Priesthood and chayre of Moses striking also at the Priests and high Priest he saith onely Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees hypocrites The outward acts of divine service being performed in the old Law by way of shadow and figure and with resemblance and relation to the perfection of the new Law and being as it were the first lineaments of perfection we may not think that God would Levit. 11. have excluded the Swan out of the sacred number of his victimes without a firme and solid reason He was not tempted with the choyce cleannesse of her feathers nor with her fore-stalling of death and singing her owne obsequies but because her skinne the root of her feathers and her flesh and entrals the organs of her musick were black he rejected her as an uncleane creature not worthy to teach the world The Ostrich likewise was esteemed profane and never admitted into Gods holy Temple because notwithstanding all his great and glorious furniture of feathers he cannot lift his dull and drossie body above the ground The Moone shineth but because it doth not heat it is not suffered to shine by day It is the property of good to shrowd and cover it selfe God the chiefest good though he filleth heaven and earth with his glory yet he will not be seene Christ though he was perfect God and equall to his Father yet nothing was ordinarily seene in him but a poore homely man Who ever saw the soul of a man his onely jewell as he is a man Christ said to his Apostles Yee are the light of the world And againe Let your light so Math. 5. 4 Ver. 16. shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in Heaven It must be light and therefore a true light not a counterfeit and seeming light it must be your light every mans owne light it must be a light by which men may see not onely the good light it selfe but also our good works by the light and it must shine onely to the end that our heavenly Father may be glorified All light is commonly said to be derived from the Sun and the cause of all our shining must be alwayes referred and attributed to God And truly when a man for example giveth almes kindled onely with an intention that his neighbour seeing him may glorifie his Father which is in Heaven his intention is cleane and sufficiently good but he must be a man of proofe that giveth place to such intentions for he lieth wide open to the ticklings of vaine-glory and hypocrisie But I feele a scruple Good example is highly vertuous and in some sort worthy of reward especially in persons of eminent quality because good example is more seene more admired and goes with more credit and authority in them and therefore doth more edifie in respect of the high conceit wee have of their wisedome and knowledge Now the hypocrite teacheth as forcibly by example as the sound and throughly vertuous man For we learne in the great Theater of example by what wee outwardly see and the hypocrite is as outwardly faire as the sincere Christian It seemeth now that an hypocrite doth please God in playing the hypocrite Not so because his intention is crooked for he doth not intend to bring an encrease of good to others but of glory to himselfe If good by chance break in upon his action it falleth besides his intention and it belongeth to Gods providence as to it 's proper fountain which crusheth good out of evill As likewise the prodigall man when hee giveth prodigally to the poore doth not intend to fulfill the law of God but to satisfie his owne wilde lust of giving St. John Baptist was a lamp burning and shining Which moved St. Bernard to say Ardere parum lucere vanum lucere ardere perfectum It is S. Bern. in Serm de nativ S. Io. Bapt. a small thing to burne only a vaine thing to shine onely a perfect thing to both shine and burne Nothing is more naturally proper to the fire then to burne and in the instant in which it first burns it gives light Which is the cause of those golden words in Synesius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Synes Contra Androm It is the nature of God to do good as of the fire to heat or burne and of the light to give light CHAP. 17. ANd certainly if we search with a curious and piercing eye into the manners of men we shall quickly finde that false Prophets and Deceivers are commonly more queint more various and more polished in their tongues and publike behaviour then God's true and faithfull Messengers who conforme themselves to the simplicity of the Gospel And if we looke neere the matter God prefigured these deceitfull creatures in the creation for hee hath an admirable way of teaching even by every creature it being the property of a cruell beast called the Hyaena to faine the voyce of a man But when the silly Shepheard commeth to his call he ceases to be a man teares him presently and preys upon him Each Testament hath a most fit example Ioab said to Amasa the head of Absolons Army Art thou in health my Brother Could danger lurk under the faire name of 2 Sam. 20. 9. Brother or could death hide it selfe under health a perfection of life They could and did For Ioab making forward to kisse him killed him and robbed him both of health and life whom hee had even now saluted with Art thou in health my Brother Surely he did not think of Cain when hee call'd him Brother Judas came to Christ and saying God save thee Master Math. 26. 49. kissed him Hee talks of God and of Salvation God save thee Hee confesses Christ to be his Master Hee kisses too And yet in the same act gives him up into the busie hands of his most deadly enemies Wherefore St. Ambrose one that had a practicall knowledge of the great difference of Spirits which hee had seene in their actions disswading us from the company and conversation of these faith Impostors saith Nec S. Ambr. vos moveat quod formam praetendere videntur humanam nam etsi foris homo cernitur intus bestia fremit let it not move you that they beare outwardly the likenesse and similitude of men for without a man appeareth but within a beast rageth And that which St. Hierome saith of a quiet Sea is of the same colour with the conceit of St. Ambrose Intùs inclusum est periculum intùs est hostis S. Hier ep ad Heliodor the danger is shut up within within is the Enemy like a rock watching under a calme water St. Cyprian adviseth us to betake our selves presently to our feet and fly from them Simus ab eis tam seperati quà m sunt illi de Ecclesia profugi Let us fly as farre S. Cypr. in ep 3. lib. 1. from them as they have flowne from the purity of
Aetatis suee 33 Psal. 27. 4. One thing have I desired of the Lord that will I seeke after that I may dwell in the House of the Lord all the dayes of my life V. 6. And now shall mine head be lifted up above mine Enemies round about me Quod innuebat facio non quod Volebat Mitto te in Angliam ad pascendos Catholicos et Haereticos reducendos W. Marshall sculpsit 1641 THE Downfal of Anti-christ OR A treatise wherin is plainly discover'd 1. That the Pope is Anti-Christ and that Rome is Babilon 2. The severall deceitfull workings and enticing means that the Babilonish whore hath used to intoxicate the Kingdomes of the Earth with the wine of her fornication as likewise what Agents have been sent into great Brittain and Ireland for this end 3. Probable conjectures that the Anti-Christian party have seene their best dayes and that the Popish Relion and all the power of Rome shall more and more decay throughout all the Churches of Europe as it is foreshewed by those symtomes of death that are to be found in the limbes of that man of sin which may be so many Predictions unto us that he is giving up the Ghost that all these Commotions that he hath raised in England Scotland and Ireland are but the pangs of dying Popery amongst us 4. That the destruction and exterpation of Anti-Christ shall make way for the setting up the Kingdome of our Lord Jesus Christ in its glory and beauty which alone is that which maketh a People or a Nation truely happy Babilon is fallen is fallen Revel 14. 8. By R. C. an unworthy admirer of these things Printed at London for Iohn Stafford 1644. TO THE HONOVRABLE House of Commons assembled in Parliament MAy it please you who are called by the Superiour Powers both in Heaven and Earth to bring into the light abscondita tenebrarum the hidden things of darknesse to cast your eys down upon the ground where you shall finde lying in a corner a poore man tossed by the course of the World from Darknesse to Obscurity There is nothing more eminent and more admirable in God than his Providence And therefore no instruments are more glorious than the instruments which hee employeth in the setting forth and illustration of it I had great reason to feare because through all the chances and changes of my life some kinds of darknesse did still haunt me that I should never have appeared in the perfect light till I should have come to the light of Heaven But animated with the reflexion of your countenance I shall have better hopes O yee good and great Protestors against the pride and prophanenesse of the Church of Rome Ponder I most humbly beseech you the mayn things that I have learned from the mouthes of Popish Priests beyond the Seas where every man speaks freely which in part are these First that their number in England is so great and the Houses of all Papists who are able to goe under the burden so ful they cannot but with much hardnes live by one another And it must needs be so For the man is of little account amongst them that will not mayntaine a Priest and many receive many Secondly That they convey many thousands of pounds every yeare to their Houses For the Bodies resident in their Houses are such that the parts are either all homogeneous and of the same kinde as all Iesuits all Monks all Friars and these have great Reliefe sent them from England or heterogeneous and of a different kind as Iesuits and Scholers and these are sustained by Lands or by Pensions where the Scholers are set apart for Priesthood as in Rome Sevill Valladolid to other places as to their Colledges of Saint Omers and Doway a very great part of their meanes and maintenance comes out of England And that for this purpose and the safe passage of their Goers and Cemmers young and old the Iesuits are Masters of a Ship furnished with many kinds of Colours and many sorts of Countrimen in which Ship I my selfe should have passed Thirdly that banished out of England going from one Port they must presently return to another because their Priestly Function hath not leave from the Pope to apply it selfe to action and exercise but in the Dominions of England Scotland and Ireland and so their Faculties run And their places of Residence in other Countries are loaded Fourthly that they win souls to them every day in England and almost in all parts of it hoping greatly to undermine us by little and little and grow up wee not minding them to the greater number Wherefore they are strangely cunning in their carriages taking the shapes of Physicians that in a more covert manner they may visit the sick which as the generall voice goes was acted in my poore parish a little before I came to it and the effect was that the woman died a papist who had lived a protestant and her husband soon after made a papist and rewarded by a great person with a service And the habits of Beggars Souldiers Captains and of Countrymen bearing long staves upon their necks And they will be Servingmen too if occasion give way And there is scarce a House that looks like a House which they have not fitted with private doores and conveyances Fiftly that the Iesuits have two Houses in England one in London known to them by the name of Saint Ignatius another in the Country called Saint Xaverius his House And that both the Iesuits Monks and Friers have received Novices which have wore their Habits and performed their Novice-ships even in England And that the Bishop of Chalcedon in the time of his abode heere ordained Priests And that they are or have bin furnished with secret presses under ground for the printing of Books Thus farre in the first encounter I doe charge the Popish Priests of England having truly faithfully and religiously brought them as witnesses against themselves And if men may be judged out of their Serve nequam ex tuo ipsius ore judicaberis own mouthes as one was judged by the Iudge himselfe they may be likewise accused out of their owne mouthes because right judgement proceedeth according to just accusation And when men of these darke ways men of pragmaticall and working heads are also bold what will they not dare to endevour What will they leave unattempted And are they not very bold when Franciscus à sancta Clara a man of a holy name because hee named himself but a subtil one and of my old acquaintance durst vent the relikes of his old Dictates in a forme bending us and the profession of our Faith by which we are entitled to Heaven to a Reconciliation with them And this being done follow mee almost to my owne doores in the Country and having took his standing in a great House neer me give matter and heart to his evill Instruments to dishonour me and make a sport and scorne of
