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 and mine eyes a fountain of teares that I Jer. 9. 1. might weepe day and night O Lord Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is Psal 73. 25. 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 afterwards taste In our conversation with God wee first taste and then see I speake not of Faith being of another order O taste and see that the Lord is good Holy Scripture will give us matter Psal 34. 8. without end This is a delicious communication of our selves with God our selves when we are present onely with our selves and with God Keepe the double doores of your teeth and lips the forts of silence close that your nimble and busie tongue speake nothing but what some way directly or indirectly pertaineth to Gods glory agreeably to his good pleasure And therefore always before you speak
Experience Historie and DIVINITIE Divided into five Books Written by Richard Carpenter Vicar of POLING a small and obscure Village by the Sea-side neere to ARUNDEL in SUSSEX Who being first a Scholar of Eaton Colledge and afterwards a Student in Cambridge forsooke the Vniversitie and immediatly travelled in his raw green and ignorant yeares beyond the Seas and studied in Flanders Artois France Spain Italy and at length received Orders in Rome by the hands of the Popes Substitute and was sent by the Pope into England to pervert souls where he preached and laboured in that perverse way the space of a yeare and upwards and is now at last by the speciall favour of God reconciled to the faire Church of Christ in England Come out of her my people that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues Rev. 18. 4. Printed by order from the House of Commons LONDON Printed by I. N. for John Stafford and are to be sold at his shop in Chancery lane over against the Rolls 1641. 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 pooreman 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 Commers 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 own mouthes as one was judged Serve nequam ex tuo ipsius ore judicaberis 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 endeavour 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 mee in my own Parish and within my owne small fold Are they not unsufferably bold when a Priest came to my Lodging and there in his fury attempted to draw a sword upon me If you graciously assist me not I have bin saved abroad to perish at home with all my friends about me or at least to lie buried in secrecie and contempt Pardon me if I am hot I have bin hitherto chill and lukewarmnesse is highly blameable I have bin wrought upon through all my life and bowed to serve other mens ends And have ignorantly suffered my selfe to be moved and fashioned in order to them But now the vizard is off
as ordinarily women vse a Ribon or fillet in the gathering up of Thom. Aquin in Cant. 4. their haire an extravagancie of Nature So ought we to bind up our lips keep under knot the looseness of vain and idle words that loose thoughts may not gad abroade into words and lose themselves and the Speaker and then our speech will be comly CHAP. 2. GOds great last end in all his actions is himself and his own Glory For the end of the best must be the best of Ends and the best of Ends must be the best of things Our ends if conformable to his end do borrow more or lesse light perfection frō it in bending more or lesse neer to it Our chief end that is our end which all our other ends must observe and wait upon ought to be the same with his end in the World because it is the same with his in Heaven the sight and fruition of him A good end will not sanctifie a bad Action Howsoever we are call'd wee are not Religious if we set on fire the Hearts of Princes and stir them to arms that by the burning of Cities the depopulation of Countries the murdering of men women and children and by unjust intrusion upon the right of others the holy Church may encrease and multiply We are not of the society of Gods people if we devise and labour to blow up the joy and flower of a Kingdome with a powder-mine moved by a pious intention to promote the good of the Catholike Cause These pious intentions and pious frauds have play'd the very devils in the world and they are the more dangerous because they goe drest like Angels of light and are beleeved to come from Heaven The Divines teach good Doctrine when they say Bonum ex integra causa malum ex quocunque defectu Good must be compleat in it's kind and furnished with all requisites one of which being wanting the action is not compleat in morality and therefore not so good as it should be The matter of the Action must be good the manner of the performance good and the End good Which though it be extrinsecall to the Action is intrinsecall to the goodnesse of it I suppose if the matter and manner be indifferent they are good in some degree but the End crowns the goodnesse of the work for it is the most eminent of all that stirre in it Non est faciendum malum vel minimu ut eveniat bonum vel maximum The least evill is not to be done that the greatest good may follow the doing of it And it stands with good reason For the smallest evill of sinne as being laesio infinitae Majestatis the traiterous wounding of an infinite Majestie would be greater than the good which could follow And moreover committed in that kinde would cast a most foule aspersion upon God to wit that hee were either not able or not willing to bring about in it's appointed time the good he would have done but by evill performances It appeareth here that the performance of good is hard of evill easie My end is good and more then good superlatively good For it is God's end God and his Glory in the first place and in the second the good and godlinesse of my neighbours that some may cease to doe evill learne to do well others stand fast En su ser y 1 Es 16 17 puesto as the Spaniard speaks in the being position of wel-being in which God hath placed them and