house then the earth a dwelling common to the beasts also and to the creatures of vilest and basest condition yea although he had not sinned this base world had beene assigned vnto him notwithstanding as a land of pilgrimage not painefull and wretched as it is now but gracious and honourable where hauing a while delighted himselfe with the contemplation of his Creatour and his goodly workes and in thankesgiuing for the benefits receaued of that supreme bounty without any death or payne he should haue mounted with his body to heauen his true Countrey there to raigne for euer in the company of Angels his countrey-men and fellow-cittizens The earth therfore was graunted giuen vnto him as a dwelling pleasant indeed yet not perpetuall but only for a tyme as it were in passing so by reason of this preheminence he was still a Pilgrime and no Cittizen Why mans pilgrimage heer is so paineful Now the cause why this pilgrimage is so painefull and full of miseries is the sinne of Adam for the which he was driuen out of the earthly Paradise and became a poore Bandit about the world and in him all his posterity and race of mortall children were depriued for the most part of the dominion of the world which was their portion and inheritance moreouer for this old fault and for other new dayly committed by themselues they are made subiect to cold heat hunger thirst wearines want dangers from men and beastes strangers one to another and enemyes one to another and finally condemned to a thousand miseryes incident to this life last of all to death that dolefull close of all our whole pilgrimage if it be not made in the grace of God The fourth point shall be to consider the course of the pilgrimage limited with two boundes our birth and our death 4. The bondes a small tyme for all whereas the lasting of tyme cannot be but short though the tyme were long yet lesse for some then for some other by reason of a thousand chances and accidents that trauerse and ouerthwart our life and doe hasten vnto many the boundes assignation of death The fifth point shall consider the saying of S. Peter 5. Man must liue like a pilgrime 1. Pet. 2.19 exhorting Christians in these wordes My well beloued I beseech you to abstaine as strangers and pilgrimes from carnall desires that fight against the soule And therupon we must consider the great blindnes of the most part of men who forgetting their condition and pilgrimage do liue vpon the earth as if they should abide there alwayes without euer lifting vp their eyes to heauen mans true country The speach shall be a summary of all these points The colloquy or speach of the prayer where the pilgrime hauing his soule enlightned by the light of this meditation and possessed with a new loue of heauen and disdaine of the earth and so much the more straightly vnited to his Creatour whome he hath perceaued to be so bountifull and wise in disposition of his guifts he shall speake confidently vnto his Maiesty and thanke him and intreat him demanding his ayde and help happily to beginne and end his pilgrimage in these or such like wordes O Lord with what hart shall I loue thee and with what tongue shall I prayse and thanke thee I say not for thy benefits receaued from thy holy hand since my first being but eueÌ„ for that which thou dost bestow vpoÌ„ me at this very time in the cleere knowledge of thy wisedome and bounty of my own estate conditioÌ„ I see O my soueraigne that thou hast created this world with an admirable variety of creatures ordayned for my vse and sustenance and that thou hast made me to be borne vpon earth endowed me with thy owne image and likenes there to liue not for euer as a Cittizen but for a small tyme as a pilgrime there to passe and walke there to serue thee as long as tyme shall last and after come to enioy thee for euer in heauen in that celestial Citty of thy Kingdom a Citty built of gold and precious stones vpon the foundations of eternity and rich in glory infinit treasures I see this world is but a pilgrimage a mortall and short race and that aboue thou hast founded the land of the liuing and the seat of our rest and repose for them that will passe this way-faring habitation in the obseruatioÌ„ of thy holy lawes O how great is thy liberality To make so small account of the guift present of the vniuersall world enriched and beautifyed with so many tokeÌ„s of thy greatnes as to giue it man only for his Inne and passage What a place then may that be which thou hast prepared for him to dwell with thee in all eternity If the common Cabbine for beastes be so magnificall what shall be the Pallace which thy Maiesty reserueth for him in the company of thy immortall spirits the Princes and Nobles of thy heauenly Court O my Creatour may it please thee to graunt me an inflamed desire to serue thee and meanes to enioy thee one day in the dwelling of thy pallace there and an assured direction of all my actions and affections to walke that way and to arriue there keep me from wondering at my Cottage forgetting of thy Pallace Ap ayer to the B. Virgin O most holy Virgin who already reignest there most happily exalted aboue the highest seates of honour help my infirmity with thy authority and whilest I am thy pilgrime towards thy litle-great house of Nazareth obtaine me the grace happily to accomplish my great pilgrimage begun from the wombe of my mortall mother which must be ended in the graue in the bosome of my other mother The earth our graÌ„d Mother If it please thee to aske thou canst not misse to obtaine all that is necessary for my end for how can the Father refuse thee who hath chosen thee for mother to his Sonne And that Sonne being the Sauiour of men how can he repell his Mother treating for my saluation And the holy Ghost equall to them both what can he deny thee by whose worke thou hast brought forth the Sauiour of the world receaued the Title of the Mother of God! Aske then O most mighty gracious Virgin the graunt is assured to thee in thy power grace and to me in this graunt the fauour and assistance of God The Pilgrime hauing armed his soule with this prayer taketh his refection for his body signing his forehead mouth and breast with the signe of the Crosse goeth out of his lodging on his way with the accustomed farewell to thâ—se of the house and he shall begin the steps of his pilgrimage vnder the protection of God and of the glorious Virgin his good Angell who must guide him as Raphael did young Toby The afternoone and euening of the first dayes Iourney The likenes of the Pilgrimage of mans
suppose you could better penetrate then I. I stayed with great contentation in the first words of our Sauiour wherewith he did beare off the first assault of the enemy saying Matth. 4. Man liueth not only by bread but by euery word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God That is as I haue heeretofore heard our Preachers say by whatsoeuer God will nourish vs with all For in this answere I perceaued the wisedome goodnes and power of God who both could would and knew how to giue meanes to liue not only to man but to all creatures whereof some are nourished with herbes some with fruits some with water others with wind Man hath all the world and all creatures for his prouision and sometyme is miraculously sustained 3. Reg. 17. euen by the beastes themselues as Elias by the Crow yea euen by direction of beastes such as are hurtfull pernicious to the life of man as not long since I heard a notable example of a Pilgrime who was nourished diuers wayes with a stone which serpents had shewed vnto him Theodosius knoweth wel this story for he told it once in good company and if it please him to renew the memory thereof vnto vs he shall so farre solace our way Truly sayth Lazarus looking vpon Theodosius you may not refuse this liberall offer Theodosius answered seeing that Vincent is in company and hath so good a memory as to remember a history that I tould foure years since me thinkes he should rather pleasure and recreate the company therewith I remember that I haue forgot it replyed Vincent if you will haue me recite it first help my forgetfullnes and after I will do my best I see well quoth Theodosius Lazarus is lead away by Vincent and I must be condemned by them both to tell this history I am content to beare the sentence but if I performe it ill your eares shall beare the paine and pennance If I remember well sayth he then heare it as I learned it of that venerable Prelate Iohn Fisher an Englishman Bishop of Rochester A Pilgrime together with a serpent nourished with a stone in the booke which he put forth in the yeare 1526. against Oecolampadius the Heretike there he sayth that he learned it of Vesalius Groningensis a Frizlander a man of good learning and credit That a certaine Priest went into Italy about the beginning of winter yet it happened that one day in very ill wether walking vpon the Alpes he lost his way and turning heere and there at last descended into a valley Roff. l. 4. c. 22. con Ooecolam hoping there to find the right way where if night should surprise him he might also find some corner to couer himselfe from wind and snow but looking on euery part he found no issue or way to get out all the ground being couered with snow For his bed he espied a little hole on the right hand wrought naturally within the Rocke and a little plaine before it there he cast himselfe as into his graue not looking to liue for he had neither weapons nor munition to sustaine the siege of two so great enemies as cold hunger which already began to buckle with him and must needes shortly presse him without mercy and take him with out striking a stroke The Moone was at the full by good fortune began to shine the heauens waxing cleare a little after he had set himselfe supperles in his bed of stone he waked almost till midnight when he saw a troupe of great Serpents which came towardes his denne trayning al along the snow he was frighted at this sight and blessed himselfe and did not thinke that they had beene serpents indeed because he could not conceaue any naturall cause that should make them leaue their holes at this tyme and thus trayne vpon the snow and it came in his mind to thinke that it was some illusion of the nights fancies or perhaps some wicked spirits who came in that figure to disquiet him so he blessed himselfe againe and recommended himselfe with all his hart to God the B. Virgin The serpents approached and came to a stone close by his denne they go about it after they come to it and licked it He sate looking when they would leape on him entring into his denne to deuoure him But when they had taryed a while licking the stone they returned the same way they came He thanked God that he was deliuered from this feare and slept a little the rest of the night and was all the next day without eating or seeing any thing but the whitenes of the earth and the light of heauen In the second and third night at the same houre the serpents came againe and hauing done as they did before returned Then he persuaded himselfe that they were very serpents but he could not tell the cause why they should licke the stone In the meane tyme he was almost starued with hunger and thought that perharps those beastes did shew him what he should do to sustaine himselfe Therfore he goeth to the stone putteth his mouth to it and licketh it and as soone as he had licked it a strange thing he felt himselfe strengthned both against hunger and cold as if he had taken some restoratiue or some strange meat and in this sort he sustayned and defended himselfe all the winter long and a part of the spring vntill the moneth of April when the snow beginning to melte and the wayes to open he heard the voice of passengers whome he followed and set himselfe in way with them to finish his iourney Behould what you demanded of me and surely Vincent had good occasion to note the prouidence of God in those wordes of our Sauiour for it is easy to see in this example that God is all mercifull and almighty hauing alwayes care of his creaturs able to maintaine them not with bread only but of whatsoeuer shall please him yea euen with stones if he will And therefore Sathan though he were crafty on the one side in giuing the assault where he thought likelyest to haue sped The folly of the diuell he was notwithstanding a great foole on the other side in thinking it necessary to turne stones into bread to sustain the body it being as easy for the Sonne of God to draw nourishement out of a stone without bread as to turne a stone into bread for nourishment Loe quoth Vincent you are discharged of your history and I am contented Truly sayth Lazarus you haue reason to be contented and I know not whether we shall haue so good a dinner againe to day as Theodosius hath giuen vs for besides the spirituall refection he hath giuen vs also a good lesson teaching vs to expect with great fayth and confidence the assistance of our Sauiour both for body and soule in all our necessityes But sayth Theodosius seeing you would breake your fast vpon that little I had in the sacke of
that dolorous mystery when thy Sonne praying in the garden to his eternall Father in his agony swet drops of bloud in such aboundance that they ranne downe vpon the ground and after was by one of his disciples betrayed and deliuered to the ministers of the Iewes by whome he was taken and his hands being manicled with a cord about his necke was cruelly haled to the houses of Annas and Cayphas The Prayer I Humbly beseech thee obtaine for me of thy deare Sonne the gift and grace of true prayer and that in all my tribulations and afflictions I may conforme my will vnto Gods bearing them all with patience and that he will assist me in the agony of my death Amen Of the Whipping The Oblation O Virgin most afflicted I humbly offer thee 10. Aues and one Pater noster in memory of the griefe and shame which thy Sonne felt Dolo ∣ rous 2 when after all the scoffing beating and spitting of that darke and dolefull night the next day he was in the house of Pilate despised and put to shame being he that cloathed the heauens with beauty and is himselfe the most beautifull of all the children of men bound to a piller and whipped most cruelly with no lesse then 5000. stripes and more The Prayer I Humbly beseech thee aske of thy Sonne for me that he would rid me of all earthly affections giue me grace and courage to chastice and subdue myne owne flesh that it preuaile not against the spirit and that I may patiently beare the rods and chasticements which in this life his diuine Maiesty shall send me Of the Crowning The Oblation Dolo ∣ rous 3 O Virgin distressed I humbly offer thee 10. Aues one Pater noster in reuereÌ„ce of that griefe which thy Sonne our Lord Iesus-Christ suffered when the cruell tormentors crowned him with a crowne of thornes which pierced his most tender and holy head in such sort that his precious bloud trickled downe round about most aboundantly They mocked him also put in his hand a reed for a scepter striking him therewith on the head The Prayer I Humbly beseech thee pray for me that I may auoid all desire of pride presumption and may rather desire â—â—ame iniuries for my sweet Sauiour Christ his sake that in this life being crowned with thornes of tribulation I may deserue hereafter to be crowned with glory in thy blisse euerlasting Of the carrying of the Crosse The Oblation Dolo ∣ rous 4 O Virgin so darkened and filled with griefe sorrow I humbly offer thee 10. Aues one Pater noster for the sorrow thy holy soule felt when thou didst see thy dearely beloued Sonne led through the streetes of Hierusalem with proclamation condemned to death as a malefactour and disturber of the people carying all along that heauy Crosse vpon his weake shoulders and sawest him failing to the ground with the weight thereof with which dolefull sight thou wert euen pierced with griefe and sorrow The Prayer I Humbly beseech thee obtaine for me perfect feeling and tendernes of hart and compassion in these sufferings of thy Sonne and tâ—â—e repentance whereby I may weepe also for my selfe confessing correcting and satisfying for my sinnes and that with promptitude and alacrity I may carry any Crosse which God shall lay vpon my shoulders Of the Crucifying The Oblation Dolo ∣ rous 5 O Virgin spring and fountaine of teares at the foote of the crosse crucifyed in hart with thy Sonne I humbly offer thee 10. Aues one Pater noster to the incomparable griefe which thou feltst when in mount Caluary thou â—awest thy good Iesus that lambe without spot fastened to the Crosse with cruell blowes which pierced thy hart where after pardoning of his enemies and fulfilling the scriptures with a great cry and teares he commended his soule to his eternall Father thou sawest him yield vp his ghost The Prayer BY the greatnes of thy griefes which heare B. Lady thou didst suffer obtayne for me that I may pardon and loue myne enemies that our Lord may pardon me all my sinnes and not forsake me in the houre of my death but that hauing performed all my duty I may yield my soule into his holy hands Amen Of the Resurrection The Oblation O Queene of heauen full of ioy I humbly offer thee 10. Aues one Pater noster for the ineffable ioy thou tookest in the Resurrection Glori ∣ ous 1 of thy well-beloued Sonne when to thee before all others he appeared glorious risen from the dead and conuerted all thy sorrow into ioy and gladnes and after in token of his great loue and for confirmation of the fayth of this Resurrection he appeared often to his Apostles and disciples The Prayer I Humbly beseech thee procure me the true ioy of a good coÌ„science and that my soule may rise againe in newnes of life and manners and firmely belieue the misteries of the fayth which our holy Mother the Catholike Church teacheth Amen Of the Ascension The Olation O Glorious Lady full of comfort I humbly offer vnto thee 10. Aues Glori ∣ ous 2 and one Pater noster for the ioy thou haddst in the wonderfull Ascension of thy Sonne our Lord when thou sawest him with glorious triumph mounted vp accompanied with the blessed soules of the holy Fathers adored and worshipped of all the quires of Angels ascending into the heauens there sitting at the right hand of God his Father leauing thee heere on earth for the stay and light of his Apostles for the example comfort of his Catholike Church The Prayer I Humbly beseech thee obtaine for me that my hart may be lifted vp to loue heauenly things and that thou wilt be to me a sweete comforter in the iourney of this present life that I may deserue life euerlasting Amen Of the comming c. The Oblation O Excellent Spouse of the holy Ghost mother of the motherles comfort of the comfortles I humbly offer 10. Aues and one Pater noster to the sacred mystery of the coÌ„ming of the holy Ghost when Glori ∣ ous 3 in the figure of fiery tongues he descended vpon thee most B. Virgin and the whole company of the Apostles euen as thy Sonne promised in such sort did inflame and fill their harts that immediatly they began to speake in diuers tongues the wonders of God The Prayer PRay for me O B. Lady that I may deserue to receyue plentifull grace the gifts of the holy Ghost the language of ChristiaÌ„ loue in all my conuersation with my neighbours and perseuerance in vertue and all good purposes Of the Assumption The Oblation Glori ∣ ous 4 O Soueraigne Lady and Virgin the honour of mankind beauty of the heauens I humbly offer vnto thee 10. Aues and one Pater noster to the glorious mystery of thy Assumption when by the B. Sonne thou wert called to his euerlasting glory deseruedst at thy happy passage to
these meditations he shal haue others which are set downe for euery day of his voyage which he shall do the same day at diuers tymes Being in the fields he shall take matter of praysing God as those thinges he beholdeth shall giue him occasioÌ„ beholding the Heauens he shall admire God in those immortall bodyes and lights seeing the mountaines the plaines the riuers the plantes the beasts and other creatures he shal giue thâ—nkes for all to God as made for the behoofe of man and of himselfe in particuler and shall inuite them to prayse the same Creatour to the imitation of those wise and stout Hebrews who song in the midst of the Furnace Benediâ—â—e omnia opera â—omini Domino O all yee workes of our Lord blesse yee our Lord c. In faire wether he shal thanke God for that particuler benefit of his way and iourney if it doth rayne hayle or storme he shall thanke him also for this crosse and aduersity and take it patiently to make his merit thereof and his spirit all profit Passing by the Cittyes and Townes he shall visit the Churches holy places the Hospitalls such like where he may get any profit or increase of deuotion Going out of his lodging he shall say Lord shew me thy wayes Psalm 24 teach me thy paths or some such verse and shall salute his Angell-keeper that he may accompany him in the way Luc. 10.5 and beginning to march he shall say his Itinerarium and ordinary prayer for pilgrimes and trauailers entring into his lodging by day or in the night to his bed he shall say The peace of God be heere and shall giue good example and edification to euery one in his talke gestures and all his cariage sitting at the table he shall say grace or heare some other better then himselfe say it and in tyme of relection if there be company he shall beginne some discourse of honest recreation fit for the tyme or shall heare others talke If he eat alone he shall feed his spirit also with good cogitations whilest he refresheth his body with corporall food Hauing sayd grace taken some rest he shall retire himselfe and hauing sayd his Litanyes or other prayers and made examen of his conscience and hauing thanked God for his benefits receaued that day demanding pardon and purposing amendement he shall craue the ayde of the glorious Virgin of his Angell-keeper other Saints and hauing ended his deuotions for that day he shall take his rest THE PILGRIME HIS SETTING FORTH And first dayes Iourney A meditation of the condition of man which is to be Pilgrime in this life CHAP. I. OVR Pilgrime hauing obserued all this ordered and settled his affaires specially if he be maister of a family discharged his iourney of all let and hinderance made prouision of what is necessary The first dayes iourney being confessed and communicated and well prepared and furnished both in soule and body and of whatsoeuer the circumstance of Christian and ciuill prudence may require he shall choose the day of his setting forth and shall take his iourney vnder the protection and safe conduct of Almighty God and of the glorious Vigin whome he goeth to visir of his good Angell The meditatioÌ„ of the morning of the 1. day The meditation and prayer of his first dayes iourny beside that which he shall take proper for the day as we sayd before shall be of the condition of mortall men which is to be pilgrimes and strangers vpon earth The prayer preparatiue shall demand of God that it would please him to direct his intentions and actions to the glory of his holy name as we taught before The first essay or preamble of the Meditation The first preaÌ„ble shall represeÌ„t first Adam chased and driuen out of earthly Paradise to liue heere on earth as a banished man he his wife all his posterity Secondly it shall represent vnto vs diuers holy men and Saints as leauing their homes and houses to walke to strange countryes Abraham going out of Chaldaa to dwell in the land of Canaan Iacob going out of Canaan to dwell in Syria and at last to dye in Aegypt a strange countrey the Apostles after the comming of the Holy Ghost leauing their country to walke pilgrims euery one according to his lot into an vnknowne world The second preamble shall demand of God a cleare light to see this verity and liuely and profitably to apprehend The 2. preaÌ„ble how al mortall men are pilgrimes in this world that we must seek for our countrey els where The first point of the Meditation shall be taken of the wordes of the Prophet Dauid and of the Apostle S. Paul Psal 38. I am a stranger with thee O Lord and a pilgrime as all my fore-fathers haue beene Also We are pilgrimes and strangers before thee Psal 29.15 as our Fathers haue beene Our dayes are like a shaddow vpon earth and passe without any stay S. Paul also We haue not heere a dwelling or permanent Citty but we seeke another which is to come Heb. 1. The second point shall consider the practise of the foresayd words verifyed in the examples of many holy men Saints who from the beginning of the world haue carryed themselues as true Pilgrimes in this life Gen. 4.4 Abel the first iust man in the house and family of God had neither house nor Inne vpon the earth attending only to prayer and keeping his flocke Gen. 4.17 Cain contrarywise the first of worldly reprobates built a citty as being a Cittizen and Inhabitant of this world Gen. 12. Abraham the Father of the faythfull dwelt as we haue sayd a stranger in the â—and of Chanaan in tents and moueable houses not buying one â—oote of Land all his life but a place of buriall for himselfe his children The whole people of God the posterity of the foresayd Abraham was pilgrime in Aegypt 400. yeares and 40. in the desert of Arabia Our Sauiour also was a true Pilgrime not thinking of any thing but of his iourney not possessing any thing yea lesse then Abraham for he borrowed his tombe and Sepulcher which Abraham bought His Apostles also were dispersed ouer the whole earth liuing as pilgrimes and trauailers not ayming at any thing but to gayne way towardes heauen and to draw other men thereunto by preaching of Christ Iesus 3. Why man is pilgrime in this life The third point shall containe the cause why man is pilgrime in this life seeing that the whole visible world is made for him and also why this pilgrimage is so painefull of griefes and sorrowes The cause of the first is the excellency of man consisting in his soule an immortal or heauenly essence bearing in it self the image and likenes of that soueraigne and supreme beauty by reason wherof there was due vnto him a perpetual habitation more proportionate to his dignity a more noble
