understanding be it true or false from hence there glide into the condition of humane life a thousand extravagant illusions It is even at this day that Semblanâ—es the children of opinion and lying truth hath lost her garment falshood is clothed with it and Opinion in this Court-like habit hath really and actually produced little monsters but such as yet holding and retaining the malice of their father and levity of their mother attire themselves with certain veils which make them seem beautiful they flie up and down like little Cupids they make a trade of deceiving and practice with so much subtility that they ensnare even the wisest Behold our unhappiness The world the Island of dreams Verar Hist l. 2. we are in this world as in the Island of dreams whereof Luctan speaketh We dream broad-waking and such dreams which are by so much the more perillous by how much we the less look into the danger A man who hath dreamed all the night as soon as he beginneth to open his eye-lids mocketh at his own fantasies and saith they were dreams we dream all the days of our life and say they are verities We run after the false imaginations as children after butter-flies When the great night of our death draweth near we begin to discharge our selves from this waking sleep and from this sleeping vigil we find we have death at hand And as for the butter-flies which we so eagerly followed after we have broken our heads and shins in their pursuit we neither have their legs nor wings in our hands Behold one of the greatest impediments of perfection Alas Noble spirit thou wouldst be truly noble if thou couldst shake off this golden yoak the opinion whereof hath so surcharged thee consecrating thy bondage thereunto by a precious imposture But who will do it Had not he anciently a notable subject Mercur. Tris Souls in the torrent of opinion hereon who said when he considered the estate of the world the souls of men seemed to him to be all thrown headlong from the Palace of verity into the torrent of opinion all of them tumbled into the mercy of the waves and few were to be found that would bravely settle themselves to row against the stream Seneca hath well observed and touched the true Senec. de beata vita Opinion the source of all corruptions source of the corruption which at this day reigneth upon the earth We live not according to reason but by relation to the life of another and from thence cometh Non ad rationew sedad similitudinem vivimus inde ista tanta coacervatio aliorum supraialos ruentium Against the life of opinion that we fall one upon another by heaps as blind men into a ditch To take away this confusion I produce onely three considerations which are very pressing and pregnant The first that this life which is so lead by opinion is very ridiculous The second that it is base and servile The third that it boweth under a cruel tyranny from whence it may with a little courage dis-infranchize it self And first I demand if it be agreeable to a noble and generous heart to forsake the gravity incident to his nature and to embrace idle toys and fopperies No man will consent hereunto but he that will betray his reason Now so it is that all the opinions which at this day intoxicate the world are not builded but upon the flying sand upon the giddy humours of windy brains upon the passions and affections of a debauched and corrupted multitude Where the sheep feedeth that goeth Cornel. Tac. hist 2. Multitudo vulgi more magis quam judicio post alius alium quasi prudentiorem sequitur Strange giddiness of opinion before they which follow must graze though they die for it Every one attendeth his companion as the wisest and he that venteth folly with the greatest confidence is the best welcom What monsters what prodigious fancies of scattered and uncollected spirits have not been received for laudable actions being favoured and authorized by opinion It is a thing ridiculous and almost incredible to see the chimerical conceits that it hath perswaded making them to be taken not by a particular man or one sole family but by a whole and entire Nation for maxims of wisdom The Mossins a people performed all the actions Apollonius 2. Argonaut vers 138. of most secrecy in publick yea even those which are ordained for the necessities of nature and treated the affairs of the Common-wealth in their houses constantly believing it was very requisite so to do The Tibarenes as soon as their wives were delivered Idem ibidem bound up their heads with a kercheff lay down on their bed and made themselves to be attended like the child-bed women The poor women in the mean time were up and about the house endeavouring to make ready bathes for their husbands and to dress and season their viands to tend and cherish them as if they had born all the pain of feminine travel Could you have any thing more ridiculous And yet opinion made it appear very reasonable There are such to be found who place all their honour and glory in drinking hard and eating freely to call a man a robber a thief an adulterer were in this Countrey nothing to say that such an one were not a great gourmandizer nor a great drinker would be to do him an unpardonable injurie Others placed all the excellency and dignity of man Aruncani Lips politic in carrying a huge log of wood a great distance and by this tryal chose their Kings The greatest burden-carriers and porters were there great Lords Others did kill and eat their aged parents for a ceremony of Religion And opinion made this good What also do not those people of India and other parts discovered in our days Some think it is honourable to turn their back to salute one Others thrust their finger to the earth and after lift it to heaven to do reverence Others gather up the spittle of their Prince and speak to him through a hollow trunk Others offer to their gods their old shoes in sacrifice A man would laugh when he heareth speech of it and yet we see that the proudest Monarchs of the world who supposed they had shut up all wisdom in their laws and customs trampled virtue under their feet and placed Dragons Bats and Quartan-agues on their Altars Behold what opinion can do These follies you will say are not now in practice He that would well examine all the fantastick humours of apparel all the giddy conceits of sports and pastimes the folly of complements which at this time reign amongst men should find things as ridiculous as these as it were to adore an humble poor crucified God and yet to be mad after greatness riches and curiosities To believe that one perpetually liveth under the eyes of God yet to behave himself like a wild colt at his own fantasie neither
factious to be herein opinionative and in the mean time when they came to bear arms where they must witness true valour for the service of their Prince such encounters have happened that they so despairingly ran off that they have passed through forrests two leagues over and not seen a tree so much affrighted they were It is not necessary to name them happily they are already too much renowned in the Histories of the times And yet you will make much account of these goodly swaih-bucklers Assure your self the most part of those who shew Courage of duel like to that of the possessed such boyling fury in these barbarous acts are as Lunaticks possessed with an evil spirit You would be amazed to see a little girle so strong that there must be twenty men to hold her From whence I pray hath she this force but that she hath the devil in her body And tell me a young Gentleman who many times hath father mother wife children honours riches pleasures in his life would he go upon cold bloud to deprive himself of all this Would he contemn the sacred Edicts of his Prince now very lately renewed by the zeal of our great Monarch Would he descend with open eyes into hell if he had not some black spirit of the abyss which dreggeth him to the last mischief He doth that for a cold countenance an extravagant word