that all may love God and praise him and when they see or heare of this little Book may looke up to the great one above sing to him a love-song the song of the Angels that best know how to sing Glory be to God in the highest And 2 Luk. 14. as my end is good my action is not evill either in the matter or manner or circumstances because the milde relation of one truth which may be lawfully related and the zealous defence of another which may be lawfully defended and all this in a good and acceptable time CHAP. 3. BUt all is not required on my part The Reader likewise hath his task It was an old custome in the Grecian Church in a time when the current of zeale and religion ranne more pure because more nigh to the fountaine Christ Jesus that in the beginning of divine Service the Deacon appeared in the full view of the Congregation and cried aloud Sacra sacris holy things to holy things holy soules to holy services S. Chrysost Basil in Liturgiis The Reader is now upon a high service and his soule must be all Angelicall There is a certaine kinde of shell that lyeth alwayes open towards Heaven as it were looking upward and begging one fruitfull drop of dewe which being fallen it apprehends the greatnes of the purchase shuts presently and keepes the dore against all outward things till it hath made a pearle of it Every man desireth naturally in the first motion of his desire the conservation of himselfe in the second the bettering of his owne estate It is in the reading of pious Books as in the hearing of Sermons If we open our shells our soules the Heavens will drop their dewe into them the fruitfull dewe of Grace to be imployed worthily in making pearles of good works and solid vertue Here is matter of Meditation and matter of Action and they are both entirely conformable to the mixt life which is the most perfect It is the life of the Angels Abram requiring a signe of God by which he might know that hee should inherit the land of Canaan received this answer Take me an Heifer of three yeares old and a shee Goat of three yeares old and a Ram Gen. 15. 9 of three yeares old and a Turtle Dove and a young Pigeon His Sacrifice must consist of creatures that flye and creatures that onely goe upon the ground The Goers must all be of three yeares old in their full strength and vigour of Nature The Flyers were only the Turtle Dove and the young Pigeon whereof the first is a mourner the second a most harmlesse and quiet Liver As our Bookes so our lifes must be divided betwixt action and contemplation and the action must be the Action of youth and strength and our thoughts that are all upon the wing and the Ministers of Contemplation must first be mourners and then white harmelesse and heavenly and this will be to us a sure signe that we shall inherit the land of Canaan And because the devill is an old Thiefe that cares not from whom he stealos wee must learne of Abram of whom it followes And when Verse 11. the fowles came downe upon the carcasses Abram drove them away The devils temptations cannot be hindered from making towards the sacrifice or from setling upon it but we may drive them off before they fall too they must not carry a bill-full away Quodemit saith
and for us all MEDITATION III. ANd the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his Gen. 2. 7. nostrhils the breath of life and man became a living soule For when the Angels enriched with such absolute gifts and dowries of nature by occasion of their shining and beautifull nature had lost and lost beyond recovery the fairest beauty under Heaven which is Grace God turning his Omnipotencie to the Creation of man made as if he feared the like inconvenience all that is visible in Him of Earth of base and foule earth Which lest it should continually provoke a loathing he hath changed into a more fine substance covered all over with a fair and fashionable skinne but with a condition of returning at a word and halfe a call from Heaven unto Earth and into Earth That although he might afterwards be lifted up in the scale of his soule hee might be depressed againe presently on the other side by the waight and heavinesse of his body and so might lay the deep and low foundation of humility requisite to the high and stately building of vertue If now God should turn a man busie in the commission of some haynous crime into his first earth that presently in steed of the man should appeare to us an Image of clay like the man and with the mans cloathes on standing in the posture in which the man stood when he was wholly tooke up in committing that high sinne against God Should we not all abominate so vile a man of clay lifting himselfe against the great God of Heaven and Earth And God breathed upon his face rather then upon any other part of his body because all the senses of man doe flourish in his face and because agreeably to his own ordinance in the face the operations of the soule should be most apparent as the signes of feare griefe joy and the like wherefore one calls the eyes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most exact and accurate images of the Damascenus in vita Isidori minde But stay I grant that God in the beginning first rais'd all things by a strange lift out of nothing And I confesse it is true not that which Pythagoras his Schollers had so often in their mouthes Ipse dixit and no farther but ipse dixit facta sunt as the Prophet David singeth God spake the word and all this gallant world rose presently out of nothing as if sencelesse nothing had heard his voyce and obeyed him And I am sufficiently convinced that God brought our first Father from cōmon earth that we cannot touch without defiling our fingers to earth of a finer making call'd flesh But how are we made by him wee come a naturall way into the world And it is not seene that God hath any extraordinary hand in the work Truly neither are the influences of the Sunne and Starres apparent to us in our composition yet are they necessary to it Sol homo generant