proposed unto us in holy Scripture as a most terrible torment and greater than that of fire Onely in one Sermon or rather in the Epilogue of that Sermon Christ our Redeemer three times menaces us with that Worm Marc. 9. which gnaws the consciences and tears in pieces the hearts of the Damned admonishing us as often That their worm shall never die nor their sire be quenched For as the worm which breeds in dead flesh or that which breeds in wood eats and gnaws that substance of which they are engendered so the Worm which is bred from sin is in perpetual enmity with it gnawing and devouring the heart of the sinner with raging desperate and now unprofitable grief still putting him in mind that by his own fault he lost that eternal glory which he might so easily have obtained and is now fallen into eternal torments from whence there is no redemption And certainly this resentment of the loss of Heaven shall more torment him than the fire of Hell Of an evil conscience even in this life St. Austin said Aug. in Psal 45. Quint. Declam 12. Senec. ep 97. that amongst all the tribulations of the Soul none was greater than that of a guilty conscience Even the Gentils knew this and therefore Quintilian exclaims O sad remembrance and knowledge more grievous than all torments And Seneca sayes that evil actions are whipt by the conscience of themselves that perpetual vexation and resentment brings great afflictions and torments upon the Actors that wickedness drinks up the greatest part of its own poison and is a punishment unto it self Certainly it were a great rigour if a Father should be forced to be present at the execution of his Son but more if he should be compelled to be the Hangman and yet greater if the Gallows should be placed before his own door so that he could neither go in or out without beholding that affront and contumely but far greater crueltie if they should make the guilty person to execute himself and that by cutting his body in pieces member after member or tearing off his flesh with his own teeth This is the cruelty and torment of an evil Conscience with which a sinner is racked and tortured amongst those eternal flames not being able to banish his faults from his memory nor their punishment from his thoughts The envy also which they shall bear towards those who have gained Heaven by as small matters as they have lost it shall much add to their grief Those who are hungry if they see others meaner than they feed at some splendid and plentiful Table and cannot be admitted themselves become more hungry so shall it fare with the damned who shall be more afflicted by beholding others sometimes less than themselves enjoy that eternal happiness which they through want of care are deprived of Esau though a Clown having understood that his Brother Jacob had obtained his Fathers Benediction cried out and roared like a Lion and consumed himself with resentment and horror What lamentations shall those of the damned be when they shall see that the Just have gained the Benediction of God not by any deceit or cozenage used by them but that they lost it through their own neglect Those who with opinion of merit earnestly aim at some vacant Dignity if at length they see themselves neglected and with shame put off their grief and indignation swells above measure In like manner I say shall it be with those damned wretches who will be far more afflicted by the consideration of those great goods and eternal felicities which they see themselves have lost and those to enjoy them whom they deemed far inferiour to them in merit Let us now therefore have remorse of conscience whilest we may kill the Worm lest it then bite us when it cannot die CAP. XI Of Eternal Death and the Punishment of Talion in the Damned AFter all this there shall not want in Hell the pains of Death which amongst humane punishments is the greatest That of Hell is a living Death and doth as far exceed this of earth as the substance doth a shadow The Death which men give together with death takes away the pain and sense of dying but the Eternal Death of sinners is with sense and by so much greater as it hath more of life recollecting within it self the worst of dying which is to perish and the most intolerable of life which is to suffer pain And therefore St. Bernard calls the pain of the damned a living Death and a dead Life and Pope Innocent the
by birth by divine inspiration became a Cistercian Monk He entred upon this course of life and continued with such great courage that he stuck not to challenge the Devil and bid him defiance The Enemy made his Cell the field of battail Here he assaulted him first with whips then upon a certain occasion gave him such blows that the blood burst out at his mouth and nose At the noise the Monks came in and finding him half dead they carried him to his Bed where he lay for the space of three dayes without giving any signes of life In which time in the company of an Angel he descended into a very obscure place where he saw a Man seated in a Chair of fire and certain Women very beautiful thrusting into his mouth burning torches drawing them out at other parts of his body which had been the instruments of his sins The Monk being astonished at this spectacle the Angel told him This miserable wretch was a very powerful man in the world and much given to Women and for this reason the Devils in shape of Women do torment him as thou seest Pasing a little farther he beheld another whom the infernal spirits were fleaing alive and having rubbed all his body over with salt they put him to roast upon a Gridiron This man said the Angel was a great Lord so cruel to his Vassals as the Devils are now to him A little farther they met with other persons of divers states and conditions which were tormented with several kinds of torments Many Religious both men and women whose lives had been contrary to their profession Talkers Censurers of other mens lives Slaves to their bellies defiled with lust and other such like vices To these the Ministers of vengeance in shape of most