in the streets with a lamentable voyce Good Sir for Gods sake pitty these poore fatherlesse children ready to starve one is hungry and another 1 Cor. 11. 21. is drunken And the great end of the Creator was to supply necessity and the necessity of every creature And Sobriety and Temperance are faire vertues which even the Glutton and Drunkard doe praise and magnifie If wee turne aside into the Church-yard wee shall finde it a dry time there There are no merry meetings under ground no musick no dancing no songs no jesting company Every body sleepes there and therefore there is no noise at all Perhaps indeed as men passe to the Church or to their places in the Church they point to such a Grave and say There lyes a drunkard hee is sober enough now but much against his will And thus his memory is as loathsome to all good people and those who passe by his Grave to their devotions as his rottennesse These representations winned me to think that the Practitioners in this Art of Beastlinesse could not be of any Religion because S. James bindeth Religion downe to practice Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is Iam. 1. 27. this To visit the fatherlesse and widowes in their affliction and to keepe himselfe unspotted from the world But although I had learned in some sort to compound I had not yet learned to distinguish CHAP. 8. MY second Reason of joyning hands with the Church of Rome was because I framed to my selfe the imagination of an excellent Sanctity and a spotlesse Recollection of life in their Orders of Religion And my thoughts fed upon this and the like matter The last end of man and his Creation is Blessednesse being the vision or fruition of God which is an eternall Sabbath or an everlasting day of rest in him And therefore the soule of man which bendeth towards this end chiefly desireth rest For God would not I had almost said could not create man for an end and not imprint in him a strong desire of it Heavy things belonging to earth will not of themselves move towards Heaven nor yet stay loytering betwixt Heaven and Earth unlesse arrested and held by force but haste to the center of the world the earth their true place of being in which and in which onely they take their naturall rest And the nigher they come to the center their soft bed of rest if we may beleeve Philosophy the more hast they make The gentle Dove before the tumult of waters began to settle could finde no place to settle in no sure no solid rest for her foot and the silly thing had not learn'd to swim This tumult of waters in the world will never end till the world ends And therefore O that I had wings like a Dove for then would Psal 55. 6. I flie away and be at rest Not feet like a Dove but wings I have gone enough I have been treading and picking upon dunghills a long while And now I would faine be flying And not hanging upon the wing and hovering over dunghills but flying away And not flying away I know not whither but to the knowne place of rest For then would I flie away and be at rest And not wings like a Hawk or Eagle to help and assist me in the destruction of others but wings like a Dove by which I may secure to my selfe the continuance of a quiet and innocent life I would looke upon the earth as God does from above I would raise my thoughts above the colde and dampish earth and fly with the white and harmlesse Dove when the fury of the waters began to be asswaged to the top of a high mountaine the mountaine of contemplation standing above the reach of the swelling waves above the stroke of thunder and where little or no winde stirreth That as our dearly-beloved Master Christ Jesus prayed upon a mountain that is sent up his flaming heart to Heaven from a mountaine yet farther was transfigured upon a mountaine that is brought downe a glimpse of the glory of Heaven to the top of a mountaine and beyond either of these ascended himselfe to Heaven from a mountaine So I dwelling upon the mountaines of Cant. 8. 14. Spices as it is in the Canticles may enjoy a sweet Heaven upon Earth and sweeten the ayre in every step for the direction of others who shall follow drawne by the sweet savour of my example And standing over the world betwixt Heaven and earth I may draw out my life in the serious contemplation of both singing with Hezechiah I will mourne as a Dove Here will Is 38. 14. I rest my weary feet and wings and my body being at rest I wil set my soul a work I will mourne as a Dove my thoughts having put themselves out of all other service and now onely waiting upon my heavenly Mate and uttering themselves not in articulate and plaine speech but in grones And at last set all on fire from Heaven I may die the death of the Phoenix in the bright flames of love towards God and man and in the sweet and delicious odours of a good life Come my beloved let us goe forth Cant. 7. 11. into the field let us lodge in the Villages Sayes the Spouse to the Bridegroome Come then my beloved O come away let us goe forth there is no safe staying here we must goe forth And pry thee sweet whither into the field you and I alone The field where is not the least murmure of noise Or if any but onely a pleasant one such musick as Nature makes caused by the singing of Birds and the bleating of Lambs that talk much in their language and are alwayes doing and yet sinne not Or if we must of urgent necessity converse with sinners if the Sun will away and black Night must come if sleepe will presse upon us and we must retire to a lodging-place heare mee and by our sweet loves deny mee not let us lodge in the villages out of the sight and hearing of learned dissimulation and false bravery where sin is not so ripe as to be impudent and where plaine-fac'd simplicity knowes not what deceit signifies In the field we shall enjoy the full and open light of the Sun and securely communicate all our secrets of love And when the Body calls to bed and sayes hee hath serv'd the soule enough for one time we may withdraw to yonder Village and there we shall embrace and cling together quietly there wee shall rest arme in arme without disturbance And do'st thou heare when we wake wee will tell our dreames how we dreamt of Heaven and how you and I met there and how much you made of me and then up and to the field againe O did men and women know what an unspeakable sweetnesse arises from our intimacie and familiarity with God and from our daily conversation with Christ What inwardly passes betwixt God and a good
When yee shall have done all those Lu. 17. 10. things which are commanded you say wee are unprofitable servants we have done that which was our dutie to doe Humilitie doth not consist in esteeming our selves the greatest sinners for then it should consist in a lye because we are not all the greatest but in esteeming our selves great sinners and ready to be the greatest if God should pull away himselfe from us and feeble workers with Gods grace Our Saviours case was different for hee was most humble yet could not esteeme himselfe a sinner O Humilitie saith Saint Bernard Quà m facilè S. Bern. vincis invincibilem How easily doest thou conquer him that is invincible For man was made to fill up the now-disturbed number of the Angels which were created some while before the World not long for it is not likely that so noble a part of the World should be long created before the whole to which it belonged They fell downe though not from the possession yet from the title of happinesse by pride Not from the possession for had they beene united to God by the Beatifical Visiō they could not have sinned and therfore not have lost it by sin Wee rising up to the seats prepared for them ascend by Humility rising by falling and falling by rising if wee rise before he raiseth us who being dead and buried was not raised but rose from death to life by his own power Pride and Humility are of contrary dispositions and moreover they worke contrarily upon the subjects in which they are lodged and are in the effect and course of their proceedings contrary even to themselves Pride was the first sin in the Angels and therefore Humilitie is the first vertue in men and all your thoughts words and actions must be steeped in it Other Vertues keepe within a compasse or only now and then goe some of them together or always or direct all Vertues outwardly in respect of the Vertues as Prudence but Humility is an ingredient in every Vertue RULE 4. IN your entrance upon every worke having first examined the motives ingredients and circumstances for one evill circumstance will corrupt the whole lumpe and poyson a good action and it is not vertuous to pray ordinarily in the streets with outward observance though it be vertuous to pray and it being now cleere to you that your intended work falleth in wholly and meeteth in the same point with Gods holy will commend it seriously to GOD. And when you goe to dinner or to bed or turne to the acts and exercises of your Vocation begin all with a cleane and pure intention for the love and honour of GOD. And even the naturall work to which your nature is vehemently carried and by which you gaine temporally being turned towards the true Loadstone and put in the way to Gods glory doth rise above nature and above it selfe and is much more gainfull spiritually as being performed not because it is agreeable with your desire but because it is conformable to the divine will And often in the performance and execution of the worke if it require a long continuance of action renew and if need bee rectifie smooth and polish your intention for being neglected it quickly groweth crooked And when you are called to a difficult work or a work that lyes thwart and strives against the current of your naturall inclination dignifie and sweeten it often with the comfortable remembrance of your most noble end And whereas wee are openly commanded so closely to carrie the good deeds of the right hand that the left hand be not of the Counsell and again to turn so much of our selves outward that our light may shine before men it is in our duty to observe the Golden Mean and keep the middle way betwixt the two Rocks Carry an even hand betvvixt your concealing your good vvorks and your being a light to others You must not conceale all neither must you shine onely Hide the inward but shew the outward not alwayes nor with a sinister intention to the left hand but to GOD and those that will bee edified Every Vertue standeth betwixt two extreames and yet toucheth neither whereof the one offendeth in excesse the other in defect The one is too couragious the other is over-dull but under the Vertue Now the Devill delighteth much to shew himselfe not in his own likenesse but in that extream which is like and more nigh to the Vertue or at least to the appearance of it as Prodigalitie is more like to Liberalitie then Covetousnesse God hath true Saints and true Martyrs which are both inside and outside The Devill hath false Saints and false Martyrs which are all outside like his fairnesse As Prudence is the Governesse of all Vertues so principally of Devotion RULE 5. KEep your heart always calme and suffer it to be stirred onely with the gentle East and West-winds of holy inspirations to zeal and vertuous anger Examine your inward motions whether they be inspirations or no before you cry come in for when God offereth an inspiration hee will stand waiting with it while you measure it by some better known and revealed Law of his And be very watchfull over such Anger For it is a more knottie and difficult piece of work to be answerable to Ephes 4. 26. the rule of Saint Paul Be angry and sin not the Prophet David spoke the same words from the same spirit then not to be angry As the Curre taken out of the kennell and provoked to barke will need an able and cunning hand to hold him And maintaine alwayes a strong Guard before the weake doores of your senses that no vain thing invade the sense of seeing hearing or the rest and use in times of such danger Ejaculations and Aspirations which are short sayings of the soule to God or of things concerning God and are like darts cast into the bosome of our beloved These motions will do excellently at all times when they come in the resemblance of our pious affections As upon this occasion Lord shut the windows of my soule that looking thorow them she may not be defiled O sweet Comforter speak inwardly to my soul and when thou speakest to her speake words of comfort or binde her with some other chaine that busied in listning to thee shee may not heare thy holy name dishonoured And upon other occasions Oh that my head were waters Jer. 9. 1. and mine eyes a fountain of teares that I might weepe day and night O Lord Whom Psal 73. 25 have I in Heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee Take counsell my soule Commit thy way unto the Psal 37. 5. Lord trust also in him and hee shall bring it to passe Hearke my soule when we taste the thing we taste is joyned to us We neither see nor heare in this manner and having tasted we know And when the Body tasteth wee commonly see first and
conceits When I lived in Spaine said he a certaine man was possessed with a Devill and the Priest exorcising him in the Church the people being present a bold Spaniard stepped out and said O Father pray let me see the Devill I would faine see the rogue come out of his mouth But the Devill answered by the mans mouth that if he came out of the mans mouth in whom he was he would go in at the others you may guesse what part the Monk spoke it plainely Whereupon said the Monke the Spaniard immediately betakes himselfe to the holy-water-pot and sitting downe so deepe in it that the water hid a great part of him gives the Devill very foule tearmes and provokes him twenty times over to come if he durst But coward he durst not come I will not tell all I will keepe some for a deare yeare and a rainy day Yet you may gather from these premisses I could not but see that hypocrisie and malice in their full growth dwelt even here as well as abroad and that here the purity was not to be found the idea of which I bore in my minde Wherefore it was my owne first motion and I left them and became a Frier the Friers professing more strictnesse A man may impute these changes either to variablenesse and inconstancie or to the stirring of good and able motives and to Gods providence that would carry me out of one roome into another and shew me all the inward Chambers of the Church of Rome Take heed judge not But if you do I submit my neck lay what waight upon me you please if you offend not God For I deserve both your judgement and your scorne CHAP. II. THe Monks have one story amongst them and they make it a Pulpit-story A very devout Monke walking one day alone in a wood and I thinke they lose themselves in this wood when they relate the story by chance heard a Nightingale sing and while shee did variously descant upon her song he laid hold upon it as a hand from Heaven by which he was lifted up to Gods eminencie and to the picture and perfection of the Nightingale in him and there he stayed in contemplation catcht from his senses till many yeares were past and all the Monkes of his time dead in the Monastery in which he lived All which time seemed to him very short and to bee merrily passed in hearing the Nightingale Yet say the Monkes this Musitian could not be a Nightingale though his heavenly meditation was indeed begun and sung to some while by a Nightingale But the Monk admiring an excellencie in the creature and being quickly filled with it in the brooke went forward towards the spring and rose to that from which it was taken in the Creatour and there he was easily sung asleepe where he rested a hundred yeares like S. Iohn upon the soft brest of our Saviour This passage is not much unlike the miracle of the Seaven Sleepers that slept in a Cave not as other men doe from the beginning of night to the beginning of day but from the beginning of one age to the beginning of another But as all their stories have their imployment so this both tickleth and serveth to many uses but above all to give us a resemblance of the profound meditation with which God pleased himselfe before the the world It is a high matter Yet I should desire in this and other things to give more satisfaction then a story comes to of a man in a wood that could