hominem sayes Aristotle The Sunne and a Arist man betwixt them beget a child The reasonable soule is created by God in the body at the time when the little body now shapen is in a fit temper to entertaine it For the soule is so noble and excellent both in her substance and operations that shee cannot proceed originally from any inferiour cause nor be but by creation And if God should stay his hand when the body is fitly dressed and disposed for the soule the child would be borne but the meanest part of a man And doubtlesse God useth Parents like inferiour officers even in the framing of the Body For if the Parents were the true Authors and master builders of the body they should be endued naturally with a full and perfect knowledge of that which they make They should fully and perfectly know how all things are ordered and fitted in the building They should know in particular how many strings veins sinewes bones are dispensed through all the body in what secret Cabinet the braine is locked up in what posture the heart lyeth and what due motion it keepes what kinde of Cookery the stomack uses which way the rivers of the bloud turne and at what turning they meet what it is that gives to the eyes the principality of seeing to the eares of hearing to the nose of smelling to the mouth of censuring all that passes by the taste and to the skin and flesh the office of touching Nor is this all But also when the body is taken up and borded by a sicknesse or when a member withers or is cut off truly if the Parents were the only Authors of the body they might even by the same Art by which they first framed it restore it againe to it selfe As the maker of a clock or builder of a house if any parts be out of order can bring them home to their fit place and gather all againe to uniformity So that every man naturally should be so farre skill'd in Physick and Surgerie and have such an advantage of power that his Art should never faile him even in the extraordinary practice of either To this may be added that the joyning together of the soule and body which in a manner is the conjunction of Heaven and Earth of an Angell and a beast could not be compassed by any but a workman of an infinite power For by what limited art can a spirit be linked to flesh with so close a tye as to fill up one substance one person They are too much different things the one is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Gregory Nazianzen speaks a ray of the S. Greg. Naz Divinity the other a vile thing extracted from a dunghill Nor is there any shew of semblance or proportion betwixt them And therfore to make these two ends meet is a work which requires the hand and the onely hand of the Master Workman The Divines give three speciall reasons why God joyned a body to a soule First moved by his infinite goodnesse because he desired to admit a body as well as a spirit to the participation of himselfe and all creatures being spirituall or corporall a body could never have beene partaker of blessednesse had it not beene joyned to a spirit Secondly for the more generall exercise of vertue in the service of God for a soule could not have acted many vertues without the aide of a body as the vertues of temperance and chastity For the Devils are not delighted with the sinnes contrary to these vertues but for our guilt Thirdly the perfection of the universe For as there are creatures only spirits as Angels and creatures onely bodily as beasts and trees so it was a great perfection that there should also be creatures both spirits and bodies By which it is evident that God placed man in a middle condition betwixt Angels and beasts to the end he might rise even in this life with Elias to the sublime and superiour state of
Angels not descend with Nabuchodonosor to that inferiour and low rank of beasts And by the more frequent operations of the spirit in high things we become more spirituall and indeed Angelicall By the more frequent exercise of the body and the bodily powers in the acts of sensuality we become more bodily and bestiall MEDITATION 4. ANd God gave us a being so perfect in all points and lineaments that lest we should fondly spend our whole lifes in admiration of our selves and at the looking-glasse hee wrought his owne image in us that guided byit as by a finger pointing upwards wee might not rest in the work but look up presently to the workman The image consisteth in this God is one the soule is one God is one in Essence and three in persons the Father the Sonne and the holy Ghost The soule is one in Essence and three in faculties the understanding the will the memory The Father is the first person and begets the Son the understanding is the first faculty and begets the will I meane the acts of willing by the representation of something which it sheweth amiable The Holy Ghost is the third person and proceeds from the Father and the Son the memory is the third faculty and is put into action and being in a manner joyntly by the understanding and will But here is a strange businesse The Sonne the second person came downe into the world and yet stay'd in Heaven The will the second faculty and she onely goes as it were out of the soule into outward action that we may see the soule of a man in the execution of his will and yet remaines in the soule God is a spirit the soule is a spirit God is all in all the world and all in every part of the world The soule is all in all the body and all in every part of the body Phidias a famous Graver desiring to leave in Athens a perpetuall memorie of himselfe and an everlasting monument of his Art made a curious image of Minerva the matter being pretious Jvorie and in her buckler upon which in a faire diversitie hee cut the battails of the Amazons and Giants hee couched his owne picture with such a rare singularity of Art that it could not any way be defaced without an utter dissolutioÌ„ of the Bucklar This did God before Phidias was ever heard of or his fore-fathers through many generations