ugly fellows gave many blows in such sort that they dashed out their brains and made their eyes flye out of their heads because in their works they were blind and without judgement a chastisement Prov. 19. which the Wise-man appoints for such like persons Afterwards he lifted up his eyes and beheld one fastned to a horrible Wheel turning in such a dreadful manner that the Monk here was almost besides himself That thou seest is terrible said the Angel but far more terrible will be what thou shalt now see At the instant the Wheel began to run from alost down to the most profound depths with such horrid joggs and with such noise as if all the World Earth Heaven and all were breaking in pieces At this so sudden and direful accident all the Prisoners and Goalers of Hell brake out into great cries cursing and damning him that came in the Wheel This man said the Angel is Judas the Apostle who betrayed his Master and as long as he shall raign in glory which shall be world without end so long shall this miserable wretch lye thus tormented With these Representations God hath given us to understand the proportion his Justice observes in his chastisements to make us form some lively apprehension of the greatness of those pains they being indeed far greater than what ever we can conceive by all the rigour imaginable exhibited to the senses And in regard what enters by the senses prevails more with us for this reason he represents unto us the torments of the soul sutably to those so horrible to our senses as is to dash out the brains and make the brains flye out of the head For though it be true that this effect is not wrought indeed yet the torments inflicted upon the damned Souls are without companion greater then it would be for a man in this life to be so beaten about the head till his brains and eyes flew out Let us therefore fear the Divine justice and let us understand that in those parts of the body we offend God Almighty with greater delight we shall be sure to be punished with greater torment And here may be given this further instruction that as these and many such like stories related for more variety of discourse in this Treatise oblige us not to a full and absolute belief of them so they desire the favour of so much credit at least as is allowed to Livy Justine or other Chronicle-writers especially the Recorders of these being such as are no less grave and wise and acknowledge moreover a greater obligation of conscience not to wrong the World with lies or empty relations taken up upon the account of frivolous reports especially in matters of such concernment And as we think it not amiss to make use as occasion serves of profane Examples and Authorities in confirmation of what we usually either speak or write so without all doubt the same use of Sacred and Ecclesiastical occurrences may be no less available in such matters as these CAP. XII The fruit which may be drawn front the consideration of Eternal Evils ALl which hath been said of the pains in Hell is far short of that which really they are There is great difference betwixt the knowledge we have by relation and that which we learn by experience The Machabees knew that the Temple of the Lord was already prophaned deserted and destroyed They had heard of it and lamented it but when they saw with their eyes the Sanctuary lye desolate the Altar prophaned and the Gates burnt there was then no measure in their tears They tore their garments cast ashes upon their heads threw themselves upon the ground and their complaints ascended as high as Heaven If then the relation and discourse of the pains of Hell makes us tremble what shall be the sight and experience This notwithstanding the consideration of what hath been said may help us to form some conception of the terrour and horrour of that place of eternal sorrow Let us as St. Bernard sayes descend into Hell whilest we live that we may not descend thither when we are dead Let us draw some fruit from thence during our lives from whence nothing but torment is to be had after death The principal fruits which may be drawn from that consideration are these In the first place an ardent love and sincere gratitude towards our Creator that having so often deserved Hell he hath not yet suffered us to fall into it How many be there now in Hell who for their first mortal sin and onely for that one have been sent thither and we notwithstanding the innumerable sins which we have committed are yet spared What did God find in us that he should use a mercy towards us for so many sins which he did not afford to others for so few Why are we not then more grateful for so many benefits which we have no wayes deserved How grateful would a damned person be if God should free him from those flames wherein he is tormented and place him in the same condition we now are What a life would he lead what penance would he undergoe what austerity would not appear a pleasure unto him and how grateful
is with so much impudence contempt of God and such a Luciferian pride After having heard so many examples of his chastisements executed upon sinners After having seen that the most beautiful and glorious of all the Angels and with him innumerable others were thrown from Heaven and made firebrands in Hell for one sin and that onely in thought After having seen the first man for one sin of gluttony banisht from the Paradise of pleasure into this valley of tears dispoyled of so many supernatural endowments and condemned to death After having seen the World drowned and the Cities of Pontapolis burnt with fire from Heaven After having seen those seditious against Moyses swallowed by the earth and with their Children Goods and Family sink alive into Hell After having known that so many have been damned for their offences After that the Son of God had suffered upon the Cross for our sins After all this to sin is an impudence never heard of and an intolerable contempt of the Divine Justice Besides what greater scorn and contempt of God than this that God who is worthy of all honour and love