life to the pilgrimages of deuotion The spirituall habits of the Pilgrimes CHAP. II. GOING on his way after he hath sayd the prayers of trauailers admited blessed the diuine Maiesty at the behoulding of the Heauens the chiefe and principall worke of his handes he shall ruminate his morning meditation to draw thereout some new tast and deuotion For this is the force of prayer to giue alwayes new light according vnto the measure and manner that it is vsed To ruminate or chew the Cudde and the proper exercise of deuout persons is often to remember in their mindes what they haue once learned to the imitation of those Beasts who in the law of God are called cleane whose property is to chew the cudde and to take thereof new gust and new substance Cleane beastes Leu. 11.3 he shall gather then a new and consequently of that he hath meditated that the pilgrimage he maketh to Loreto and all others that men make vpon the earth are but figures and similitudes of the pilgrimage that all mortall men do make from their birth to their graue and comparing the figure to the truth he shall find the one most liuely expressed and represented in the other The likenes of the earthly pilgrime to the spiritual The true Pilgrime hath alwayes in his thought the place whither he tendeth he chooseth the shortest and surest way he goeth forward without any markable stay The Citties buildings paâ—laces fields gardens places of pleasure if he musâ— needes see them yet he seeth them only as in passing by them being alwaies attentiue to his end He endureth in towne field all the incommodities and dangers of men and beasts contempt iniury hunger thirst want heat cold haile snow sometyme lying vnder the house-roofe sometyme vnder the cope or canopy of heauen sometimes merry and wel disposed somtime againe weary crazed humble patient courteous wise and circumspect in all his actions He shall find all this point by point practised in the pilgrimage of mans life The spirituall Pilgrime by those that are well aduised pilgrimeâ— these walking vpon the earth haue heaueÌ„ in their hart whicâ— is the end of their mortal course they striue walke withouâ— rest towards vertue holding the directest surest way whicâ— is that which the Catholike Church our good and commoâ— Mother doth shew vs in her great Itinerarium of the lawes anâ— commandments of God The Itinerarium of the lawes of God they make no reckoning of worlâ—ly magnificence and take with an equall mynd prosperity aduersity If their affaires goe well forward they thanke thâ— diuine prouide are without pride if they suffer shipwrack they lift their hands to heauen blesse the same prouidence They are sober in aboundance abound in want they are humble in honours and magnanimous in the midst of disgraces Finally there is no accident in the variety of this changeable inconstant life wherof he reapeth not some profit towardeâ— eternity Our pilgrime shall marke all these similitudes to thâ— true pilgrimes and shal contemplate in the figure of his thâ— forme and tenour of the other and make his profit thereof He shall also allegorize all the parts of his furniture and appartell and shall attire his soule to the likenes of his body For his Hat he shall take the assistance of God his shooes shaâ— be the mortification of his affections Patience shall be 〈◊〉 mantle or lether cloake Ciuility shall be his coate or caâ—ssacke Chastity his girdle contemplatioÌ„ meditation shall his bag and bottle the loue of the Crosse his pilgrimes staffe Faith Charity and good workes shal be his purse and mony so shall he spiritually attire the inward man of the spirit to the imitation of the Apostle S. Paul who arming the Christian souldier giueth him his furniture framed of the stuffe of such like allegories and armes forged of the same mettal Ephes 6. The shield of Verity a breast-plate of Iustice shooes of the preparation to the Gospell the buckler of faith the helmet of saluation and the sword of the spirit of God In such exercises shall he passe the after noone talking to God and himselfe making his prayers and examen as before saluting the B. Virgin in her houres saying his beads singing some hymne proper for the tyme or some spirituall song drawn out of his meditation as this that followeth A Canticle of the Pilgrimage of this world O brightsome day which makes me cleere perceiue The state of this life mortall And in my soule for to conceiue A liuely expectance of th' eternall Heere I seeke in Pilgrimes weed The way that vnto heauen doth lead This path mâ—â—â— faire I walking winde By shaddow of my pilgrimage Wherein at euery steppe I find An heauenly draughâ— and image Of my fraile mortality Tending to Eternity O mortall men who tread the ground Of this false earth disastrous As though beneath were to be found The blisse of life delicious You mâ—cke your selues this world below No such pleasure can bestow The woods affoard no fish nor wine Nor from the Sea doth timber flow In this vaine world naught els in fine But thornes and fayned fruite doth grow Of fayned ioy vnfayned griefe The fruit of this our dying life This life we lead heere in exile All fraught with danger and deceyte Resembleth passengers by Landes hostile Seeking after Heauens retraite Such was Adam and such was Eue Whilst in earthly Paradise they liue Such was IESVS though God and Man Such was MARY his Mother deare Such were all Saints both now and than In this vale of woe and feare Teaching vs to seeke by hand The milke and hony flowing land Merily then let 's march apace Vnto this Blessed Virgins Hall There shall we see the Heauens Grace Inclosed in a Chappell small And learne to be of this mayde-wife Perfect Pilgrimes all our life At night he shall take vp his lodging such as he shall find to take some rest and to get new strength of body and spirit the more cheerfully to continue his iourney the next day The second dayes Iourney The meane and way happily to performe the pilgrimage of this life is to suffer and fight vnder the banner of Iesus Christ and goe alwayes forward in vertue CHAP III. IN the second dayes iourney a good while before the Sun rise the Pilgrime shall examine his actions of the night past he shall say the Credo Pater and Aue and after continuing the matter begun he shall meditate of the meanes and manner how to performe happily the Pilgrimage of this humane life hauing already obserued in his first meditation that euery man must of necessity make it seeing that euery man is a Pilgrime vpon the earth and that some make it well of which number he desireth to be one and others ill whome he would not follow The prayer preparatory heere after shall be alwayes as before The first Preamble shall represent
a great Desert through which doe passe two sortes of Pilgrimes the one that go vnder a faythfull and good Capraine patiently enduring the incommodity of places and tymes fighting valiantly at all occasions with robbers beastes We must walke while it is day Ioan. 12.35 measuring their refection not by pleasure but by necessity not thinking of any thing all the day long but to gayne way toward the place end of their pilgrimage The other lead by a naughty and treacherous guide walke all the day wandering vp and downe staying to behold curiously euery thing betaking themselues at euery houre to rest and repast like drunkards and vagabondes Those that are surprised by death And at the last being surprised by night in ill termes and ill wether and ill prouided they fall into the mercy partly of cruell beastes Lyons Wolues Beares and such like that deuoure them and partly of theeues and robbers who cut them in peeces and make merry with their spoile and booty In the second Preamble he shall demand of God with humble and feruent hart the grace whereby he may liuely see and know the manner how to be a good pilgrime in this world to auoyd the dolefull end of the bad The first point shall begin with that which God sayd to Adam for the pennance of his dolefull dinner Because thou hast heard the voice of thy wife Gen. 3.17 and hast eaten of the tree I forbad thou â—houldest not eate the earth shall be accursed in thy worke and thou â—halt feed therof in trauaile all the dayes of thy life it shall bring thee forth thornes and thistles and thou shalt eat the grasse of the field in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread vntill thou returne to the â—arth whereof thou wert made By which wordes he shall see that all the race of man wrapped in the condemnation of our first Father hath gotten a necessity to suffer paine and trauaile â—n this life vntill death as himselfe did In the second he shall heare and consider the wordes of S. â—ames saying Happy is he that suffereth temptation for after that â—e hath beene proued he shall receaue the crowne of Glory 2. Tim. 2.5 And that of S. Paul He that fighteth not duly shall not be crowned The third point shal set before his eyes the great multitude of the Hebrewes trauailing in the desert of Arabia amongst whome those that were valiant suffered and fought valiantly vnder the conduct and direction of Moyses the seruant of God in hope to enter into the land of promise to the which they alwayes aspired The other slaues of the Diuell and their own bellies murmurers and rebels sought nothing but to eate and drinke not caring for the countrey for the which they were come out of Aegypt and they perished miserably in the desert made a prey to their enemies their bodyes were a spoile to the earth their soules to hell Iesus Christ pilgrime for men In the fourth point he shall contemplate on the one part Iesus Christ descended from heaueÌ„ to the desert of this world to be pilgrime among the children of Adam the true guide of our pilgrimage and captaine of our warres In the one being made vnto vs the way to leade vs to our heauenly Country and giue vs light and strength to walke directly thither and in the other hauing taught vs by his word and example how we must fight against our enemies the Flesh the World and the Diuell and all the squadrons of vices and furnished vs with instructions weapons forces with the assistance of his grace and Sacraments valiantly to assaile and endure the assault and to beare away the victory and crowne also if we will our selues The blindnes of men On the other part he shall bewaile the blindnes forgetfullnes peruersity of those that straggling from the conduct of their King and Sauiour cast themselues into the wayes troupes of Sathan walking to perdition in perpetual misery darknes slauery to this tyrant and their own sinnes and vices In the fift point he shall weigh how profitable pleasing a thing it is to God to suffer in this life somwhat for his sake not for that he needeth our paynes It is profitable honourable to suffer for God or taketh any pleasure in them of themselues but for that to haue a wil to suffer and in effect to suffer for him is to beare towards him the depth of true charity to giue an assured proofe therof For prosperity is not the true touch and triall of loue but aduersity and therefore our Sauiour the patterne of all perfection to shew his infinit loue to his Father vs hath made choice of this way hath performed his pilgrimage in the thickest of a thousand trauaile and did end it by the torment and ignominy of the Crosse in the meane tyme he hath often with a loud voice exhorted his Apostles Disciples to suffer he councelled euery one to carry his crosse he preached those happy that suffer for his name he promised rest for paine honour for shame eternity for tyme. This exercise is so honourable and so precious that if enuy could find place in the harts of the glorious and happy Spirits they would enuy iust men this honour and happines If Angels could be enuious they would eÌ„uy our suffering that they can suffer for so great a Prince after the example of such a Captaine and for so great pay and reward By which meditation the pilgrime shall not only be comforted in the trauaile of this his pilgrimage but shal also be liuely encouraged and enabled to labour more and more euery day considering that he cannot haue a more high and royall way towardes heauen then that of the Crosse beaten by the King himselfe and as the Apostle sayth 2. Cor. 4. Our tribulation which is heere short and light worketh in vs an eternall weight of endlesse glory he shall be then animated and stirred forward to suffer in fighting and fight in suffering seeing that his tribulations his discommodities his wearynes his teares his watching his hunger his thirst fasting disciplines hayre-clothes and all his afflictioÌ„s and combats thinges of themselues of small worth and short yet suffered for this maister shall be reckoned vnto him for so many crownes of glory and so many increases of felicity in the great day when all true pilgrimes and valiant champions shall enter in triumph to the kingdome of their heauenly couÌ„trey In the end he shall make his prayer and speach to God speaking to him with the wordes and sentences of his meditation and shall say with an humble and submisâ—e hart My Creatour and Lord behold me in the progresse of my pilgrimage full of desire and courage but inexpert and vnskilfull to choose and find my way and weake to support the future difficulties thereof Thou hast giuen me the meanes to vndertake it with
48.13 and made like vnto them yea and worse also The constancy of al creatures to do well but of man For they not only are not idle in that occupation trade thou hast taught them but worke continually according to their law and order and wanting reason do follow reason But my selfe a reasonable creature remaine idle against reason one peece and parte of my life or do workes contrary vnto reason Other creatures haue receaued thy commandement but once to do that which they doe and they haue continually discharged their duty vnto this present But I hauing read and heard thy will a hundred tymes thy promises thy menacings do sleep and slumber notwithstanding wretch and benummed that I am and when I do wake my workes are worse then sleep and idlenes O Maker and Redeemer of man reforme this same man by the same power and mercy wherewith thou hast created redeemed him Giue vnto him giue vnto me O my Lord as to the most weake and needy strength and meanes well and holily to employ what thou hast giuen me that my Vnderstanding Will Memory my whole soule and body may be in perpetuall action to bring forth workes of life to the praise and glory of thy holy name The After-dinner and Euening of the fifteenth dayes Iourney Markeable documents and instructions for Good workes CHAP. XXXV AFTER dinner and at night the Pilgrime shall for his spirituall occupation discourse vpon the most markeable sentences of Scriptures and Saints spoken to shew that oÌ„ly fayth sufficeth not for saluatioÌ„ The Talents Matth. 25.16 without good workes The parable of the Talents holdeth the first place in this doctriné for thereby our Sauiour doth plainely instruct vs and with authority that we must negociate in the house of God and put the mony of his graces to profit and vsury which to that end he put into our handes with the condition of a good reward if we be diligent and obedient or of punishment and confusion The workeman Matt. â—0 if we be slouthfull Also the parable of the workemen sent to worke in the Farmers vineyard payd at night for their dayes labour Also the counsell which our Sauiour gaue to the young man saying If thou wilt haue life euerlasting keep my Commandements Matt. 19.17 Also those wordes He shall enter into the kingdome of heauen who doth the will of my Father not euery one that sayth Matt. 7.21 Lord Lord. But especially he shall weigh the clause of that generall decree which shall be published at the last day in fauour of good workes against the slouthfull Rom. 2.13 Come my wellbeloued Iac. 1.22 Matt. 25.34 Iac. 2. possesse the kingdome which is prepared for you from the Creation of the world I was hungry and you gaue me to eate c. And thereunto he shall add the plaine saying of S. Iames What shal it profit my brethren if any man sayth he hath fayth without works shall his faith saue him And S. Gregory Nazianzen Doe good workes vpon the ground of thy instructions for fayth without workes is dead Isa 26. as also workes liue not without fayth And Saint Hierome vpon these wordes of Esay 26. Our citty is a fortresse saluation shall there be put for the inward wall and outwâ—rd By the inward wall sayth he is meant good woorkes and by the other fayth for it is not inough to the outward wall of Fayth vnles this fayth be grounded and sustayned by good workes These workes are Prayer The principall good workes Fasting Almes and other workes of charity which we spake of before in the afternoone of the eight day In these and the like discourses shall the Pilgrime passe the after-dinner thereby stirring himselfe to the loue and practise of Christian workes In the euening either alone or with others he may sing this Canticle that followeth to shut vp the euening with ioy and profit A Canticle of good VVorkes The pious Pilgrime that doth walke Vnto the Chappell of Loret Must worke with hand his soueraignes workes And keep his soule still pure and nett To heare alone and not performe The law of God doth worke no meed To know the way and not to walke Nothing doth our iourney speed The tree that bringeth nothing els But leaues and breathing verdure Is fit for fire and not for fruit And doth greet wrong to nature Our Sauiour chiefe and iustest Iudge The fruitlesse Fig-tree strooke with curse If man in vaine doth wast his dayes Shall he not blame and strike him worse How hoat shall then be his reuenge To those that nothing els doe bring But poisoned grapes and fruites of death Of sinne and shame and els nothing Each thing doth worke and nothing sleepes In Earth in Sea in Heauen aboue Each thing doth moue in his degree Mans end is God to know and loue Then these short dayes of this short life Let be in vertuous workes well spent That last long day shall all workes try VVhen ech shall b' either crown'd or shent And hauing made his particuler prayer to the Blessed Virgin he shall take himselfe to his lodging in good time not to be surprised by night in the fieldes The sixteenth day A Meditation of sinne CHAP. XXXVI THE morning Meditation shall be vpon sinne an actioÌ„ opposite to good workes which were the matter of the precedent meditation This order shal make a fit opposition of vertue to vice The opposition of vice to vertue and by setting their faces one against another we may better discerne the beauty of the one to loue it and the foulnes of the other to hate it What sin is The first point shall put the definition of sinne the better to know both the corps and countenance and duly to meditate of the foulnes thereof Sinne sayth S. Ambrose is a straying from the law of God and a disobedience to the heauenly Commandmâ—nts Ambr. de Poenit c. 8. Aug l. 22. cont Faust c. 27 l 1. cont ep 1. Peâ—il 113. By S. Augustin it is What is sayd done or desired against the law of God so that one word spoken one deed done one thought conceaued against the law of God that is against any of his commandements is a sinne great or small mortall or veniall according to the diuers motion of the will sinning either with full consent or by some light motion or suddaine surprise and according to the great or small importance of the thing and other circumstances Of which definitions he shall learne that there is nothing so foule and deformed as sinne For what can be found more monstruous then that which is opposite to the law rule of the highest wisedome beauty and goodnes The second point shall consider two sortes of sinnes Originall and Actuall and this mortall and veniall Originall sinne Aug. ench 164. is that spot which flowed from the sin of Adam wherewith all men are stained in their conception and
brimstone with an intolerable stench and ech of all their partes and specially of those that haue been instruments of their villanies The Cholericke and cruell shal haue for their whips and scourges their owne passions and the fury of the fiends The Gluttons shall be serued at the table of Hell fed with serpents and toades and drinke of the cuppe of the wrath of God The Enuious shall beare in their bosomes euer-liuing scorpions who shall sting them to an immortall rage The Slouthfull shall be beaten with the rodes of his owne rechlesnes vexed with a particuler torment of body and soule These shall be the proportions of euery one and all in generall shall haue the horrour of that hellish company of darknes of cries howlinges one of another The eternity of hell torments The third point shall be to consider that al these torments besides that they are vnspeakable and continuall shall also be euerlasting This eternity is that which giueth the forme the name of Hell to that hellish misery and without it there should be no Hell of torments nor paradise of pleasure This shall be the great hart-breake to the damned The cause of the daÌ„neds rage and sting their soule with a raging grief that they shal suffer without ceasing they shall also see without ceasing that it shall alwayes be so They shall alwayes pay the interest of their sinnes committed and yet shal alwayes be behind in errerages they shal alwayes pay and their debt increase still that which shall be past though it were ten milions of ages shall be reckoned for nothing and the future tyme shall be followed with another future as long as all Eternity The forme of this Eternity shall flye as a fierce fury continually before their eyes beating her vnwearied wings and hissing her horrour into their eares shall couch it selfe in the depth of their imagination and grauing there the marke and round circle of these eternall ages shall breed therein the sting and immortall rage of a furious desperation O soueraigne bounty What monster may sinne be that could so incense either thyne anger or thy clemency against it O sinne how abhominable art thou seeing no payne is sufficient to punish and chastice thee but eternall O mortall men what thinke you of when you defile your soules with the familiarity of this plague this death this confusioÌ„ Where is your wit to loose glory delight and riches of heauen for a fond pleasure for a foule delight for a brutish vanity with this inestimable losse throwing your selues head-long into euerlasting damnation O my soule thinke heereof delay no longer thinke of it betymes all tyme of repentance is good tyme flye the danger of eternall euills whilest the mercy of God inuiteth thee and doth promise thee help and assistance and recompence for thy labour O my Lord I will serue thee with all my soule and withall my soule renounce all vanity and doe vow from henceforth eternal emnity to thy great and immortall enemy who hath furnished so much matter to thy iustice to build these mansions of darknes confusion death O Virgin Queene and Mother most pure most great and puissant further the desires of thy Pilgrime and deuoted suppliant and by thy credit obtayne that he may happily performe the good desires and designements which thy Sonne his Redeemer and Lord hath by thyne intercâ—ssion planted in his hart The After-dinner and Euening of the twentith dayes Iourney Other Meditations of the paynes of the damned CHAP. XLV THE two other partes of the day shall be employed in the consideration of the infinite number of soules lost The lost soules since the beginning of the world vnto this tyme also an infinit number that daily are and will be lost from this tyme to the end of this world Soules alas lost dead deadly groaning in the gulfe of their torments byting their tongue for fury that seeke for death and cannot find it Apo. 18.10 being buryed in the bowells of death it selfe dying alwayes and yet cannot dye liuing alwayes and yet cannot liue that curse the day of their birth and the name and memory of their Progenitours detesting the earth they so much loued the heauens and the starres that they could not see and foâ—â—ul measure of theâ— impiety they blaspheme the Maiesty of thy Creatour and haue no rest neither day nor night All thinges are to them affliction all is night and darkenes all is gall and bitternes all tears and gnashing all griefe and despaire Death can neither end them nor ouercome them wheresoeuer they cast the eyes of their vnderstanding they find themselues on euery side coÌ„passed and inclosed with the barres of eternity without all hope not only to escape out of the prison of this dolefull and lamentable being and worse a thousand times then not being at all but also to haue ease or respit By this consideration the Pilgrime shall learne more and more the malignity of sinne and shall harden himselfe to the hatred thereof and at night he shall yield thankes to the mercy of God for the tyme and respit he hath giuen him with a thousand meanes to do pennance in this life and to abstaine from sinne that he might auoyd these paines reserued for sinners in this euerlasting prison And after he hath in good time taken vp his lodging to prepare himselfe with leasure to the last meditation of his third weeke and the day of his arriuall The one and twentith Day Of Generall Confession and of the parts of Pennance CHAP. XLVI THIS one and twentith day is the last of the first part of this Pilgrimage wherin the Pilgrime must prepare him selfe with his best endeauour to pennance purgation of his soule which is the end of this part the more worthily to appeare in the house of the B. Virgin that he goeth to visit a Virgin of purity mother of purity and Queene of purity This preparation shall be in the chiefe foundation and exact and entire confession of all his sinnes since his last Confession or if need be To whoÌ„ generall confessioÌ„ is necessary generally of all his life since his yeares of discretion or from some other markeable time This is the Confession commonly called Generall necessary to him that was neuer so confessed or was ill confessed either by concealing any mortall sinne willingly or for want of good disposition necessary to a Penitent that is without sorrow for sinnes committed Sorrow and purpose of amendement necessary or firme purpose of amending or for hauing beene confessed to such as wanted either knowledge to help him or authority to absolue him to others that haue beene daily confessed this generall is not necessary yet to them also it is profitable for thereby gathering as it were into one heape the multitude of our sinnes we procure a confusion so much the more holesome by how much it is greater The profit of general