in the soule of man the image of God though not his likenesse remaining in the soule as long as the soule remaineth even in the damned To this image God hath annexed a desire of him which in the world lifts up our hearts to God in Hell begets and maintaines the most grievous paine of losse And to shew that this desire of God is the greatest and best of all desires nothing which any other desire longs after will satisfie the gaping heart but onely the object of this great desire Ad imaginem Dei facta anima rationalis saith S Ber. Ser. de divinis S. Bernard caeteris omnibus occupari potest repleri non potest capax enim Dei quicquid minus Deo est non replebit The reasonable soule being made after the image of God may be held back and stay'd a little dallying with other things but it can never be fully pleas'd and fill'd with them for the thing that is capable of God cannot be filled with any thing that is lesse then God The heart is carved into the forme of a Triangle and a Triangle having three angles or corners cannot be filled with a round thing as the world is For put the world being sphaericall or circular into the triangle of the heart and still the three angles will be empty and wait for a thing which is most perfectly one and three And that wee might know with what fervour of charity and heat of zeale God endeavoureth that we should be like to him he became like to us For although God cannot properly be said like to us as God as a man is not said like to his picture but the picture to him yet as man he may And therefore as hee formed us with conformity to his image in the Creation so hee formed himselfe according to our image and likenesse in his Incarnation So much he seeketh to perfect likenesse betwixt us in all parts that there may be the more firme ground for love to build upon when commonly similitude allureth to love and likenesse is a speciall cause of liking It is the phrase of S. Paul who saith of Christ that he was made in the likenesse of man 2 Phil. 7. MEDITATION V. ANd woman being made not as man of earth but of man and made in Paradise was not taken out of the head that she might stand over her husband nor out of the feet that she might be kickt and trod upon nor out of any fore-part that shee might be encouraged to go before her husband nor yet out of a hinder part lest her place should be thought amongst the servants farre behind her husband but out of the side that shee might remaine in some kinde of equality with him And from his heart side and a place very neere the heart that his love towards her might be hearty And from under his left arme that he might hold her with his left arme close to his heart and fight for her with his best arme as he would fight to defend his heart It is one of the great blessings which the Prophet pronounceth to him that feareth the Lord. Thy wife shall be as a fruitfull vine by the sides of thine house The vine branch may Psal 128. 3 be gently bended any way and being cut it often bleeds to death And the wife is a vine by the sides of the house her place is not on the floore of the house nor on the roofe shee must never be on the top of the house But there is a difference the woman must be a Vine by the insides of the House But now begins a Tragedy It is not without a secret that the Devill in his first exploit borrowed the shape of a serpent of which Moyses Now the serpent was more Gen. 3. 1. subtill then any beast of the field The knowledge of the Angels is more cleare compared with the knowledge of the Devils and moreover is joyned with Charity but the knowledge of the Devils is not joyned with Charity Justice or other vertues and therefore degenerateth into craft according to that of Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plat. in Mâ—â—â—xâ—â—◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Knowledge not linked with justice and other vertues is not wisedome but craft And the serpent is crafty For if he can passe his head his long traine being lesse and lesse will easily follow Hee will winde and turne any way He flatters outwardly with gawdy scales but inwardly he is poyson Hee watches for you in the greene grasse even amongst the flowers Wee see that
up and with their best clothes on and dance by the high Altar before it in imitation of David that danced before the Ark and the people stand about them as they doe in our Country Townes at their Summer sports only the Altar-side is cleare And whereas the people were infected with an evill custome of giving reprochfull names one to another as they met occasionally in the high-wayes the Pope hath taught them a Salutation and bound a sufficient Indulgence to it Alabado sea el santissimo sacramento Praised be the most holy Sacrament which words they usually pronounce one to another as they meet But I would he had taught them to say something which he had learn'd of the Primitive Church CHAP. 10. 2. THe Bread and Wine in the Sacrament are signes and figures onely of the body and bloud of Christ broken and powred out for us The tearme figure is used in this matter by Tertullian S. Austen and others of the Latine Church Wisedome hath builded her house saith the Wise-man Pro. 9. 