and a caprich of spirit which he would not either for God the King or the whole world We may well say this is the malady of inferiour houses and you take it for valour A poor cocks-comb forsooth called a second who putteth into compremise at the discretion of a crack't brain all that which is most dear unto him in this world and what he hopeth in the other going to be the victim of death or the murderer of a man whom he never saw or knew or if he have seen or known him so far as to love or honour him would he play all this goodly prize if he were not possessed with an evil spirit Yet you admire this Why do you not rather wonder at the countenances the twindges and distorted mowings of the possessed I begin to perswade you to reason say you my Gallant You are an enemy of this race of Cadmus derived from the teeth of serpents and think not these petty wranglers of the times with all their letters and challenges have any valour But if a brave spirit be urged to fight by such kind of men should he refuse it Verily there are main differences in duels in the causes which make them and the proceedings of such as execute them If you must needs go to duel pass thereunto as David in sight of an Army with permission of your Prince or your Captain against some Goliah who hath defied you Go thither with intention to defend the honour of your Nation and to weaken the contrary faction Behold who is worthy If you must go to duel go thither when your King or Lord shall command you to accept the combat to end some notable war and stay a great effusion of bloud but by the hazard of two Champions Behold who is glorious But if you hasten thither upon some chimera of spirit which you call by the name of honour upon some ambiguous word to which you frame an interpretation against your self for a cold countenance a surly brow for a desire which you have to become pledge of the follies of some fellow witless and a slave to his own passions if you hasten thither for the love of some unchaste woman to whom you sacrifice humane bloud how can you be excusable For if you tell me your honour is more precious unto you than your wealth and life and therefore that as the law of nature permitteth you to defend both your riches and body at the point of your sword against a robber and a homicide from whom you cannot otherwise dis-engage your self you have the same right for the defence of your reputation which is in man as the apple in the eye I answer that being so surprized upon the sudden by some assailant who provoketh you threatneth you and thrusteth his sword into your sides if you use not a lawfull defence it is not then said that you are bound to flie with some kind of ignominy Nay I will say besides that if true honour were interessed in refusal of a challenge he that should accept it might likewise according to the laws of conscience seem somewhat tollerable But from whom ought we to derive this estimation and judgement of true honour Is it from certain sleight braggards and witless people who have sold themselves to passion eternally to renounce prudence Behold goodly Judges of honour Behold who well deserveth to prescribe unto us the rule and price of the most precious thing in the world If we desired sincerely to establish the judgement to be made of the point of honour we ought to search into the resolutions of the Church and Civilians but these kind of people are suspected by you as being alienated from the profession of arms Let us enquire it in the mouthes of warriours Was there ever a braver souldier than the late King of most famous memory And hath there likewise ever been a Prince more dexterous in arms and more fortunate than he that now reigneth Since their Edicts condemn duels both in those who challenge and such as are challenged although much different in their proceedings what do we need any other judgement to decide the point of honour But Kings and Princes sovereign say you notwithstanding their Edicts approve those by word of mouth who shew courage in such like actions Who dare reproach them with this Who dare tell them to their faces that they bely their Edicts by their particular judgements Who sees not such words are purposely invented by those men who seek for pretexts to their false liberties Why these Edicts dictated by reason agreed unto with judgement supported by justice provoked by piety to the writing of which Jesus Christ would contribute his own bloud to spare the bloud and with it the souls of so many as are lost and whom to save he gave up his own life Where should we learn the rule of honour the judgement and will of the Prince but in Oracles and virtues which he hath consigned to the memory of all Ages I intreat you trouble my head no more with these dastardly combats and detestable massacres let this be no longer but for the infamous and melancholy bloud-thirsters One Bachet understanding that a Turkish Captain had called his companion into duel What saith he are there no more Christians And have not we cause to say Are there no Saracens nor Moors and other Infidels to turn thâ—â—dge of the sword against our entrails The sixth SECTION Against the ill mannage of Arms. FRom hence it is likewise that you are taught in time of war to play the little Cannibal in arms
bodies of his servants and Nilus overflowing with the bloud of his French himself surprized and taken by his enemies and led into the Sultan's Tent among clamours out-cries infernal countenāces of Sarazens and all the images of death able to overwhelm a soul of the strongest temper notwithstanding though his heart were steeped as a sponge in a sea of dolours and compassion ever making use of reason he entered into the Barbarians pavillion not at all changing colour and as if he had returned from his walk in the garden of his palace he asked his pages for his book of prayers and taking it disposed himself to pay the usual tribute of his oraisons in a profound tranquility of mind which I conceive to be very rare since there needeth oftentimes but the loss of a trifle to stay devotion which is not yet arrived to the point of solidity But if you therein seek for a perfect humility consider what passed in the Councel of Lyons and see how he laboured to depose the Emperour Frederick the second who was ruined in reputation in the opinion of almost all the world Other Princes who have not always their hands so innocent but that they readily invade the goods of others when some religious pretext is offered them would have been very ambitious to be enstalled in his place whom they meant to despoil but the universal consent of great men judged this throne could not be worthily supplied but by this great King yet he notwithstanding declined it as a wise Pilot would a rock and thought better to choose the extremity of all evils of the world among Sarazens than to mount to the Empire by such ways But that which is most considerable in the matter we handle may be observed in his valour never weakened by his great devotion for he was one of the most couragious Princes in a cold temperature with reason that was then under Heaven It was courage which taking him from the sweet tranquility of a life wholly religious caused him to leave a Kingdom replenished with peace contentment and delights to go to a land of Sarazens live in all incommodities imaginable to nature It was courage which caused him so many times to expose his royal and valiant person not onely to the toyls of a desperate voyage but to the strokes also of most hazardous battels witness when at his arrival in Aegypt the coast being all beset with Sarazens very resolute to hinder the passage of his ship he threw himself first of all from the ship into the water where he was plunged up to the shoulders with his target about his neck and sword in hand as a true spectacle of magnanimity to all his Army which encouraged by the example came to the land as the King had commanded The greatness of the sun is measured