not finde his way out againe In lieu of their sweete story take a word from me without encroaching upon a secret which God hath reserved to himselfe CHAP. III. THere was a Time if I may say so when there was no Time no world none of all these pretty things we daily see nor yet the light by which we see them no men and women like our selvers no living creatures no aire earth sea no Infidell no Jew no Christian no Hell no Heaven no Divels no Angels no God I cannot say For God alone had being before the world as God onely now also hath firme and true being For all other things that be be not of themselves but gaine their being onely by participation from God Et aspexi saith Saint Austin caetera infra te S. Aug. l. 7. Confess c. 11. vidi nec omnino esse nec omnino non esse esse quidem quia abs te sunt non esse autem quia id quod es non sunt id enim vere est quod incommutabiliter manet And I beheld the things that are under thee and I saw them neither to have a true being nor altogether to want a being I saw they had a being because they are from thee and I saw they had no being because they are not that which thou art For that truely is which hath a being without change If one of us should wish now prompted by curiosity to have beene before the world it would be an idle wish and with as little ground and foundation of likelyhood to have beene effected as the world then had in effect For no place no little corner had beene wherein to have beene no aire to have received and restored again in breath nothing to have appeared or play'd with the smallest glimmering before the eyes What God did before he built the world although Saint Austin saith wittily he was busie in making Hell for vaine and curious Inquisitours hee meaneth such as will not bee quieted with any reasonable satisfaction yet he well knowes who knowes in what the divine happinesse resteth and how absolute God is of himselfe and free from all necessary connexion with creatures All that which God now does besides the actuall government of the world and the acts consequent to it he did before we know and beleeve that he does now contemplate himselfe For in the contemplation of himselfe consisteth his blessednesse Therefore we may safely know and securely beleeve that he stood still in all eternity in himselfe taking a full view of himselfe and his owne perfections which are himselfe He now sees in themselves to be what before he saw in himselfe would bee Nor was he ever idle before the world otherwise then the Blessed shall be ever after the world And if the Beatificall vision that is the sight of God from which floweth Blessednesse doth so fully and plentifully satisfie the Blessed in Heaven that they cannot turne aside the busied eyes of their understanding the transitory space of one minute from that they see even though they should be enticed and tempted to look aside with all possible delights and therefore most ardently love for the most amiable excellencies discovered in it was not God ever well busied who ever had and hath an infinitely more searching and perfect sight of himselfe then all the Blessed either shall or can ever have together The divine perfections as they have many other so they have
also this prerogative that alwayes seene they both are and seeme still most faire and as they lose nought of their substance so they never bate any thing of their beauty Now whereas not onely the perfections of all creatures that are but also of all that are possible are in God and that in a most eminent and boundlesse manner how can it stand that God did not finde matter in himselfe for perpetuall exercise especially since that nothing is come new to him by creatures but their actuall dependance upon him the stile of Creatour and the Government all that which is added being still out of him or derived from that which is not in him and consequently no part of his Blessednesse nor any thing which can throw the infamy of change upon him We may judge what is possible to be done by what is done And if things are possible to be done a power must be which can doe them And they cannot come from him when he does them but because they were first in him For nihil dat quod non habet vel formaliter vel eminenter no Giver giveth but what hee hath either so as it is given or in a better straine And they cannot be in God but as they are himselfe and infinite God doth not depend of the world but the world of God If the world had never yet beene he had still remained the same God most great most glorious A King though without subjects because all things bee they future or onely possible are as actuall and present to him Omnipotent able to make the creatures we now see and farre more excellent to which we are not warranted to say he will ever bend his power For therefore God leaveth many things undone which reason teacheth us may be done to preach this doctrine that creatures are not his upholders Contemplation in us is a most noble exercise because performed by the most honourable faculty of the soule the understanding and by the highest and most elevated acts of the minde What then may we thinke of contemplation in God Synesius having turned his speech to God hath a sweet expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 eye Synes in hymnis of thy selfe For his understanding is the great eye with which he throughly sees himselfe Besides the eternall generation of Christ the divine Word of which the Prophet Esay Who shall declare his generation was is and shall be for ever as likewise Es 53. 8. the procession of the holy Ghost Thou art Ps 2. 7. my sonne this day have I begotten thee Hee meanes a long day diem eternitatis the day of eternity a day so long that there is but one of them in all the yeare and yet the yeare is the onely true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for it is all and wholly in it selfe and hath neither end nor beginning a day that never yet made roome for night nor shall ever be intercepted with darknesse The Heavens are alwaies in motion the Sun takes no rest Fire is alwayes in action The Sea never sleepes The Soule is alwayes busie in the exercise of her powers The Heart alwayes panting The Eyes are alwayes active when they are open Life keepes the Pulse in continuall beating and the Breath alwayes a passenger comming or going These are numbred amongst the choicest of Gods creatures and therefore beare more likenesse of him in themselves then meaner things These ever worke and was he ever idle CHAP. IV. ANother application of the former story is to give us in a perfect forme the shape of their consideration and contemplation But why must they needs consider and contemplate in a Monastery And if they will contemplate there why is every man disinteressed from a lawfull calling by which he may concurre to the benefit of the Common-wealth Homo nascitur Reipublicae sayes the Civill-Law A man is borne for the Common-wealth And the reason which Aristotle gives why a man may not kill himselfe is because hee may not lop himself from the Common-wealth of which he is a branch They answer with Saint Austin vindicating the Monks upbraided S. Aug. l. 1. de Morib Eccl. c. 31. by the Manichees Videntur nonnullis res humanas plus quam oportet deseruisse non intelligentibus quantum eorum animus orationibus profit They seeme to some men to have forsaken humane affaires more then they ought to have done not understanding how much they exalt them by prayer But without question the Monkes of Saint Austins time were no such idle bodies as now they are For then every man had his practicall course of life to which his education had instructed him and they which had none laboured in Gardens and other plats of ground digging and sowing and eating their bread in the sweat of their brows Nor is it a reasonable discourse that because some few of the old Christians flying from the bloody hands of their persecutors hid themselves in Woods Wildernesses and secret Caves and corners wee shall step over the like cause and take hold of the like action Shall we make to our selves an imitation of the rest of Heaven without undergoing the toyle which goes before it of which toyle the rest of Heaven is the reward And they lose a faire number of waighty occasions which the world affords and which God ministers as the food of vertue and the gates of victory and they are faine to referre all to the first Act of entring into the Monastery or they would be much to seeke When I was a Romane the Pope was solicited by the Embassadours of Spaine to give leave that the great increase of Monkes and Friers in their Countrey might be restrained and the reason was given because it was feared that the warres and the Monasteries pulling severall wayes would unpeople the Common-wealth and deprive the King of subjects necessary to his Dominion If such a grievance may rise from the excesse why may not a reasonable complaint be made of every knowing and able member of a Common-wealth that buries his Talents in a Monastery and seekes onely himselfe In a Christian Common-wealth the good of the Church ought not to be preferred before the good of the Common-wealth when by such an action of preference the Common-wealth is endamaged because by the Common-wealth the Church stands and the Church is but a good part of the Common-wealth And after all why cannot they consider their owne estates and the condition of the world in which they are and contemplate of high things and admire Gods creatures either in their chambers if they were in the world or in the fields as Isaac of whom we reade And Isaac went out to Gen. 24. 63. meditate in the field at the even-tide My Reader shall not want matter for such a purpose if he will be doing Meditation 1. One a man like us labours and straines himselfe to know throughly the nature of the Angels their office their properties and how
accordingly named the Needles eye and that when the Camels came loaden to this gate their packs were taken off These Authors insinuating that a rich man cannot enter into the Kingdome of Heaven before he hath laid aside his burden his pack of riches He must be master of them and so manage them that they are not a burden to him he must possesse them as if he possessed them not And these Authors construe it It is easier for a Camell to goe through the eye of the Needle c. With which exposition that other saying of Christ suiteth Strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that finde it Matth. 7. 14 Thus it is profitable for the rich man to be rich if his heart stand off from his riches because he hath a faire opportunity and more occasion to exercise charity then the poore man as likewise it is gainefull for the poore man to be a poore man if hee take it as a ground of content obedience and humility For otherwise God is no niggard of his gifts Indeed perfection must sell all and give it to the poore all that which a man loveth vainely and if all to the poore part to himselfe being poore when all is sold The World is a dunghill covered with Snow The Sunne shines the Snow melts and the dunghill appeareth It shines like a Glow-worme but it warmes not Millions of Angels have fallen from God their places are void they are places in the Court places of great gaine and honour We are brought upon a stage a Theater of triall He that acteth the part of an honest man shall have a place Yet forgetting by what noble person and for what honourable end wee were sent hither we licke the honey as John Damascen speaketh and doe not looke Jo. Dam. in vit Barl. Ios downe upon the Dragon gaping to devoure us One rideth hallowing after the hounds another quarrelleth with the poore for money to buy a purchase A third earnestly asketh security for eight in the hundred But where is one that duely considereth he was made to supply the most honourable place of an Angel This World is via the way Heaven patria the Countrey Is he not an idle passenger that gives himselfe over to delight in those things which occurre in his journey and with which he cannot stay or that marrieth his heart to a painted Inne from which in the breake of day his occasions call him We cannot labour so vehemently to gaine the goods and friendship of the world but with distrust of Gods providence We doe not remember him that said Seeke yee Matth. 6. 33. first the Kingdome of God and his righteousnes and all these things shall be added unto you We must first by Gods helpe seeke God and his righteousnesse and then by the helpe of God and his righteousnesse seeke the reward of righteousnesse the Kingdome of God and all these things these cum contemptu will follow as being of the traine and servants to the King and Kingdome Rule 3. BEware alwayes of a warme and stirring peece of deceit call'd the flesh An enemy out of doores may stand before he enter till he is benummed in every joynt with cold And if he strive for entrance perhaps he may be tooke in the trespasse But the flesh is alwayes at home with us fed by us cloathed by us is almost all the visible part of our selves We daily feed and cloath our deadly enemy every man is a malicious enemy to himself man consisteth of the flesh and spirit and the flesh warreth against the spirit there is a civill sedition in this little Common-wealth of man Consider therefore that as in dried dirt hogs in which onely our Lord suffered the Devill to enter can finde no soft place for their wallowing So neither can the Devill keep his residence and revels in a body dryed with fasting Parcus cibus venter esuriens tridianis jejuniis praefertur saith Saint Hierom S. Hier. ep ad Furiam A sparing diet and a hungry belly is preferred before a fast of three dayes And afterwards he compares extraordinary fasting with a violent shoure destroying the fields We shall doe well and wisely to keepe the rebell-flesh to a dyet to keepe it low and leane For the gate of Heaven is so narrow that good Saint Bartholmew was compelled to leave his skin behinde him in the passage And by drawing its body through a narrow circle the Serpent putteth off its old skin and becommeth young againe Alexander having but an outward enemy to buckle with slept alwayes in the field holding a silver ball in his hand that if sleepe should fully seise him the ball dropping into a sounding vessell might restore him againe to his senses And this he tooke by observation from the watchfull nature of the Crane being the experience of his travels For the Crane whose turne it is to watch out the night taking up one of his legs and a stone in it preventeth sound sleeping with attending to the danger of a sound by the fall of the stone The more neare the enemy is to us the more carefully we ought to watch and nothing can be more neare to us then we to our selves It is not requir'd that if thy eye shall offend thee thou shalt presently pluck it out and cast it from thee And therefore Tertullian comparing the perfect and heroicall vertues of Christians with the cleaner acts of the most cleane amongst the Heathens their prime Philosophers and accusing Democritus for pulling out his eyes because he could not see a woman without desiring what not being obtained moved him to grieve saith At Christianus salvis Tett in Appologetico cap. 46. oculis faeminam videt animo adversus libidinem caecus est but a Christian seeth a woman and yet preserveth his eyes his heart is blinde to lust Rectifie the soule and regulate the acts which guide the sense And if the sense be dangerously vaine and offensive away with it Use it not in those acts in which the danger lurketh Bee a rigorous keeper of Davids covenant with his eyes For amongst all the sinnes which man committeth we may better dally and play with any then with the sinne of the flesh and the occasions of it one temptation commeth so close upon another and every one perswadeth so prettily flesh taking to flesh The reason of this exposition is because when the eye is not used in dealing with vaine objects it is pull'd out and cast away from them though not from him that ownes it And the literall sense of holy Scripture is alwayes the meaning of the holy Ghost but onely when Scripture seemingly jarres with it self This resolution of shutting the windows will in the execution keep out the vain love of woman whom we ought not vainly to love Did I say love Give me my word again It cannot be true love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as