1. By what secret passage can it enter into the heart of man that the Son of God the wisedome of the Father building a house a faire house a Church and building it in the defiance of Paganisme and to the ruine and overthrow of Idolatry under the heavy burden of which all habitable parts of the world all Kingdomes Countries people groaned would now forget his main plot and so institute the master-peece of Religion that his Followers comming to him with a zealous contempt and loathing of Idolatry should be taught presently in the Schoole of Truth to adore the glorious Majesty of Heaven and Earth in the likenesse of a little peece of bread to the great scandall and aversion of all that should beleeve the contrary For what is more frequent at this day in the mouth I cannot say of an uncircumcised but of an unbeleeving Turk when hee mingleth discourse with a Christian concerning God and Religion then to say in a reproachfull manner Alas good man I pitty you you make your God that which I eat at my Table And this Reason though it be drawne but ab improbabili yet urges because besides that nothing is improbable which is God hath ordained probability to be one of the first steps to knowledge If wee goe to the University and ask the Philosophers they will tell us it is requisite to the nature and Essence of a body that every part should have his proper place neither can a body be conceived to be a compleat body without extensive distinction of parts or to be but in a place And it is the exigence of materiall Accidents saith Aristotle as of quantity figure colour to be rooted in a body But here they are supposed to stand by themselves without a prop. And when a reason of these things never thought of in any kind of learning either in themselves or in their grounds is required the greatest schollers in the world on their part can say nothing but wee must goe up with holy Abraham the good old man to the top of the mountaine who having a strong promise that his seed should be multiplyed as the starres of Heaven was yet commanded to kill and sacrifice his onely sonne Isaak and we must leave the servants and the ignorant Asse at the foot of the hill that is the senses and Reason But if the senses be servants they are faithfull ones and are not deceived in the knowledge of their proper objects due order and conditions being kept on both sides and if Reason be an ignorant Asse what distinction is there betwixt a man and a beast They speake on As the Captaines of the Army put off their garments laid them in a heap and setting Jehu upon them cryed Jehu is King So we building a Throne for Faith over Sense and Reason must hold up our hands and pray that Faith may have a long and prosperous raigne over us Vive la Foy long live Faith There was a farre more searching kind of Philosophy taught in the sound and sincere dayes of S. Austen who in his Epistle to Dardanus thus draweth his argument from the deep grounds of true Philosophy Spatia locorum tolle corporibus nusquam erant quia nusquam erunt nec S. Aug. ad Dardan erunt tolle ipsa corpora qualitatibus corporum non erit ubi sint ideò necesse est ut non sint Take away from a body place and the body will be no where and being no where will not be take away from a body the qualities of a body and there wil be no place for the body to reside in and therefore the body must be no body I yeeld that in the part of Divinity which treateth of the blessed Trinity Reason must strike saile and stoope and Reason teacheth us that in the scanning of such high things Reason must be guided by a more certaine though not a clearer light and therefore still we follow the safe conduct of Reason but in materiall things proportion'd to our capacity and confined to their natures by the God of nature I cannot see with the eye of Reason or any other eye why Reason should not be one of the Councell and passe her judgement as shee does and ever did in these inferiour things Answer mee now Doth it not follow and flow out of these principles that the body of Christ in the Sacrament hath the being of a body and the being of a spirit at the same time and that if an Angell should take a particle of the Hoast and divide it continually for all eternity because such a division can never strike something to nothing as likewise no creature can ever lift something from nothing still in that little thing very like to nothing and many thousands of yeares before not perceptible by any sense of man Christ shall be as truly and as plentifully present as hee was in the world and upon the Crosse Answer mee againe Doe not they worship as Christ said to the woman of Samaria they know not what For when the Priest is supposed to be a Ioh. 4. 22. Priest and is not which often happeneth according to their Divinity either for the defect of Baptisme or for want of intention either in the Priest or Bishop or for want of orders in the Bishop then certainly they worship they know not what And it is a fearefull thing to draw the chiefe and most noble acts of Religion within the lists of such notable danger And the law of not administring the Sacrament in both kinds being one of the young handmaids which wait upon this doctrine took earnest first in the Councell of Constance And Pope Gelasius cursed all those who presumed to maime the divine ordinance and to receive it onely in one kinde And Transubstantiation the other feat waighting-maid was hired in the Councell of Lateran By little and little it was made a most huge Monster The bramble groweth
us from it hee would quickly thinke Had I my body and life againe whither would I not goe What would I not undergoe to shun this wofull extremity I would lye weeping upon the cold stones all covered with dust and ashes if it might be suffered a million of yeares for my sinnes I would begge my bread of hard-hearted people in a new world from one end of it to the other I would spend as many life 's in trembling feare and fearfull trembling if I had them as there bee lifes in living creatures I would doe any thing Now my soule doe not grieve that Hell is provided for sinners for such griefe stands so farre under the lowest degree of vertue that it is a sinne but give two teares at least from the eyes of thy body because thou hast sinned against thy good God Such teares are Pearles and rich ones and will in time make thee a rich man The holy Fathers call these teares the jewels of Heaven and the wine of Angels And as the world was a gallant world and there were such creatures and such doings as we now see before I was any thing so it will unlesse God please in the meane time to cut off all by his glorious and second comming remaine a very gallant world and there will againe be such creatures and such doings when I shall lye quietly under ground corrupt and putrifie and