by a small shadow on the earth and there many times needeth but very few words to illustrate a great virtue So many excellent pens have written upon his brave acts and made them so well known to all the world that it were to bring light into day to go about to mention them If some say He is to be a pattern for Kings and Divers Ladies excellent in piety Lords Ladies who should manure devotion as an inheritance for their sex shall never want great lights and worthy instructions if they will consider those who being more near to our Age should make the more impression upon their manners If we speak of the endeavour of prayer look upon See the reverend Father Hilarion of Costa Barbe Zopoly Queen of Polonia who continuing days and nights in prayer all covered over with fackcloth affixed good success to the standards of the King her husband and for him gained battels If account be made of the chastity of maidens and sequestration from worldly conversation reflect on Beatrix du Bois who being one of the most beautifull creatures of her time and seeing the innocent flames of her eyes too easily enkindled love in the hearts of those who had access to her put her self upon so rough a pennance for others sin that she was fourty years without being seen or to have seen any man in the face If you speak of modesty let wanton Courtiers behold Antonietta de Bourbon wife of Claudius first Duke of Guize who after the death of her husband was clothed in serge and went continually amongst the poor with her waiting-women to teach them the practise of alms If charity be magnified toward persons necessitous cast your eye upon Anne of Austria Queen of Poland who accustoming to serve twelve poor people every munday the very same day she yielded her soul up to God when she had scarcely so much left as a little breath on her lips asked she might once more wait on the poor at dinner and that death might close her eyes when she opened her hands to charity If the instruction of children be much esteemed fix your thoughts upon Anne of Hungarie mother of eleven daughters and admire her in the midst of her little company as the old Hen-Nightingale giving tunes and proportions of the harmony of all virtues and so breeding these young creatures that they all prospered well with excellent and worthy parts If you delight in the government of a family which is one of the chiefest praises of married women take direction from Margaret Dutchess of Alencon who governed the whole family with so much wisdom that order which is the beauty of the world found there all its measures and that if the domestick servants of other Lords and Ladies are known by their liveries she caused hers to be known by their modestie If you desire austerities look with reverence on the hair-cloth and nails of Charlotte de Bourbon the Kings great Grand-mother and behold with admiration Frances de Batarnay who during a widow-hood of three-score years was twenty of them without ever coming into bed If you praise chast widows who can pass without an Elogie Elizabeth widow of Charls the ninth who in a flourishing youth being much courted by all the great Monarchs of the world answered That having been the widow of a Charls of France she had concluded all worldly magnificencies and that nothing more remained for her but to have Jesus Christ for a spouse And verily she spent the rest of her days in a conversation wholly Angelical amongst religious women whom she had founded If constancy in the death of kinred have place let the lesson be hearkened unto which Magdalen wife of Gaston de Foix gave who having seen the death of a husband whom she loved above all the world and afterward of an onely son remaining the total support of her house made her courage to be as much admired among the dead as her love was esteemed among the living And what stile would not be tired in so great a multitude of holy and solid devotions and who can but think the choise becometh hard by
Charls of Anjou much fearing this young Lion forgat His sentence and death all generosity to serve his own turn and did a most base act detested by all understandings that have any humanity which is that having kept Conradinus a whole year in a straight prison he assembled certain wicked Lawyers to decide the cause of one of the noblest spirits at that time under heaven who to second the passion of their Master rendered the laws criminal and served themselves with written right to kill a Prince contrary to the law of nature judging him worthy of death in that said they he disturbed the peace of the Church and aspired to Empire A scaffold was prepared in a publick place all hanged with red where Conradinus is brought with other Lords A Protonotary clothed after the ancient fashion mounteth into a chair set there for the purpose and aloud pronounceth the wicked sentence After which Conradinus raising himself casting an eye ful of fervour and flames on the Judge said Base and cruel slave as thou art to open thy mouth to condemn thy Sovereign It was a lamentable thing to see this great Prince on a scaffold in so tender years wise as an Apollo beautiful as an Amazon and valiant as an Achilles to leave his head under the sword of an Executioner in the place where he hoped to crown it â—e called heaven earth to bear witness of Charls his cruelty who unseen beheld this goodly spectacle froÌ„ an high turret He complained that his goods being taken from him they robbed him of his life as a thief that the blossom of his age was cut off by the hand of a hang-man taking away his head to bereave him of the Crown lastly throwing down his glove demanded an account of this inhumanity Then seeing his Cousin Frederick's head to fall before him he took it kissed it and laid it to his bosom asking pardon of it as if he had been the cause of his disaster in having been the companion of his valour This great heart wanting tears to deplore it self wept over a friend and finishing his sorrows with his life stretched out his neck to the Minister of justice Behold how Charls who had been treated with all humanity in the prisons of Sarazens used a Christian Prince so true it proves that ambition seemeth to blot out the character of Christianity to put in the place of it some thing worse than the Turbant This death lamented through all the world yea which maketh Theaters still mourn sensibly struck the heart of Queen Constantia his Aunt wife of Peter of Arragon She bewailed the poor Prince with tears which could never be dried up as one whom she dearly loved and then again representing to her self so many virtues and delights drowned in such generous bloud and so unworthily shed her heart dissolved into sorrow But as she was drenched in tears so her husband thundred in arms to revenge his death He rigged out a fleet of ships the charge whereof he Collenutius histor Neapol l. 5. c. 4. 