the spirituall leprosy dead in sinne buried in her filth abhominable before thyne eyes a marke for thy fury a prey to death and eternall confusion O my Redeemer immortall thankes be to thy infinite mercy for this great benefit since thy mercy hath no boundes add also O sweet Iesu to this benefit the firmnesse of a holy perseuerance whereby I may alwayes preserue the Temple of my soule body pure neat from all filth ordure of sinne Conserue O Lord the house thou camest to purify 2. Mach. 14.36 Psal 50.5 by the light heat of thy holy Spirit cleanse it beautify it alwayes more and more and more and more wash me from my sinnes purge me of my sinnes giue me grace that as I haue hitherto serued the Flesh the World and the Diuell the most cruell enemies of my good and saluation so I may with all my force loue honour and serue thee for heerafter O my life my Creatour and Sauiour descended into earth and made man to seeke me poore strayed sheep and make me participant of thy deity ascended also vp to the Crosse there to shed thy precious bloud to wash and cleanse me there to dye to giue me life Graunt O Prince of mercy that for all thy benefits I may affoard thee an humble an entire seruice vnto my last gaspe to liue after this mortall soiourning eternally with thee and to glorify thee in heauen where thou liuest and reigning with the Father in the vnity of the holy Ghost for euer and euer Amen This shal be the shutting of the 21. day and third weeke finishing the first period of his pilgrimage the which representeth as we haue sayd the life of those which beginne the way of vertue the way of Purgation by vertues purgatiue In the morning the Pilgrime shal begin his second part which representeth the estate of those that are gone forward and aduanced in the way of perfection and light THE PILGRIMES ABODE AT LORETO The two and twentith day and the first of his abode A Meditation vpon the holy Eucharist CAHP. I. FOR the meditation of the first dayes iourney of this second Part of his Pilgrimage the Pilgrime shall fitly take the subiect of the Eucharist for he cannot better begin to honour this holy place then with so holy an action nor more refresh solace the trauaile of his pilgrimage then by this refectiō nor better open the doore of his soule to the light of the Holy Ghost then by the receauing of such a Sacrament and this should be the first meale and the last banquet of euery true Pilgrime he shal make his Meditation early in the morning at the holy house with these partes The prayer preparatory accustomed shal demand grace to direct all his actions to the glory of God and saluation of his soule In the first preamble he shall set before his eyes the history of the two Pilgrimes Luc. 14. Aug. epist 50. ad Paulin. who first of all other Christians receaued at our Sauiours handes after his resurrection in the village called Emaus The second shall demand a speciall light well to penetrate the maiesty and profit of this mystery The first Point Of three figures of the Holy Sacrament CHAP. II. THE first point of the meditation shall containe three old Figures Gen. 14.18 among diuers others of this B. Sacrament The first is the Sacrifice of Melchisedech sometyme King of Salem and high Priest who entertayning Abraham as he returned victorious from the battaile offered to God Bread and VVine in thankes-giuing for the victory blessed him and refreshed him and his companie Our Sauiour the true Melchisedech in figure of the Sacrifice of the Body and Bloud of Iesus Christ the Christian Eucharist which the same Iesus Christ the true Melchisedech the true King of peace and high Bishop did institute and ordaine when in his last supper he did communicate his Apostles giuing them his Body to eat vnder the figure of Bread and his Bloud to drinke vnder the figure of Wine after the order and forme of the Sacrifice of Melchisedech and making them his Vicars and Deputies commanded them and their Successours in their person to do the same Luc. 22 1◠and to continue this Sacrifice and Supper in his name remembrance which hath heene alwayes performed hitherto and shall be alwayes heereafter vnto the worldes end For as Iesus Christ is Priest for euer after the order of Melchisedech and not of Aaron whose Priesthood togeather with the sacrifices were ended and fullfilled on the Crosse so his Sacrifice according to this order of Melchisedech shall be perpetual and euerlasting in yielding of thankes to God and in the feeding and refection of Christians the spirituall children of Abraham Psal 109. fighting in the Church heere militant on earth and shall one day triumph altogeather in heauen returning cōquerours from the combat The second Figure is the sacrifice of the Paschall Lambe which was ordayned the night before the deliuerance of the Hebrewes Exod. 12. from the captiuity of Aegypt and continued in remembrance of this great benefit vntill that our Sauiour the true Lambe did institute our Eucharist of his precious Body and Bloud in the euening before his Passion and our Redēption and shall continue as a memoriall thereof vntill he come againe not to be iudged and condemned to death as he was at his first comming but to iudge the world by the weights of their workes to kill death for euer after and to deliuer his children from all euill The third Figure is the Manna Exod. 15.16 giuen from heauen to the Hebrewes whilest they were Pilgrimes in the wildernesse walking towardes the land of promise euen so the Eucharist the true bread of heauen and the true drinke is giuen in the Church of God for the solace and sustenance of our soules in the desert of this world and for our prouision and food vntill we be brought to the land of the liuing in heauen The second point Of the Maiesty of our Sauiour in this Blessed Sacrament CHAP. III. THE second point shall be to meditate in this Sacrament first the power of our Sauiour Power conuerting by his almighty word the Bread into his body and the Wine into his bloud Second y the goodnes of the same Sauiour who hauing giuen himselfe a price and ransome for our Redemption Goodnes hath also vouchsafed to giue himselfe for food and to vnite himselfe with his creature soule to soule body to body in the straitest manner that can be imagined Thirdly the diuine wisedome Wisedome seasoning and tempering this precious food in so familiar and easy a fashion vnder the forme and taste of bread and Wine of the one side facilitating our senses to the taking of his flesh and bloud without horrour and on the other side instructing our fayth to vnderstand and acknowledge the vnion of faithfull Christians made heerby one
from the history of the creation of the world where it is sayd That God created light before all thinges This light was the matter whereof God framed the Sunne the fourth day as S. Denu sayth which is a figure of the Conception of the B. Virgin Gen. 1.26 S. Denis c. 4. de diu nominibus the mysticall light whome God brought forth without corruption out of the barenesse of Ioachim and Anne as of nothing therof afterward to forme the humanity of Iesus Christ the Sunne of the world and to cause of her to be borne both God and Man S. Tho. 3. p. q. 60. c. 12. the fourth day that is in the Law of grace which is the fourth estate o◠day of the world the first day hauing beene vnder sinne the second vnder the law of Nature the third vnder the law of Moyses Procl ser de natiuit Deiparat The second figure shall be the earth whereof Adam was made which was free from malediction wherto it was after subiect for sinne As therefore the first earth the matter of the first Adam was in the beginning without any curse or malediction S. Bruno Carth. in Psal 101. so the second earth whereof the second Adam Iesus Christ was to be formed was without the malediction of that originall staine in her conception Pet. Dam. in serm de virg Ass Dominic tract de corpore Christi The third shal be Gedeons Fleece wherein the Pilgrime shall consider that as the Fleece is ingendred without corruption and feeleth no passion of the Body so the Blessed Virgin was in her generation without sinne or any stayne of concupiscence a prerogatiue giuen only to her aboue al other children of Adam ingendred by the ordinary course in respect that she was to be the mother of God by another prerogatiue vnheard of before Luc. 2.44 Ieremy and S. Iohn were indeed sanctifyed in the wombe of their Mother notwithstanding they were first infected Ierem 15. Hier. in 3. Isa they were healed but not exempted from that wound The B. Virgin by a more noble priuiledge was preserued both from the wound and from the scarre thereof The third point shall consider some prophecyes of the same Conception Psal 84. as out of Dauid Lord thou hast blessed thy earth that is the Sonne of God who should preserue from sinne the Virgin that was to be his Mother Ar. ibid. Isid ad Floren. Also The Highest hath sanctifyed his Tabernacle that is the Virgin who was to be the Tabernacle of God and therefore was by him prepared and sanctifyed from the beginning with a sanctificatiō most meet for such a Sonne Psalm 48. and such a Mother In the same sense sayth Salomon Sap. 9. Wisedome hath built her selfe a house It is then a most perfect house seeing Wisedome it selfe hath built it a house all beautifull in the foundation and euery part according to an other prophecy Cant. 4. Thou art all beautifull and there is no spot in thee In the fourth point he must consider that for diuers reasons Why her conception was sāctified The first reason The 2. this Conception was to be exempted from Originall sinne 1. For that it was no way decent that the Virgin which should conceaue the Sonne of God should be marked in her generation with that spot which maketh men children of the Diuell for thereby the Sonne had beene some way dishonoured 2. Seeing that sundry seruants of her Sonne were both before and after her sanctifyed in their mothers wombe as Hieremy and S. Iohn as we haue sayd it were reason that the generation of the Mother of the Holy of Holyes should be honoured with some more noble prerogatiue and that not ōly she should be cleansed from sinne as other Saints were but also preserued from all vncleanesse in her Mothers wombe as she was in all her life The third 3. For that in this prerogatiue do shine the power wisedome and goodnes of God for heere appeared the worke of an Almighty Power in hindring that the poison which infected all the children of Adam in their origen should not in any sort touch either flesh or soule of her who was chosen to beare the soueraigne Physician of mankind There appeared the glory of his infinite wisedome Wisedom in that he could separate vnto himselfe a Mother free from all sort of sin therin appeared the liberality of his soueraigne bounty not only in hauing so plentifully bestowed his graces vpon this glorious Virgin but also in hauing preserued her from all euill Bounty from the first instant of her being These shall be the 4. points of his morning meditation out of all which the Pilgrime shall gather cōclusions either to exalt the greatnes of the diuine Maiesty and to admire it in this his worke or to stirre vp himselfe to the reuerence of the Mother of God and to enkindle himselfe to deuotion in her holy seruice to the glory of the Creatour admirable in th◠framing of this his Creature Be thou therefore eternally praysed A Prayer to God O Creatour of all thinges and soueraigne Maker of the Mother of thy Sonne Thou didst appeare great admirable in creating the heauēs the throne of thy Maiesty and the earth thy footstoole yet dost thou appeare more wonderfull in this worke for thou madest in her an heauen and earth of which stuffe thy Sonne was to make and take the cloake of his holy humanity a heauen which out of her substance should giue the Sunne of the world an earth that should bring forth the Sauiour of the world a heauen and earth conceiued miraculously of the barren to conceaue afterward by a greater miracle him that made heauen and earth and all things of nothing O happy houre that gaue the beginning to this diuine generation and more happy that measured the progresse and most happy that saw it perfect and finished To the B. Virgin O noble Virgin O noble seed of our heauenly light O earth of our fruit O mother of our saluation who can worthily speake of the course of thy life seeing the very beginning thereof exceedeth the tongues and capacities of men and Angells The After-dinner of the three and twentith Day Of the purity of Christian actions in their intention CHAP. XIIII IN the afternoone the Pilgrime shal attend as the day before to pious works shall hear◠the sermon diuine Office shall read some good booke shall conferre with his Ghostly Father or other deuout persons shall say his beads giue almes or beg for himselfe or others sing some Hymne of the B. Virgin or heare the Salue Regina song or some other for the tyme. In the euening he shall make his meditation in the Church vpon some point of his morning meditatiō labouring throughly to know and prayse the greatnes and goodnes of of God in the excellent purity of this Conception shall vnderstand
that it is much more beseeming the Maiesty of God and his Mother to be conceaued without original sinne then to be cleansed from it more noble to haue been light from the beginning then of darknes to haue beene made light more approaching to the sense and mind of the Catholike Church which honoureth this conceptioÌ„ with a solemne feast though she doth not condemne of heresy those who belieue that she was touched with originall sinne but after from heauen sanctifyed Pure intion the foundation of all Christian actions Luc. 11.34.36 He shall gather also certaine conclusions and practicall rules of his spirituall discourse as that our actions should be pure in their conception and beginning in the thought in the will that we must beginne by the light to be children of the light that the good and pure intention which our Sauiour calleth The eye of the soule ought to be the foundatioÌ„ of all our workes These and such like rules he shall frame in his mynd and shall verify them in the life of the Blessed Virgin who from her infancy neuer sought in her actions any thing but the glory of God This hath beene her light her beginning her end in all that she did thought or sayd VpoÌ„ these reasons and examples our Pilgrime shall make a full purpose to reforme his life to Godward and to serue him with all his hart to the imitation of his glorious Mother and shall say O B. Virgin To the B. Virgin all bright and beautifull cast some beames of thy diuine fauour vpon the soule of this poore sinner thy deuoted seruaÌ„t driue away my darkenes with my holy light and my coldnes with thy heauenly heaâ—e and strengthen my weaknes with thy mercifulâ— power Make me see that Sunne that came out of thy bowels make me feâ—le the vanity of this vaine world and the firmenesse and solidity of those goods which this thy Sonne hath gâ—tten for vs with his precious bloud and that this may be the profit of the piâ—grimage which I haue vndertaken to thy house and of the vow I haue made to thee O Virgin of all Virgins The foure and twentith Day A Meditation of the Natiuity of the glorious Virgin CHAP. XV. THE meditation of this morning shall be of the Natiuity of the Blessed Virgin in three points The first shall consider some figures of this Natiuity The firmament as the Firmament which God made and filled with many goodly starres to the likenes of this B. Virgin a liuing heauen and firmament as the holy Doctours call her high and solâ—d in perfectioÌ„ marked with a thousad goodly vertues in her soule Earthly Paradise as with spirituall starres Also the earthly Paradise pâ—anted with most excellent fruites and made in the Month of Septer for the dwelling of the first Adam which is a figure of the Virgin giuen vnto the world in the same month adorned with all sort of graces a garden of delights where the second Adam Iesus Christ should dwell much more happily Exod. 2â— 20 pleasantly then the other in the earthly paradise Also the Arke of the Testament made of incorruptible wood couered with plates of gold within without Heb. 9. where the heauenly Manna was kept as this Virgin exempt from all corruption in her Conception beautifyed both in soule and body with excellent guifts hath giuen and kept the Manna that feedeth our soules Iesus Christ discoursing vpon these figures he shal admire the goodnes of God bestowing on the world so noble a creature and shall thanke him therefore and stirre vp himselfe to deuotion of the Creatour and of this B. Virgin Prophecies of her Natiuity Num. 24. For the second point he shall take some Prophecye as among others this A starre shall rise out of Iacob and a man from Israell The B. Virgin is signifyed by this starre so called by the Saints by reason of her heauenly and eminent vertues her Sonne by the name of Man For he is verily the Man of men Cant. 6. and Sauiour of men Also VVho is she that coÌ„meth ascending like the morning rising beautifull as the Moone chosen as the Sunne terrible as a battaile in aray This is the B. Virgin appearing comming to the world with her celestiall purity next and before the Sunne the spirituall morning and more beautifull a thousand tymes then our worldly morning for she did not only bring tydings of the day at hand but brought him forth not only did make the end of the night of this world but also the day of the grace of our Redeemer Also A rodd shall rise out of the roote of lesse Isa 11. and from the roote thereof shall spring a flower This Rod is the B. Virgin sayth S. Hierome hauing no other shrubbe ioyned with her Hier. 16. The flower is her Sonne Iesus Christ Cant. 2. The flower of the field as he is called issued from this Virgin whereof the same Prophet sayd cap. 7. Behold a a Virgin shall conceaue Isa 7. and bring forth a sonne Vpon these like prophecies he shall discourse in his meditation still gathering the fruit of loue or admiration to the prayse of God and this holy Virgin In the third point he shall meditate the Natiuity it selfe reioycing therin honouring it as the chiefest that hath byn among men The natiuity of the B virgin most honourable and ioyfull worthy of all ioy and honour Others hitherto haue beene of misery and sadnes as the wiser sort of men haue acknowledged and the Princes of the earth that made feastes vpon their birth day were ill aduised and ignorant of their owne estate and condition for their birth was but vncleanes and an entry vnto misery but this is of good fortune and ioy being without al deformity of sinne the only cause of al euils and for that therin the world hath receaued the neerest beginning of saluation the Mother of Messias to come of the Sauiour at hand of that Sunne rysing which should bring vs the day so much desired and therefore the Church singeth and inuiteth her children to reioyce in this day saying Let vs with solemnity celebrate this feast of the Natiuity of her who was euer a Virgin the mother of God Mary This is the day that saw borne the liuing heauen this blessed earth this starre of the Sea this paradise of pleasure this Arke of the Testament this Rod of lesse this faire morning that bringeth the Sunne and so shall discourse on the ioy of this Natiuity and conclude with these or the like wordes O day desired aboue all the dayes of the precedent ages or rather the only day all the rest being but night To the birth day of the B. Virgin for seeing the morning did not appeare before thee and the bright shyning and quickening sunne was yet farre distant from the Horizon of our Redemption surely all the dayes before thee were
them behould heere one oppressed with the burden of his sinnes cryeth at thyne eares from the bottome of his hart If this thy Clemency be accustomed to preuent sinners and to receaue them into thyne armes to shew them mercy then behold one who casteth himselfe at thy feet confounded at his owne faults crying that he hath sinned against heauen Luc. 15. which he dareth not behould against thee to whome he dareth haue recourse hoping in thy mercies Heare my crye Luc. 18.15 O Father of mercies and receaue to mercy thy prodigall penitent sonne and who hast giuen me courage and strength to visit thee in this little-great house of thy Sonne Iesus Christ and kisse the walles and doores of that sacred Chamber which he and his mother haue sanctifyed a thousand wayes graunt me grace by the infinit merit of thy Sonne and of the glorious Virgin to serue thee all the dayes of my life with an entire and perfect hart And if I may be worthy to lift vp my handes to thy holy heauenly Throne for the body of thy Catholike Church For the whole Church whereof by thy grace I am a child and for those thou hast made worthy and principall members of the same I beseech thee O Lord for all the sayd Church in generall defend it increase it sanctify it according vnto thy power and mercy I beseech for him who in the same holdeth as from thee For the Pope the keyes of heauen that he may perfectly and faythfully gouerne this Common-wealth of thy house to thy honour and glory and the profit of the flocke committed to him for the Princes and Pastours who do assist him and vnder his authority haue the gouernement of souies For the Prelats that they may wisely instruct and faithfully defend their flocke and charitably feed them vnto life euerlasting For all Kinges and Christian Princes For ChristiaÌ„ Princes who vnder the protection of thy prouideÌ„ce do coÌ„mand the people that as true Fathers and Protectours of the publike good they may carry the raynes and gouernement of their earthly policy which thy power hath put into their handes may vse iustly the sword which they beare for the defence of Innocency and punishment of wickednes For the most Christian King his deere Queene the Princes of the bloud and all the Royall house and Realme For the King assist them O Lord with thy fauours and graces remembring the seruices which thy holy Church hath receaued of their Ancestours and of the French nation hauing heertofore often left their houses and countrey not sparing their goods nor their bloud to go buckle with the Squadrons of the enemyes of thy name and to replant the banner of the Crosse in barbarous Countryes But specially I present my most humble vowes prayers for this noble Fleuron-de-Lys Monsieur the Dauphine thy guift For the Prince and the hope of the Crowne of France Make him great in wisedome valour piety and in all those vertues which gaue the title of Most-Christian to his Ancestours the name of Great to Charlemaine S. Lewis the place and honour of a Saint in the Church of God to his great GraÌ„d-father Lewis the IX Make him great and holy on the earth there to be a stay and bulwarke to the Catholike faith the ioy of his Father and Mother the honour of the nobility and of his house and the rest and repose of his people that he may reigne one day in heauen in the rank of thy greatest Saints Assist the sonne who hast assisted the Father so many wayes and so meruailously that France vnder him may shine in piety abound in peace florish in glory and may be thy chosen Kingdome and the French nation thy well-beloued people I beseech thee Lord for all those to whome I am bound in any title whatsoeuer For benefactours of bloud benefits friendship or otherwise and who haue hope in my prayers for my Parents my friends For frieÌ„ds and enemies my enemies make them partakers of thy graces and me worthy to obtaine some thing for them O heauenly Father O mighty Sonne my soueraigne Lord and Maister equall to thy Father in power and bounty O Holy Ghost the bond of both To the B. Virgin O ineffable Trinity harken to my voice and heare my prayer O glorious Virgin the principall worke of this one and of these three most happy Mother faithfull Aduocate carry this my voice and prayer to the Sanctuary of this supreme Maiesty who hath made thee so great in heaueÌ„ and earth Obtaine for me an hart and forces to serue thee as a true Pilgrime all the tyme of my mortality to praise blesse and adore his greatnes and goodnes for euer in the Kingdome of heauen in the company of thy selfe the Angels Saints of al those for whome I am to present my humble requests This is the prayer I make to thee in thy holy Chamber departing from thence Adieu sacred Chamber Adieu noble little Palace Adieu pretty house more large then tâ—e whole world more rich then the Orient more pleasant then Paradise vpon earth The remembrance of thy Altars of thy pauements of thy walles and of thy wonders shall remayne alwayes planted in my hart as a liuely and pregnant memorial to stirre me vp to yield honour prayse and immortall thankâ— to the Sonne and the Mothet who with their honour haue made thee so honourable The After-dinner and Euening of the 30. day and the ninth of the Pilgrimes aboad How the Pilgrime departed from Loreto CHAP. XLII AFTER his spirituall refection he shall take his leaue of his friends bid them farewell thanking them and recommending himselfe to their prayers and taking necessary instructions for his returne and he shall not forget to doe some markeable Almes if he be able and hauing taken his corporall refection he shall depart in good tyme with a resolution to suffer much more for our Sauiour For in what measure he hath receaued new graces new light and forces he should also labour and do more in proofe and tryall of his loue for him in all occurrences For his Itinerarium and guide of his iourney he shall haue the Ten dayes of Lazarus The ten dayes of Lazarus which are the ten dayes iourney following whereby he shall take example and direction in the exercise of his deuotion in his way If the number of dayes be too short he shall diuide the meditation of one day into more to haue inough or shal take them els where and if he may returne in lesse tyme he may choose what will be fittest for him and leaue the rest and what is sayd of this third part of the ten dayes of Pilgrimage of lengthning or shortning the meditations according to the way may be practised in the precedent parts also THE RETVRNE OF THE PILGRIME OF LORETO Or the Ten dayes iourney of Lazarus The one and thirtith day of the