by little and little fall away to a few wretched bones and these shall remaine to mocke at what I have beene And he that is now so trim and so much talk'd of shall not be so much as remembred in the world his generation shall forget him and people will speake and behave themselves as if he had never beene CHAP. V. REader beware the Papists are crafty and profound in craft And they will object to relieve their cause one of these two things or both I have beene long trained in the knowledge of their wayes That I owe them thankes for many devout observations Something I have learned of them and I thanke them for it yet little if experience stand aside but what I might have learned in England My friends know that when I was a boy at Eton Colledge I began to scribble matters of devotion And I have seene much unworthinesse in them beyond the Seas not to be imitated which I could not have learned in England But the knowledge which they worke by shall lye dead in me Their other prop will be that my writings come not from the spirit of devotion but of oratorie I am short in these revelations that point at something in me who am nothing Reader thou hast the language of my spirit but I must digge farther into this veine of Meditation or Consideration Consideration 1. THe reasonable soule though now of composition is composed of three faculties the Understanding the Will the Memory All faculties being active have one most proper act or exercise to which they are most and most easily inclinable if not restrained The most proper act or operation of the Understanding is to see or know Truth Of the Will to will and love good Of the Memory to lay up and keepe in it selfe as in a Treasury all profitable occurrences By the sinne of Adam the Understanding is dazled in the sight or knowledge of Truth By the sinne of Adam the Will becomes chill and colde in the willing and loving of good so colde that it wants a fire And from the sin of Adam the Memore hath learn'd an ill tricke of treasuring up evill where it shall be sure to be found againe and of casting aside good where it may be lost with a great deale more ease then it was found Where one part is wounded and one well one part may succour and cherish the other the part well the wounded part In the soule all parts are wounded And therefore there is great neede of Grace and supernaturall helps that strengthened by them wee may recover health and partes deperditas the parts we have lost Lord assist my contemplation with thy Grace Wherefore the holy Apostle speaking of those who in all their adventures were guided onely by the weake directions of nature sayes they became Rom. 1. 21. vaine in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkned First vaine and then more darke Saint Hieromes Translation speaketh after this manner in Genesis The Gen. 1. 2. earth was vaine and voide and darknesse was upon the face of the deepe What the Eye is in the body the Understanding is in the soule The Eye is the naturall guide of the body the Understanding is the naturall guide of the soule For when we beleeve as well as desire the things we doe not understand even then also we take a naturall direction from the Understanding which he holds a convenience of such things in respect of the motives with beliefe and desire though not with Understanding The Eye sees the outward shape of a thing the Understanding sees both outwardly and inwardly as being advanced more neerely in its degree and therefore also in its making to God The Eye discernes one thing from another the Understanding conceives as much The Eye judges of colours the Understanding judges of white and blacke of good and evill The Eye cannot see perfectly many things at once and such a one is the understanding For the more a power be it spirituall or corporall being finite is spread and divided in its operation the lesse power it hath in every particular The eye sees other things but I cannot turne it inward to see it selfe the Eye of the soule lookes forward but in the body it shall never obtaine a sight of it selfe in its owne essence Indeed the Understanding is a kinde of Eye and the Eye is a kinde of Understanding Such an excellent sweetnesse of agreement there is betwixt the soule and the body which moved to the marriage and union betwixt them Now this Understanding this Eye of the soule is not altogether blinded by the great mischance of originall sinne For omnia naturalia sunt integra as Dionysius sayes of Dionys Areop the fallen Angels all the naturall parts are sound How from being broken not from being bruised This Eye then although darke so farre sees that it sees it selfe lesse able to see somewhat darke in the sight of naturall things and much more then somewhat darke in the sight of spirituall things I may stand betwixt both and clearely behold the different case of the soule before and after the fall of Adam in order to spirituall contemplation and practise if I looke upon the various condition of a man in health and sicknesse in order to the actions and operations of life The sicke man is weake and ill at ease his principall parts are in paine his head his heart He cannot use his minde seriously but his head akes he cannot looke stedfastly nor at all upon a shining object discourse is tedious to