men and women and beene carried up and downe in coaches and when I have done all I must die This way lieth hell O the confusion that is there O the darknesse In sorrow How can I be troubled when God and his Angels rejoyce continually In joy I will rejoyce in the Lord againe I say I will rejoyce At other times My tongue and lips which have concurred to speake against thee shall now joyne their forces but what to doe to speake of the marvellous things which thou hast done in our dayes and in the ages before us My hands that have beene so busie and so movable in accomplishing the foule acts of wickednesse shall now be as quick and ready in the performance of workes agreeable to thy sacred will My feete that have carried my body with such nimblenesse in the darke and dirty turnings of mischiefe shall now strive one to goe before the other and be as forward and swift in the faire and direct way of holinesse I let goe the reines and freely consent to all the acts of charity justice patience and other vertues inward or outward in earth or in heaven as farre as heaven is capable of them before now or hereafter performed And I pull up the reines and with-draw my consent from all acts contrary to God and goodnesse Woe to me wretch when I am out of thy favour me thinkes the Lilies are blacke and the red Roses pale The Birds sing idle tunes and the Sunne doth not shine when it shines When the Clock striketh say Lord give me true repentance for the procuring of which this houre is added to my dayes Or Lord give mee grace to redeeme the time Or Lord prepare me for my last houre and let not death rush suddenly upon me unlesse in a time when I am provided for thee and have washed away my last sinne with true repentance When thou goest to bed think of thy Grave and say if sleepe this night should steale away and leave the possession to death as it may easily happen how is my soule affected When thou risest think of the Resurrection and say what if I were now called to an exact and rigid account for all the sinnes and disorders of my life And let the last Trumpet cry alwayes in thine eares with a mournfull sound Surgite mortui venite ad judicium Rise yee dead and come to judgement And let day and night put thee continually in minde of Heaven and Hell And remember that the accounts shall differ according to the differences of talents helps and cals from God For some are by nature more prone to some kindes of sinnes then others And great persons have greater temptations to sinnes that are fed with plenty Rule 9. EVery morning and evening examine your conscience and call your selfe to a strict and severe account how you have offended God that day or night And that you may the better render to your selfe the account of the day think what was your businesse where you were and with whom you conversed Then confesse your sinnes to God procuring by the helpe of his grace sorrow for them returning all possible thankes because you have not waded farther into sinne And at those times cleanse and purifie your heart from the dregs of envie and malice and from the lees of ill desires and vaine affections And so levell your selfe that all who see you may clearely perceive you are in perfect charity with them and with all the world For it is not the last rule of our obligation to forgive our Adversaries privately in our hearts We must likewise unfold open and expresse our selves to them and if they have any thing against us as it is written we must in a pious and reasonable manner cleare the matter And also in every examination of your selfe try your heart whether it goeth forward or backward in the cleane path of vertue For the way to Heaven is Jacobs Ladder you cannot stand still upon it Two speciall things are necessarily requisite to salvation the one pertaining to faith the other to manners First to know I meane what they are and firmely beleeve by a faith given from Heaven the chiefest and most materiall points of Christian beleefe Secondly to banish all complacence and liking of our former sinnes and the close and implicit will of sinning hereafter and to wash away all our sinnes yea the very last I doe not say every one in particular but all considered in the lump if the last be included with true and hearty repentance which is the gift of God and supernaturall and full of difficulties Rule 10. VVHen difficulties in the great affaires of conscience do occur for example how you may give rules to your soule in such a case in a case encircled with such circumstances whether such and such a bargaine or such and such dealing will stand in conformity with justice desire the grave advice of your Pastour or of some other vertuous and learned person As also when you are over-tempted and exercised though not above yet to the full height of your strength flie quickly to your spirituall Physitian and open the secret of your disease For now he supplieth the most high place of God who revealeth no mans weaknesses And he knowing the soare may fit his medicines accordingly and truly worke more effectually then in the Pulpit where for the most part hee doth speake to the present purpose by guesse and where he cannot fit himselfe to the sins of all his Hearers You will urge perhaps my Pastour is not a man of a good life and therefore though his counsell may helpe me his prayers cannot I answer that he is not a man of a good life I am heartily sorry But he beareth two persons in his owne person of himselfe as he is a man and like other men and of himselfe as he hath received holy orders from the Church as he is lawfully sent and commeth in by the doore and as hee representeth Gods person As he is himselfe a wicked man the remembrance of thee will be little acceptable to God in his prayers but as he is a Church-man hee may stand betwixt God and thee and keep off the blow But if he neglect thee or suite not with thy devotion flie to another Rule 11. ENdeavour to learne alwayes by good example Virtuosus saith Aristotle est 10. Eth. c. 5. parum ante finem mensura regula actuum humanorum a vertuous man is a rule of life by which others ought to measure their actions And to pray alwayes by a continuance of good actions and alwayes privately marke how Gods attributes his goodnesse mercie wisedome power providence doe play their severall parts here in the world and how strangely his justice doth oftentimes fall heavie upon sinners and lay them open to the eyes of all men No childe would grow to the ripenesse of a man or woman unlesse upheld daily by the speciall providence of good And
continuance of the worke it pleased him to use the meane assistance of second causes as of Angels and intelligences that he might adde worth and honour to them by so great imployment So likewise in the workes of Grace and second diffusion of his goodnesse upon his creatures the great worke of enfranchizing the world by his Bloud himselfe alone would performe but in applying the merits and vertue of his Passion to the chosen vessels of honour and mercie he doth graciously call in a manner to his aide Apostles and Apostolicall men And as God being the Author of nature fals under himselfe and workes with every creature or second cause in a manner and measure agrreable to their naturall and ordinary way of working So likewise being the Author of Grace and having never yet for some great reasons best knowne to himselfe made two men with a perfect agreement either of face or nature sendeth Apostles and Preachers who have in their commands a speciall injunction of being like to him who saith I am made all things 1 Cor. 9. 22 to all men that I might by all meanes save some And God himselfe not onely in executing the generall Acts and Decrees of his Providence over his creatures but also and more especially in the more notable praxis and speciall exercise of his providence over his Church from the beginning of the world was all things to all men CHAP. VII GOD hath full power and absolute dominion over all his Creatures because he call'd yea catched them out of nothing and because to speake in the Apostles dialect in him they live move and have their being And therefore hee may lawfully give Lawes to them to the due and strict observation of which they are strongly bound under paine of his high displeasure seconded with most heavie punishment Wherefore giving a Law to the Jewes by the mediation of Moses he beginneth with an argument of his authority and dominion over them I am the Lord thy God which have brought thee out of Exod 20. 2. the land of Aegypt out of the house of bondage This laid for the corner-stone I thus proceed in the building In the infancie and childhood of the world when sinne was not as yet so active so quicke so cunning but dull and clownish and to foreshow the backwardnesse of nature in matters pertaining to Heaven yes to naturall knowledge and even humane society and also that it might fully and plentifully appeare to after-ages how nature is wrought and polished as in materiall things by Art so in spirituall matters by Grace The Law by which God for the most part guided man was onely borne with him was young as he was young and grew as he grew non scripta sed nata lex as the Orator saith being a Law not written and sent in a letter to us from Lycurgus Solon or Moses but borne with us or if written written onely in the soule of man where it continually remaineth in the shape of a light discovering to the view of the Soule the beauty of good and the deformity of evill For Good is faire and amiable and the cleare eye of reason beholdeth in it at the first sight a singular convenience with the will of man and a sympathy with Heaven And therefore they who were bound onely with the looser ties of the Law of nature and who now in strange Countries and in wilde and uncouth places dispense their actions by the light of reason beare a Preacher in their hearts Ill is blacke and deformed and reason in the first glance seeth a loathsomenesse a Toad in it and heareth presently as it were a jarring and disagreement with God and Heaven And therefore the drunkard the lascivious person and others of the same torne and ragged coate loath in deed not by any pious act of Christian vertue but by a deed of nature their owne beastlinesse and can by no meanes endure to be call'd what they are For as the Beast runneth the Bird flieth from danger as the one prepareth his den the other his nest as they looke abroad for daily nourishment provide carefully for their young know what will satisfie their cold of hunger what coole their heate of thirst what complyeth with their different appetites follow the leading of their admirable properties and by a secret instinct cheerefully performe the severall acts of their nature So man since he dealt with the Tree of Knowledge naturally knoweth good as opposed to evill as he naturally distinguisheth light from darknesse Againe some things are good in themselves and not good onely because God commands them to be loved and imbraced and these in the first place the light of nature sheweth to be good And some things are evill in themselves and not evill onely because markt and branded with a prohibition and these chiefely the light of nature showeth to be evill For if the light or law of nature in its owne nature did not make it cleare to Caine that he ought not to have killed his good brother Abel how did he sinne or what branch of law did he breake in killing him sinne being the violation of a law But certainly he trespassed upon that first principle of nature in morality Quod tibi non vis fieri alteri ne feceris what you would that men should not doe unto you doe not you unto them And hither Saint Paul pointeth For when the Gentiles which have not the law doe by nature the things Rom. 2. 14. contained in the law these having not the law are a law unto themselves One step more and we are in the bottome Although the the Sage Aegyptians in Damascius cried out three times in every performance of their heathenish my steries 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an unknowne darknesse yet by the plaine and easie search of humane power the old Philosophers found that there was a God and that he was but one in Essence that he was every where that he was omnipotent and the like though verily their knowledge both of God and his workes was rather opinion then knowledge it did so hang waver For the Philosopher opening his minde occasionally concerning the birth of the world sometimes he was and sometimes againe he was not Aristotle In one Arist l. 1. de coelo 1. Top. c. 9. booke hee judgeth absolutely that the world stood in the same state in which now it is in all eternity In another he stops like a man come unawares to a place where the way is divided and doubts which path leads to the truth In a third booke discussing the generation of living things Lib. 3. de generatione animalium c. 11. he sayes a man shall not beleeve amisse who shall take it for certaine that the first man and beast upon supposition that they came of the earth were either produced out of a Worme or an Egge and at length breaking the Egge in long handling concludes it is the most consentaneous to