gall to eate and vineger to drinke but himselfe neuer receiued such vsage at the Iewes hands but it was thou O sweet Lambe the true Dauid who didst tast the bitternes of this gall the sharpnes of this vineger Our Sauiour tormented ouer all his body The same Prophet sayd that they had numbred his bones of thee he did speake for he beheld with his foreseeing and Propheticall eyes thy precious body stretched out vpon the Crosse with such violeÌ„ce that men might tell thy bones and there was no part or member in thee which had not his proper torment Thy skinne was torne with the stripes of the roddes thy head crowned with thornes thy feete and hands nayled thine eyes striken with the sight not onely of thine enemies but also of thy friends and namely of thy sorrowfull mother whom I behold at the foote of thy Crosse Our B. Lady at the foote of the Crosse and whome thou seest also striken in her soule with that sword of sorrow which good old Simeon did foretell thou seest her alas with an eye watered with teares and bloud these are the torments of thine eyes Thine eares are beaten with the blasphemies and mockeries of thy persecutors thy hart is afflicted with our afflictions thy backe loaden with the waight of our sinnes and finally Dauid did forsee thee in the light of his spirit which knew things to come he did contemplate thee in this Crosse oppressed with torments and filled with reproaches as a man forlorne without all help or force The reproache of men and the refuse of the people who preferred a murderer and a thiefe before the author of life a man who was thought to be forsaken and abandoned by God there hence it is that thy grand-father wrote that verse which thou camest to pronounce O sweet Redeemer My God my God why hast thou forsaken me wordes that very emphatically doe declare the rigour of thy affliction Deus Dâ—â—â—meus Psal 21. Math. 27. Marc. 15. and with a diuine eloquence dost represent thee as forsaken of God yet by interrogation without affirming in apparence and outward shew not in truth For God had not forsaken thee yea he hath nothing so deere in heaueÌ„ or earth as thee his onely Sonne which he testifyed at that time by the dole and mourning of the whole world when he commanded the sunne to eclipse when he made the moone loose her light the earth to tremble the rockes to riue the graues to open in signe of thy griefes and sorrowes and in detestatioÌ„ of the malice of thy tormentors Why the death of our Sauiour was so long before figured foretold It was therfore the enormity of thy torments which these words declared and not any forgetfullnes of thy Father Heere suffer me O my sweet Sauiour to aske thee why thou didst cause the tenor and forme of so many torments to be so liuely expressed and fortold and why thou wouldest endure them Hast thou foretold them to proue therby that thou wert God that thy death was not by chance but a voluntary charity a designement of thy wisedome and infinite bounty towards man made long before hand a mercy proiected in the closet and counsell of thy Eternity for who could so particularly foretell so many and so diuers actions happened in this tragedy that knew them not Onely God perceiueth forseeth future things Esa 41.13 And who could know them being so remote and so vnlâ—kely but only God but thy self to whose eye all things are present And who could haue belieued that thou wouldest loue vs so soone and so happily and wouldest endure so much for vs if thou hadst not giuen vs aduertisement before hand of all that thou didest suffer vpon the Crosse But why wouldest thou endure so much O the Redeemer of my soule yea why wouldst thou suffer death or any paine at all seeing to the Redemption of man it sufficed that thou wert made man Why our Sauiour suffered so much though thou hadst suffered nothing but liued in the glory of a rich King in commanding the whole world and taking homage of all thy creatures which is due vnto thee by al titles of souerainty Why O Lord making thy selfe man wouldest thou abase thy selfe vnder our basenes after thou hadst left all and insteed of riches pleasures and honours didst choose pouerty paine and humility didst lead a life which was noâ—hing but a continuall pennance thou wouldst besides suffer death the death of the Crosse that is most bitter in griefes and anguishes most cruell in torments most shamefull and ignominious in iniuries a death armed with the fury of all the powers of hell irritated with all the vices conspired together of all notable sinners Kings Princes souldiers Iudges Priests all sorts of people wicked The 1. cause to shew his loue to his Father The 2. to shew his loue to man proper to performe an exploite of enormous cruelty Why O Lord hast thou chosen this thorny way And this field so full of asperities Is it to shew thy exceeding loue to thy Father suffering for him in our behalf whatsouer could be suffered For it is the touchstone of affliction that maketh the sure proofe of firme friendship to any man Or is it moreouer to make man see the treasures of thy charity towards him sparing nothing for his saluation not onely making thy self poore to enrich vs infirme to fortify vs little to exalt vs but also giuing thy life the most precious gift which a man can giue for his friend and vndergoing death with a thousand torments to deliuer vs from eternall death with a pleÌ„tifull aboÌ„dant fine of propitiation paiable to the diuine Iustice and therefore the same Prophet sayd that with our Lord is mercy and with him is found plentifull Redemption Hast thou not suffered so much to make man see the enormity of his sinne Psal 129. which must needs be purged with so precious a life painefull a death The 3. cause to shew the enormity of sinne My sinnes then are they that haue lifted thee vpon the Crosse they haue torne thy skinne they haue crowned thee with thornes they haue nayled thy hands and feete they haue entertained thee with gall and vineger O then my soule sinne no more for thy sinnes are the cause of this parricide bring no more forth the butchers of thy Redeemer after hauing receiued so many signes of his fauour towards thee Finally O gentle Lambe hast thou vndertaken and suffered this painfull and ignominious death To teach thy children how they must suffer 4. To giue vs example to suffer Giuing them an excellent patterne of thy life of thy death to imitate and to suffer for the honour of God and to carry his Crosse For seeing the head captaine is the formost in the fight and assalt seeing the King is the first hath the greatest part in paines and punishmeÌ„t
Litanies togeather after which TristraÌ„ was caryed to his bed in another chamber where he slept quickly The Pilgrims made their examen and tooke the subiect and points of their morning Meditation The subiect was the life of the glorious Virgin after the Ascension of our Sauiour into heauen in these points 1. Wherefore she liued after our Sauiours Ascension 2. Of the profit she brought vnto the Church of God 3. Of her death The nine and thirtith day and the ninth of his Returne Of the Life and conuersation of the B. Virgin after the Ascension of our Sauiour and of her death CHAP. XXII AT three a clocke in the morning when no body was vp sauing some seruants that went to labour the Pilgrims began their meditation a part Lazarus the first in feruour and heat of spirit began in admiration wondering that our Sauiour ascended into heauen and left his glorious mother amongst mortall men seeing he knew well that she should be in continuall griefe for his absence and longing for his presence and that she desired nothing more then to go out of this vale of miseries and to be with him and there was not any creature more worthy of heauen and of his company then she was Why the B Virgin was left on earth after the Ascension of our Sauiour But the heauenly light shewed vnto him in the progresse of his meditation that the Almighty and all wise Sonne of God did herein shew a singular prouidence for the good of his most honourable mother and of all his whole Church for if the scripture reporteth that for a great fauour which is sayd of the lust that God hath honoured him in making him labour and hath accomplished his trauailes this was a speciall prerogatiue and a great honour which our Sauiour did to his mother to leaue her somtime after him in this life therin to shew employ her vertues The B Virgin was left as the moone when the Sunne was gone which hitherto had beene in a manner hidden vnder the cloake of profound humility knowne onely to God and to few men besides by a thou sand goodly workes wrought in publicke make her multiply the vsury of her merits vnto the highest heape and degree and so much to increase the glory of her felicity It was also a great fauour vnto the Church to see shine in her beginning and birth vpon the earth this starre as the moone after that the great Sunne taking himselfe from the eyes of mortall men Our Sauiour his Churche both bred and brought vp by the B. Virgin was mounted into the heauens and to conteÌ„plate in her the admirable beauty of that sunne it selfe liuely represented in the lustre of the diuine actions of this B. Virgin as we behold the visible splendour of the sunne painted in the face of the moone And euen as God would that his Sonne Iesus-Christ Espouse and Sauiour of the Church should be conceiued borne and brought vp by the sayd Virgin so would he that the same Church should in some sort be ingendred by the feed of the sayd Virgins vertues should be illustrated set in view and in a manner brought forth by meanes of her nourished and brought vp by the example of her admirable workes Namely that she should be the light of the Apostles and disciples teaching them diuers misteries of the fayth that none knew but her selfe and which the holy Ghost would haue knowne by her so by her he taught the secret of the Annunciation of the Incarnation of her perpetuall virginity of the Natiuity of our Sauiour of the musique that Angells sung thereat of the Visitation of the shepheards of the Circumcision of the Adoration of the Kings of the Presentation in the Temple of Simeons prophecy and other points which the Euangelists haue recorded and specially S. Luke Luc. 2. who therefore is called the Notary of our B. Lady Greg. Nis in fest Assump It is he that sayd Marie kept all these things in her hart Signifying as an ancient Doctor sayth that she had diligently noted the mysteries she had seene to reueale them in due tyme and that what he had written he had drawne out of the mine treasury of the Virgins hart who was Secretary and of priuy Councell to the meruayles of God And as God hath giuen at diues tymes holy women to magnify his greatnes in them and to succour his people as a Debora to counsell and conduct the armies of Israell a Iudith to encounter with the great Tyrant an Hester to winne the King and oppose herselfe against the enemies of his people also amoÌ„g the heathens diuers Sibilles women emineÌ„t in knowledge in the gift of prophecy to instruct the ignorant of the mysteries of the Sauiour of the world so he left in his bodily absence this his heauenly mother to be a Debora a Iudith a Hester and the Prophetesse of the Christians the refuge of the afflicted the booke of the doctours the strength of the faintharted the force of those that fight and f nally to be a Regent in the beginning of the spirituall kingdome of her Son by the accord of her diuine contemplations actioÌ„s to giue a modell and patterne of the contemplatiue act ue life of the Apostolicall perfect Christian way She was a patterne of actiue and contemplatiue life as she did And therfore both then euer after she was ordained called the Protectrix of all religious Families a generall Aduocate of the Church of her Sonne for euer God meaning in a woman to encounter coÌ„found vice Idolatry confound Pride the forces of Sathan who in a woman had confounded all mankind thrust mortall men into all sort of sinne She liued then many yeares after the Ascension of our Sauiour 10. after the opinion of some and 21. in the opinion of others but the common tradition is foureteene 10 Nicep li. 2. cap. 3. And being arriued to that terme which he had prefixed who gouerneth the tyme and lott of the life of man she receiued a message of her departure out of this world by an Angel in the Citty of HierusaleÌ„ 21. Epiph. serm de Derp Virg. where she had remayned since the death of our Sauiour with S. Iohn the Euangelist whither the Apostles dispersed through diuers partes of the world by the power of God were assembled togeather and with them diuers other holy men amongst whome was S. Denu the Arcopagite the Apostle of France in this last period to assist the Mother of his maister and to do her obsequies Almighty God honouring with the presence of the principall lights of his Church the deposition of that Virgin who had brought forth the Sauiour of the world Dion Metapâ—r ora de obit Virg. and illustrating the death of the mother of his Sonne with this singular prerogatiue as he had by a thousand more illustrated her life
of the cleare vision and contemplation of their Creatour the cause of all beauties that are in heauen or earth and infinitly more beautifull then all other beauty put together Of the body He meditated in the second place of the glory which the bodies of the â—ust shall haue after the ResurrectioÌ„ which can not otherwise be declared but as the Apostle declareth the whole felicity That the eye hath not seene nor the eare heard nor the hart of man comprehended â— Cor. 2. what God hath prepared for those that loue h m he could say no more then in saying as he did that it is impossible to conceiue that felicty The scripture sayth that the iust shall shine like the sunne and compareth them to eagles Matt. 15. signifying the beauty agility of their body Our Sauiour to whose similitude we shall rise agayne came out of the graue that he rose out subtile impassible such in similitude shall our bodies be in such qualities shining Phil. 3.20 transpareÌ„t agile subtile penetrant and immortall heere withall euery particular part of the body shall haue a supernaturall beauty as now it hath a naturall with this difference that then all the body being transparent like christall all parts shall be visible in it as well the inward as the outward the bones the muscles the sinewes the veines the arteries the lungs the liuer the hart all shall be cleansed and cleared from all imperfectioÌ„ indewed with their proper beauty in propoâ—tion clearenes and colour This of Saphire that of Emeraldes one of Carbuncles another of Diamonds and aboue all shall be most adm rable those which haue beene employed in some speciall and peculiar seruice of the diuine Maiesty So the skinne of S. Bartholomew stead off for the faith shall shine with a particular beauty the armes and feete of S. Peter crucifyed the head of S. Paul cut of the tongues of true preachers the hands of Almoners the armes of the true souldiours of Iesus-Christ the eyes of chastity the hayres of virginity nothing shall be without recompence without excellency without particular glory Lazarus was plunged in this meditation and sayd O my soule if thou beest rauished meditating these beauties how great shall thy ioy be in enioying them O Lazarus what doost thou to deserue them What giuest thou to buy them What sufferest thou to gaine this honour And with what pace walkest thou to get the goale of this glory O soules redeemed with the precious bloud of Iesus thinke vpon these honours O Christian Dames who so highly esteeme the beauty of the body that not hauing it you would gladly purchase it with great summes of gold and siluer hauing it do hold it so deere tender it so carefully by art by gold by apparell by chaynes carkenets and iewels your beauty is nothing it is foule and ill fauoured in respect of this and if it were any thing you know well it shall finally perish eyther by some misfortune or by touch of sicknes or by age or surely by death Where is the beauty of AbsaloÌ„ of Lucrece of so many men women admired in the world Loue then the beauty of this Resurrection which shall be proper for euer vnto your bodies and to obtaine it loue now the beauty of your soules O my soule be thou amorous and in loue with this beauty O glorious Virgin O faithfull aduocate aduaÌ„ced this faire and ioyfull day aboue all the thrones of the heauenly and happy spirits the wonder of all goodly creatures on earth whilst thou wert aliue the wonder of all the creatures in heauen for euer the honour of the triumphant Church the refuge of the militant the comfort of the afflicted the guide of wanderers helpe vs with thy graces and credit with him by whome thou wert this day carryed vp into heauen with the company of all the heauenly hostes Procure o most B. Virgin that we obtaine grace holily to liue vpon earth to the imitation of thy selfe and happily to dye to thy example and one day to enioy eternally the riches of the triumphant Resurrection in the Kingdome of thy Sonne Iesus 1. An exhortation to a sick person in agony of death 2. The affliction of Lazarus 3. His arriuall at his Fathers house 4. His farewell to his Father and to the world CHAP. XXV THVS Lazarus ended his prayer Theodosius and Vincent ended then also and had felt great inward ioy therein The steward came early to their chamber hauing made ready their breakfast but they would eate nothing saying it was to soone They desired him humbly to salute in their behalfe Monsieur the Marquesse the Abbot the Vicount the Baron his children and to assure them that they would pray to God for their prosperity The steward had closely put into Lazarus bagge ten Crownes wrapped in a paper with these words of the Marquesse owne writing Pray to God for the Marques which Lazarus found at night in his fathers house He imbraced the Steward with many thankes after they had sayd their Pilgrims prayers they went out of the Castle and hauing beene a while silent they began to talke Lazarus praised much the prudence and liberality of the Marques and of his brother the sincere and harty loue of his children full of humility and courtesy the true markes of true nobility as contrariwise pride and disdaine is a true token of a base and rude mynd he commended also greatly the modesty diligence of all the officers and seruants and tooke this for a sure signe of the Marquesse his vertue for commonly like maister like men and the subiects doe for the most part frame themselues after the fashions of their Lord. Theodosius sayd that he noted at supper a meruailous contentment of all in the answere that was made to Syre Cime and that he did neuer better perceiue the leuity obstinacy of heresy then in that man who sought nothing but to talke and shew himselfe though he shewed himselfe alwayes void of good learning Pride the Father of heresy Whereupon Lazarus sayd Pride is the Father of heresy and vanity is her Mistresse and therefore you may not meruaile to see an Heretike both proud and vayne togeather Wherefore then quoth Vincent doth not the Marquesse his nephew shew himselfe like his maister Because sayth Lazarus he is not so much an Heretike as bred and brought vp in heresy neuer hauing beene Catholike knowing nothing but what they haue giuen him to vnderstand without contradictioÌ„ it is well to be hoped that as he is of a noble tractable nature and of a goodly spirit that as soone as he shall haue free liberty to conferre with some learned man or cast his eyes vpon some learned booke he will discouer the deceits of these impostures which his maister hath commended vnto him for rules and maximes of his Religion will imbrace the truth of the Catholike fayth Surely sayd Vincent I longed much
law of God in what sort soeuer and in the end say Pater Aue. In the 4. point he must say Confiteor knocking his breast for his faults found with dolour and dislike and also with hope to knocke at the gate of Gods mercy humbly crauing pardon for the snnes we find our selues to haue committed The 5. point is to make a firme purpose neuer by the help of Gods grace to fall againe into the like and with the first commodity to goe to Confession so to end with Pater Aue And Credo This is the dayly exercise of all that be carefull and solicitous of their owne saluation commanded by the Scripture and practised by the Saints Eccl. 28.29 Locke vp thy gold siluer sayth the Wise man and make a weight vnto thy wordes and put a strict bridle in thy mouth That is vaunt not of thy vertue nor glory in thy good actions weigh and examine all euen vnto thy wordes and keep thy selfe from euill and haue a purpose to abstaine for afterward Iob sayd I feared all my workes Iob. 9.28 knowing that thou dost not pardon the offender And this without doubt was because he weighed all in the ballance of Gods iustice which he knew left nothing vnweighed Dauid Psalm 76. I meditated in the night with my hart I did exercise my selfe I did sweep cleanse my spirit Vpon which wordes S. Augustine sayth He enquired of himselfe he examined himselfe and he iudged himself within himselfe He examined in the night the fit and proper tyme in silence with attention hauing his eyes shut to other thinges he exercised himselfe in good earnest with all his hart with feruour and vigour of deuotion and not with a distracted and wandering cogitation dead without motion of life and sorrow My sinne is alwayes before me Psal 50. Because he was in continuall examination of his actions alwayes finding some defect and heereof he sayd to God Psal 18.14 Who is he that knoweth his faultes Deliuer me from my secret sinnes and pardon thy seruant the sinnes of others He that doth not his diligence to performe this once a day sheweth himselfe to haue no great care of his owne soule for he putteth himselfe fondly in danger to be surprised and sodainly arrested by the executioner of the supreme Iudge hauing the accountes of his life ill ordered charged with debts which he shal neuer be able to discharge The deuout Christian doth it often in the day How often in the day the deuout ChristiaÌ„ should examine his conscience Our Pilgrime shall do it thrice in the morning when he riseth he shall examine the night past at noone examine the morning and at night when he goeth to bed shut vp the account and reckoning of the whole day A generall distribution of what the Pilgrime should do euery day And first of the Credo CHAP. VII Clem. Const Apost l. 7. c. 25. THE dayly prayers and spirituall exercises of the pilgrime are distributed into three tymes of the day Morning after dinner and Night according to that distribution of K. Dauid who sayd In the Euening and Morning and at Midday I will pray to thee O Lord and speake thy prayses and myne owne necessityes Psal 54. Which also Daniel practised in his captiuity as before him all iust men in their owne dwellings Dan. 6.10 In the Morning he shall make the principall meditation at Noone and after he shall make others or els if he be loath to change the subiect hauing some tast thereof in the Morning he may goe ouer it againe by way of repetition at euery one of these three tymes of prayer he must still repeate the Credo Pater Aue Confiteor as a true child of the Church who reciteth them in the midst among other prayers she maketh he that prayeth must haue Fayth Hope and Charity Fayth is the foundation of the others by fayth he doth often say in his prayers the Creed as making profession of his fayth comprised therein by these 12. Articles 1. I beleeue in God the Father almighty creator of heauen earth 2. And in Iesus Christ his only Sonne our Lord. 3. Who was conceaued by the holy Ghost borne of the Virgin Mary 4. Suffered vnder Pontius Pilat was crucified dead and buried 5. Descended into hell the third day he rose againe from the dead 6 He ascended into heauen sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty 7. From thence he shall come to iudge the quicke and the dead 8. I belieue in the holy Ghost 9. The holy Catholike Church the Communion of Saints 10 The forgiuenes of sinnes 11. The resurrection of the body 12. And life euerlasting AmeÌ„ This is a summary of fayth called the Symbole collection or gathering because it was composed by the Apostles euery one bringing and contributing his part as they doe at a reckoning after a banket representing by the number of the Articles the 12. Authors and compounders thereof for which cause S. Ambrose calleth it the Apostolike fayth Amb. ser 38. Aug. ser 1â—1 de tempore Leo c. 13. ad Pulchr composed by those 12. Artificers also the key whereby is discouered the darknes of the Diuell that the light of Iesus Christ might appeare S. Augustin calleth it the Apostolike fayth because it contayneth the abridgment thereof and would haue euery one learne it by hart The Symbole or Creed sayth he is short in wordes and great in mystery let euery one therefore that is come to the yeares of discretion learne the Apostolike fayth which he hath professed in Baptisme by the mouth of his God-father These twelue Articles containe all that euery Christian ought distinctly to belieue of God and his Church The 8. first teach vs the beliefe we must haue of the B. Trinity one God and three persons and specially of the mystery of our Redemption The foure last deliuer vnto vs what to belieue of his Church Of the Pater Noster Aue and Consiteor CHAP. VIII THE Pater noster is the summary of our hope as the Creed was of our fayth contayning seauen petitions in forme of prayer as followeth 1. Our Father which art in heauen hallowed be thy Name 2. Thy kingdome come 3. Thy will be done in earth as it is in Heauen 4. Giue vs this day our daily bread 5. And forgiue vs our trespasses as we forgiue them that trespasse against vs. 6. And lead vs not into temptation 7. But deliuer vs from euill Amen The foure first demand the guift of good thinges the three last deliuerance from euill The 3. first aske that which pertayneth to life euerlasting the foure last that which concernes this temporall to attaine vnto the other as S. Augustine sayth Aug. euch c. 115. serm Dom in montel 2. cap. 17. This is a prayer made and dictated from the mouth of the Sonne of God the richest and worthyest of all the
a courage Each one may say this specially beginners and a desire faythfull to finish it giue me also if it please thee strength and force let me suffer vpon the earth of my pilgrimage seeing I am one of Adams children condeÌ„ned to traâ—aile but let it be for thy sake and vnder the banner of thyne only Sonne Iesus Christ for I know that torments and death suffered by such a title vnder such a Captaine containe an earnest of the ioyes of thy felicity and of life euerlasting Aboue all keep me O Lord from being of the number of those who like euill pilgrimes seeke the labyrinthes of this world and not the wayes of heauen who forgetting their owne condition become insteed of wise pilgrimes as they should be mad and senseles vagabondes and after many courses perish in the desert buried in the dust which they should tread vnder foot Alas What seek they in their base dwelling Doe they thinke to find true repose in the countrey of famine of thornes of thistles Life in the region of death The vanity of worldlinges Triumph in the field of battell place of warre Heere is not the place that they must seeke such aduentures nor yet aske them Neither doe I aske it of thee O Lord I desire of thee heere the victory ouer thyne enemies and myne let the honour of the triumph if I deserue any be reserued to a better tyme and place in the spring time of thine eternity in the land of thy children in myne owne home not in a strange Countrey let the wise of this world triumph in their countrey The Romans triumphed in Rome not in strange CouÌ„treys and thy children in heauen the house and citty of their Father O glorious Virgin most pure Mother most puissant Queene in this eternity in this countrey we speake of thou art my Aduocate seeing thou art content to be so to all men that choose thee for such and fight for Heauen vnder thy protection fortify and second my prayers by thy intercession and procure them to be heard that hauing learned to honour and adore with all my hart thy Sonne in thy house of Loreto I may also adore him enioy him and magnify him for euer in his celestiall pallace The Pilgrime being refreshed with this spirituall repast shall march on his morning with his accustomed exercises The after dinner and Euening of the second day That euery Christian must suffer and beare his Crosse CHAP. IIII. IN the Afternoone he shall repeate the points of his morning Meditation and doing it with attention he shall draw thence two instructions The first The errour of worldly men that they are greatly deceaued who carrying the name of Christians and calling themselues pilgrimes vpon earth giue themselues notwithstanding to pleasures enemies of the Crosse of all that may afflict the body and for the good of the soule they thinke it sufficient that our Sauiour hath endured for vs yea and that we doe iniury to the merits of his passion to suffer any thing with him or after him people buried in the blindenes of their sensuality neither acknowledging what they haue receaued of him nor what they should render him againe nor the good they may get by suffering for him The benefit that man reapeth by the paines and passion of our Sauiour is no exemption from al payne An instructioÌ„ but from the eternall which only is to be feared to which sinne hath bound and tyed vs from the which bond no other fine Profitable and glorious to suffer with Christ Ioan. 14. and ransome could deliuer vs but the infinite merits of such a Redeemer as for temporall paynes it is so farre of that he hath therby exempted vs as that cleane contrary he hath inuited and bound vs by his example his wâ—rd and promise of reward recompense I haue giuen you example sayth he that you may doe as you haue seene me doe And againe Whosoeuer will follow me let him deny himselfe take vp his Crosse and follow me And S. Mat. â—6 Peter plainely sayth Our Sauiour hath suffered for vs leauing you an example to follow his steppes And S. Paul Rom. 8.17 We shal be glorifyed with him if we suffer with him And surely naturall reason doth teach vs that to be true which our Sauiour sayth Luc. 6.40 The Scholler is not aboue his Maister And it were a monstrous thing to see a souldier playing at Dice and drinking himselfe drunke in his Pauilion whilest his Generall with his armour on his backe in the field endureth the heat and the dust exposing himselfe to labours and dangers of death By the example and wordes of our Sauiour we haue eternall glory promised to our trauailes Happy are you sayth he to his Apostles and in them to all Christiansâ— when men curse you and persecute you Matth. 5. for great is your reward in heauen A promise that should liuely stirre vs vp if we haue any feeling of true glory to runne with a great courage in this race of tribulations and wants and to endure all paine for the loue of God and thus doing we honour him following and seruing him and accomplish his commandement and winne to our selues therein a crowne of immortality And those that do contrary are the children of confusion vnfaithfull seruants cowardly souldiers very sluggards taking occasion of dastardy of the same thinges that should moue them to fight valiantly The true Christian must alwayes goe forward in vertue CHAP. V. THE second instruction the Pilgrime shall take of his Meditation is that as he that will well performe his pilgrimage must euery day gayne ground so he that will come to heauen must euery day profit in vertue and iustice And as the true Pilgrime doth not cease to walke whilst he is Pilgrime Pern epist 91. 204. so sayth S. Bernard He that is truely iust neuer saith it is inough He is alwayes hungry alwayes thirsty of iustice and if he should liue alwayes he would labour alwayes to be wiser so that if it be a perfect desire to haue a will alwayes to profit and goe forward not to haue this will is to go backeward and where a man beginneth to haue a will not to be better there he ceaseth to be good The true Pilgrime should alwayes winne ground and aduance himselfe to God wardes and this endeauour concerneth not only Religious persons as people doe thinke but all men Inclination to perfectioÌ„ is natural and namely Christians Reason teacheth vs that each thing tendeth to be better then it is plants and trees liue to increase to flourish and fructify which is their perfection and if a Cherry-tree could expresse his naturall inclination it would say that it desireth to grow to the highest degree of goodnes that any tree of that kind could attaine vnto and so would all other creatures say Why then should not man haue the like inclination