to speake with a Jusuite at his chamber in London found him earnest in his study behinde a curtaine After the discussion of their businesse the Jesuit stepped hastily downe to give order concerning the entertainment of his friend And in the interim the Frier looked behinde the the curtaine and found before his chair a written book The title of the Chapter which then lay open was By what motives to stirre a widow or other free person to give her estate into the hands of the Church and how afterwards to dispose of her The Frier by whom I was informed named to me a principall man of his Order who then had one of these bookes lying by him Whatsoever the Scribes and Pharises practised I doe not read that they commended the art of devouring widowes houses to writing for the information of their posterity THe fortune of the booke as it was related to me is this The Jesuits dare not print it lest it should at any time slip besides their hands into the world And the Jesuits that are sober natur'd and seriously given are never suffered to heare of this booke it is onely permitted to practical men and at such a time after their entrance into the Order but not before I had formerly heard of this booke and that it was full of damnable conveyances My Reader may see with halfe an eye that I relate things briefely and plainely and that I build upon the testimonies which they give one of another being a sure way The learning of bookes plowes not halfe so deepe Another Frier struck both the Jesuits and the Monks in one turning of his tongue with these words The Jesuits are the daily plotters and actours of businesses which we can never answer And were not the Monks ashamed to give out the other day that a mad man of their Order wrought miracles These Friers have a sleight by which they confirme their young ones They have printed under a picture of Saint Francis Saint Francis obtained of God by his prayers that whosoever dieth in his Order and hath the benefit of confession shall insallibly goe to Heaven The Monks have made the like promise under the picture of Saint Benet But let them unloose this knot without cutting it If their confession come from a penitent heart it will bring them alone to Heaven in the opinion of the Romanists if it come not from such a bruised heart Heaven is denyed to it by all their Doctors The Jesuits are a little more solid They have a picture wherein are printed at large the Prophecies of many Jewish Rabbines foretelling that God would send a religious and learned company of men into the World in the decaying and old age of it as I imagine for the elects sake Now I began to turne my thoughts a seeking againe because I had not yet found what I looked for And therefore I pretended the want of health and loth to continue a begging Frier upon these tearmes freely begged leave to depart CHAP. VII I Was now even cloyed and surfeited with these vanities And I meditated upon a conversion to the Church of England But although I staggered having drunke deepe of the poysoned Cups of Babylon yet my whole heart was never converted neither did I ever apply my selfe with an open profession to the Church of England before this happy time And still my heart gaped for more knowledge of their wayes Wherefore I was commended to an uncloister'd Monk in Paris with whom I lived a while as a stranger and enjoyed the great benefit of a faire Library This Monk communicated with the Church of Rome but inclined very much to the Greeke Church Yet his two Monks for they were all his family inclined every way as they went being seldome sober In Paris I found the fault of Doway that many schollers lived by theft and that men threw themselves into danger of their lives who stirred abroad in the black of night as well neare the Colledges as elsewhere These are not good orders of Universities neither is this a promising and hopefull education of Priests In this Towne I lay at watch for a better occasion You shall have more hereafter Now onely one farewell to the Friers They have many Rules of a strange out-landish nature and condition He that will be rul'd by reason may judge of this Rule A Frier is licensed by his Rule to touch and receive money with his Garment his sleeve or the lappet of his coate but not with his hand He is utterly forbid to touch it with any part of his flesh I see there may be an equivocation committed as well in manners as in words And I saw this Rule kept by a Frier who received a French crowne into a paper In the defiance of this and all other Rules of the like profession I give to him who is pleased to take with his bare hand and heart Rules directory in a Christian life and founded either in themselves or in their grounds upon the received principles of Gods holy word Rule 1. REmember alwayes that God is alwayes with you about you in you and in every part of you and of all his creatures and that when you goe from one place to another you leave God behinde you and yet he goes with you and yet you finde him where you come because he was there before you came And that although not alwayes the same yet some Angels and Devils are alwayes by you watching over you and carefully observing your behaviour yea and oftentimes beholding your heart in outward actions And let your thoughts and tongue bee alwayes running and repeating Shall I commit an act of high treason against so great a King so just and severe a Judge so good so pure a God and in his presence It is he whom Joseph meant when hee said How can I doe this great wickednesse and sinne against God How sweet is God that sendeth his first and most perfect creatures his holy Angels downe from Heaven with an injunction of stooping and attending to the meane and homely affaires of men The Angels are daily conversant with us and yet are never discharged from the glorious vision of God to whom they are united being present with them wheresoever they are such a pretious mixture and composition of good things ought the life of man to be it must be compounded of holy practise and heavenly contemplation The Devill standeth ready to dash out our braines to destroy the body and to devoure the soule to disturbe the peace of nature to confound the elements to mingle Heaven and Earth to trouble all wishing earnestly and earnestly entreating that God would turne away his milde face his gentle eyes and say Goe my Executioner revenge my cause upon the World And yet God will not O the delicacie of the Divine sweetnesse Learne the nature of the Devill In one thing especially the fall of the Angels was like the fall of man For as man was more