5. recommended to Roger de Loria to assail Charls the second Prince of Salerno the onely son of Charls of Anjou who commanded in the absence of his father The admiral of the Arragonian failed not to encounter The son of Charls of Anjou taken him and sought so furiously with him that having sunck many of his ships he took him prisoner and brought him into Sicily where Queen Constantia was expecting the event of this battle She failed not to cause the heads of many Gentlemen to be cut off in revenge of Conradinus so to moisten his ashes with the bloud of his enemies Charls the Kings onely son was set apart with nine principal Lords of the Army and left to the discretion of Constantia Her wound was still all bloudy and the greatest of the Kingdom counselled her speedily to put to death the son of her capital enemy yea the people mutined for this execution which was the cause the Queen having taken order for his arraignment and he thereupon condemned to death she on a Friday morning sent him word it was now time to dispose himself for his last hour The Prince nephew to S. Lewis and who had some sense of his uncles piety very couragiously received these tidings saying That besides other courtesies he had received from the Queen in prison she did him a singular favour to appoint the day of his death on a Friday and that it was good reason he should die culpable on the day whereon Christ died innocent This speech was related to Queen Constantia who was therewith much moved and having some space bethought her self she replyed Tell Prince Charls if he take contentment to suffer An excellent passage of clemency death on a Friday I will likewise find out mine own satisfaction to forgive him on the same day that Jesus signed the pardon of his Executioners with his proper bloud God forbid I shed the bloud of a man on the day my Master poured out his for me Although time surprize me in the dolour of my wounds I will not rest upon the bitterness of revenge I freely pardon him and it shall not be my fault that he is not at this instant in full liberty This magnanimous heart caused the execution to be staied yet fearing if she left him to himself the people might tear him in pieces she sent him to the King her husband entreating by all which was most pretious unto him to save his life and send him back to his Father Peter of Arragon who sought his own accommodation in so good a prize freed him from danger of death yet enlarged him not suddenly For his deliverance must come from a hand wholly celestial Sylvester Pruere writes that lying long imprisoned in the City of Barcellon the day of S. Mary Magdalen aproaching who was his great Patroness he disposed himself to a singular devotion fasting confessing his sins communicating begging of her with tears to deliver him from this captivity Heaven was not deaf to his prayers Behold on the day of the feast he perceived a Lady full of Majesty who commanded him to follow her at which words he felt as it were a diffusion of extraordinary joy spread over his heart He followed her step by step as a man rapt and seeing all the gates flie open before her without resistance and finding himself so cheerful that his body seemed to have put on the nature of a spirit he well perceived heaven wrought wonders for him The Lady looking on him after she had gone some part of the way asked him where he thought he was to which he replied that he imagined himself to be yet in the Territory of Barcellon Charls you are deceived said she you are in the County of Provence a league from Narbon and thereupon she vanished Charls not at all doubting the miracle nor the protection of S. Mary Magdalen prostrated himself on the earth adoring
imitate your Graces profitable and well-seasoned retirements I wish excellent Lady there were any thing wherein I might better expresse the devoted service I ow to your eminent self and illustrious Family but since weak endeauours can produce but slender effects and noble dispositions do readily pardon incident imperfections I will rest in the cheerefull hope of Excuse and in the ardent Vow of a studious willingnesse to become worthy the Title of Your Graces humblest and most obsequious servant THOMAS HAWKINS To my Lord MY LORD THE DUKE OF ANGVIEN ELDEST SONNE OF MY LORD THE PRINCE MY LORD I Finish the Holy-Court in my Books when your age inviteth you to begin it in your manners and for your first exercise of arms I offer you the Combats and Empire over Passions which is greater then that of the world There it is where you shall know the industry of a warre which nature wageth and reason teacheth us which is never too soon learned and which is ordinarily but too late understood Princes in other battels speak with mouths of fire and make use of a million of hands but in this which I represent they are alone and therein employ but the moitie of themselves one part of Man being revolted against the other Besides all the honour of the uictory rests in themselves arms fortresses and Regiments not at all participating therein and if they prove fortunate in these encountres they stand in the esteem of wise men for Demy-Gods Their quality obligeth them to this duty more then other men since Passions are winds which in popular life raise but little waves but in them stir up mountains of water For which I am perswaded that as you so dearly have loved the labours of my Pen and sought for your instruction out of my Books I could not do a better service or more suitable to your age then by arming you against these plagues which have so often tarnished Diadems on the brow of Cesars and turned Conquerours into Slaves Sir I promise my self much from your Greatnesse in this Conquest seeing it already hath given testimonies to the world worthy of your eminent Birth which oblige you to virtue out of a necessity as strong as your disposition is sweet VVit which is as the principall Genius of your house hath in you cast forth glimmers that have flown throughout Europe when you publickly answered throughout all Philosophy in an age wherein other Princes begin to learn the first elements You have placed wisedome on the highest Throne of Glory and it by your mouth hath rendred Oracles to instruct the learned and astonish Doctours In the first season of life which so many other spend in delights you have heightned the lights of your understanding by the labour and industry of study living as certain Plants which bear the figure of Starres all invironed with Thorns It is time that all your Brightnesse change into Fire and since Sciences are but Colours which appeare not in the night-time if Virtue do not illuminate them they must be gilded with the rayes of your good life and enkindled with the ardours of your courage as you very happily have already begun Sir I do assure my self that of all those things you know you will onely approve the good and that of all such as you can you will do none but the just This is it you owe to the King to whom you have the honour to be so near This is it which the education of the most prudent of Fathers and the tender care of the best of mothers exact This is it that France which looketh on you as a Sien of its Lillies wisheth This is it which bloud the mostnoble on Earth breeding the most happy in the world and that face where Grace and Majesty make so sweet a commixion cease not to promise us As there is nothing little in you so we must not endure any thing imperfect and if that which we take to be spots in the Sun be Stars it plainly sheweth us that all must be splendour in your condition and that we must not expect years since the wit of Princes in much swifter then time Your great Vncle who gained the battel of Cerisoles said to those who upbraided him with his youth that he did not cut with his beard but with his sword and I am perswaded that you will imitate his valour to take part in his glory yea even in this your minority wherein the Kings colours being already to fly under your name My Lord remember the throne of the Sun among the Egyptians was supported by Lyons and that you must be all heart to support that of our most Christian King in imitation of the great Prince to whom you ow your Birth For whose sake I wish you as many blessings as Heaven promiseth you esteeming my self most happy to be able to contribute my labours and services to the glory of your education since I have the honour to call my self by just title SIR Your most humble and most affectionate servant in our Lord N. CAUSSIN A TASTE OF THE SEVERALL DISPOSITIONS OF MEN VVhich serves for a Foundation to the Discourse of PASSIONS THE HOLY COURT was not as yet sufficiently beautified with the eminent lustre of Glory wherein I represented it but it was necessary that taking possession of the Empire over passions it should wear a crown which it hath gained by its travell and wrought by its proper virtues In this last Tome dear Reader I present thee the absolute reformation of the soul by eternall principles and the victory over powers which oppose Reason Thou art not ignorant that