and seeke all the possible meanes to attaine it And seeing that euery man is thereunto obliged by nature is not the Christian much more bound then other by reason of the law he professeth which is a law of perfection How can he worthily beare his name if he endeauour not to be a perfect Christian according to his name and degree The King a perfect Christian in his rule and roialty the Captaine a perfect Christian in his warres and managing of Armes the Magistrate in gouernment the Iudge in administration of iustice the Merchant Artificer Labourer in then trafike shop and trauaile as the Religious in his vocation Is heauen only for Religious If it be for all why doe not all seeke the way with Religious Heauen is not oÌ„ly for Religious euery one as we haue sayd according to his estate and degree This instruction will teach the Pilgrime to make dayly progresse in good life as he doth in his way and with so much the more courage as the merit and fruit of vertue is more precious and to be desired then the wynning of way in the world and this shall suffice for the afterdinner and euening of the second day The third Day The Commandements of God are the way of our pilgrimage of this life CHAP VI. IN the third day our Pilgrime being well forward on his way and iourney and hauing attentiuely meditated the conditions and qualityes of his mortall pilgrimage The way to heaueÌ„ is the coÌ„mandements of God Psal 118. â—2 he shal enter into meditation of the heauenly way by which he must come to the heauenly countrey as by the other he shall come to Loreto marching with the feet of his body he shall cause his soule also to walke with hers which are her affectioÌ„s This way is the keeping of the law coÌ„mandments of God wherof Dauid sayd I haue runne the way of thy commandements when thou hast enlarged my hart This way is Iesus Christ who comming into this world hath from point to point fullfilled the law giuen by himselfe he hath cleered bettered it with his doctrine and instructions and hath made it easie both to the eye and to the hand and in his owne pilgrimage hath traced the true path of saluation for which cause he is called Ioan. 14 1 The Way Verity Life This is the spirituall way which the pilgrime shall first consider a far off and in generall as if he were vpon some high mountaine like vnto Moyses when from the mountaines of Abarin Nebo in the land of Moab Deut. 32.9 he beheld the way and countrey of the land of Promise and after he shal run ouer all the commandements in particuler from the first to the last one by one A Meditation vpon the ten Commandements of God in generall The first and second pointe why the Law was giuen with so great Ceremonies in ten Articles and two Tables CHAP. VII THE Prayer preparatory as alwayes before The first preamble shall frame in the imagination the figure of the mountaine of Sina couered in the top with a thicke bright cloud rebounding with the noise of trumpets and thunder God appearing in soueraign Maiesty to Moyses to giue him his law and the Hebrewes incamped in the plaine by terrifyed and attending the issue of this new spectacle In the second Preamble he shall demaund grace of God whereby he may throughly vnderstand the beauty and importance of this law and the whole length and continuatioÌ„ of the way that leadeth vnto Heauen The first point shall recite the law with the clause going before it Preface of the Law where God speaketh thus vnto his people I am the Lord thy God who hath brought thee out of the land of Aegypt and the house of bondage And after giueth the same Law contayned in ten Articles 1. Thou shalt not haue strange Gods before me Exod. 20. 2. Thou shalt not take the name of thy Lord God in vaine for our Lord will not hold him guiltlesse that taketh his name in vaine 3. Remember that thou keep holy the Sabboth day 4. Honour thy Father and Mother 5. Thou shalt not kill 6. Thou shalt not commit adultery 7. Thou shalt not steale 8. Thou shalt not beare false witnesse against thy Neighbour 9. Thou shalt not couet thy Neighborus house 10. Thou shalt not couet thy Neighbours wife nor his seruant nor his mayde nor his Oxe nor his Asse nor any thing that is his In meditating the foresayd Preface he shall make this coÌ„clusion God when he would dictate his law putteth in the beginning what he is saying I am the Lord thy God as also the deliuerance of the Hebrewes he would haue vs therefore in the first place set before our eyes his greatnes and maiesty afterwardes the benefits he hath bestowed vpon vs to the end we may be stirred vp to the keeping of his commandements by that obligatioÌ„ we owe vnto him by the title of our Creatour and soueraigne Lord and our Benefactour our Conseruatour and rewarder meditating the rest he shal gather these or the like conclusions God published the law with great ceremonies with thunder and lightning Exod. 19.16 trumpets with cloudes and fire and smoke earth-quakes he will therefore that it be receaued of vs with great reuerence Psal 11â— feare and humility For the Feare of God is the beginning of wisedome He would haue it sinke deep into our soules seeing it was sent with fire voice and extraordinary noise and by whatsoeuer might most mooue our eyes and eares our two most noble senses and might most deeply print any thing in our harts He published it in the top of an high mountaine therfore would haue vs meditate thereof with a spirit eleuated and lifted vp from the earth this is the conclusioÌ„ which Dauid practised often and aduised others also to practise Psal 811.24 Psal 118.14 Psal 118.47 Psal 1.2 Thy testimonyes are my meditation Also Giue me vnderstanding I will meditate thy law I haue meditated vpon thy commandements which I haue loued Happy is the man that thinketh of thy law day night He gaue it to Moyses to communicate it vnto the people and make them to keep it he would haue them put it in execution and that as we ascend to meditate it so we should descend to execute it This is the signification of that heauenly Ladder which Iacob saw in his sleep vpon the which Angells did ascend and descend Gen. 28. for the children of God do mouÌ„t and ascend by the steppes and degrees of contemplation in the knowledge of the Law of God descend againe by the workes of the same law as it were by the same steps in the actiue life for the loue of God and profit of their Neighbour The nuÌ„ber of 10 a note of perfection He hath giuen it in ten Articles signifying by the number of perfection that it
all the workes of our Redemption as the seauenth day before was the end of all the workes of Creation on which day we celebrate the memory of this great benefit specially with the holy Sacrifice of the Masse the liuely representation of the same in the oblation and sacrifice of the Body of our Sauiour The third shall obserue The cause of the institution of feasts that Iesus Christ hath ordained feasts for his Church as dayes of spirituall rest and repose and running tables which in a yearely course doe containe and caâ—y the memory of all his benefits to the end as S. Augustine sayth that by fall of tyme they be not forgotten Aug. ser de tempo And these feastes are as well those which containe the celebration of his mysteries as of his Natiuity Easter Pentecost and the like â—s those that are dedicated to the B. Virgin Mary his glorious mother his Apostles and Saints The fourth shall discourse concerning our deuotion in â—â—uly celebrating the Sundayes and holy dayes How we must celebrate Sundaies feasts which consiâ—â—eth first in flying all that may hinder the exercise of deuotioÌ„â—n those dayes as are seruile workes of the field of ploughâ—â—g or of the towne as are any occupation or attending to â—â—mporall affaires as suites buying and selling and such like â—uill negociation Secondly to obserue what the Church coÌ„â—andeth and teacheth to be kept as to heare Masse which is an ordinance of the Apostles To heare Masse on holy days is an Apostolicall Tradition renewed by diuers holy Councells to receaue the precious Body of our Sauiour with precedent preparation of Confession fasting other preambles of pennaÌ„ce humility if not euery Sunday and holy day yet oftentimes to heare the word of God and diuine seruice that is sayd in the Church of God to attend to praying and reading some good booke of deuotion and to other pious works The day of rest for other creatures The fifth shal note that this rest regardeth not onely man but also beastes not that they are capable of reioycing or hallowing the day of rest but that they be not wearied ouer-loaden with too much and dayly trauell this diuine prouidence hauing care not only of his reasonable creaturs but also of all others Matt. 10.29 Luc. 12.6 euen to the little sparrowes The speach and end of the meditation shall be taken of the foresayd pointes in this or like manner O my Lord most iust and most wise in all thy Lawes The greatnes of God appeareth in his law O how thy perfections do admirably shine in the framing thereof Thou commandest me to remember to sanctify the day of Rest but what should the eye of my memory sooner looke vnto then to this day of repose which representeth vnto me not only the goodly fabricke of the vniuersall world prepared for my vse but also the admirable worke of the Redemption of man without the which The day of rest represeÌ„teth that of Creation redeÌ„ption the first benefit had turned to our damnation and by which the gates of eternall blisse is opened to vs in heauen and in earth the enioying of a heauenly peace and tranquility where shal then my rest be Rather in this life then in remembrance of this rest and meditation of this day In hope of this eternity In celebration and exhibition of this seruice Lord let this day be alwayes before myne eyes and that al my dayes may be this rest in thee in thy house in thy seruice that all the course of my life may be a continuall trauaile in this heauenly rest and a continuall rest in this heauenly trauaile a trauaile without trauaile and a rest without rest a figure of that which is reserued within the Temple of thy Maiesty there aboue in heauen for those that heere below haue holily sanctifyed the memory of thy diuine infinit benefits The After-dinner and Euening of the sixth dayes Iourney Of the Commandements of the Church and deuotion to the Blessed Virgin CHAP. XV. IN this afternoone the Pilgrime shall choose for his meditation the Commandements of the Church The fifth CommaÌ„dement of the Church which are giuen the better to performe the other and are these 1. To keep holy the Feastes instituted by the Church 2. To heare Masse on Sundayes and Holy dayes 3. To fast Lent Vigills and Ember dayes Conc. Lug. 2. Conc. Agath caÌ„ 47. Aurel. 1. can 48. 3. Can. Apost 68. Conc. GaÌ„g c. 19. Conc. Lat. cap. 22. Conc. Trid sess 14. can 8. 5. Conc. Later Trid. sess 23. cap. 9. 4. To confesse our sinnes at least once a yeare 5. To receaue at least at Easter To which are added 6. Not to celebrate marriage in tymes forbidden 7. To pay Tithes All which help vs to discharge our duty in obseruation of the Sabboth He may also take some of these mysteries which happened vpon Sunday as the Natiuity of our Sauiour his Resurrection the comming of the Holy Ghost in all which he shall behould the Blessed Virgin to haue the highest place of vertue and honour amongst men and Angels He may meditate also the singular diligence she shewed going in pilgrimage euery yeare to Hierusalem with her wel-beloued Iesus there to celebrat the feast of Easter and other solemnityes coÌ„manded by the Law O with what memory did this B. Virgin remember this day of rest With what deuotion did she expect it With what feruour celebrate it What prayers What eleuations of this royall Virgin all rauished in the loue of her God whome she caryed in her hart saw with her eyes honoured and serued with all the forces of her soule Thus may the Pilgrime question with himselfe to find the matter wheron to fasten his mind and take spirituall refection of his Iourney for the rest of the day vntill he come where he shal lodge at night saying for the shutting vp of all his deuotions the Pater Aue Credo and other deuotions The seauenth day The Blessed Trinity figured in the three Commandements of the first Table CHAP. XVI IN the seauenth day the Pilgrime for his morning meditation shall contemplat in these three Commandements the mystery of the ineffable Trinity one God and three Persons The prayer preparatiue shall be as alwaies before The first preamble shall place for guide of his imagination the first Table of the Lawe contayning these three Commandements The second shall demand abundant light holily to contemplate this maiesty for the first point of the meditation the Pilgrime shall remember what the holy Scripture and faith teacheth vs One God three persons that there is one God in three Persons which we vnderstand by this word Trinity one essence and one nature in three Persons The Scripture saith Harken Israell the Lord thy God Deut. 6.4 is One God the word God twice put and Lord once signifieth three Persons the word One signifieth the vnity of essence The
it by true vsing of his grace Loue that rare and boundlesse beauty Loue eke thyne owne felicity Thy Neighbours friends and foes must be inclos'd VVithin the boundes of thy vnfeyned loue For this iust Law was framed and compos'd By God that sittes and ruleth from aboue VVho sayth he loues God not his brother Loueth neither th' one nor th' other The mortall race of mortall men we know Of one sole man did their beginning take So all that from this one did spring and grow One houshold only and no more do make Euery of whome by right of kind To fastest loue doth straitly bind Yet straiter is the knot and neerer band VVherewith God bindes vs in his holy house Sweetly vs conioyning with his blessed hand To be all one in his sole Sonne IESVS VVherto in reason all are lead Since all are members of one head Blessed is that soule which this Law keeps And is found faythfull to her spouse aboue VVho daily him doth seeke and neuer sleeps Burning in the flames of his holy loue VVho ' boue all thinges loues God the best And for his sake loues all the rest The After-dinner and Euening of the ninth dayes Iourney Threats and punishments of man 〈…〉 CHAP. XXII IN the After-noone the 〈…〉 make some repetition of what he meditated 〈…〉 setting before his eyes the threates which God 〈…〉 against mankillers also some examples of such as haue from heauen beene discouered and punished for this sinne contrarywise some others of such as haue byn easily pardoned Math. 2◠All those that take the sword sayth our Sauiour shall perish by the sword And long before that he sayd VVho so shall spill the bloud of man Gen. 9. his bloud shall be spilled for God hath made man to his Image Cain was accursed for killing his brother Gen. 3. and by his owne mouth he condemned himselfe for well worthy of banishment death Plutar. lib Quae animalia sūt prudentiora for his murder Before Pyrrhus King of Epyrus a dogge discouered the murderers of his Maister who were therefore punished Hesiodus his dogge also discouered them who had killed him The swallowes him that had killed his Father The greatest men haue beene most sweet and courteous Moyses Dauid yea euen among Paynimes Alexander Iulius Caesar and the like Great men gētle and courteous and contrarywise slaues base and cowardly people haue beene fierce and cruell to reuenge Our Sauiour the patterne of all perfect and high vertue was wonderfull in this which he shewed at all occasions where he might make triall but most cleerly in the last distresse of his death and passion when he prayed that diuine prayer for his enemyes who crucifyed him encountring with a singular exploite of clemency the cruelty of his crucifyers Hauing discoursed vpon these examples and the like and sayd his beades or some other prayer to the B. Virgin he shal end his iourney betake him to his lodging The tenth day A Meditation vpon the 6. Commandement Thou shalt not commit Adultery CHAP. XXIII THE sixth Commandement shall be the matter of the tenth dayes Meditation The sixth commādement well placed after forbidding to kill which followeth very fitly after the forbidding of killing for the second and next iniury a second death whereby a man may offend and hurt his owne body or his neighbour is adultery and as by murdering the society of men is iniuried so also by adultery fornication and other such vices of the flesh the cōmon wealth is dishonoured disturbed with confusion of children The preparation and preamble shall be as before the substance of the meditatiō shal consist in these pointes following The first point shall ponder that this precept prohibiteth not only adultery Al impurity forbidden which man or wife committeth but also all kind of impurity all that may cause it as thoughtes words touchings lookes kissings gestures dishonest songs vaine superfluous attire wanton talke dissolute beholding paynting vnchast bookes and such like allurements to this vice Adultery is named as the principal head the other acts as making way thereunto and as complices to the crime How pleasing to God purity of body is The 2. shall be employed to meditate how cleanesse and purity of body is in it self pleasing to God and his Angels It is a vertue wholy heauenly diuine for to liue in flesh and not to sinne with the flesh is to liue in spirit and to be like those heauenly spirits who liue without stayne of flesh The Sonne of God made thereof so great account that he would be borne of a virgin he preached chastity and by all meanes inuited mē thereunto he would haue about his Altars ministers not maried but perpetually chast virgins also in his house as Queens betroathed to his maiesty by vow of virginity barren in body but in soule fertill in all sortes of vertuous workes Finally he hath restrained the mariage of all those that liuing vnder the name of Christians Chastity in euery vocatiō will be maried to one only wife establishing a law of Chastity in all estates and degrees of his houshould The 3. point shall consider how contrariwise Impurity is as pleasing to the Diuell our capitall enemy The sin of the flesh pleasing vnto the Diuel wherfore as it is displeasing to God our Creatour For though this wicked spirit hauing no body cannot directly take any pleasure therein notwithstanding it pleaseth him wonderfully well knowing that it displeaseth God and that aboue all other sinnes it maketh a man forget both heauen and hell for there is none doth so darken the iudgement and vnderstanding of man and take away the tast of heauenly things the feare of hell fire that doth more draw man from heauen and from saluation and that maketh him more carnall more stupide and beastly By meanes wherof this old preuaricator vseth all his craft deuises possible to make men fall thereinto therein to hold and keep them vnto old age yea euen vnto death Against playes wanton bookes To this purpose he inflameth their flesh with extraordinary fire by al sortes of enticements he chafeth them by charmes he proposeth them playes and comedyes which in Threaters may represent vnto them the fond fancies and loues as Painters do in the pictures of Amadis and such other wanton Writers which paint them in the bookes of base soules Against lasciuious Poets vnder the name of Poets who like trumpets of flesh and ignominy blow forth without blushing and with full mouth the shame of their owne others passions and finally he worketh al the wayes to giue the reines and liberty to this Cupid infernal Theon euen vnto the transforming himselfe into man or woman cloathing himselfe with figure and fantasticall body to pollute and defile the bodyes and soules of those whome he would hold fast in the fetters and chaynes of his tyranny thence
it O mortall men whereto leuelleth the sight of your swollen eyes where doe you cast the ancker of your light hopes what get you and to what danger of destruction doe you driue your selues what shall become of riches gathered by theft and iniquity Against worldlinges what shall become of your rapines vsuries what gayne you winning earth and loosing heauen what heape you vp but the treasure of the vengeaÌ„ce of God See you not hell open to swallow you and eternall death expecting with her lawes gaping to make a prey of your lost soules for euer and euer O sweet Iesus make vs if it may please thee in loue with thy rich pouerty amorous of thy eternall riches and contemners of these earthly treasures Luc. 13.33 and feare full of dreadfull death and pouerty eternall Neuer let it befall vs to cast our handes on other meÌ„s goods but to stretch them out to giue them of our owne and get heauen in giuing earth according to that holy trafike which thou hast taught vs. The After-dinner and Euening of the eleueÌ„th dayes Iourney Diuers Considerations of Auarice punished and Liberality practised by the Saintes CHAP. XXVI IN this second part of the day Diuers punishments of the couetous the Pilgrime shal make some spirituall discourse neere vnto the morning meditation he shall bring into his memory the punishment of theeues rouers church-robbers vsurers and other breakers of this commandement whome the reuenge of God hath already striken he shall remember Achab Iezabel who for taking from their poore subiect his vineyard and life also 3. Reg. 21 19. lost their owne life kingdome from themselues al their posterity of Giezi who was striken with leprosy 4. Reg. 5.27 which did sticke to al his race after him for taking the guifts of Naman against right and the will of his maister Elizeus of one Heliodorus 2. Macha 3.26 who was beaten by armed Angells euen vnto death for stretching his handes to the sacred treasure of our Iudas who for a few peÌ„ce became a traytour and sacrilegious homicide of his God himself Act. 1.6 To these and such examples he shall oppose others of the coÌ„trary vertue In generall the first Christians who brought their goods to the Apostles feete for a present to God and the poore and in especiall of the glorious virgin Act. 4.34 who in the imitation of her sonne lest all hauing her hart treasure in heauen in the land of the lyuing thousandes of other ChristiaÌ„s whereof the Ecclesiasticall histories doe speake And so he shal passe the rest of the day attentiuely beholding heauen as the treasure of immortall riches prepared for those that do holily contemne the transitory and shal in this point end take his nightes rest The twelfth day A Meditation vpon the eight Commandement Thou shalt not beare false witnesse against thy Neighbour CHAP. XXVII THESE former Commandements doe order direct the hart and hand and this following the tongue that we abuse it not against our neighbour nor against our selues by false depositions of good or euill The morning meditatioÌ„ shall be thereof beginning as before False witnesse in â— iudgmeÌ„t forbiddeÌ„ The first point shall obserue that by the principall inteÌ„t of this precept it is forbidden to beare false witnes in Iudgement against our neighbour which commonly being done by oath carieth an vndoubted credit in that quality if otherwise there be no cause of exception or chalenge And if it be taken falsely It is iniurious to God and pernicious to our Neighbour it is most iniurious to God pernicious to the person of our neighbour for he vseth the name of God in opeÌ„ Iudgement to testify falshood and is cause that iustice is peruerted that the right of inoncency is ouerborne and the iniquity of the wicked established whosoeuer therefore witnesseth falshood against his neighbour or also against himself as many do vpon the racke or tortour he sinneth against this law in the princiapll point All diffamation forbiddeÌ„ The second point shall consider that by this commandement is forbidden all sort of diffamation detraction calumniation al euill cariage of our tongue against our neighbour either by word or writing for such offend God greatly who vpon euery occasion or without occasion make sport of other folkes faultes and imperfections forgetting their owne and they more grieuously who impose feyned and false crimes and yet most grieuously of all they that write diffamatory libels for the hurt is more vniuersal the malice more bitter All lying forbiddeÌ„ The 3. point shall ponder that all kynd of lying is forbidden in the compasse of this Commandement but specially that which is against Religion For this is a great lye that striketh directly at the supreme verity a lye which Dauid detested with a sharp threat of perditioÌ„ saying vnto God Thou shalt destroy all those that speake lies Psal 5. such are in the highest degree the Arch-heretiks whome S. Peter calleth Maisters of lying such as heeretofore were Arius Manes and in our time Luther 2. Pet. 3. and Caluin The speach shall demand grace of God well to gouerne our tongue and to auoyd al wordes contrary to verity in these termes My God thou art the supreme verity and all men are subiect to lying as one of thy Prophets writeth Psal 115. Thou hast giuen me a desire of thy truth may it please thee to giue me grace to auoid all lyes not only of false witnesse against my Neighbour or in Religion against the honour and the fayth of thy Church but of all sort or kind whatsoeuer not only in thinges great and important but also in light and little for lying doth dislike thee of what sort soeuer it be made and to what intention soeuer it be spoken and all those that vse it are therein followers of thyne ennemy Sathan the Father of lyes Let my hart be in thy sight right and true and my tongue and handes conformable and agreable with my hart and that thy truth may resound with a sweet accord in my thoughts wordes and workes in all and aboue all to glorify thee The After-dinner and Euening of the twelfth dayes Iourney Of the nature and basenes of lying CHAP. XXVIII IN the Afternoone the Pilgrime if he will not change the matter may ruminate that of the morning What lying is discoursing of the nature of lying and of the diuers sortes thereof He shal consider that that is a lye Putarch de puerorâ—on educatione where the word agreeth not with the thought the mouth affirming that which the hart denieth a vice directly opposite to God the supreme verity and altogeather base and seruile as comming of dastardy not daring to speake plainely and openly and therefore hatefull worthy of punishment not only in such persons of honour Aug. l. de Mendacio c. 7. 8. but also in slaues sayth