and the Devil who is our professed enemy pretending both to our Souls the one to save them the other to torment them in eternal flames yet we adhere to Satan and preferre him before Christ our Saviour and Redeemer and that so much to our prejudice as by the loss of eternal glory and captivating our selves unto eternal torments and slavery No way of injuring can be imagined more injurious than when by the interposing of some other vile and infamous he who is worthy of all love and honour is put by and slighted The manner also of sinning aggravates the sin as the sinner doth by losing thereby eternal goods Though he who sinneth lost nothing yet the offence against God were great and the affront to Reason it self not inconsiderable But well knowing the great damages and punishments likewise that attend sin and the evident hazard he runs and yet to sin is a strange temerity and impudency If we shall likewise consider When it is that we sin we shall sinde this circumstance no less to aggravate our offences than the former Because we now sin When we have seen the Son of God nailed unto the Cross that we should not sin When we have seen God so sweet unto us as to be incarnate for our good humbling himself to be made man and subjecting himself to death even the death of the Cross for our redemption having instituted the holy Sacraments for a remedy against sin especially that of his most holy Body and Blood which was a most immense expression of his love To sin after we had seen God so good unto us so obliging unto us with those not to be imagined favours is a Circumstance which ought much to be pondered in our hearts and might make us forbear the offending of so loving a Lord. And that Christian who sins after all this is to be esteemed worse than a Devil For the Devil never sinned against that God who had shed his blood for him or who had been made an Angel for him or who had pardoned so much as one sin of his When those sinned who were under the law of nature they also had not seen the Son of God die for their salvation as a Christian hath for which as St. Austin sayes There ought a new Hell to be made for him And there is no doubt but Christians will deserve new torments and greater than those who have not had the knowledge of God nor received so many benefits from him This is confirmed by what is written of St. Macarius the Abbot who finding in the Desert a dead mans head and removing it with his staffe out of the way it began to speak which he hearing demanded Who it was It answered I am a Priest of the Gentils which heretofore dwelt in this place and am now together with many of them in the middle of a burning fire so great that the flames encompass us both above and beneath And is there replyed the Saint any place of greater torment Yes said the dead Greater is that which they suffer who are below us For we who knew not God are not so severely dealt with as those who knowing have denied him or not complyed with his holy will These are below us and suffer far greater torments than we These are the Circumstances observed by Tully and are all found to aggravate the guilt of our sins Neither is that added by Aristotle wanting which is About what About what do we offend God About what happens this great presumption but about things which import not but rather endamage us About complying with a sensual gust which in the end bereaves us of health of honour of substance and even of pleasure it self suffering many dayes of grief for a moment of delight About things of the earth which are vile and transitory and about goods of the world which are false short and deceitful What would we say if for a thing of so small value as a straw one man should kill another No more than a straw are all the felicities of the world in respect of those of heaven and for a thing of so small consideration we are Traitors to God and crucifie Christ again and that a thousand times as often as we sin mortally against him Lastly Against whom we offend much aggravates our sins For besides that God is most perfect most wise beautiful immense omnipotent infinite we sin against him who infinitely loves us who suffers us who heaps his benefits and rewards upon us To do evil to those who make much of them even wilde beasts abhorre it What is it then for thee to injure him who loved thee more then himself who hath done thee all good that thou shouldest do no evil Fear then this Lord reverence his Majesty love his goodness and offend him no more This onely consideration To have sinned against so good a God was so grievous unto David that in his penitential Psalms he exclaims with tears and cries out from the bottom of his heart Against thee onely have I sinned For although he had sinned against Vrias and against all Israel by his ill example yet it seemed unto him he had onely sinned against God when he considered the infinity of his being the immenseness of that love which he had so grievously offended Sin then is on all parts most virulent on all parts spits forth venome Behold it on every side it still seems worse for being the chiefest evil it can on no part appear good all is monstrous all poison all detestable all most evil and therefore deserves all evil And it is not much that that should be chastised with eternal torments which opposes it self unto the sweetness of an infinite holiness § 4. Sin is so evil that it is every way evil It is not onely evil as it is an injury to God but it is