Angels and bruit beasts are but of one piece the one being wholly Spirit and the other Flesh But Man a middle creature between Angels and bruit beasts participateth both of flesh and Spirit by an admirable tye which in him occasioneth continuall war of Passions which are properly commotions of animall and sensitive nature caused by the imagination of good and evil with some alteration of body They take their origen from two Appetites of which the Concupiscible causeth Love Hatred Desire Aversion Joy and Sadnesse The Irascible causeth Hope Despair Boldnesse Fear and Anger To this ordinary number I add Shamefastnesse Envy Jealousie and Compassion to accomplish our work in all its parts All Passions are generally in all men but all appear not in all There is a certain mixture in nature which is the cause that the worst have something of good and the best something of bad Now note that as the Platonists distinguish five sorts of divels to wit Fiery Airy Aquatick Terrestriall and Subterranean so humane spirits are divided into as many forms which produce merveilous diversities in every nature The Fiery are Spirits of fire whereof some seem to be enkindled with the purest flames of stars which are magnanimous pure vigorous bold intelligent active amiable and munâ—ficent And of this sort are the most illustrious of Kings and of Queens
of their flying arrows overthrown scattered torn into a thousand pieces by the enterprise of a Jewesse Judith gives not her self the praise of this work it was God that acted in her who was the direction of her hand the strength of her arm the spirit of her prudence the ardour of her courage and the soul of her soul O how great is this God of gods O how terrible is this Lord of hosts and who is there that fears not God but he that hath none at all What Colossus's of pride have faln and shall yet fall under his hands What giants beaten down and plunged even into hell for kindling fiery coals of concupiscence shall smoak in flames by an eternall sacrifice which their pains shall render to the Divine Justice HESTER THe holy Scripture sets before our eyes in this History Greatnesse falling into an eclipse and the lownesse of the earth elevated to the Starres Humility on the Throne and Ambition on the Gallows Might overthrown by Beauty Love sanctified and Revenge strangled by its own hands It teaches Kings to govern and People to obey great Ones not to relie on a fortune of ice Ladies to cherish Piety and Honour the Happy to fear every thing and the Miserable to despair of nothing All that we have to discourse of here happened in the Kingdome of Persia during the Captivity of the Jews in Babylon about four hundred and sixty years before the Nativity of our Lord and under the Reign of Ahasuerus But it is a great Riddle to divine who this Prince was to whom Hester was married and which is called here by a name that is not found in the History of the Persian Kings and which indeed may agree to all those high Monarchs signifying no other thing but The great Lord. Mercator sayes that it was Astyages grandfather of Cyrus and Cedrenus that it was Darius the Mede Genebrand is for Cambyses Scaliger for Xerxes Serrarius for Ochus Josephus and Saillan for Artaxerxes with the long hand The wise Hester that was so much in love with Chastity is found to have had fourteen husbands by the contestation of Authours every one would give her one of his own making she is married to all the Kings of Persia she is coursed up and down through all the Empire and her Espousals made to last above two hundred years But as it is easie enough to confute the Opinions of all those that speak of her so is it very hard to settle the truth of the Chronology amidst so great obscurities The Scripture sayes that Mordecai with Hester was carried away out of Judea into Babylon under the Reign of Nebuchadonozor and if we are of the opinion that marries her to Artaxerxes if we reckon well all the years that were between those two Kings we shall find that this young and ravishing beauty of Hester which caught so great a Monarch by the eyes was already an hundred and fifty years old which is an age too ripe for a maid that one would give for a wife to a King It is impossible to get out of this labyrinth if we do not say that Mordecai and Hester were not transported in their own but in the persons of their ancestours and that that passage means nothing else but that they issued from the race of those that were lead captives with King Jechonias destroyed by Nebuchadonozor so we will take Artaxerxes and not divide that amiable concord of Authours united in this point Represent then to your selves that from the time that the Jews were dispersed into Babylon into Persia into Medea and through all the States of those great Kings they ceased not to multiply in Captivity and that servitude which is wont to stifle great spirits produced sometimes amongst them gallant men Amongst others appeared upon the Theatre the excellent Mordecai a man of a good understanding and of a great courage who by his dexterity and valour delivered all his Nation from death and total ruine He then dwelt in Shushan the capitall city of all the Kingdome and bred up in his house a little Niece the daughter of his brother an orphan both by father and mother which was named in her first child-hood Edisla and after called Hester Now as those great spirits that are particularly governed by God have some tincture of Prophecie he had a wonderfull Dream and saw in his sleep a great tempest with thunderings and lightnings and an earthquake which was followed with a combate of two dragons who were fighting one against the other and sent forth horrible hissings whiles divers Nations assembled together stood and looked upon them expecting the issue of the combate thereupon he perceived a little fountain which became suddenly a great river which was changed into a Light and of a Light transformed it self into a Sun that both watcred and illuminated the earth He knew not what his Dream did mean but he learned the Interpretation of it in the great combates he had with Haman and in the exaltation of his little Niece that was promoted to so high a splendour as to give both evidence and refreshment to all the people of her Nation This Mordecai being a man of good behaviour and quality found means to advance himself to Court and to make his beginnings there in some inferiour office expecting some good occasion to make himself be known He had an eye alwayes open to discover all that passed without any bragging of it He considered the approaches of divers Nations that lived in that Court the humours the capacities the businesses the obligations the intricacies the credit the industry of every one omitting nothing of all that might advance the benefit of his Countrey-men He quickly discovered the spirit of Haman who was at that time a mean Cavalier of fortune but ambitious close crafty revengefull bloudy and capable to embroil a State He had an aversation from him although he had not yet been offended by him and began to distrust him fearing lest he be one day fatall to his people Neverthelesse Haman with the times took an high ascendant and Mordecai feared his greatnesse as one would do the apparition of a Comet It happened that two perfidious Subjects Thares and Bagathan ushers of the door made an abominable conspiracy against King Artaxerxes which Mordecai who was not a drowsie spirit soon perceived and began carefully to watch them observing their goings out and comings in their words and their countenances their plottings and their practices He gave notice of it very opportunely so that being taken arrested and put to the rack they acknowledged the crime and were led away to punishment The King gave hearty thanks to Mordecai commanded him to live in his Palace in a certain office which he bestowed upon him and caused the day to be set down in writing wherein he had been preserved from the conspiracy of those unhappy servants to recompence as opportunity should be offered the good services of his Deliverer