inordinate desire of excellency whether it reigne within the soule only or be manifested or discouered by wordes or workes outwardly This is the King of sinnes altogeather abhominable before God Aug. ep 5â— Greg. 3. Mora. 31. and the Capitall enemy of all vertue thence as from a pestilent root do all vices spring and take life and especially these Disobedience Boasting Hypocrisy Contention Pertinacy Discord and Curiosity Couetice is a disordinate appetit of hauing an insatiable thirst making continually more drye the more it drinketh Basil hom in diuites 117. from thence come Treason Fraudes Deceit periury Disquietnes violence inhumanity and hardnes of hart Lechery is a disordinate appetite of pleasures of the body she bringeth forth blindnesse of spirit inconsideration Isido l. 2. de bono 39. inconstancy precipitation in affaires seâ—fe loue hatred of God greedines of this life feare â—nâ— horror of death and iudgment and despaire of life euerlasting Basil hom 11. de liuore Cir de zelo liuore Enuy is a sadnes or griefe at the good of others and hate of their prosperity or good successe either of their Superiours because they cannot equall them or of their inferiours in that they would not haue them equalls her daughters are Hatred Murmuring Detraction wicked Ioy of the euill wicked Grieft at the good of another Gluttony is an inordinate desire of eating and drinking her children are Foolish mirth lesting Prating Scurrility Stupidity of senses Greg. mor. 31. and Vnderstanding Anger is a disordinate desire of reuenge of whome do rise Debates Swellings Contumelies Clamours Indignation Bern. ser de Asc Blasphemy Slouth is a languour of spirit remisse and flow to doe well Greg. 3. part curae past 10. and a heauines and sadnes in spirituall thinges of her groweth Malice Rancour Pusillanimity Despaire a loathing of necessary commandements Euagations The Pilgrime hauing this afternoone cast his eyes atteÌ„tiuely vpon these bodyes and branches vpon these Captaines and their companies and recommending himselfe in the euening with some particuler prayer to God the B. Virgin his good Angell that he may be alwayes assisted by their ayde against these enemies he shall looke for lodging and rest The seauenteenth Day Of the first sinne which was of the Angells and of the second which was of Adam and of their effects and of the sinnes of euery one in particuler which maketh the third sort CHAP. XXXVIII WELL to penetrate and discouer the deformity of sinne and to conceaue a duâ— hatred thereof the Pilgrime shall bestow one day in the meditation of the effects of sin therein cleerely to see it selfe for as by the fruit the tree is knowne and the workeman by his worke so is the malice of sinne manifest by the euills thereof The sin of the Angells The first point shall bâ— to bring into his mind and memory the sinne of the first Angel and his Confederates in that faction who hauing beene created to the Image of God in estate of grace and endowed with many excellent guifts of nature rebelling afterward against their Lord and Maker of such noble spirits as they were were made Diuels thrown headlong from heauen to hell there for their rebellion to suffer the torments of euer-burning flames Whereupon the Pilgrime vsing the light of his vnderstanding How to discourse of the sin of Angells to enlighten and moue his will and to stirre it vp to a detestation of sinne in generall and to shame and confusion for his owne in particuler shall thus discourse If these diuine spirits and the most goodly and glorious creatures that were in heauen for one onely sinne were so turned and transformed from an extreme beauty to a monstrous foulnes and deformity how abhominable are those who commit many Who doe nothing els Who are plunged in their vices as Swine in their durt 2. Pet. 25 And with what filthines haue I deformed my owne soule by so many as I haue committed And if God spared not these noble CittizeÌ„s of heauen and seruants of his owne houshould but hath cast them as the Apostle sayth with chaines of darknes into the dungeon of hell reserued for that great day and generall iudgement what entertaynement may I expect at the handes of this soueraigne Iudge if I amend not my life The 2. point shal be appropriated to the consideration of the sinne of Adam which is the second sinne in regard of the person which is man differing in nature from the Angells The sine of Adam heere the Memory shal represent to the Vnderstanding the dolefull fall of our first Fathers and their honourable estate chaÌ„ged into a miserable exile banishment how Adam hauing beene formed of durt and quickned with a soule bearing the Image and likenes of God and Eue brought forth to the likenes of man of one of the sides and ribs of Adam suffering theÌ„selues to be persuaded by their capitall enemy did eat of the forbidden fruit and sodainly lost the grace and fauour of their Creatour the life of the soule and all that they had good besides the guifts of the Holy Ghost Iustice Charity their right to heauen and the immortality of their body Our Pilgrime then shall behould them as present driuen out of Paradise cloathed in beastes skins and from the place of pleasures and delights cast into a countrey of death and malediction Gen. 3.2 in which they performed a long seuere pennance that is 900. yeares and more and finally he shall consider the great corruption that hath come from this root hauing like a generall plague infected all mankind and thrust thousand-thousandes of persons to euerlasting death out of which consideration he shall draw light to discouer the poison of sinne to hate and detest it Euery ones proper sins The third point shall be to meditate in himselfe his owne faultes which is the third sort of sinne in regard of the person Heere our Pilgrime calling to remembrance his owne enormityes shall consider that many thousands are in hell that perhaps had committed but one of those sinnes that he hath done himselfe he shall thinke that many are coÌ„demned to the same hell of euerlasting death for sinnes lesse and fewer then his are whereby he shall learne how great the goodnes of God is toward him hauing thus patiently expected him to pennance and how great is the malice malignity of sinne hauing moued and incited the infinite bounty so farre as to ordaine paines vnspeakable for the grieuousnes of them and eternall for the lasting to punish it withall With which consideration being heat and warmed he shall speake in his speach thus to our Sauiour The speach O souueraigne Lord and Redeemer of my soule how great is the peruersity of this monster whose foulenes thy light hath discouered to me in her effects It made a reuolt in heauen among thy domesticalls making them rebell against thee It hath brought confusion and
whole world shall be iudged when the iustice of the Iudge shall be made manifest to all the world when the iustice of the good shal be published by open iudgement in the full assembly of Angells and men and rewarded with a crowne of immortall glory There sayth one Saint shall be no complaint Aug. l. 20. ciuit c. 11. such as often in the presse of this world saying one to another why is this wicked man so happy in his wickednes VVhy is such a good man vnhappy and miserable in his vertue VVhy do Robbers prosper and poore Pilgrimes haue their throtes cut For then true felicity shall be reserued only for the good and extreme and true misery reserued only for the wicked This then is called the day of our Lord all other dayes are the dayes of men this which is the shutting vp of them all shall be our Lords day for therein he shall shew manifestly the treasures of his infinit mercy and iustice making for his glory the heauens and earth to leape all the most strong peeces of his power wisedome bounty O my soule tremble with feare The Prayer at the remembrance of this fearefull day for if Dauid Iob the Prophets if the pillars of vertue haue shaked how great ought thy feare to be poore sinnefull and feeble creature that thou art With what sense feeling shouldest thou meditate vpon the holding of this day the Iudgement of iudgements and the last of all What wilt thou then doe What Aduocate shalt thou haue Who dareth defend thee from this iust Iudge if he be offended with thee How shalt thou heare the irreuocable sentence when it shall be pronounced What shalt thou do if he condemne thee O sweet Iesus keep me from thy wrath to come if it please thee and giue me now a penitent hart that may deserue both now and then the voice of thy mercy Let me in this banishment suffer a thousand deathes but at that day let me liue with thee Afflict me whippe me cut me burne my soule my life my flesh my bones with al sorts of tribulation persecution trauaile and torments but may it please thee to pardon me then for euer O Lord. O Blessed Virgin my good Aduocate whome I often see represented in this Iudgement by the pious pictures of the holy houses in the Church of thy Sonne as suppliant for all mankind intreat I beseech O Virgin for al and for me who am of the number and the most needy and performe what the pictures represent They signify that thou art now Aduocate of mortall men to the end that at that day they may be out of paine and danger Aske now O B. Virgin for this is the tyme of asking and mercy and not then when there shall be no question but of iudging rewarding and punishing aske and in good tyme obtaine for me and for all those that seeke vnto thee obtaine for me O puissant Aduocate the grace throughly to bewaile my sinnes vertuously to correct my faultes wisely to order my senses and actions that at that day I may confidently behould the eye and countenance of that soueraigne Iudge set in his throne of Iustice ioyfully heare the sentence he pronounceth and happily be placed on the right hand in the number of his beloued The After-dinner and Euening of the nineteenth dayes Iourney The separation of the good from the wicked after Iudgement CHAP. XLIII AFTER dinner the Pilgrime shall imploy his deuotioÌ„ in meditating what followeth Iudgement setting before his eyes how the one sort take their flight vp to heauen with Iesus Christ and his Angells there to reigne with him happy and blessed for euer The other full of misery and anguish broken-harted desperate shall be swallowed downe body and soule to the Center of the earth with the Diuells whome they serued and hauing gone foreward a while in this thought he shall also in the euening make some prayer to our Lord and to the B. Virgin his glorious Mother to the same end with that before dinner and shall looke about to lodge himselfe in some place proper for a poore wearied Pilgrime to repose The twentith Day A Meditation of Hell CHAP. XLIV THE Pilgrime hauing purposed to cleanse his soule in this his Pilgrimage and in good earnest to sweare emnity for euer against sinne the better to moue himselfe to peÌ„nance and to conceaue contâ—ition requisite for such an effect he shall help himselfe with the meditation of Hell the second death and reward of sinne as he helped himselfe hitherto with the meditation of the first death and iudgement This is a thundring peece Eccl. 7.40 to beat at the eares and soule of a sleepy sinner and with a wholsome alarum to awake him and make him take armes and looke to himselfe Good men are also holpeÌ„ therby for though they follow vertue rather for loue then for feare and serue God for himselfe which is the seruice of true children it profiteth them notwithstanding to meditate as well the punishmeÌ„t as the reward drawing from theÌ„ce matter to prayse God in his iustice and mercy and to stirre vp themselues to serue him well The Meditation shall haue his partes The prayer preparatory accustomed The first Preamble shall represent an obscure and darke bottomlesse dungeon in the Center of the earth ful of horrour and stench of fire brimstone and smoke and soules inclosed in their bodyes plunged in these flames The second shall demand particuler grace well to meditate of Hell for euer to auoyd it Hell most intollerable The first point shall consider that as there is nothing in this life more horrible then death nothing so dreadfull as Iudgement that followeth after so nothing is more intollerable then Hell and the punishments therof Matth. 8.33.22.24 There sayth the Scripture is weeping gnashing of teeth there is the worme gnawing of the soule and neuer dying and killing alway without killing Marc. 9.44 There is the fire that neuer quencheth there is the darke Countrey couered with the cloud of death There is the shaddow of death where no order but perpetuall horrour inhabiteth Iob. 10.25 Apoc. 21.14 There the portion of the damned is in a lake burning with fire and brimstone which is the second death where the wicked shall be tormented world without end The second point shall represent the diuers sortes of paines ordayned according to the diuersity of sins Diuers paines for diuers crimes for notwithstanding the horrour and disorder of this gulfe the order of Gods iustâ—â—e neuerthelesse shall be kept as the Apostle signifyeth when he sayth that he heard a voice from heauen condemning the Lecher to paynes saying Apec 18.7 Giue him torments in that measure that he hath had glory and delight in this life Therfore there the Proud shall be oppressed with an extreme confusion and shame The Couetous suffer an vnspeakable hunger and thirst The Adulterers buryed in fire and
merits of thy pretious bloud and to offer my selfe to thy seruice for euer with a full and faythfull hart This is my intention end it is thy grace and fauour that must succour my intention and crowne my end the good of thy assistance and the crowne of my end shal be thy glory O glorious Virgin I shall this day see that happy and holy house magnificall with thy greatnes may it please that it may be to thy Sonnes honour and thyne to the health of thy humble and deuoted Pilgrimes soule Going out of his lodging in the morning after his meditation he shall sing the Canticle following as continuing to aske the ayde help of the B. Virgin and stirring himselfe vp to goe forward with a great courage A Canticle to the glorious Virgin Mary Of Gods owne Sonne O Mother glorious Heare my voice O Mother gracious Heare my sighes heare my prayer Obtaine the graunt of my desire My groaning voice doth tell my griefe My instant prayers require reliefe To heauen I sigh with eyes all weeping Heauen I seeke the land of the liuing Obtaine me grace to tread alway The steps of Saints and not to stray To walke on earth straight and euen True Pilgrim-like the way to heauen To see the Chamber that lodg'd Christ And then thy glory in the highest This being done he shall make hast to come if he may soone inough to heare Masse at that holy Chamber and to haue all the after noone free to prepare himselfe to Confession and as soone as in his way he shall haue discouered and discerned the house of Loreto he shall kneele downe saluting the B. Virgin according to the custome of Christiah Pilgrimes which is to salute the places of their Pilgrimage as soone as they see them So the Christians going to recouer the holy Land prostrated themselues at the first sight of Hierusalem he shall therefore salute this noble discouery greeting the B. Virgin and saying O sacred Virgin honour be vnto thee honour be vnto thee Mary full of grace who hast happily brought me hither O happy houre in which I beginne to see that little pallace of my great King and Redeemer and of his glorious Mother O heauely house when shall I kisse the threshold of thy doore The walles of thy house and within the walls admire the wonders that haue made thee admirable And hauing sayd this he shall sing Te Deum Thankes giuing at the arriuall at Loreto and being come vnto the place as he shall feele himselfe comforted and rauished he shall say in thankes-giuing O holy Virgin Holy Mother Virgin of Virgins Mother of Iesus Mother of Grace most pure most chast most inuiolate Mother without touch immortall thankes for thy fauours ptaise honour and eternall glory for thy benefits immortall thankes be to thee for that by thy intercession I am happily arriued at this long desired place and that with myne eyes I see the house I haue so much longed and sighed after Perfect and finish to my good O gracious and faythful Aduocate that which thou hast begun in me and procure that to the prayse of thy deere Sonne my Lord and Redeemer I may cleanse my soule from all sinne and so holily bestow my dayes in this holy Temple that I may depart stored and enriched with all such meanes as shall be necessary forme to performe the rest of my way as well for my returne to myne owne temporall house home as of my great Pilgrimage to the country of heauen and this being sayd he shall heare Masse and Matines of that morning The after-dinner and Euening of the one and twentith dayes Iourney Of choosing a good Ghostly-Father or Confessour CAHP. XLVIII IN the afternoone hauing visited the most markeable places there and hauing vsed some prayers To chose a good Confessour he shall choose some pious Priest learned and wise and one who must be his spirituall Father Iudge and Physitian to conferre with him about the estate of his soule and to appoint a fit houre to make his Confession at euening and shall for that tyme attend to the examen of his conscience for his Confession at the appointed houre and shall prepare himselfe to receaue the next morning the Blessed Body of our Lord and Sauiour Before the examen he shall demand the assistance and grace of God by this or the like prayer A prayer to be sayd before the Examen which is made before Confession LORD God who making me according to thine owne Image and likenes hast giuen me memory principally to remember thy good and myne owne euill to thanke thee for the one cry mercy for the other and confesse them graunt me by thy holy mercy Eccl. 38.15 thy grace with the fruit of compunction to bring before thee all my yeares in the bitternes of my soule and to shew my selfe to my selfe and liuely to represent to the eyes of my soule the estate of my life passed the benefits I haue receaued the sinnes I haue committed in thought word or deed against thy holy Lawes and Commandements by Pride Couetise Impurity Enuy Gluttony Anger Slouth with my eyes eares and other my senses giue me throghly to know the woundes and defects of my soule that I may faithfully confesse them and by confessing be pardoned cured and strengthned to serue thee my Lord and my life better thē hitherto I haue done And this I desire by the merits of thy Sonne Iesus Christ who liueth and reigneth with thee in the vnity of the holy Ghost for euer and euer Amen Of the examen before Confession CHAP. XLIX THIS examen must be so much the more exact and diligent by how much the longer the tyme is that must be examined as ten twenty thirty or more yeares It is performed in running ouer the ten Commandements the seauen Capitall sinnes the fiue senses with the circumstances The particular calling of euery one as of Clarke Priest Religious Magistrate Souldiour Prelate Superiour Aduocate Physitian Artificer euery one beside the general duty of a Christiā hath proper pointes of his owne particuler calling which he must looke ouer if perhaps he hath failed in any of them How he must examine his Conscience for Confession CHAP. L. An examen vpō th Commandements HE shall therefore examine himselfe vpon the first Commandement searching if he hath thought spoken or done any thing against fayth hope or charity which he oweth to God If he hath doubted in any point of the Catholike Religion or spoken against it read any hereticall bookes or had any familiarity with Witches or Southsayers and finally if he hath serued God with all his hart soule as this first Precept importeth He shall doe the like in the second and the rest running ouer the Capitall vices called Mortall Of the mortall sinnes he shall examine himselfe in his conscience if he hath had any thought in presumption if spoken any vanity shewed any
and man made God behold God conceiued of a virgin according to the Prophesy of Esay A Virgin shall conceiue Behold the Word cloathed with our weaknes our weaknes maried to his Almightines Esa 7. two natures ioyned together in one person Behold the descent of the Highest figured by that he did heretofore wheÌ„ he sayd I will descend to deliuer my people from the bondage of Egypt Then without abasing himselfe he descended Exod. 3.8 by the effects of his Iustice and power to chastise a Tyrant and deliuer the oppressed from a temporall euill heer he is descended making himselfe man making himselfe little Phil. 2.12 emptying humbling himselfe as the Apostle sayth to pull man from vnder the spirituall Tyrant from the tyranny of sinne and the euerlasting prisons The ioy of the Iust Saints at this conception To that deliuerance Moyses the Hebrews sung a song of thankes giuing to this descent and to this marriage the Angels from heauen sung an hymne of a new note the iust soules in Limbo did leape for new ioy and both were rauished into admiration seeing him that is called the Sonne of the Highest vouchsafe to be the sonne of his owne creature bowing himselfe downe to our littlenes to lift vs vp to his greatnes O soueraigne bounty what may I do to acknowledg this benefit The prayer what may I say to prayse it worthily what may I alone render in recompence where all men and Angels together cannot yield one worthy thankesgiuing what can I say stutting stammering when as the tongues of all the Angels cannot reach to the hundreth part either of the greatnes of thy charity or of the height of thy humility or of the purity of this match mariage O Virgin most pure most wise most humble most fruitfull most rich most charitable chosen for spouse for daughter for mother chosen to bring forth to the Angels the honour of heauen and to men the saluation of the world and to the whole Church of God the peace kingdome the glory of God help thy poore Pilgrime with thy fauour and credit obtayne for me light to vnderstand this immortall gift of God made man obtayne for me vertues proper to thaÌ„ke him withall a charity celestiall to loue him a strong memory to hold him alwayes in my hart Let me neuer depart from this place from this chamber from this heauenly Temple from this earthly heauen without this fauour worthy of thy Sonne and thee Hauing ended his meditation he shall prepare himselfe to receaue at his best commodity At midnight he shal resume the same meditation or some pointes thereof The After-dinner and Euening of the seauen and twentith Day Of the goodnes of God in the mystery of his Incarnation CHAP. XXVI IN the euening the Pilgrime hauing done his accustomed deuotions shal particularly meditate the greatnes of God in the mystery he hath considered still more and more to perceiue therein an euident demonstration of his infinit goodnes The IncarnatioÌ„ a cleere testimony of infinit bouÌ„ty wisedome and power First he shall see that this Incarnation is a cleere testimony of the infinit goodnes of God in that he would be made man and ioyne himselfe with so strait a band to our humane nature and to lift vp our pouerty with the wings of his maiesty to make himselfe man to make man God as S. Augustine saith moued only with loue and charity toward his creature De catech rudibus c. 3. hauing no need nor profit thereby seeing he could as a soueraigne God with absolut power loose man from his misery restore him to his first estate without these costes and charges and without this coniunction specially being already his enemies not only by the fault of their first Father but by those they committed since In hauing made the world and presented it to man he gaue all his goods but in making himselfe man he gaue himselfe and hath communicated himselfe to him in the largest measure of his soueraigne bounty The nature of bounty and goodnes saith one Saint is to impart the good it hath and thereupon as all creatures are good in their nature Dyon de dium nominibus c. 1. so are they communicable the sunne yieldeth without sparing his light and influences the fire his heat the water his moisture the earth her plantes and beastes and other partes of the whole world do contribute to the entertainement pleasure of man all that they can by this law of bounty S. Tho. 3. p. q. 1. ar 1. man in what measure he is well borne and morally good is also more liberall of his goodes God then the chiefe and soueraigne goodnes hath communicated himselfe to man in a soueraigne sort making himselfe man and vniting in one person our humanity with his diuinity the vnion could not be more straite and noble and therefore let the deuoute soule euen drowne her selfe in the consideration of this supreme liberality let her admire adore and drowne her selfe in a profound humility seeing heere God made Man for sinnefull man and to haue exalted this nature fallen euen to the very center of the Earth vnto a degree of honour higher then euer she could haue hoped though she had neuer sinned Of the VVisedome of God in the same Mystery CHAP. XXVII SECONDLY he must consider how in this Mystery God hath shewed his infinit wisedome hauing found so fit and conuenient a meane for the reparation of man A most euident testimony of wisedom in the incarnatioÌ„ to instruct him to plant in his soule the seed of all the most noble vertues by a way most plaine short and effectuall for making himselfe man conuersing fâ—miliarly with men he taught them by word of mouth the heauenly mysteries traced out the way of happines with the admirable examples of his own vertues Hitherto he had taught by his creatures by his seruants by the bookes of his Prophetes but being made man he did speake in person as S. Paul to the Hebrewes deduceth he became his owne interpreter Hebr. 1. he read the booke of his own knowledge and expounded himselfe and was the liuing glasse practise and proofe of the Text which he had dictated Eccl. 52. Behould I that did speake am present sayth he by his Prophet He spake hitherto not being seene behind the curtayne of his creatures within the cloudes of obscure and darke prophecies and as being absent by Prophets as Embassadours But making himselfe man he is become visible he hath presented himselfe he hath spoken and with his owne mouth his owne workes hath taught vs our lesson from heauen Whereupon S. Augustine sayth Lib. 11. de Cunt. Dei c. 2. That man might boldly walk towardes truth Truth it selfe the Sonne of God is made man and hath layd the foundation of our Fayth By the same lesson he hath planted hope in our hart also for hauing