miserie that he may be heard of his God And certainly for him who is in the condition of a penitent and to demand mercy it is not seemly to use superfluities to imploy himself in vanities to take delight in the world enjoy the Creatures and seek after greatness And although it were lawful in the integrity of nature when man was free from the corruption of sin to use the Creatures with more libertie yet being now fallen it is no wayes tolerable but let him look upon himself as one guilty who hath offended his God and is in fine a miserable man The Philosophers who considered nature not as it was by sin but as it ought to be in it self measured there vertues by that rule and therefore knew not the vertue of humility nor used that of penance And the vertues of Magnanimity Constancy and Magnificence they extended so far that many actions which the Stoicks and Peripateticks called vertuous may be esteemed vicious But the horribleness of sin and the weakness of humane nature being now discovered the estate of things is changed and humilitie ought still to reign both in our souls and bodies and many acts of other vertues esteemed by them are to be corrected We are to choose different Mediums for the advancing our End from those of the Philosophers both because the ends we aym at are not the same and because we know our selves to be in a far other condition then they imagined The End proposed by the Philosophers was meerly natural to wit the Happiness and felicity of this life The estate of humane nature they conceived to be free and uncontaminated by sin and that it had suffcient force of it self to do good In all this they were deceived and it is not therefore strange if for the obtaining of their ends they taught wayes distinct from those of Christians who know their end to be supernatural to wit the happiness not of this but of the other life who know also their estate of nature not to be free and entire as it was at first but corrupted and defaced by sin and that of it self it hath neither force nor efficacy to execute any thing that is good unless assisted by the grace and mercy of God It is therefore no marvail if Chrisitians who know themselves their end and condition make use of such Vetues and Mediums as the Philosophers knew not Neither is it much that the Philosophers took some vertuous acts for vices since they mistook many vices for vertues Aristotle the Prince of natural and moral Philosophers knew not Humility voluntary Povertie and Penance to be vertues but rather condemned the last to be a kind of insensibility and one of those vices contrary to the vertue of temperance The Stoicks also held Pity and Commiseration for a vice But since the Gospel of Christ these are become the most necessary and recommended vertues and the most apt and ready means for the obtaining of our salvation These three vertues in which consists the contempt of all things temporal Aristotle knew not because he knew not himself By Humilitie Honours are despised by Poverty Riches and by Penance the Pleasures and Regaloes of the world And therefore he who will make the right and profitable use of things temporal for the gaining of eternity must as a sinner humble himself and do penance must not employ himself and the time of his life in gathering and heaping up riches which are so farre from being goods that to innumerable persons they have shut up the gates of the true and real goods which are onely the eternal unto which we are wholly to aspire not trusting in our own forces but in the mercy and passion of Jesus Christ CAP. III. The value of goods eternal is made apparent unto us by the Incarnation of the Son of God BUt above all which hath been said the incomparable difference betwixt things Temporal and Eternal is made most apparent unto us by the Incarnation and passion of Jesus Christ The gaining of eternity is a matter of so high concernement that the Son of God to the end we might obtain it was incarnate and made man and that we might despise things temporal is also of so great importance that for it it was convenient that Christ our Redeemer should suffer and die I know not what can raise in us a higher conception of the greatness of the one and baseness of the other then these high and stupendious acts of God Almighty And therefore though briefly we will say something of them both beginning with that admirable and great mystery of the Incarnation Great is all that which is eternal and so much imports us that rather than we should lose it God wrought a work of that height and love as amazed the Angels In which we will consider four things The greatness of the work The manner of putting it in execution The evils from which it frees us and The good we gain by it For the first which is the Greatness of the work we are to suppose the estate of man as he then stood which was the most miserable infamous and wretched condition that could be imagined He was become a slave so the Devil polluted with sin condemned unto eternal punnishment enemy to God and without hope of remedy For even the highest Seraphins could not imagin that without prejudice to the Justice of God it was possible for man to be redeemed from that miserable and ignominious estate For although all the men in the world should suffer a thousand deaths and all the orders of holy Angels in heaven should offer themselves in sacrifice and should suffer eternal torments in hell all would not satisfy for one mortal sin All created remedies were then impossible and although God should have created some more excellent and holy creature than the most high Seraphins yet that and they were insufficient to appease the divine justice incensed against man what remedy then where none was to be had what hope when all was despaire Certainly from what was or could be created it was impossible and from the Creator it was not known to be possible and if it was known to be possible who could hope that the offended party ty should satisfie for the offence committed against himself that the Creditor should pay what the debtor ought What hope then of remedy when all hope failed both from Heaven and Earth The onely remedy and that onely known to God was that God without prejudice to his justice might cover man with his mercy but that much to the cost of God himself and the greatest work whereunto his power and wisdome could extend But who could think he would imploy so great a work for his Enemy that he would let up the rest of his omnipotency for him who was a Traytor to his Lord Onely this way remained for God to make himself man the most great and stupendious work possible or imaginable But who could believe