a King in Name onely and that the Queen signed The pernicious language of an Incendiary first in all the Declarations and did not permit that any Effigies should be stamped on the moneys but her own That of necessity he must discharge himself from the tutelage of that Imperious woman and teach her to submit to the law of Nature which allows not that Sex to command their husbands On the other side this Forger of iniquity heating two furnaces with one fagot ceased not by his complaints to set on fire the heart of the Queen telling her That she must chastise the rash young Man and retain the Sovereignty entire on her own side otherwise his unruly passions attempting to part the Crown betwixt them would take it away from them both and put all things into a confusion This was the occasion that Mary arming her heart with a manly courage would enjoy the Rights and Prerogatives of her birth and did afterwards reign in full authority 4. This young Husband who of a Subject was become The jealousie of King Henry Stuart Darley a Master could not with moderation endure his change of fortune but daily endeavoured to hold more of command than of compliance The Queen also who desired to be known the sole efficient Cause of his preferment being unwilling to lose the name of Mistress in taking that of wife did distast his importunity deferred his Coronation and did allow him but a little part in the affairs of the Kingdom She ordinarily did confer much with David Riccius her Secretary an old and a discreet man who with great honour possessed her ear and her good opinion for she cherished him rather for the necessity of her affairs than for any attractive qualities that were in him for he was but of a deformed body as they who have seen him do affirm But the calumny of the The Book of the death of the Queen of Scots printed in the year 1587. Puritans who know of every wood how to make an arrow did not forbear in their bold discourses to reflect upon the honour of Queen Mary concerning that subject although it was the most incredible and the most ridiculous thing in the world Cambden also the most sincere of all Historians of the pretended Religion and Monsieur de Castelnau have disdained to speak of it as being an out-rage which had no foundation at all of truth although the Earls of Morton and Lindsey two execrable Incendiaries who had undertaken the divorce of the Royal House following the spirit of Heresie most impudently to breathe forth the greatest lies did work a great alteration on the King in the cooling of his affections to his wife The spirit of Henrie now became furious and A spirit tormented with two great devils did perceive it self to be possessed on by two fiends The one the Jealousie of Love the other of Estate which both at one time did commit a prodigious Ravishment on his heart They made him believe that he passed for a King in fansie onely and that his Throne was no more than a meer picture whilest another was made a Partner in his bed In effect the excellent Beauties of the Queen which had given him such heats of love did now raise his jealousie to the height of those flames He was all on fire perpetually night and day and being tormented with shadows suspitions and rages with choller frenzies and with terrours he lived as on the wheel not knowing which way to turn himself His passion did suggest unto him a bloudy remedy A tragick remedy by the death of the Secretary of the Queen which was to draw the Secretary from the Cabinet of the Queen at the hour of supper and under colour of communicating some affair unto him to stab him with a ponyard in the Presence-Chamber The body being all bloudy by threescore wounds which it received fell down just at the door of his Mistress imploring Heaven and earth against those who by so black a treason had ravished his life from him in the flower of his hopes The Queen being frighted at the noise did run to the door and with his bloud received the last breathings of his soul some drops of the bloud falling on her outward garment She startled at the horrour of the sight and believed that some sprinklings of the bloud had painted on her face the opprobriousness of the act But as she made her complaint the Murderers The passion of divelish fury presented a pistol to her without any regard to the brightness of her Majesty or the bigness of her womb desiring nothing more than at one blow to destroy both the Tree and the fruit They locked her up in a chamber of the Palace taking from her all her ordinary servants and putting a Guard on her of four-score souldiers On this the Estates met and the pestilent Councel were assembled where with mouthes full of fire the Hereticks ceased not to breathe forth Rebellion Bloud and Butcheries They gave it out aloud That they ought not by halfs to do a work of so great importance and since the Queen who was a Pillar of the Papists Religion in Scotland was already shaken they ought to lay her low as the earth and utterly destroy her in giving allowance to the Libels and the Calumnies which were published against her They had attempted to have seduced the The horrible attempt of Heresie spirit of the young King promising him to put the Crown in peace upon his Head if he would maintain and support their Design to which as he shewed an inclination they began to weave an horrible conspiracy to take from him all the most eminent persons of the State and imbarque the innocence of the Queen in the common shipwrack The Earl of Murray who fled into England for having raised Arms against their Majesties returned back and came into Scotland rathers as a Triumpher than a guilty person They made him an overture of their pernicious counsels which he entertained with horrour for as yet he was unwilling that the Affairs should be carried on with such an extremity of violence wherefore in private he repaired to the Queen demanding pardon for his offences past and promising all obedience for the time to come He counselled her to recollect and rouze up her spirits and pardon the injuries passed and to take away from the Conspiratours all the apprehensions of Despair The Queen bending her spirit to the necessity of the time and her present affairs did receive him with all courtesie and told him that she was ready to perform all as he pleased She assured him that he was not ignorant that her heart was without gall having always pardoned offences even to her own destruction by her too much clemency And though she had been used by him with too much rigour for a Brother that she would not cease to cherish him and to gratifie him above all other to give him the
the day of its own brightness to consider how Providence guarding her dear Pool as the apple of her eye did reserve him for a time which made him the true Peace-maker of that nation For this effect it came to pass that Henry the Eighth The Estate of England having reigned eighteen years in schism leading a life profuse in luxury ravenous in avarice impious in Sacriledge cruel in massacres covered over with ordures bloud and Infamy did fall sick of a languishing disease which gave him the leisure to have some thoughts on the other world It is true that the affrighting images of his Crimes The death of Henry the Eighth and the shades of the dead which seemed to besiege his bed and perpetually to trouble his repose did bring many pangs and remorses to him Insomuch that having called some Bishops to his assistance he testified a desire to reconcile himself unto the Church and sought after the means thereof But they who before were terrified with the fury of his actions which were more than barbarous fearing that he spoke not that but onely to sound them and that he would not seal to their Counsels which they should suggest unto him peradventure with the effusion of their bloud did gently advise him without