this stable in this equipage of pouerty he bruized the vanity folly and vaine delights of the world and flesh he crushed them in his cradle with the weapons of his profound and vnheard of humility not only in that he was made man and clothed with the infirmity of our condition The victory of the child Iesus but also he would be the least and lowest amongst men he would be borne not in a princely pallace in a soft bed royally arrayed not in a house of his owne nor yet in an Inne as some others did to wit the poorest sort but in a cribbe and stall for beastes and that borrowed This battaile is glorious and which mortall men could neuer hitherto gaine to their race and nature and so much the more glorious as it was more quickly vndertaken and wonne by a child The ancient Authors boast of their Heroes for that in their cradle they strangled materiall serpents Hercules but though it were true and not feyned it is nothing in respect of this childes exploit making proofe of his prowes valour against the strongest enemy of man before he could speake this is that the Prophet song as a miracle neuer heard of Call the name of this Child Isa 8. â— Make hast to spoile make hast to pillage for before the Child can call Father or mother he shall carie away the spoile and strength of Damascus noting the age the quicknes the force and glory of this Conquerour and of the conquest woÌ„ne the goodly spoile of soules drawne out of the handes of Satan O glorious fighter O litle Child O great God! welcome art thou into thine and our world thine because thou hast made it by thy almighty word ours because of thy infinit bounty thou hast bestowed it vpon vs But how art thou heere entertayned O King of Kings where is the trayne of thy Court Where are thy Princes and lordes thy Gentlemen pages gromes of thy chamber where is thy guard and all thy roiall furniture O sweet Infant the traine of thy Court is aboue heauen is thy lowest Tower the Angells are thy Princes thy guard is thy selfe who guardest all things thy seruitours and pages are the starres and all the creatures of the whole world O Caesar if thou knewest the King who is now borne in thy Empyre if thou knewest whome thou inrollest in the Record of thy Registers thou wouldst come in person poore vassal to present thy self at his feet to do him homage and adore his cradle at Bethleem whose maiesty the Angells admire and adore in heauen and wouldst request him to make thee be enrolled in his great booke of life O heauenly Angells it is iust wisely done The Angels sâ—â—g at this natiuity to sing this night and honour with your holy quires sweet melody of your heauenly musike the natiuity of this King to shew the shepheardes to teach vs them how we should receaue him this is your office and duty for you haue long serued him and know the fashions of the ciuility of his Court we poore mortal men ill taught and rude cannot worthily performe this duty but only thou O Virgin-Queene who hast learned this manner in the house of God Hester and as a heauenly Hester art prepared with attire and iewels chosen out of the treasury and cabinet of the Father of thy sonne King of Kings thou mayst coÌ„fidently present thy selfe to see him to receaue and handle him But O heauenly Mother how didst thou receaue vse him how didst thou entertayne this Sonne this God this Child giuen vs this King of heauen and earth In what spirituall cloathes didst thou wrappe him with what embracings didst thou cherish him With what deuotion didst thou adore him What were the eleuations of thy mynd hauing before thyne eyes thiâ— pretious gage issued out of thine owne bowells come into the world a little Child a great God visible palpable the glory of heauen the saluatioÌ„ of the earth the hope of maÌ„kind the ioy of men and Angells What a spectacle was this vnto thyne eyes beholding this diuine Sunne What admiration to thy soule contemplating this obiect of infinit beauty What extasies of loue imbracing this incomprehensible beauty O little God O Almighty child grant me leaue by that infinit loue which made thee man to draw vs vnto thee to come neere thee with my senses to behold thee with myne eyes to heare thee moane my miseries to touch those heauenly hands to kisse those sacred feet to adore that litle humble humanity married vnto thy greatnes to offer my soule and body to thy maiesty say a thousand times on thy birth day Viuat Rex viuat Rex Regum in aternum To him be all honour for euer Amen So he shall passe the houre of midnight taking the rest of the night for his repose or he may employe the whole night in meditating the song of the Angells and the visite of the shepheards who being warned came to adore our Sauiour borne in Bethleem The Morning Meditation Of the Circumcision of our Sauiour and of the Name of Iesus CHAP. XXXIV IN the morning the Pilgrime shal take for subiect of his meditations the Circumcision of the Sonne of God made according to the Law eight dayes after he was borne Our Sauiour circuÌ„cised on the first day of the yeare coÌ„secrated to Ianus the first day of the yeare and of guiftes according to the ancient custome of the Romans and consecrated to Ianus their two faced God with one face beholding the yeare past with the other the new yeare to come The first and fundamentall point of this Meditation shall be to consider the institution of this Ceremony the deuout soule calling to remembrance the commandment of God made to Abraham to circumcise Gen. 17. and in that place to cut his owne flesh his sonne Ismaell and all his hosue-hold and to cause it from thenceforth to be kept as a law to all his posterity S. Thom. 1. 2 q. 102 p. 3. q. 68. as a token of the eternal Couenant betwixt God and them to be also some remedy against originall sinne and a profession of their fayth towardes the true God Wherupon the Iewes kept it exactly euer after causing their male children to be circuÌ„cised the eight day after their birth and then giuing them their name as we do now in Baptisme whereof Circumcision was a figure and as now he that wanteth Baptisme is not reckoned among the children of God but is excluded from all right and hope of heauen and hath neither name nor honour in his houshould so then were those who were vncircumcised Gen. 1â— 14 Heere therefore he must meditate how Iesus Christ the true child of Abraham according to the flesh by whome the race of Abraham Why Christ would be circumcised and all nations of the world were to receaue benediction and peace of God would be
circumcised vndergo the law which himselfe had giuen making his first entry into the world and beginning the reparation therof by obedience as by the same obedience he went out of the world dying vpon the Crosse in counterpoise of the first man who as soone as he came into the world became disobedient and lost the world This is the benefit wherewith our Sauiour signed the first day of the yeare giuing to the world for a new yeares guift Herodian lib. 2. not a peece of gold or siluer or fruites as the world doth figs dates hony laurell and such other presents of the earth or of the sea but his precious bloud which he shed in this Circumcision for our only good and not for any necessity or bond he had of the law which himselfe had made and might therein dispense as the soueraigne Iudge or any profit he might get thereby The humility of the Sonne of God Phil. 2. The second point shall be to note in this action how our Sauiour goeth forward stil shewing more more humility for in his Incarnation he humbled himselfe in becoÌ„ming man and taking the forme of a seruant in his natiuity he humbled himselfe beneath man placing himselfe among the least and the poorest in his Circumcision he humbled himselfe more then all this making himselfe to be enroled among sinners vsing the remedy of sinners he who was not only without sinne but the couÌ„terpoison of sinne come with his innocency and vertue to destroy it so did he alwayes more descend in humility the more his works did ascend and shew themselues before God and his Church so necessary did he iudge it to authorize and credit this vertue and to batter pride which had ouerthrowne both Men and Angells How farre from this spirit are they who knowing themselues to be sinners will not be so esteemed and are ashamed to vse the remedy that should heale them They are ashamed to confesse and do pennaÌ„ce are not ashamed of the foule filth of sinne Who would not willingly endure any thing to deface their faults seeing our Sauiour began to shed his bloud for them within 8. dayes after he was borne The 3. point shal be to meditate the glorious name of Iesus this day giuen to the Sonne of God which signifieth Sauiour and is taken of the end effect of his charity Of the name of Iesus for he came into the world to saue it and in effect did saue it if it had would As therefore heeretofore great Personages haue often gotten their names by their notable actions Great meÌ„ surnamed by their actions and were called by them as Ioseph the Patriarch Sauiour of the world because by his prouideÌ„ce he had preueÌ„ted the famine in Aegypt the Roman Captaines and Embassadours were called Africani Parthici Germanici by reason of the victory they had wone in Africa Gen. 4â— Parthia and Germany In like sort but by better title without comparison the Sonne of God is called Iesus that is Sauiour because he came to saue man and this was the reason which the Angell gaue to Ioseph Math. 1.28 fortelling him that the Son which Mary should beare should be called IESVS because he should saue his people And S. Peter sayth Act. 4.12 There is no other name vnder heauen whereby to be saued This is the name so song by the Prophets Isay sayth Isa 30.17 Behould the Name of our Lord commeth from farre He commeth at the beginning of the world for it was written in the booke of God from all eternity Also my people shall know my name in that day for my selfe that doe speake will be present that is to say when I shall be made man Exo i. 6.1 Prou. â—0 S. Tho. 1 q 13. a. 1. I shall take a name that my people shall know for that which I beare from all eternity which is the essentiall name of my Deity is a name hidden to men and Angells and cannot be knowne but to God It is a name ineffable This name IESVS shall be vnderstood of men for I wil make it knowne by good effects I will make manifest sayth another Prophet my holy name in the midest of my people And Isay Zaâ—h 39. He shall haue a new Name giuen him by the mouth of our Lord. He could not haue a fitter God-father Isa 62.2 for it to impose a name according vnto his nature be the worke and office of wise men who could better name the Son of God then the mouâ—h of God which is Wisedome it selfe To impose names iâ— the worke of a wise maÌ„ Plato in Crat. This name comprehendeth all the goodly names that are noted in the bookes of the Prophets Emanuel Counseller of God Prince of peace A strong God an admirable Name and other like are contayned within the compasse of this for Iesus is al this and much more O sweet and admirable name a name more beautifull then the morning or day more sweet then milke or hony more strong then armies wider then the whole world higher then heauen deeper then hell more noble then the crowne of Kings more rich then gold a Name full of Maiesty the glory of the heauens the terrour of the Diuels A speach to the name of Iesus the hope health of mankind By Thee death is life without thee pleasure is death with thee ignominy is nobility without thee nobility is ignominy with thee infirmity is strong without thee strength is weake and infirme by thee nothing is made all thinges and without thee all thinges doe vanish to nothing Be thou therefore alwayes with vs O admirable Name be thou graued in euerlasting letters in our spirit in our hart in our memory in tyme of peace in tyme of warre by night by day in ioy and sadnes in Towne and field be thou our direction and saluation in our Pilgrimage and our glory in our country To Iesus Sweet Iesus heire of this Name be vnto vs Iesus giue vs the grace to circumcise and cut off the superfluities of our flesh of our desires of our thoughts and actions of our harts eyes eares and of all our senses that after this spirituall and Christian Circumcision signifyed by that carnall of the Iewes we may be partaker of the wholsome effect of the same of the immortall glory of this Name To the B. Virgin And thou most benigne Mother who this day seest thy deere child Innocency it selfe enrolled in the catalogue of sinners for sinners and giuing his precious bloud as a pledge of his infinite charity and of our saluation who pierced with sorrow in thy soule didst shed virginall teares in compassion of him obtaine for vs by the merit of thy griefe and compassion the fruit of this guift the good fortune of this name that our bodyes may be circumcised and purged from all impurity that our soules may be cleane our thoughts and desires well
in her bosome and closed in her armes whome the capacity of the heauens could not comprehend she feareth his danger and relyeth in his prouidence willingly endureth the horrour of the desart and the wearisomnes of the way and gathereth of her paines the ioyes of iust soules in the loue of him who came into the desart of the world to suffer O how gracious a spectacle to heauen is this little company O desart more happy in these three Hebrew Pilgrimes then in that infinite multitude that passed before A desart sanctifyed by these heauenly trauaillers signed and consecrated one day after to be the repaire of sanctity the earthly Paradise of deuotion to thousands of Religious soules who shal there sing the prayses of their Redeemer The desart of Egypt inhabited by Religious A desart more plentifull then all the orchards of Eden then all the Gardens of Aegypt yea then earthly Paradise it selfe for although thy trees be barren thou bearest notwithstanding at this tyme the fruit of life the mother of life and the faithfull spouse of life O Lazarus behould this pretty Pilgrime behould this trauailer and his faithfull Spouse doe them some seruice in the way giue them some fruit some ease or refreshment from thy hands request of the B. Virgin that little load she carryeth in her armes and take him into thyne to ease her but alas thou art not worthy although thou wert yet she would not leaue him This burden though it be more weighty theÌ„ the whole world is light vnto her yea giueth her vigour and strength to go the better If she will not gratify thee in this take boughes and shadow this little God who heeretefore shadowed his children in a cloud from the scorching Sunne and enlightened them with a Pillar of fire in the shadowes of night Psalm 77.14 and if thou canst do them no other seruice kisse humbly their shadow kisse the steps of their feet and haue compassion of the payns of this child and confesse thy sinnes to be the cause He entred into Aegypt according to the prophesy which he gaue many ages before Behould God shall ascend vpon a little cloud Isa 19.1 and enter into Aegypt and the Idols of Aegypt shall be troubled at his face This Cloud is the precious humanity of the Sonne of God in the which he is carryed It may be also the glorious Virgin compared to a cloud because she is heauenly and diuine like the humanity of her Sonne without any burden of sinne hauing brought forth her Sonne as the cloud doth the rayne without corruption and carryeth him in Aegypt els where as the cloud carryeth the rayne within her bosome O celestiall cloud O heauenly rayne O diuine child O diuine Mother He entreth into Aegypt whence his Father called him as he foretould by his Prophet I haue called my Sonne out of Aegypt He had called before the Hebrewes his adoptiue sonnes Ose 11. and people out of Aegypt he calleth now his naturall Sonne borne of his owne substance but in another manner Then he called the Hebrews to recall them from a cruell slauery bondage to make them enter into Iudaea now coÌ„trarywise he calleth this his Sonne from Iudaea to Aegypt to enter there and deliuer the Aegyptian himselfe from a more cruell seruitude to crush their Idols and breake the kingdom of Pharao who oppressed them vnder his tyranny with thousandes of horrible superstitions Arise then O Aegypt receaue with a good entertainement this little Sonne haue no feare of the plagues Exod. 6. 7. c. wherewith the malice of thy Ancestours hath heretofore been plâ—ged by him he coÌ„meth to sanctify thee to saue thee he is a great God but is become a little child affable of easy accesse a King full of sweetnes and mercy receaue him then receaue with good cheere these three Pilgrims the most noble that euer marched vpon thy grouÌ„d The Sages of Greece the Platoes Philosophers haue visited Egypt the Aristotles the Gallants of the world the Great Alexanders braue Caesars that haue heeretofore visited thee were nothing but poore wretched slaues of Ambition hauing their soules bound with chaines of iron howsoeuer they seemed gold glittered only in the outward of worldly vanity these heer doe passe the greatnes the brightnes of the glory of a thousand worlds This footman who is called Ioseph bringeth one who is a Virgin and a Mother the greatest Lady of the whole world admired of the Starres and Angells and shall one day be the admiration and refuge of al mortall men And this mother bringeth thee a Sonne who is the Maiesty of the heaueÌ„s the King of Angells the Sonne of a Father all mighty all wise all good himselfe as wise as good and as old as his Father in euery thing equall to his Father Creatour of the heauens with thâ— Father Gouernour of the whole world with the Father and sent by his Father from heauen to redeeme vs here in earth Receaue him then as a Pilgrime seeing Herod chaceth him out of his Countrey and whilest this Tyrant embrueth Iudaea with the bloud of the litle InnoceÌ„ts make much of this little Innocent father of them all rewarder of their life lost for him make much of his Mother and of his foster-father O my sweet Iesus did it please thee so soone to be chaced out of thy Country and to be a Pilgrime and banished maÌ„ to bring me vnto my heauenly couÌ„try whence my graÌ„dfather Adam hath so long been excluded Wouldst thou suffer euen in thy cradle what my sins deserued and what shall I eÌ„dure for thee in my Pilgrimage O mother who hast carryed this prety Pilgrim in a strange couÌ„try who hast suffered with him nursed weaned him who can conceaue the care the Charity the zeale the diligence the seruices thou didst eÌ„ploy in these seaueÌ„ years thou wert in Aegypt faithfully to nourish bring vp this litle God cloathed in the sackcloth of our mortality The goodly example thou gauest of all vertues to that people blacker in their superstitioÌ„ then in their coÌ„plexion O B. Virgin that after thy exaÌ„ple I might serue my God not now like a Pilgrime suffering in Aegypt but as a Conquerour triuÌ„phing in heauen It is I that am in Aegypt this valley of affliction where I haue need of his visit and help and of thyne O fauourable Virgin help thy Pilgrimes and deuotes The seauen yeares of this Pilgrimage being expired Herod in Iudaea being dead and the Lyon of Aegypt being buried the Angell of God aduertiseth Ioseph in his sleep to returne into Palestine The returne of Iesus to Palestine and because Archelaus the sonne of Herod successour both of his crowne and cruelty reigned in Iudaea he retyred himselfe from Galiley vnto the Citty of Nazareth where the little child Father of all ages seauen years old in his humanity was brought vp by his Mother and
encouraged him further with the greatest shew of friend ship that I could and counsailed him to make a vow to our Lady of Loreto which he did most hartily and departed for that time In the morning which was yesterday How he found an occasion to escape the sixth day of the moneth and the seauenth of my taking and imprisonment a little before dinner he came with more secrecy than before and told me that towardes night the troupe would dislodge from that place by reason of a rumour they had heard of certaine men of warre which were come to buckle with them and how to that end they had sent forth some to discouer the matter and this quoth he is I hope the occasion which I watch for to saue my selfe and whereof you may also help your selfe for in the night if there happen any encounter it is easy to take either party yea quoth I if we be not surprised and entrapped by the enemies I cannot quoth he fall into the handes of any enemies whome I feare so much as these being that these do often kill both body and soule As we were vpon these termes the boy of my chamber brought me a loaf a peece of biefe for my dinner Tristram went out of my chamber I passed all that after dinner in prayers and sighes desiring of God light and direction that in so dangerous a company I might do nothing against his honour and that if I should suffer any thing it might be without my fault and with perseuerance in his holy loue I prayed also hartily for good Tristram that he might happily ridde himselfe from those bandes for all the troupe that God would inspire their mynd to liue better About two of the clocke they dispatched spies to diuers places to haue intelligence of the souldiers comming whome they feared about seauen a clocke came those whome they had sent before saying for certaine there were souldiers in the field who came directly to that place The Captaine thought it dangerous to stay there any longer The theeues forsake their sort he caused the Trumpet to be sounded low through all the Castle and all about euery one heard the alarme and was ready The boye of my chamber came to call me and brought me to a stable where they brought me a Curtali sadled with a sadle of warre and well furnished and bad me mount without saying any more or giuing me any weapons I mounted guirded with my Pilgrimes weed with my beads which I had about my necke for a scarfe and my Pilgrimes staffe euery man laughed to see such a Lance-Knight and so resolute in their company so we parted in hast without our supper and walked foure houres in great silence often staying to harken or attend one another we wrought our way through very thicke woodes and hard to trauerse and were many tymes fayne to passe a row in little by-paths where six men in ambushment might haue defeated vs all I marked and so did almost all the souldiers certaine sparkes of fire blew tending towardes greene which appeared in the ayre and ouer the heades of euery one and very neere like to the wormes which shine in the month of May where we dwell some tooke this for a presage of good fortune as Mariners when they see any such light which they call the Starre of the Sea appeare in the obscurity of any furious tempest for my part I did interpret it a signe from heauen menacing and warning euery one to looke to his conscience and me thought it was a Synderesis or naturall light which was signifyed by these sparkes which is giuen by God to euery sinner to make him see that he doth ill and to bite his conscience About midnight we came to Millet whether you went to heare nowes of me we went from thence and tooke a little refection insteed of a supper and fed well our horses About morning when our Captaine saw the tyme of departing approached he called me and sayd with a merry countenance My good friend Pilgrime what thinke you of this kind of life My Captaine quoth I in truth it seemeth to me very painefull and this great labour deserueth to be employed about some good subiect He replyed are you resolued to sight if necessity driueth vs to it Captaine quoth I if it be to fight with the Diuell I haue good courage and am well armed for the purpose with my beads and staffe to breake his hornes If your courage serue you to encounter to puissant an enemy quoth the Captaine I do not thinke you will runne away from men and because I haue a good opinion of your valour I will put you in another attiâ—e furnish you with weapons for it is not meet you should be with vs in this array And commanding me to put off my prigtimes weed he brought me a souldierly suite that Theodosiu attyred like a souldier wherein you saw me enter to assault the Fort wherein you were in garrison with the Hare your Centinell Lazarus and Vincent laughed but I laughed not quoth Theodosius hearing my Captaine say thus but I was put into an extreme perplexity fearing on the one side to be brought to some ill exigent to loose either coÌ„science or honour dying with such people I stood resolued rather to loose all thinges then do any thing vnworthy a Pilgrime of Loreto or an honest Gentleman I answered my Captaine that he should haue no dishonour by my seruice with which answere he was content and Tristram more who attended the houre when the Captaine should do that act The host of the lodging tooke my staffe my cassocke and my cloake of him I thinke the Pilgrime bought it my beades I kept Then Lazarus lifting vp his handes to heauen I thanke the diuine goodnes sayth heâ— that a little before this your great affliction he presented you vnto myne eyes that I might pray for you for about this midnight past I dreamed that you were before me desolate desyring my prayers and I leaped off my bed asking Vincent if any body were in our Chamber Theodosius escapeth out of then company I remember it very well quoth Vincent From thence we came into the wood sayth Theodosius following his tale where you saw vs soaring and coasting attending for newes from our spies that were sent forth the man you saw slaine was a poore Merchant that passed that way whome two foot-men spoiled and left halfe dead whereof one was taken this day noted by the dog as you saw And as we stayed all our spies with one accord did assure vs that the Prouost-Marshall was at hand and a great company with him We fled apace whetâ—er our Captaine lead vs by good fortune my horse running with a great swiftnes entred on the left hand among certaine rootes of an old Oake halfe bare and vncouered stumbled so rudely as he cleane brake his legge and cast me vpon