reason that they both drew their first parentage from a Worme And thus hee sought creepingly amongst the Wormes for what hee could not finde though very neere him In like manner he played with the Immortality of the soule It pleased him and it displeased him He tooke it and he threw it off againe And he was more willing in the end to disclaime it then owne it And the flowings and ebbings of his owne braine had he studied inward might have urged him to a greater confusion of thoughts and more trouble of minde then Euripus in which Saint Gregorie Nazienzen teacheth he Greg. Naz. orat 3. in Julian drowned himselfe And this weake light or dawning of the day was truely most sutable and more then most agreeable with beginners CHAP. VIII SInne being now more strong more witty and more various and Nature being sufficiently informed of her owne weaknesse God sent the world letters from Heaven De illa eivitate unde peregrinamur S. Aug. con 2. in Psal 90. saith Saint Austin hae literae nobis venerunt these letters came from the great Imperiall City from which we travell And Moses the Messenger that brought these letters of so great importance frō God to the world delivered his message with caution and with respect to the Jewes hardnesse as it is cleerely gathered out of the words in which Christ arguing with the Pharisees concerning the permissive Law of Divorcement saith Moses because of the hardnesse of your hearts suffered you to put away your Mat. 19. 8. wives but from the beginning it was not so And so he corrected the Law in conformity to a more perfect condition And therefore the Greeke Church with us doth onely breake Matrimony in the case of Adultery in which point Eugenius the fourth laboured to reconcile her with the Church of Rome at Florence but he could not And even in the old dayes of the old Law God altered the phrase of his proceedings with correspondence to the person with whom he dealt and with whom he was to deale For the old Law being a Law of feare a Law of bondage and a maine difference betwixt the old Law and the new being as Saint Austin giveth it Aug. l. octoginta trium quaest tom 4. Timor Amor Feare and Love conversing now with the Synagogue a servant a bond-woman he stiles himselfe God the Lord Jehovah Mighty Terrible Yet meditating upon the new Law being a Law of Grace and liberty and turning to the sweete Spouse in the Canticles to which Law she did indeed most properly belong he doth as it were cover his greatnesse hide his beames and draw a great vaile over his Majesty For he cals himselfe a Bridegroome a friend a lover And in the whole book of Canticles we cannot finde with both our eyes one proper name of God not one of the tenne great names of God which are so easie to be found in the old Testament and which Saint Hierome doth briefely explicate in his learned Epistle to Marcella God will not be knowne to S. Hier. Ep. ad Marcel his bashfull and tender Spouse by the names which move terrour and affrightment For he would not as a man may say for all the world trouble or fright his pretty maiden Spouse And uses onely the titles which kindle and cherish love CHAP. IX ALl this while there occurred as well in the booke of Creatures as in the love-letters from the Creatour many faire and solid emblems of a Divine providence goodnesse wisedome mercie justice and so forth And before this man might already learne sufficiently that there was one God even in the Manuscript of Creatures by turning before his lesson from cause to cause till he came to the first cause from motion to motion till he came to the first Mover But the capacity of the childish young world was yet too meane too shallow to receive in plaine language the mysterious doctrine of a Trinity the heart of man being as it were not yet altogether unfolded not perfectly open'd into a Triangle Nor did ever any spirituall Traveller to this day meete with the perfect likenesse of the blessed Trinity in Creatures For there is no principle in naturall knowledge no foot-step of God in Creatures by the direction of which any created understanding either Humane or Angelicall may reasonably close with the assent or opinion or even suspition of the blessed Trinity or which can give us any true notice that it is possible For although the Understanding Will and Memory of man in which as in the most during part Gods image consisteth are three faculties and one soule yet they fall under being one and three after the manner as God is three and one nor is there such a difference in the faculties as distinction in the Persons And if you distinguish the faculties really with the Thomists the Persons will not be so really distinguished and yet they will be truely distinguished one from another besides that every one will be the same in Essence and the whole Essence If the learned urge that the soundest part of the heathen writers speake honourably of the blessed Trinity as Mercurius therefore called though some thinke otherwise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orpheus and that Plato speaks high things of the word divine love and other Platonists out of whose books S. Austin reporteth that he gathered these jewels this golden chaine of holy Scripture In principio erat verbum verbum S. Aug. l. 7 confess c. 9. Io. 1. 1. erat apud Deum Deus erat verbum In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God As if the Eagle had not taken it in a high flight from the holy Ghost but stooped to them for it I answer these Philosophers sucked the sweets of knowledge they had in this kind out of the Scripture And Clemens Alexandrinus Clem. Alex l. 1 Siromatum maketh mention of a certaine old Greeke edition of the old Testament before that of the Septuagint which came to the hands of Plato and of other Philosophers And also these Philosophers as it is abundantly manifest in Saint Justine travelled all into Egypt to better their S. Just paranesi sive cohort ad Gracos knowledge where the Jewes in their servitude had left many visible footsteps of heavenly learning Yet where they speake of the word and so plainely of the blessed Trinity they received their knowledge in the same strange manner as the Sibyls and they spoke as Plato said of the Sibyls many brave matters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not Plat. apud Just in paranesi reaching to the deepe and genuine sense of any word they said and the spirit failing not being able to recover the least representation of what they had said And truely Theodor. lib. 2. apud Gracos Theodoret gives a most exquisite reason why God was not willing to deliver the knowledge of the blessed Trinity
world by the books of Plato and other divine Philosophers by the strange agreement of the seventy Elders in the interpretation of the old Testament called into Egypt by one of the Ptolomies and by the cleare and clearely Propheticall writings of the Jewish Rabbines For whatsoever is well said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Just Apolog 1. saith Saint Justin belongeth to Christ and to us Christians The holy Ghost being the holy cause of all caused truth And certainely their eyes used to darknesse would hardly beare more then the small glimmerings of light And thus many why stay I there many thousands were saved of whom we never heard And the like hapned saith Saint Austin in the Deluge For many being convinced in their judgements by seeing the Prophecie of the Floud to become History repented of their sinnes against God whom Noah had taught to be the Author of the Prophecie and beleeving imbraced their present destruction as a just punishment for their sins and having been justified by a lively faith were saved God did not take al into the number of his people because his people had not beene so properly his without an exclusion of others and because hee would more endeare himselfe to those whom hee tooke as likewise his love is more glorious in his elect And after the comming of Christ if there be or hath beene a Countrey which hath not sufficiently heard of Christ and his workes the people have not sufficiently performed their duties to which they were bound by the Law of Nature From those that correspond with the light of Nature the light of Grace is never with-held neither was Christ ever nor ever shall be conceal'd but either is told or was foretold CHAP. XI BUt now at length sinne being very forward and by occasion of the Law growing stubborne and striving against the Law and the world groaning aloud under the judgements of God and the waight of the old Law and the Prophets and servants little prevailing and all earnestly desiring a Messias a Saviour the Redeemer of Israell Christ himselfe the Lord and Master of the family God knew in all Eternity that it was in his power and liberty to make other creatures some above the degrees of Angels some in the distance betwixt Angels and men with divers endowments and perfections to whom he might liberally and with a full hand communicate himselfe yet rejecting in the long and various catalogue all the rest being a rich God hee chose poore man intimating a great correspondence betwixt a rich Creatour and a poore Creature the one being very full and most able to give the other very empty and lying open to receive And also he knew that amongst all the severall kinds of communications none was so fit and firme as the joyning of himselfe to some created nature in such a rich and exquisite manner that the Creature might be as it were married to the Divinity and make one onely Person with it and therefore he joyned himselfe to man by the mediation of the Hypostaticall Union if the Schooles say true the most perfect Creature that ever God made as comming more neere to him not in being but in touch in this most excellent kinde of conjunction And as the Sunne turn'd face and ran backe in the same steps it came tenne degrees in the dayes of Ezechias so he descended under the nine Quires of Angels even to humane nature the tenth last least and lowest degree of reasonable Creatures taking it to have and to hold for all Eternity Quo altius carnem attolleret non babuit saith S. Aug. de praedest c. 15. Vide ibi plura Saint Austin He not onely raised humane nature as high as it possibly could rise or omnipotencie lift it but also he brought downe his Divinity as low as it could come It was fitly sung by a good musitian and the straine was very sweete Hee bowed the Heavens also and came downe and darknesse Ps 18. 9. was under his feete For they being high and we lowe they were bow'd downe by a strong hand to us and our condition the hand of him who bringing light trod darknesse under his feete And it is pretty to observe how God hath laboured to unite himselfe with man The water being hindered in one passage seeketh another For as likenesse is that from which love is taken so likewise Union is that to which love is carried First man was no sooner man but God fastned himselfe to him by Grace Which Union though it was not the Union of God with man but of his Grace yet Grace did present the person of God and while shee kept her Court in man performed the strict will of her Lord her selfe and so governed that all the powers where she was did the same Adam not falling sinfully before his fall But God seeing that this Union was quickly dissolved in Adams fall and that being a very unsettled Union it was in danger to breake at every turne and foreseeing what we now see he made another more sure and sacred cord of Union in the Incarnation whereby humane nature is tied to the Divinity and makes up the same Person with the second Person in Trinity without any danger of a divorce or breach of friendship But because this Union is not the joyning of God to every man but to the nature of man and to no mans nature in particular but his owne he sleepes not here but comes home to every one without exception in the Sacrament marrying himselfe by grace to the soule applyed in the resemblance of bodily nourishment to make the Union of Grace more strong with a double knot as labouring if it were possible to turne into the soule and be the same thing with it as bread becomes not one of the two in carne una in one flesh but una caro one and the same flesh with the body But because we are not yet come to that which by the Grecians is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and signifies both the end and perfection and because this Union also now is and now is not God hath ordained a settled state of Union by which the soule of man in Heaven is tyed with an eternall bond of peace to him humane understanding to the divine understanding the will of man to the will of God and by which all the powers of man are fixt in a firme and most neere connexion and subordination with and to him for ever How then ought we to stoope and comply if we sincerely desire a Union of all not onely with our selves for our owne ends but with the Primitive Church for Gods end CHAP. XII THe Apostles and Preachers of Christ following the tract and foot-steps of God and of their Master Christ who also conversed with Publicans and sinners though not in their sinnes and spake otherwise to his Apostles to whom it was given to know mysteries otherwise to the people were all things to all