shewing him the indeavours and the effects of true repentance and without declaring to him the satisfactions which he ought to God and to his Neighbours for the enormities of so many Crimes He was content to erect the Church of the Cardeleirs and commanded that Mass should there be publickly celebrated which was performed to the great joy of the Catholicks which yet remained in that horrible Havock To this Church he annexed an Hospital and some other appurtenances and left for all a thousand Crowns of yearly Revenue As he perceived that his life began to abandon him he demanded the Communion which he received making a show as if he would rise himself but the Bishop told him that his weakness did excuse him from that Ceremony he made answer That if he should prostrate himself on the Earth to receive so Divine a Majesty he should not humble himself according to his duty He by his Will ordained that his Son Edward who was born of Jane Seimer should succeed him and in the case of death that Marie the Daughter of Queen Katharine should be the inheritress of the Crown and if that she should fail that his Daughter Elizabeth although a Bastard should fill her place and possess the Kingdom On the approches of death he called for wine and those who were next unto his bed did conceive that he oftentimes did repeat the word Monks and that he said as in despair I have lost all This is that which most truly can be affirmed of him for it is a very bad sign to behold a man to die in the honour of his Royal dignity and by a peaceable death who had torn in pieces JESUS CHRIST who had divided the Church into schisms who of the six Queens that he espoused had killed four of them who had massacred two Cardinals three Archbishops eighteen Bishops twelve great Earls Priests and Religious Men without number and of his people without end who had robbed all the Churches of his Kingdom destroyed the Divine worship oppressed a million of innocents and in one word who had assasinated mercy it self Howsoever he wanted not flatterers who presumed to say and write that his wisdom had given a good order to his affairs and that he happily departed this world not considering what S. dustine doth affirm That all the penitencies of those who have lived in great disorders and who onely do convert themselves at the end of their life being pressed to it by the extreamity of their disease ought to be extreamly suspected because they do not forsake their sins but their sins do forsake them It was observed indeed that at his death this King did testifie a repentance of his savage and inordinate life but we cannot observe the great and exemplary satisfactions which were due to the expiation of so many abominable sins King Antiochus made submissions of another nature and ordered notable restitutions to recompense the dammages which he had caused to the people of the Jews nevertheless he was rejected of God by reason of his bloudy life and the Gates of the Temple of mercy were shut against him for all eternity The foundation of a small Hospital which Henry caused at his death was not sufficient to recompense the injuries of so many Churches which he had pillaged nor of so much goods of his Subjects as he had forced from them seeing we know by the words of the wise man That to make a benefit Eccles 34. of the substance of the poor is to sacrifice a Son before the eyes of his Father He had by his Testament ordained many tutors to The Reign of Edward His Uncle Seimer spoileth all his Son who were able to have made as many Tyrants but Seimer Uncle by the mothers side to the deceased King gaining the favour of the principal of the Lords of the realm whom he had corrupted with mony and great presents did cause himself to be proclaimed Protector and Regent He took a great possession on little Edward the Son of Henry heir to the Crown whom he brought up in schism and Heresie against the intentions of his Father This furious man immediately began his Regency with so much insolence that he almost made the reign of Henry the Eight to be forgotten he fomented the poison which he had conceived under him he did use the Catholicks most unworthily and did cut off the head of his own Brother by a jealousy of women But as he had made himself insupportable so it came to pass that the affairs of war which he had enterprized against the French did fall out unfortunately for him Dudley one of the chiefest of the Lords drawing a party to him did accuse him of Treason and caused his head to be cut off on the same Scaffold where before he had taken off the head of his own Brother This death was followed with great fears and horrible commotions for the Regency which presently after was extinguished by the death of the young King Edward This poor Prince was rather plucked with pincers The Qualities and death of King Edward from his mothers womb than born and he could not come into the world without giving death to her who conceived him He was said to have none of the comeliest bodies He spake seven languages at fifteen years of age and in his discourse did testifie a rare knowledge of all those sciences which were most worthy of a King It seemeth that death did advance it self to ravish his spirit from his body which did awake too early and was too foreward for his age for he died in his sixteen year having not had the time throughly to understand himself and to see by what course
THE HOLY COURT IN FIVE TOMES The FIRST Treating of MOTIVES Which should excite men of Qualitie to CHRISTIAN PERFECTION The SECOND Of the PRELATE SOULDIER STATES-MAN and LADIE The THIRD Of MAXIMS of CHRISTIANITIE AGAINST PROPHANESSE Divided into Three Parts viz. DIVINITIE GOVERNMENT OF THIS LIFE STATE OF THE OTHER WORLD The FOURTH Containing the Command of REASON over the PASSIONS The FIFTH Now first published in English and much augmented according to the last Edition of the AUTHOUR Containing the LIVES of the most Famous and Illustrious COURTIERS taken both out of the OLD and NEW TESTAMENT and other Modern Authours Written in French by NICHOLAS CAUSSIN S. J. Translated into English by Sr. T. H. and others LONDON Printed by WILLIAM BENTLEY and are to be sold by JOHN WILLIAMS in Pauls Church-yard MDCL THE HOLY COURT DEUS EST NOBIS SOL ET SCUTUM Caeca Cupido ruit caecusque Cupido Via Regia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THE HOLY COVRT dixi Dij estis et filij excelsi omnes 〈…〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈…〉 Solomon ex ad perfectum Vsque perduxit Reg. 3. G. G. sculp To the MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY OF HENRIETTE-MARIA QUEEN OF GREAT BRITTAIN A COURT adorned with virtue and sanctified with pietie is here most EXCELLENT QUEEN to your view presented which having once already in pure and Native colours received light and life from the bright eye of your Royal BROTHER would gladly at this time in a harsher language and ruder garment adventure your gracious acceptance The subject is serious the discourse usefull and proper for those who in Court so serve Princes that they neglect not an humble acknowledgement to a more transcendent Greatness It hath pleased GOD as a singular favour to this Kingdom to affoard us in your MAjESTIE a pious Queen who exemplarly maketh good what diffusedly is here handled Let then lesser lights borrow beams of radiance from your greater Orbs and persist You Glorious Example of virtue to illuminate and heat our Northern Clime with celestiall ardours Adde to earthly Crowns heavenly Diadems of Piety Here shall a HOLY COURT be found fairly delineated nor can I see how it will be in the power of persons of best eminence to plead ignorance and pretend inability they having such a Book to direct them and such a Queen to follow Lead then with alacritie most Sacred MAJESTIE and may propitious Heaven so prosper your holy desires that the Greatest may have matter to imitate and the whole Nation to admire TO THE KING OF FRANCE SIR THis