of a good man as of the Hermites who in those times lyued in those desarts Also that he assailed our Sauiour where he thought he was weakest by hunger and principally in that he demanded but a small matter The sweet pretences of the Diuell and that as it seemed reasonable to wit to turne stones into bread to help his present necessity So he maketh his hole little to enter in subtilty and with greater ease So for one bit of an Apple he destroyed man so also he asketh at the Witches handes but a haire of their head Genes 3. to tye a knot of friendship betwixt them but one veniall sinne of deuout persons but one litle imperfection of Religious men by such little pathes to draw them at last to destruction And as therefore Queene Semirami◠hauing obtayned of her sonne the king of the Assyrians to raigne but one day Dion de rebus perficis tooke from him his crowne and his life euen so this our aduersary if he become maister but once by one mortall sinne depriueth vs at last of the kingdome of heauen Lazarus also learned of our Sauiour how to resist the malice of this enemy Diod. Sicul l. 3. c. vlt. which is in not giuing him any aduantage though neuer so smal but repelling him euery where and in euery thing for such is the aduice of the Apostle saying Giue not place vnto the Diuel Phil. 4. Our Sauiour serued by Angells And so he was sent away with shame he that was tempted by the wicked Angels was at the last serued of the good shewing vs that after the victory we shall be admitted to the table of God filled with delightes and crowned with the garland of glory Thus meditated Lazarus and said vnto our Sauiour O prudent puissant Captaine giue me the grace to vse those weapons wherewith thou hast ouercome to teach vs how we also should ouercome For thy selfe there was no necessity of this triall or victory heauen and earth knew full well that thou with thy Almighty power wast stronge inough to reiect thyne enemy And turning to our B. Lady O vailant warriour saith he who hast in this warre ouercome thy sexe To the B. Virgin and the valour of the most valiant Amazones that euer were who didst first crush the head of our enemy this old serpent take me O heauenly warriour vnto thy protection arme me in the warre of thy Sonne with his weapons and thine direct me in this combat that I may vse myne arme after his and thine example that vnder thy defence I may get the victory and that to him and to thee for the loue of him may redound the glory of my warfare 1. An admirable combat 2. A Pilgrime togeather with Serpents nourished by a stone 3. The foundation of dreames 4. The three bandes of the world 5. How to chuse a Religion 6. The end of worldly ioy CHAP. XII SVCH was the meditation and prayer of Lazarus Theodosius and Vincent held the same points with other veines of deuotion Their prayers ended they tooke a draught of wine and would haue reckoned with their Host but he sayd he would haue none of their siluer himselfe was rather in their debt and so put in their hand the Crowne which the Merchant had left the night before for their supper of which himselfe would take nothing but restored it whole to them as their owne They desired him to bestow it on other Pilgrimes that passed that way or on the poore saying they had God be thanked good prouision thanking him very hartily for his charity they departed very well cōtent and he remained much edified with their piety and deuotion After they had sayd their prayers for their iourney and their beads they began to discourse of their meditation whereupon Lazarus sayd he had had that night a dreame that was all of warre and wild beastes He affirmed moreouer that this tentation was the most liuely and goodly patterne of a combat that could be represented An admirable cōbat as contayning therein the manner well to assault valiantly to resist and ouercome Doe not you marke sayth he how this old Dragon disguiseth himselfe into the forme of a man and of an honest man How craftily he directed his battery The Diuell tēpteth our Sauiour in a holy habit to that place which he thought weakest easiest to enter at assailing hunger with the hooke and enticement of gluttony changing his weapons according to occasions from the desart to the Temple from the Temple to the toppe of the mountaine heere battering with guns of Gormandise there with presumption and after of ambition and auarice and still in euery one shewing himselfe a maligne and impudent assaulter See you on the other side our good Redeemer couered with the cloke of our infirme nature suffering himselfe to be carryed by his enemy to bring him to confusion See you how his great humility quickly pulled out the eyes of pride which appeared by the second assault when Sathan sayd vnto our Sauiour If thou beest the sonne of God cast thy selfe downe Which was the discourse of a distracted spirit ioyning a conclusion of phrensy to an Antecedent of Diuinity for it is as if he had sayd Thou art Almighty do therefore an act of extreme infirmity for that to precipitate himselfe is an act of a base and cowardly hart he should rather haue sayd if thou beest the sonne of God fly vp to heauen or demand some such thing which might haue shewed some worthy proofe of such power and might haue made some reasonable illation And do you not thinke that our Challengers haue been at the schoole of this distracted Skirmisher Against Chalengers when pricked with a point of honour as they cal it but in truth with a point of some phrensy they send letters of defiance to their enemies in these termes If thou beest an honest man come try a sword with me that is come shew a tricke of dastardy and cast thy selfe downe togeather with me into euerlasting death and ignominy And should we not answere to the humming of such a hornet Go thy wayes ill aduised fond fellow because I am an honest man Duellists I detest thy defiance as a summon proceeding out of the mouth of a frantike man or scholler of Sathan and the Diuells disciple not a Christian Caualier Moreouer what shame think you receaued this King of the children of pride when becōming yet in the second encounter more blind and presuming of the victory in the third he was reiected with these byting wordes Get thee gone Sathan pronounced with disdaine and anger of our victorious Sauiour of whome he would haue beene adored on both knees In truth quoth Vincent it was a meruailous combat in euery respect and the victory notable as also these two were the greatest Captains that euer were the one in power and wisedome the other in strength and malice as I
then dye to heauen reuiue As the Hermit said these things and they entred further within the wood a great lion came vpon them with most terrible roring the Pilgrims and the good porter were seized with an extreme feare and Lazarus thought this had been the day of his funerall but the Hermit knew presently that it was the Diuell in likenes of a lion he made the signe of the Crosse and the lion vanished Then they came to a litle Oratory of S. Anthony whither this good old man was wont to walke his station where kneeling downe and saying Pater noster and Aue and demaunding the intercession of the Saint he aduertised them to take the right hand when they were out of the wood and to lodge if they could at the Conuent of the Charterhouse monks called Bon-heur The CoÌ„uent of Bon-heur which was six leagues of and weeping he kissed them all three and bad them farewell with his benediction as they did him and his companion with a thousand thanks After they had done the deuotions of the day they kept silence a while walking on Lazarus thought of that the good Hermit had told him of his funerals as also vpon the verses written in the paper He thought that his funerals should be the lamentation of them who would be grieued that he should dye to the world in leauing it and that the same afterward should be comforted but he was troubled to penetrat the sense of the verse yet he did interpret the last day the death which he so much desired if it were the good pleasure of God but he could not accord the resurrection of the dead without dying nor their funerals How saith he shall the dead see one another after their funerals It shall be then in heauen after they are dead vpon earth such a sense did he finde for these foure verses When they had walked somwhile without saying a word they beganne to discourse of diuers things pleasant and pious Vincent had alwayes ready in his mouth some pretty iest and often touched Theodosius and so they marched all that day without disturbance but at night they found themselues in a pecke of troubles For being entred into a great forrest wherin they thought to haue seene the Conuent of Bon-heur and hauing entred a good way in without fynding any issue after many turnings and returnings they were ouertaken with night and must needs staye whereat they were much amazed for they were very weary and faint and had but one lofe and a litle wine left and which troubled them most was that they found themselues in this solitary forrest in euident danger of wolues and other wild beasts So vpon their knees they coÌ„mended themselues to God and the glorious Virgin to S. Iohn Bapt. S. Anthony S. Bruno crauing their help in this necessity In praying they seemed to heare a voice saying Get vpon the tree There were hard by diuers great Oakes and two especially very commodious to rest vpon and easy to clime they chose one Lazarus first made Theodosius Vincent ascend and helped them with his shoulders and bad them tye a cord which they had to a high branch of the tree to help himself vp after them he reached them all their three staues and holding the cord he mounted last clasping and clyming very nymbly they placed theÌ„selues as high as they could about 20. foote from the ground and found many branches of the greater boughs which serued for formes to sit or sleep vpon without daunger they eat a litle bread they had and some peares and dranke the litle wine was left in their botle The repast ended VinceÌ„t said now behold we are lodged at the signe of the oake the Sar vpon a higher stage iwis by much then we were foure dayes since in the green castle with the hare But if it raineth what shall we doe We wil doe answered Theodosius as they doe in Normandy And what doe they there replied Vincent They let it raine quoth Theodosius After such prety deuises of honest recreation they sayd their Litanies by hart made their examen of conscieÌ„ce sayd their beads and commended themselues to the protection of God the B. Virgin and of their good Angell with the best deuotion they could It was about two houres after sunne set the sky was very cleare and many starres did shine the moone was in the first quarter so that they might see reasonably in the shadowes of the night Theod sius and Vincent slept but Lazarus neuer shut his eyes but tooke singular pleasure in the present occasion of suffring somewhat for the loue of God in beholding the heauens and starres he drew matter to admire and praise the Creatour of those goodly creatures which he beheld with great atteÌ„tion Psal 18.1 often repeating in his hart the words of King Dauid The heauens do declare the glory of God and the firmament doth shew the works of his hands he saw the signe of Libra that of the great Serpent approching toward the south which shewed that the sunne being then in the 21. degree of Taurus for it was the 11. of May had already dispatched halfe of his course vnder the horizon of the Antipodes and that it was about 11. clocke A horrible spectacle As he was fixed in the consideration of these heauenly bodies there was presented before his eyes a horrible spectacle for he saw by the moone light a man accoÌ„panyed with a woman who caried in the aire lighted like two flying owles vnder the oake next to the Pilgrims This fellow hauing made a great circle with a wand he had in his haÌ„d muÌ„bling certaine words which he seemed to read in a booke he caused to appeare also two other women with a Goate of a monstrous bignes and falshion carying betwixt his hornes a light candle which seemed to be of some black stuffe like pitch the light burning blew somewhat blackish in the same instant he saw arriue diuers persons men and women yong and old to the number of 66. euery one bringing their candle which they must light at the goates candle doing him homage and kissing vnder his taile Lazarus perceiued streight that it was an assembly of Sorcerers remembring what at other times he had read and heard remeÌ„bring withall that it was Friday a day which the Diuell detesteth aboue all other and dishonoureth all he can and namely by such assemblies 11. a nuÌ„ber of â—ll signification and a marke of sinne as the Church doth honour with holy ceremonies to be a memoriall of our Sauiours victory gotten against these infernall troupes the houre was also suspicious for at eleuen of the clock in the night a number of misfortune and a marke of sinne the Diuell hath a custome to do his solemne abhominations and the number of persons 66. that is 6. S. Aug. l. 15. de ciu c. 20. times eleuen did agree to that of the time Theodosius Vincent
our fayth Demand of humane reason and of philosophy if a mans body deuoured by beasts or turned into ashes can rise againe to life They will tell you that it is impossible and will mocke at the Resurrection as hertofore did Epicurus and the Philosophers of his schoole as also your ministers do mocke other mysteries of our fayth namely that of the Altar the truth wherof they impugne saying that one body can not be in diuers places that it caÌ„not be without occupying place without being seene and touched which are reasons drawn raw from philosophy which hath onely the eyes of nature not of fayth which teacheth that God is mightier then nature That he is faythfull to performe what he had sayd Now it is he that sayd This is my body then although by the lawes of nature a body could not be in diuers places yet it may by the power of God EueÌ„ so to touch the point of our purpose although a mans body cannot naturally liue without his entrailes yet by the power of God and by miracle it may And what will you say Ios Acost hist lid lib. 3. cap. 23. if I shall adde that a man whome the Paynims in Mexico did sacrifice these yeares past did speake after they pulled out his hart And if you receiue not this history will you belieue what a great Physician affirmeth to haue happened hertofore Galen lib. 2. de Placit that diuers beasts that were to be sacrificed and cast vpon the Aultar did breath cry and rore aloud yea also runne sometime after their harts were taken out The Physician by the way sayd this is very true our Galen hath left it in writing Arist. de gen aâ—iâ—t lib. 2. c. 4. And yet sayd Lazarus proceeding Philosophy teacheth that the hart is the fountaine of life and the part that liueth first and dyeth last in the bodies of beasts Now whether you belieue these testimonies or no it importeth not much at the least you should belieue that God can make a man liue speake and walke without entrayles though humane reason and nature should say that by their lawes it could not be And if you had rather follow reason then religioÌ„ which teacheth that God can do all things you must also confesse that you had rather be a Philosopher then a Christian Thus farre Lazarus The eyes of all the company were fastened on him and there ranne through the table a soft and sweet noise and rumour euery one praising his discourse as full of learning eloquence The Abbot asked the Tutour if he had any thing to reply he answered No for that he should gaine nothing all the company being contrary to his Religion and that he would neuer belieue these miracles Then it is want of faith quoth the Abbot yea quoth the Phisician and of some things els besides Tony marking the man to be amazed could not hold his peace but sayd vnto him Cime thou maist take horse when thou wilt and saue thy self thou hast thy bootes full thy spurres on did I not tell thee so much But what thou hast no fayth The Vicount had beene very attentiue all supper long taking singular pleasure in the discourse contenance of Lazarus and sayd in his Cousins eare behold a worthy Pilgrime your maister in my opinion had rather be some where els I would quoth he that he were at the Garamantes so I had neuer seene him and vpon these termes euery man rose from the table sauing Monsieur Marquesse and Monsieur S. Leo who discoursed sometime together with the Pilgrimes and forget not to entreat Lazarus to tell them his country and his kindred he answered in generall that his country was not farre of and his parentage small modestly concealed the lustre of his house They pressed him no further doubting that he had made a vow not to make himselfe knowne So they tooke leaue as well of the Marquesse and the Abbot as of Monsieur Vicount the Baron and their cousin that they might not be constrayned to attend till they rose in the morning which would be late as also to be free to depart betymes Euery man did his endeauour to stay them the next day or longer but they could not preuayle The Vicount and the Baron and diuers others accompanyed them to their chamber and hauing talked a while they imbraced them for their farewell with a great demonstration of loue and friendship and the Baron holding Lazarus hard told him that he would remember him as long as he liued but told him not what he had already resolued in his mynd They being alone made their examen sayd the Letanies and tooke for their morning Meditation the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin and the subiect of the glory of Paradise The fourtith day and the tenth and last of his Returne 1. The desires and deliberation of a deuoute soule 2. A Meditation of the glorious Assumption of the B. Virgin 3. Of the glory of Paradise CHAP. XXIV THE Baron being gone to bed all kindled with the discourse of Lazarus The desires and deliberation of a deuout soule could not sleep being tossed with the violence of his cogitations that tormented him and spake to himselfe in this manner whereon thinkest thou yong man and why takest thou not the way of glory which God hath shewed thee now many yeares What dost thou expect of the world â—ariest thou for some misfortunate end of thy life such as thou didst escape narrowly in this hunting If thou h dst died by the tuske of the wild Bore who killed thy horse in what estate preparation hadst thou left this mortall life And with what rigour had thy poore soule going out of her body loaden with her sinnes beene conuented before the tribunall of the diuine and supreme iustice And seest thou not that this good God let thee fall into this danger to make thee feare and hath deliuered thee by these holy Pilgrimes to shew thee what thou shouldest do to auoyd the iawes of that internall Lion that expected there to haue thee in couert of his holy house What expectest thou in thy vocation of this earthly warfare What caÌ„st thou gayne more then the friendship of some earthly Prince and the recompence of some humane and flittering fauour and how deare shalt thou buy it How easily shalt thou lose it And if being once gotten it would last all thy life yet what is it in respect of those goods those riches of that immortall glory which thou shalt get following the seruice of this great King who hath long inuited thee to his Court by threats by promises by secret inspirations and by a thousand fayre warnings wherby he knocketh day and night at the doore of thy hardned hart After he had long debated this matter with these and like discourses he fell a sleepe and sleeping had this vision He thought he was caryed into heauen A vision of Paradise where
of earth for that her defences are but bottoms and hils of errour and pride The first founder made himself vassall and tributary to a Titant for Selfeloue all the burgesses of that citty are alwayes rebels to God tributary to the Diuell him they haue loued to him they haue bowed their knee though a tyrant of all tyrāts the most cruell that euer was seeke help of him against their God The fundamentall lawes of that Citty are those fiue I touched before the first for each man to loue himself The laws of selfe-loue and the world and euery thing for himselfe for the humour of the world worldly men is to affect onely their owne particular profit hauing clean banished out of their hart the loue of God and their neighbour The 2. to haue no Religion to vse and abuse all for their temporall commodity this is to too much verified by the experience of all the children of this world whose common custome is to make Religion a pretext of their designements and to make vse of the name of God for their owne glory very hypocrites and sacrilegious impostors To haue no Religion To authotize vice and disgrace vertue The 3. to cast down vertue and set vice aloft according to this law the world prayseth those that liue in delights as most happy and the pleasures of the body as the ioyes of felicity It cōmendeth the couetous as prudent to aduance further their own affaires It bosteth of the ambitious calling them men of valour and courage and therefore it is that this Citty is filled with the brood of these families To sow discord all great courtiers of Mere-folly The 4. is to loue and sow dissention and to entertaine subiects with false reports calumniations and other malicious meanes thinking that by their discord and debility their estate should be strong and firme And as the Kingdom of God is peace and charity and his spirit is to nourish and mainteine peace so the Kingdome of the Diuell the estat of the world is trouble hatred the spirit of the world is to make discord when there is question to do euill To promise riches The 5. is to entice deceiue men by the promise of riches honours which passe vanish so many abused do perceiue whē they come to dy though late that all they haue gotten is but shadowes dreames Psal 75.6 The rich men saith Dauid haue slept their sleep in the end found nothing in their hands They haue passed this life as a dream resting themselues on the saffran bed of their riches and at the end haue found their braines troubled with fumes their hands empty of good workes their conscience loaden with sinnes These are the lawes of this world and of this Citty And as her lawes are but disorders so is her fayth perfidiousnes her end nothing els but to ruine her acquaintance and to send them to the slaughter that serue her best and are most faithful vnto her will you see this Cast the eyes of your memory vpon the histories of all ages passed how many gallants hath she precipitated into confusion after they had a while runne the race of their vanity in the sight of men How many hath she most miserably strangled that had to her performed most faithfull seruice Was there euer any that more honoured or better serued her then the Assuerus Caesars Alexanders Pompeies Neroes Diocletians Decians and other like Princes and Lords of her Court great admirers of her maiesty sighing seeking nor breathing any thing els but her greatnes hath she not made them all dye death euerlasting Thousands see this at euery moone and euery day but the world is such a cosener that it bereaueth mortall men of their senses and men are so foolish and simple that stil they suffer themselues to be seduced by her gaudies present delights so that they honour and serue her as their soueraigne Lord not able to open their eyes to behold eyther the misfortune of others or their own danger nor their eares to heare the voice of the iustice of God who threatneth them The good mixed with the bad in this world and perseuer in such sort vntill they be ouerwhelmed in the ditches of their enemie without help or hope euer to come out Now God who is our soueraigne King will ruinate this Citty raze it to the ground for he must iudge the world drench the obstinate but because there be diuers of his owne seruāts amongst these sinners as of Lots in Sodome he doth not yet exterminate the world but expecting in fauour of the good and by patience inuiting sinners to pennance in the tyme of mercy not to incurre at the day of iudgement the seuerity and rigour of his eternall iustice This is the Citty of which I told you yesterday out of the which by the grace of God you haue beene long since sequestred and shall be yet more if you be good Pilgrims as I esteeme you Thus did the Hermit expound his Allegory often looking vp to heauen and sighing The Pilgrims heard him with great attention and contentment their way seemed short Lazarus seeing him hold his peace sayd vnto him My reuerend Father you haue set before our eyes a wholsome picture of the Citty of this world and of the vanities of worldly men you haue bound vs in eternall benefit we desire to be bound vnto you also for your praiers and to obtaine for vs of our Lord that as he hath already drawn vs from the snares of this deceifull world so that he would giue vs grace to perseuer vnto the end in his loue and feare He will do it sayth the Hermit do only what is in you walk on euery day from good to better like good Pilgrims be perfect before him and you shall come by Gods grace to your desired country The B. Virgin whome you serue will help you with the assistance of her praiers the holy Apostles our good Fathers the Hermits S. Iohn S. Paul S. Anthony S. Hilarion S. Bruno and others who haue trampled vpon the world with the feet of constancy lyuing in the deserts as Pilgrims vpon the earth will procure you ayd happily to finish your course You haue yet som way to dispatch and some crosses to endure you shall passe not without paine and trauaile but with the profit of your soules As for you Lazarus you shall be lamented of many and your funerals shall be kept before your death and those that shall most mourne for you shall be most comforted in your fortune and that you may the better remember what I haue foretold you keep this and gaue him a litle paper folded like a letter conteining these foure verses At that fayre Day the last which you desire Two dead reuiu'd without death shall ech other see And being seene after their funerals kept Shall to the world