Shepheard to feede and preserve not a Wolfe to teare and devoure Give me leave Did the world know how poore my beginnings were I am not ashamed of them in what small helpes I have rejoyced when the Papists vaunted they doubted not to live and see me begge mournfully at their dores for a morsell of bread that my fortunes were carried on the top of the flowing and ebbing waters two yeares from banke to banke before I was fixed and then but weakly setled in a dark nooke Did men know how I have beene used abused forced threatned reviled discomforted they would not be angry that I desired to subsist and to preach the good Gospell of Christ But I will not preach this doctrine till I am call'd CHAP. V. ANd now I thanke the Papists for my unconquerable resolution growing from the grossenesse of their scandals Josephs Brethren were very malicious against him they sold him to slavery the Scene beganne to bee tragicall God came to act his part turned the wheele and made all this malice and misery end in the great benefit not onely of the malicious and undeserving Brethren but of Joseph himselfe his old Father and the whole Kingdome of Egypt Judas sold his Master his Master and the Master of all things for thirty pence the money would goe but a little way he had an ill bargaine When his part was done God entred upon the Stage and by the execrable perfidiousnesse of the Traitour Judas brought about the redemption of mankinde the salvation of the whole world and in effect all the shining that is and ever shall be made by glorious soules and bodies in Heaven I doe not except the soule and body of our Mediatour and Advocate Christ Jesus who though he did not redeeme himselfe because he was not in captivity yet came to be betraied and to redeeme his Betrayer if he would have bin redeemed By this law a prudent Mr. of a family turnes the rough nature of an angry Dog to the benefit and peace of himselfe and his family and a wise Physitian the eager thirst of a bloud-thirsty horseleach to the health of a sick person although indeed these unreasonable creatures of themselves aime at nothing but to satiate their owne wilde natures Saint Austin speaking of evill men saith Ne igitur putes gratis malos esse in hoc mundo nihil boni ex illis metere Deum quia omnis malus aut ideo vivit ut corrigatur aut ideo vivit ut per illum bonus exerceatur Doe not therefore thinke that evill men are suffered to be evill in this world for no good purpose and that God reapes no benefit by them For every evill man either therefore lives that in time he may decline from evill and incline to good or therefore lives that the good man may be exercised and farthered in the practise of goodnesse by him otherwise he should no live There is a course of things within the generall course of this world pertaining to the order to which God brings all straggling chances in the last act of the play which if we did examine as they come and beget experience we should enlighten and enrich the understanding with heavenly matters exceedingly We behold how admirably at this day moved by the sinfull occasion of Heresie and Superstition the Church doth watch and pray and we know that a multitude of soules now crowned in Heaven hath learned to avoid sinne by observing others punished for sinne which could not in justice have beene punished if it had not beene committed and how murderers doe open the gate of Heaven for Martyrs and that the bloud of Martyrs hath beene the seed of the Church for if they had not died bodily many had not lived spiritually And to goe as high as may be Good comes to God by the worst of evils the good of glory by sinne For to speake with Cassiodore Materia est gloriae principalis delinquentis reatus quia nisi culparum Cassio Var. 3. 46. occasiones emergerent locum pietas non haberet The guilt of a Delinquent person is a principall matter that nourisheth glory For if there were no sinne there would be no place for the exercise of mercie which supposeth misery which misery supposeth sinne And though I gather good from the evill of the Church of Rome yet the evill of the Church is to me a sound argument against the Church That rule of Christ Yee shall know them by their fruits Mat 7. 16. is as true a marke as a signe from Heaven For as the Church of Rome was first known by her workes so now likewise shee is knowne by her workes and the workes of her age not being of the same birth and education with the workes of her youth shew her to bee different from her selfe when workes doe alwayes answer in some proportion to Faith and the Tree cannot be good if the fruit be generally evill And as Saint Justine writeth to the Grecians S. Justin Cohort ad Graec. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the solid fruit of pious workes gives testimony to the true Religion I came from the last Popish Colledge of which I was a member as I did from all others fairely and respectfully on both sides Their testimony of me is yet in my hands made strong and authenticall with their owne Seale I will give it here word for word Thomas Fitzherbertus societatis Jesu Collegii Anglorum de urbe Rector OMnibus in quorum manus praesentes venerint salutem in Domino sempiternam Fidem facimus atque his literis attestamur latorem praesentium Reverendum Patrem Franciscum Dakerum for this was the last name by which I was knowne amongst them Anglum Sacerdotem esse nec ullo impedimento Canonico prohiberi quo minus sacrosanctum Missae Sacrificium ubique celebrare possit Cum vero etiam in hoc nostro Collegio sedis Apostolicae Alumnus fuerit modo absolutis studiis in Angliam ad luerandas Deo animas proficiscatur nos quo illum affectu nobiscum morantem complexi sumus eodem discedentem paterne prosequimur omnibus ad quos in itinere devenerit quantum valemus in Domino commendamus In quorum fidem caet Romae ex Collegio Anglorum die 9. Septemb. 1635. Thomas Fitzherbertus manu propria Those with whose understandings this will suite are able to understand it without a translation The Faculties annexed by the Pope to the exercise of my Priestly function were these I have them under their owne hands Ordinariae Facultates Alumnorum Collegii Anglicani 1. FAcultas absolvendi ab omnibus casibus Censuris in Bulla Caenae Domini reservatis in Regnis Angliae Scotiae Hiberniae 2. Vt possint illis quos reconciliaverint dare Apostolicam benedictionem cum plenaria Indulgentia prima vice Catholicis vero congregatis ad Concionem vel ad sacrum in Festis solennioribus Apostolicam benedictionem sine plenaria Indulgentia
3. Vt possint dispensare cum illis qui contraxerint cum tertio vel quarto gradu in foro conscientiae tantum 4. Vt possint commutare vota simplicia exceptis votis Castitatis Religionis in aliud opus pium cum causa 5. Vt possint benedicere vestes alia omnia quae pertinent ad Sacrificium praeter ea quae requirunt Chrisma 6 Vt possint restituere jus petendi debitum conjugale quando ex aliqua causa omissum est 7 Vt possint dare facultatem Catholicis legendi libros controversiarum a Catholicis scriptos in vulgari lingua 8. Quando non possunt ferre Breviarium vel recitare officium sine probabili periculo suppleant aliquot Psalmos dicendo vel alias orationes quas sciunt memoriter 9. Si aliis Facultatibus indiguerint vel dubia circa horum usum occurrerint remittant ad Reverendum Dominum Archipresbyterum Angliae ut illis satisfaciat prout ipsi in Domino visum fuerit eique in omnibus obedire teneantur quod etiam se facturos promittant priusquam hae vel aliae Facultates eis concedantur The Grants of giving Indulgences are either ordinary or extraordinary The ordinary are ordinarily knowne the extraordinary are these their Coppie is yet with me Formulae Extraordinariae Indulgentiarum pro utriusque sexus fidelibus qui penes se habuerint aliquam Coronam Rosarium parvam crucem aut imaginem benedictam caet 1. VT quicunque semel saltem in hebdomada officium divinum ordinarium aut Beatae Virginis aut Defunctorum aut septem Psalmos Paenitentiales aut Graduales aut coronam Domini aut Beatae Virginis aut tertiam partem Rosarii recitare aut Doctrinam Christianam docere aut infirmos alicujus Hospitalis vel detentos in carcere visitare aut pauperibus Christi subvenire consueverit vere paenitens ac confessus sacerdoti ab ordinario approbato sanctissimum Eucharistiae sacramentum sumpserit in aliquo ex diebus infra scriptis nempe Nativitatis Domini Epiphaniae Ascensionis Domini Pentecostes cum duobus sequentibus Corporis Christi Nativitatis Sancti Joan. Bapt. Sanctorum Apostolorum Petri Pauli Assumptionis beatae Mariae semper Virginis omnium sanctorum dedicationis propriae Ecclesiae Patroni vel tituli Ecclesiae atque ea die pie ad Deum preces effuderit pro Haeresium ac schismatum exterminatione pro fidei Catholicae propagatione ChristianoruÌ„ principum concordia atque aliis sanctae Matris Ecclesiae necessitatibus in singulis diebus ejusmodi plenariam omnium peccatorum Indulgentiam consequatur 2. Vt quicunque in prima Dominica Quadragesimae Quadragesimale jejunium salubriter celebrans vere paenitens confessus sacraque communione refectus ut supra oraverit itidem Plenariam 3. Vt quisquis vere paenitens ae si potuerit ut supra confessus sacra communione refectus alioqui saltem contritus in mortis articulo nomen Jesu ore si potuerit sin minus corde devote invocaverit similier plenariam Let the Ministers of England those I meane who dwell at home and not in Tavernes who burne with zeale not smoak with Tobacco and who steere not towards preferment but towards Heaven judge whether the man ought not to be cherished countenanced and exposed in the light and frequencie of people that hath shaken off with great loathing these wretched abuses and the Patrons of them But I poore man for so is the fortune of these times like him in the Comick Poet Vivus vidensque pereo live and while I live perish and perish in darknesse and yet see my selfe perish but am not sâ—â—â—â—e to perish for then sure I should not perish But it cannot be thus long And therefore O all yee Schollers beyond the Seas under whose profession there lie secret thoughts of returning to the Church of England be cheerefull For howsoever the clouds have shadowed me the Sunne will shine out upon you The Church of God hath ever beene subject to outward alterations And you shall be received and clasped round about with the armes of true zeale and charity Gods children in England will acknowledge his children flying from Babylon And every good soule will have a sense of what you feele and a sight of what you want before you can name it They that are great shall be the greatest in godlinesse and in all their greatnesse shall thinke themselves as little as you And the golden age will come againe And therefore once more I say it be of good comfort And for me I hope I shall now sing with the Prophet I will not dye but live and declare the workes of the Lord. CHAP. VI. O What a sweetnesse of heart it was to me when I first entred into the Protestant Churches after my conversion to heare the people answer and see them lissen in divine Service O the poore Countrey people amongst the Papists who not understanding their Service and seldome hearing Sermons live more like beasts then men I have seene of the Galiegos and heard of some Countrey people in Italy who they confessed did not much differ from beasts but in the outward shape And the case of all people in Rome is to be lamented whose ordinary phrase is Come let us goe and heare Musick and the Cardinals boyes sing at such a Church This is to please the sense not God I saw such a representation of Hell and Heaven in a Cardinals Palace and the parts of Saints and Devils so performed with singing and Musicke and the soules in so great a number comming out of the world into Purgatory that it was wonderfull Shewes of this nature are often seene in their Churches Aristotle sayes well Omnis cognitio nostra a sensu initium habet All the knowledge we gather from below begins at the sense And these Scribes and Pharisees doe foole the senses of their people exceedingly I have an old manuscript wrought excellently with gold and painting In which booke there is a prayer with this inscription Oratio venerabilis Bedae Presbyteri de septem verhis Christi in cruce pendentis quam orationem quicunque quotidie devote dixerit nec Diabolus nec malus homo ei nocere poterit nec sine confessione morietur per tringinta dies ante obitum suum videbit gloriosam Virginem Mariam in auxilium sibi praeparatam The prayer of venerable Bede Priest of the seven words or speeches of Christ hanging upon the Crosse which prayer whosoever shall say devoutly every day upon his knees neither the Devill nor any evill man shall ever hurt him neither shall he die without confession and three hundred dayes before his death hee shall see the glorious Virgin Mary in a readinesse to succour him At the Busse in Holland in the Church of S. Peter they have pictured a Bishop in a glasse-window On one side of him hangs Christ upon the Crosse with his wounds bleeding On the otherside stands the
divine Majesty is left unwounded unmaimed unbruised And as all the perfections of goodnesse and honour which are and are found in creatures by creatures as foot-steps of the Creatour are also originally and therefore most perfectly and therefore most eminently and infinitely in God So mark this my soule because sinne is Gods onely enemy and because there is a combination of evill the onely contrary to all kindes of goodnesse linked together in themselves because joyned together in God one sinne containeth and comprehendeth all kindes of filthinesse all kindes of deformity the filthinesse and deformity of all other sins Which is one of the reasons why it is said in Saint James Whosoever shall keepe the James 2. 10. whole Law and yet offend in one point is guilty of all Another cause is The sinner which breakes charity with God and offends him in one point the way being now open and the reasons why he ought not to offend God violated is ready of himselfe to offend him in another and in all and will if power or occasions be not wanting For he can never give a good reason either taken from something in God or from something concerning himselfe why he should offend God in one point and not in another because he can never give a good reason why he should offend him at all and every offence of God is most contrary to reason Sinne is the chiefest evill or rather all evill and therefore so contrary to God the chiefest good or rather all good that although it is permitted because directed to a good end by his Providence yet neither can it be so much as fathered by his Omnipotence nor suffered by his Justice nor yet approved by his wisedome And is it not a most wicked businesse to commit an act of that foule quality that Gods Providence must presently to worke and turn it to Good or he lies open to a reproach for having suffered evill and there must be that which wee name a thing in the world and God the Creator of all things must not be the cause of it nor have any hand in it and God must be forced to strike with his justice as if he delighted in our destruction And if he will know all and be God he must be compell'd to looke upon that which his wisedome cannot like because it hath no being in him as it is the folly of sinne nor any connexion with his wisdome I am certain I thinke not of all this when I sinne Sinne is the destruction of Grace I have said enough And Thomas Aquinas disputing Tho. Aqui. 1. 