weakened by his fall in his will and readinesse to doe good then in his understanding and knowledge of good so the Devill is farre more blunted in his will then blinded in his understanding As for his naturall knowledge it is rather dazled then darkned And by this notable signe you may know that his will is most malignant For although it is plaine to him that for every temptation he stirreth up in man the burden of punishment shall bee laid presently heape after heape upon his shoulders and though he knoweth exactly how many strong ties he breakes by offending perceives more throughly the quality of the offence and sees with a more cleare eye the greatnesse of the Divine majesty offended yet still the perversnesse and faction of his will carries him on through all to mischiefe And if the Devill remaineth yet so perfect in the intellectuall part by knowledge sans doubt he knowes and is versed in all the possible wayes how to invade us which way our inclinations leane which side is most weak and how he may plant his engine with returne of most profit to his owne cause and what will best follow the fashion of our fancie The enemy which we see before us in his owne and knowne shape sense teacheth us to feare and consequently to withstand or prevent him But the Devill we feare the lesse because we see him not because he has the art to goe invisible Thomas Aquinas is of opinion that every man being alwayes accompanied with a good Angel and a bad one some by reason of the foule enormity of their sinnes and desertion of God who never forsaketh before he is forsaken and left alone himselfe may be forsaken for a while or totally by their good Angel But I dare say that never any man was forsaken by hi◠bad Angel the Devill If one of us were but a little while haunted with a Ghost how he would feare and tremble every one of us is haunted continually with a Devill and yet we feare not because we doe not see him No man goeth but the Devil goeth with him no man stayeth but the Devill stayeth with him no man sleepeth here his action changes but the Devill waketh by him And as he is alwayes with us so hee is also alwayes so vigilant about us that although he doth not know the thoughts of the heart in the heart and cannot reade them in that booke of Characters yet he doth oftentimes gather what they are by the language of outward signes and also by outward signes forestall and know even future occurrences depending upon the will of man He is a Tempter by his profession God also may be said to tempt us but how by scattering rubbs in our way to make vertue more bold and more laborious What made all the Conquerours famous but because they conquer'd what was not easily conquer'd But the Devill tempteth with a direct intention to sinne God tempteth with a strong desire of good and of our salvation the Devill with a furious desire of evill and of our damnation God tempteth us not above our strength the Devill would if God would suffer him And as the Roman Conquerour the Queene having escaped carried her image in triumph So because he cannot trample upon God who threw him downe from Heaven he labours to revenge himselfe upon his Image Suspect therefore all his proceedings Facilius illicita Tert. de cultu foeminarum timebit qui licita verebitur saith Tertullian He will more easily feare unlawfull things who will be afraid even of things lawfull Let this joy thy heart Nothing can happen or stirre or be in the world except sin without Gods approbation nor yet that without his permission Please God and you have him your friend that holds all chances all stirrings and the being of all things fast in his hands And lastly begge nothing of man before you first begge it of God Rule 2. DIsingage your selfe from the world mistake me not from the love of it Old Authors observe that the Apostles were all clad outwardly not with Friers coates but with mantles And the mantle is a loose garment which hangs to a man but by a loope If it prove troublesome if it hindereth in your journey put your finger to the loope and the mantle falleth away The Apostles taught even by their garments and the mantles served to demonstrate their neglect of worldly things and to give evidence by what tenure they held them If riches abound set not your heart upon them sayes he that was both Prince and Prophet If they creepe upon you keepe the infection from your heart if they breake in upon the heart they are Luke 14. 33. mortall Except a man shall renounce all which he possesseth he cannot be my Disciple sayes the Prince of Prophets Then O rich man either presently renounce all which thou possessest or else turne out-law and forbeare to thinke thy selfe the Disciple of Christ All. A tearme of universality shuts the doore against every particular This is heavy newes I feare the messenger will bee ill Matth. 11. 30. paid It is not My yoke is easie and my burden is light saith he under whose yoke we labour Renounce the will and affection to riches and thou hast fulfilled the Law The affection of a ragged poore creature may be more closely tyde to an old house and a pewter dish then the will of a great person to a Palace and the revenewes of a Prince And therefore our Saviour speaketh plainely Blessed are the poore in spirit for Matth. 5. 3. theirs is the Kingdome of Heaven For poverty of spirit even rich may have in a rich manner And because they are poore upon earth they shall be rich in Heaven for theirs is the Kingdome of Heaven And the Kingdome of Heaven is not promised to any kind of poverty but the poverty of spirit And to that it is promised wheresoever God finds it It is easier for a Cāel to go through Mat. 19. 24 the eye of a needle then for a rich man to enter into the Kingdome of God that is for a rich man whose love and affection sit brooding upon his riches Some ancient expositors tell us upon this place that there was in Jerusalem a little gate which for its extraordinary straitnesse was called the Needle the passage through it being 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 casier 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