2. q. 113. art 9. ad 2. of the difference betwixt the justification of a sinner and the creation of the world in the worth of the Act saith Bonum gratiae unius majus est quam bonum naturae totius universi the good of grace in one man though not raised above one degree is a greater good then all the good of nature pertaining to the world then the Sunne Moone Starres Earth Sea then any thing I ever saw or naturally can see then the soule of man with Gods Image in it though of so pure a substance that it cannot bee seene And Grace in the soule may be fitly compared to the light of the Sunne in the world For as there are degrees and differences of this outward light suiting with the time of the day So there is the light of Nature that is of Reason in us the light of Learning the light of Experience the light of Grace This faire light of the Sunne the light of Grace we in the meane time crucifying and killing Christ is all darkened with sinne as the Sunne it selfe was darkened when Christ hung dying upon the Crosse Sinne is the Consumption of goodnesse the death of the soule mans beter part and that by which he resembles his Creatour and is allied to God One evill thought is a secret conspiracie against God and all the triumphant Court of Heaven By every bad word wee scornefully spet in our Saviours face And with every ill action we buffet him This to speake the best of it is Jewish cruelty What a Christian turn'd Jew Now my eyes shut your selves unworthy to behold Gods good light or his Creatures by it whose Maker I have abused and strived to disenthrone though all Creatures and my selfe should have fallen with him With sorrow of heart I will open my owne sinnes before him whether open or secret which must be the more grievous because I was ashamed to act them before men The desperation of Cain shal not come neere me Mentiris Caine saith Saint Austin major est Dei S. Aug. in Gen. 4. super major est iniquitas mea pietas quam omnis iniquitas Caine thou liest Gods mercie is greater then all sin CHAP. XIIII BUt doe not mine eyes runne all this while have not teares opened them True teares of repentance as Chrysologus Chrysol speaketh extinguunt gehennam put out and extinguish Hell-fire which all good men preach to be unquenchable Wee see that when darke clouds cover the Heavens they seeme as it were possessed with horrour and sadnes yet the winde hath no sooner beate upon them shakē them into little drops of Psal 126. 5. rain but the Heavens begin to grow cleare and by little and little to look with a most pleasant face upon the world For they that sow in teares shall reape in joy Because the seed-time was wet and troublesome it shall be faire weather and Sun-shine all the harvest The shedding of teares from the eyes of a true Penitent is a spirituall Baptisme by which the soule is renewed in Christ and when will the Sunne shine if not after so sweet a shower Could I behold such a sweet shower falling from another I hope I should learne to drop my Luke 7. 5. 37. 38. selfe Saint Luke hath an eminent example And behold Behold a watch-word some great matter the Scripture hath to say And behold a Woman in the City A Woman what Woman why she the woman so much talkt of the Sinner A Woman in the City which was a sinner she desires not to be knowne or call'd by any other name but sinner And if you call sinner where are you She is quick of hearing on that part and she knowes you meane her and is ready to answer that 's my name here I come And what with her now she is come Why this Woman the sinner when shee knew that Jesus sat at meate in the Pharisees house brought an Alablaster Box of oyntment Now take a view of her behaviour And stood at his feete She durst not looke higher then his feete and lower she could not looke and she was willing to be trod upon if he pleased Behinde him She did not thinke her selfe worthy that he should look upon her or that she so wretched a sinner and yet not a sinner but the sinner should behold his blessed face
he may behold Fire turning the labours of an hundred yeeres in one small houre into unprofitable ashes and perhaps many a gallant man and woman burnt brought almost to a handfull There Water breaking out by maine strength from the Sea and spreading it self over Towns Countries to the destruction of every living thing but such as God made to thrive in the water while the lost carcasses of poore Christians are carried in a great number from shore to shore from Country to Countrey all swell'd and torne till they are washt away into fruitlesse scum which remaineth here and there on the top of the water to obey all tides and to be tossed and tumbled with every winde Invention can assigne no other cause of all this but sinne All the punishments that ever were are or shall be inflicted upon men All the evils which ever did doe now or shall hereafter fall heavie upon Creatures be they sensible or unsensible appointed for mans use draw life breath strength sinewes and all their force from the foule sinnes and superstitions of the world Pause here a little and give place to a pious meditation If Almighty God did so rigorously punish those adulterate Cities of Palestine with Sodome the chiefe head of them that besides the present punishment of a sudden overthrow by fire and brimstone from Heaven as if justice could not stand quiet in such grievous crimes the Countrey which once was a second Paradise another garden of the world now at this day lies so pitifully desolate that nothing is to be seene but black and sutty ground ashes and stones halfe burnt there remaining in the middle a great Lake called by a scornefull name mare mortuum the dead Sea from which a darke smoke continually rises most pernicious to man and every living creature where are no trees but such as are hypocritically fruitfull Apples indeed hang openly and which in the judgement of the eye are ripe but come to them enticed with their colour presse them with the least touch they scatter presently into vaine dust The substance of this we read even in Heathen Authors Solinus Cornelius Tacitus but especially Solinus c. 84. Corn. Tac. l. 5. hist Joseph de bell Jud. l. 5. c. 5. and with a more free addition of circumstances in Josephus the Jew borne and bred up not farre from this unfortunate Countrey Behold here a wofull extremity It was a rainy morning with them and yet wondrous light The were burned to ashes before they could rise either from their beds or their sinnes And because they were such deserving sinners and yet were not quick in going to Hell Hell came to them in fire and brimstone Five great Cities and every part of them were all on fire together and it burnt so violently that all the Sea could not have quenched the flames And was not Gods Anger burning hot me thinkes now I heare the damned in Hell cry from all sides fire fire fire and yet no creature will ever be able to quench the least sparke of it O the goodnesse of God that holds me up over the great Dragons mouth and yet still out of his mouth though he does crave and whine and cry for me If I say God Almighty imprinted with an iron instrument these horrid markes of his anger on the hatefull forehead of one Countrey for the sinnes of some few people what O what will hee doe or in what strange and new kind of anger will he expresse himselfe in the black day of judgement for the sinnes of the whole world Especially since that sinne is now growne exceedingly more diverse both in the species and in the particulars then it was in the infancie or childhood of the world In the day of judgement when the Devill questionlesse as Saint Basil observes will say something before the Bench to aggravate the matter Heare great Lord of Heaven and Hell I created not these people nor could I bring them from nothing Nor did I engrave my great signe and Image in their soules I did not take their nature I did not sweat bloud nor die for them I did not send Apostles and Preachers to signifie my will to them in a most powerfull manner or give grace to effect it I never wrought a miracle to bring waight to my sayings Nor did I promise them a Kingdome or eternall blessednesse But truely prepared for them a dark Dungeon where they shall lie and die with me eternally And yet behold mighty Judge my cursed crew of reprobates is the greatest by infinites whom though I much hate yet I much love their company And if we looke before Sodome God in his dreadfull anger drowned all the world for sinne both man and beast behaving himselfe in regard of mans beastly sins as if he scarce knew which was the man and which the beast Had we beene as we might have beene in the number of those poore lost wretches wherehad wee beene this day Distressed creatures they climed the trees they flew to the tops of the mountaines to save their lives Happy was he or she that stood highest But all in vaine The waters rose by some and by some they waiting with trembling expectation the Floud gat up as high as they the waves tooke them roaring as loud as they and their sinnes sunke them Part of them cleaved to boards plankes and other floating moveables for a while the drunkard to the barrell the covetous man to his chest of mony as very desirous to stay in the world and sinne againe but no creature of God was willing to save his enemy And every one that is like to Vlysses praised by Homer with this elogie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hee knew the Cities and manners of many people may quickly give us to understand how strangely the world in many places is defaced and wounded for sinne Vae laudabili vitae hominum saith Saint Austin si remota misericordia discutias eam Woe to the good lives of men if thou O Lord shalt discusse them without mercie We then with our bad lives how many woes shall we undergoe And the rather because it is most true which the same Saint Austin teacheth Multa laudata ab hominibus Deo teste damnantur S. Aug. lib. 3. Confess c. 9. cum saepe se aliter habent species facti aliter animus facientis Many things praised by men are condemned by God because oftentimes the outward barke and appearance of the deed doth not correspond and fall in with the minde of the Doer O Sinne it is a great vertue to hate thee A Toad is a very pretty thing in comparison of thee And now I remember a Toad is Gods good creature and if it could speake might truely say Lord such a one as I am I was made by thee And howosoever I looke blacke and cloudy that I move hate in passionate men yet thou lovest me Yea verily the loathed Serpent might say if it had mans tongue
this world both spirituall and temporall which strengthened with a hand from Heaven she fairely passed When she thinkes being now in full security With such a plot the Devill assaulted me at such a time had not God beene in the combate with me on my side I had beene lost Had I runne such a course that runne in my head at such an houre I had runne head-long to Hell Had God call'd for me and for an account at such a day by land by sea when the sea roard the winds blew the rocks watcht for the vessell I was in when the Ship reeld to and fro like a drunken man the Sea-men staggered and trembled I had not beene a blessed soule Through what a strange world did I travell hither how every small corner was beset with snares how the wayes abroad how the houses and streets of Townes and the very Churches were throng'd with evill Spirits which I never saw till now How sweete how mercifull God was to the world divided and distracted with so many errours defiled with so many sinnes How could he suffer men to live out halfe their dayes He that brought the world from nothing to something why did hee not throw it away in his anger from something to nothing againe O sweetnsse goodnesse mercie great exceeding infinite and there she dives In this life no joy goes without a sorrow without its Keeper that our life is like the roofe of the great Temple in Jerusalem which as Villalpandus records out of Josephus shewed flowers growing among guilded prickles and surely in the best day of our lives when wee sung the sweetest if wee sinke into the matter we shall finde that we had a sharpe thorne at our brests But the inside of Heaven is without a cloud Every day though new and fresh and shining is like a Friers weed dishonoured with a patch a badge of our beggery our misery The Romish Canon-law keeps the Popes so close to Religion that none are deposed ipso facto but for the crime of Heresie God the maintainer of this joy can never be stirred and therefore it must needs be a setled joy And of this Countrey I joy to speake because I am now in the way to it I will turn my eyes a little upon the Queen of Sheba She comes from a farre Countrey what 's her businesse Onely to see and speak with Salomon Which being done what sayes she And when the Queene of Sheba 1. King 10. 4. had seene all Salomons wisedome not heard but seene it was not onely wisedome of words And the house that he had built yonder house above Now I shall take of the Text here and there And the attendance of his Ministers his blessed Angels and their apparell their robes of immortality Vers 5. there was no more spirit in her and behold the halfe was not told me thy Preachers Vers 7. could not speake halfe Happy are these thy servants which stand continually before thee Vers 8. and that heare thy wisedome A greater then Salomon is here O Lord so teach me to converse with Christ here that I may dwell with him hereafter CHAP. XVII BY night on my bed saith the Spouse I sought him whom my soule loveth I sought him but I found him not It is very strange For that which the Divines call Gratia prima the first Grace comes alwaies by night It being alwayes darke night and indeed the dead of night before Grace comes And the first Grace doth not finde Grace where it comes For then it would not be the first But the meaning is the Spouse before she was the Spouse or the soule sought God without Grace as the Philosophers of which Saint Paul speakes Rom. 1. sought him without him as the Giver of supernaturall Graces sought him by night sought light in darknesse rejected the sufficiencie of Grace offered to her and thought to doe miracles and worke above nature by the helpe of nature Or if it be a harsh note she sought God without Grace We may say that she was moved by the first Grace to seeke God but because she did not worke with it as farre as the Grace did enable her she wanted the second Grace and did not seeke him aright For shee sought him on her bed sluggishly drousily She sought him onely in a dreame she sought him when the belly was full and the bones at rest betwixt sleeping and waking and therefore by her leave she was mistaken her soule did not love him For if her soule had loved him her soule would have tooke another order with her body and she would have sought him otherwise and might have found him But now she sought him and she sound him not and why She was mistaken both in the time and in the place For he was neither to be found by night in the darknesse of a sinfull life nor on her bed what should he have done there hee neither slumbreth nor sleepeth She should have sought him where he was and would be found Nor can it in reason be imagined that he would come to her come to be found and enjoyed and she neither move hand nor foote nor eye in the search of him but lie all along with her hands and feete spread abroad upon a bed of doune and with her eyes shut and that should passe for a sufficient seeking of all goodnesse to be rewarded with Heaven But though she hath not found him she hath found her errour and she begins againe I will rise now and goe about the Citie in the streets and in the broad wayes I will seeke him whom my soule loveth I sought him but I found him not Now she will rise The first beginning of good to be done on our parts after the kinde entertainment of the inspiration is the purpose of doing it Well She is dressing herself hastily But what will she doe when she is up We shall quickly see For I heard her say I will rise now She will admit of no delay she will fall to worke while the inspiration is warme and before it cooles But what doth shee meane to doe Goe to the City Hitherto she goes well For the Wise-men that came to seeke Christ wisely addressed themselves to the City and there enquired for him And to declare that they tooke a good ordinary way and that extraordinary helpe is ordained to supply the defect of Gods ordinary assistance extraordinary meanes failed them for the new-created starre disappeared In the City she will finde many good people that will gladly tell her good tidings of him whom her soule loveth because their soules have loved him from their childhood and ever since they knew what it was to love God gives her a will and power to rise And because thee rises with him he goes with her to the City Her going with him moves him againe to goe with her But it is not well that shee will goe about the City For if she goe not strait
in it selfe but altogether in the exercise of it selfe CHAP. 12. IT is the course of the Jesuits at St. Omers to send every yeare in the time of Harvest two missions of English Schollers into remote parts of the Christian world one to Rome in Italy And another to Valladolid or Sevil in Spaine and these places in Spaine receive their missions by turnes In all these places are English Colledges Whereof the Superiours or Governours are Jesuits the rest Schollers chalked out for secular Priests By secular Priests I understand not regular Priests neither Jesuits nor Monks nor Friurs but Priests without any farther addition whose primarie charge in their Institution by which they differ from others is to teach and instruct secular people and to reside in Benefices and be Parish Priests Here I have a notable trick to discover and I shall ever stop and stand amazed and ponder the malice of the Jesuits when I think of it Their best and most able Schollers they send alwayes to Spaine and onely their weaker vessells to Rome in their ordinarie proceedings whereof some are lame some crooked others imperfect in the naturall part of speaking The reason of it is excellent knowledge The Schollers being with them and subordinate to them in their Colledges and now far from their Country it is a great portion of their labour to win them by favours promises threats in the by and much cunning to be Jesuits and so they never leave any if all they can doe will doe withall for the Secular Priests but the leane and bony end and the refuse of them For the Jesuits and the Secular Priests are great opposites and much contrary in their opinions and the weaknes of the one wil help negatively to the strength of the other The Pope being informed of this Jesuiticall device gave a command at Rome where his power is absolute in all kindes that every Scholler the yeare of his probation being expired should bind himselfe by an oath not to enter into any order of Religion till after three yeares durance in England And then they began to set on foot the trick I told you of But if one desires admittance into a mission who by reason of some defect for example the defect of having entred into an order and returned with dislike cannot according to their rules be a Jesuit if hee comes with strong and able commendations they will send him to Rome though he be a deserving man that he and such as he may stand like a good face or a fresh colour over the device that lyeth inward They have a very godly-fac'd answer to this objection and say these imperfect creatures are as God made them and they are sent over by their poore friends to be Priests and we that weare out our bodies and lifes in the education of Youth have good reason to chuse the sounder part and they which come to us are not taken from the Church but restored to it in a more excellent manner But first according to their own Principles they are bound to goe along with the Founders intention and the Founder intended the maintenance for able men Secondly they doe not performe their obligation of Charity towards the body of the Clergie which they notably maime and disable and yet in those places they are onely Stewards for the Clergie Thirdly they doe great injurie both to their Church and their cause which suffereth oftentimes by such Martyrs of Nature and such unskilfull Defenders Some of which cannot read Latine nor yet hard English See how God worketh for us by their sins Fourthly they delude the Popes command concerning the oath and wholly frustrate his purpose and their fourth vow of obedience to his Holinesse stands for a cypher in this businesse And much more What remaineth now but that malice is predominant in the action and that they make themselves Gods and turne all to their owne ends CHAP. 13. AT St. Omers their manner is to make triall of every one that comes what nature and spirit hee is of and what progresse he hath made in learning partly by applying subtill young Lads to him which keepe him company and turne him outward and inward againe and make returne of their observations to the Jesuits and partly by their owne sifting him either in discourse or examination or in some other more laboured exercise Which triall when I had undergone an old Jesuit gray in experience and a crafty one and one whose name you have in your minde when you think Not being then Vice-provinciall of the English Jesuits look'd soberly upon me and told me of a spirituall exercise in use amongst them which would much preferre me in the service of God if I was pleased to make use of it I yeelded And the next day in the evening I was brought into a Chamber where the Curtaines were drawne and all made very dark onely a little light stole in at a corner of the window to a Table where stood pen ink and paper and order was given me by my ghostly Father a cunning man a man that did not walk in the light that I should not undraw the Curtaines or speak with any person but himselfe for certaine dayes and what the spirit of God should inspire into my heart concerning my course of life I should write there being pen ink and paper And he left a Meditation with mee the matter of which was indeed very heavenly and hee brought every day two or three more Hee visited me two or three times a day and alwayes his question was after how doe you childe and so forth What have you wrot any thing Feel you not any particular stirrings of the spirit of God And alwayes I answered plainely and truly no. Having beene kept in darknesse some dayes and alwayes left to a more serious and attentive listning after the holy Ghost and perceiving no signes of a releasement I began to suspect what the man aim'd at And I prayed heartily that my good God would be pleased to direct me Think with me Had these Meditations beene appointed meerely and precisely for the elevation of my soule to God they had beene excellent but perverted and abused to serve mens ends they were not what they were But I thought I would know farther e're long The holy man came againe and still enquired if I knew the minde of the Holy Ghost My answer was I did hope yes but I was loth because ashamed to speak it Being encouraged by him I said That in my last Meditation the spirit of God seemed to call me to the Society Hee knew the phrase and the sense of it was God moved me to be a Jesuit He presently caught up my words and told me I was a happy man and had great cause to blesse God for so high a calling with much to that purpose And when he had his end my Meditations had their end and the Curtaines were drawne and having beene enlightned from Heaven it was granted
that I should enjoy the light of the world and there was all the good man look'd for But had not the Holy Ghost spoke as he did hee would not have beene thought to speake like the Holy Ghost And now I was brought downe from my dark Cell with great joy and lightsomnesse and all the Boyes were unexpectedly sent abroad with me that afternoone to recreate their spirits and be merry with the new-borne childe Yet afterwards a performance being required of what I had promised my heart gave back For I had been counselled by some of the lesse Jesuited Schollers to goe in a mission and read farther in the practice of the Jesuits before I took their habit Which the Jesuits laboured to prevent telling me their numbers in their missions were full I stood to it and gave them no ground saying I would returne to England if I went not and so they sent mee in the mission to Valladolid in Spaine But I saw with both my eyes they were in good hope to gaine me afterwards Many are of opinion that a great cause of these great disturbances in the world is because men walk not in those vocations to which God hath called them The ordinarie vocation is when a man findes after a sit imploring of Gods help in the due examination of his heart that he can best and most proportionably to his abilities serve God in such an honest course lying within the reach and condition of his life And undoubtedly these soule wayes are so many wrestings of Gods spirit Me thinks now a man may throughly meditate every day if he please both whence hee came and whither hee goes in little England where hee may doe it freely and sweetly and where in the doing of it no man will have a plot upon Him or urge him to exact upon the Holy Ghost And lest the Jesuits should imagine wee are here altogether destitute of such helps and for the benefit of my neighbour I will set downe a Meditation in this kinde and he ownes it that desires with all his heart to serve God with all his might and by him they may guesse of others MEDITATION I. I Will fold my selfe inward and ponder seriously what and where I was some few yeares agoe what and where before my Father was borne or when hee was a childe If I lay aside an odde trifle of dayes if I take away a short course of running time No man or woman now living was alive Creeping things though they could but creepe did live and rejoyce in a comfortable being And other little creatures had wings and were able to flie readily here there and here againe and other wayes upwards and downwards And we vvho now goe vvith such a grace and look so full-eyde and build to our selves such Babels in our imaginations had no kinde of Being These Churches these Townes this Kingdome this heap of Kingdoms the vvorld vvere as vvee see them but vvee vvere not heard of not because vvee vvere a great vvay off but because vve vvere not Were not heard vvere not seene vvere no vvhere and all because vve vvere not Quae Arist lib. 4 Met. cap. 4. text 16. non sunt quomodò ambulabunt aut loquentur sayes the Philosopher The things vvhich are not how shall they vvalk or talk The very same Sunne that rises and sets for us did shine now red now pale upon the vvorld and constantly runne his dayes journey and keep the same times Such birds of the same colours did sing merrily to the same tunes and hop from branch to branch and flie from tree to tree as now they doe Beasts and Fishes in the same the very same diversity of shapes followed their severall instincts of nature The Bees made honey that differed nothing from ours but onely because it vvas not the same The vvindes blew cold and vvarme and vvarme and cold againe The Beech and Poplar the Cedar and Oke did grow upwards and downwards and every one vvas knowne by the leafe by vvhich vvee distinguish them Brooks took their courses The Sea ror'd Men and vvomen such as vve are did as vvee doe And vvee vvere nothing O vvonderfull A little vvhile before yesterday the best of us all and the most knowing knew not that there vvas a vvorld that there were Angels that there is a God that such as wee were afterwards to be because we had no knowledge no being the foundation and ground of knowledge MEDITATION II. OPretious peeces that we are we were all as it were borne of the Night and call'd from a dark Nothing And yet truly the most unworthy and most contemptible matter that is yea the Devils and Damned in Hell the lowest in the present order of Spirits are placed many steps of vvorth above nothing as being Gods creatures and bearing his colissons though branded with the foulest marks of dishonour For God is honoured even by the Being Punishments and Dishonour of the damned in which the divine Justice triumpheth But from Nothing no honour can rise to him onely that hee made something of nothing Nothing is so base that for it 's meere basenesse we cannot conceive it nor speake of it but in disgrace by denying it to be any thing which neither sense nor understanding can apprehend It hath no figure shape or colour and is no where because it is nothing It cannot be painted and though the Devill is painted under the forme of another thing yet that cannot that what nothing because it is the meere negation of a thing O cursed negation God never made thee For had God made thee thou hadst beene something And hadst thou been any thing there had beene as many things for ever with God as things had been possible by the power of God It cannot be described but by saying it is not and of nothing we cannot say it is but by adding nothing Of which now thinking or speaking or writing I think or speak or write of nothing And so we being and yet truly not truly being but being nothing God gave us the noble being we have and made us Kings and Queens of all corporal things when hee might have made us with his left hand Toads Vipers or Snakes Spiders to be alwayes watching in catching Flyes and to weave out our bowells to fill our bellies Snails to passe over all our time in creeping and in our passage from place to place to linger in the way and wait for our destruction wormes to be trod to peeces without any pitty or thought of what is done or that such a step was the death of a worme Flyes to play in the light and presently perish by day in a Cobweb by night in a candle leafes of sower grasse or fading flowers unworthy peeces of wood to be carved into any yea the vilest shape or perverted to the basest use Wee might have bin Idols or Images set up in dishonor of God which every one that loves him would not have been for all