Treatise of the Holiness of Courts before it be published comes forth to behold the great and divine lights wherewith God hath environed your Majestie whom he hath chosen out to sanctifie the COURT by means of two reflections which are the Example of your virtues and the Authority of your Laws As for example You supply as much as in a Prince may be desired who hath brought innocency into the Throne of Majestie as an earnest-pennie of Royaltie and whitened the very Flower-de-luces by the puritie of your heart and hands This argument in my opinion should powerfully operate in the hearts of French-men For it would be a disorder in Nature to see bad subjects under a good Prince to plant vice in the Kingdom of Virtue and to have a bodie of morter and feet of clay affixed to a head of Gold It is fit impudence should be extreamly shameless not to blush when the sparkling lustre of a Crown casteth into the eyes the glimmering flashes of so great a Pietie Where example cannot reach Kings have Laws which are given them from Heaven as hands of gold and iron to recompence merits and chastise crimes And as your Majestie SIR from your most tender years hath shewed a singular propension to the detestation of Impietie and maintenance of Justice that causeth me to say Your Majestie hath great means to make the COURT essentially holy which the disabilitie of my pen cannot express but on paper It is a work worthy of a Christian King who standeth in the midst of Kings and Nations as heretofore the statue of the Sun in the midst of publick passages Royal hands cannot be better employed than to erect the Tropheys of Sanctity That is it which all the first have done CONSTANTINE in the Roman Empire CLODOVAEUS in France RICAREDUS in Spain ETHELBERT in England CANUTUS in Denmark WENCESLAUS in Poland All those who have taken that way have been glorious in the memory of men whilest others that have prepared Altars and Tables to Fortune as saith the Prophet Isaiah erecting Monarchie on humane Maxims have built on the quick-sands of imaginary greatness which hath served them to no other purpose but to measure their fall Vice and Voluptuousness cannot immortalize men since they have nothing lasting in them but the sorrow of their infancie and the infamie of their name All the greatness and happiness of a Prince is to make in his virtues a visible image of invisible Divinitie then to imprint the same on his subjects as the Sun doth his brightness on the Rain bowe SIR Your Majestie knoweth it by proper experience God hath made you to read the decrees of good success written as it were with the rayes of your pietie By how much the more you are affected to the service of the great Master so much the more the good success of affairs hath followed your desires You have seen your battels end in bays and the thorns of your travels to grow all up into Crowns And as we are ever in this world to merit so we ought to hope that so many worthy acts will also with time take their just increase and that you shall sow new virtues on earth to reap felicities in Heaven Lastly that he who hath given you the enterance of Solomon into the Kingdom will grant you the exit of David This is the vow which offereth to God SIR Of Your MAJESTY The most humble most faithfull and obedient Subject N. CAUSSIN TO THF NOBILITIE OF FRANCE SIRS THis Work as it is composed for your sakes offereth it self to your hands without bearing any other ornament on the brow but the reflection of Truth any other recommendation than the worth of the subject It is not the abundant store of sanctity in the Courts of our Age which maketh this stiled the HOLY COURT but this Frontis-piece onely carrieth the name because this Book beareth the model which verily with more ease is moulded on paper than printed on the manners of men Yet we may affirm that God who draweth the sons of Abraham from the midst of flints and rocks doth in all places reserve Saints for himself and he that will consider it well shall find that in all times the Courts of zealous Princes have had their Martyrs their Confessours their Virgins and Hermits I have a purpose when my leisure will permit to divulge the lives of Kings Princes Lords men of state and likewise also of
to the same port It is that which maketh Kings to reign 1. Reg. 25. 29. and giveth them officers as members of their state and by this means frameth the Court of Great-ones But if after it hath so made and composed them as of the flower and choise of men it should abandon them in the tempest without pole-star without rudder without Pilot were not this with notable deformitie to fail in one of the prime pieces of its work-manship Judge your self For the second reason it is most evident that to further this impossibilitie of devotion in the course of Courtiers lives is to cast them through despair of all virtues which cannot subsist without piety into the libertie of all vices which they will hold not as extravagant fallies of frailtie but as the form of a necessary portion of their profession And as the rank they hold maketh them transcend other men who willingly tie themselves to the manners and affections of those on whom they see their fortunes depend that would be as it were by a necessary law to precipitate mankind into the gulf of corruption To conclude for the third reason this proposition is manifestly contradicted by an infinit number of examples of so many Kings and Princes of so many worthy Lords and Ladies who living in the Ocean of the world as the mother pearls by the dew of heaven have preserved and do yet still preserve themselves for ever in admirable puritie and in such heroick virtues that they cannot gain so much wonder on earth but they shall find in heaven much more recompence This is it which I intend to produce in this Treatise of the Holy Court after I have informed the mind with good and lively reasons which as I hope by the grace of the holy Spirit of God shall make all persons of quality to behold they do infinit wrong to take the splendour of their condition for a veil of their impieties and imperfections Virtue is a marvellous work woman who can make Mercury of any wood yea should the difficultie be great the victorie would be more glorious but all the easieness thereof is in their own hands and the obligations they have to tend to perfection are no less important than those of Hermits as I intend shall appear in the process of this discourse The first MOTIVE Of the obligation which secular men and especially persons of qualitie have to perfection grounded upon the name of Christian. A Great abuse is crept into the minds of secular persons who hold vice in predominance and virtue under controle It is in that they esteem Christian perfection as a bird out of their reach and a qualitie dis-proportionable to their estate As for my self saith one of these I have made provision of virtue according to my quality I pretend not to be a S. Francis nor to be rapt as a S. Paul to the third heaven I find there is no life but with the living and to hold time by the fore-lock while I can Let our pleasures take that scope which nature presenteth to them were we as wicked as Judas if we have the faith of S. Peter the mercy of God pardoneth all An impertinent discourse as I will hereafter declare On the other side there are women who chatter and say I will not be a S. Teresa it is not my intention to be canonized I love better to see my diamonds in my life glitter on my fingers than to carrie themafter my death on my statues I better love a little perfume whilst I yet breath air than all the Arabian odours after my death I will have no extasies nor raptures It is enough for me to wallow in the world I may as well go to Paradise by land as by water Such words are very impure in the mouth of a Christian nay so prejudicial to eternal salvation that through the liberty of speaking too much they take away all hope of doing well For pursuing the tender effeminacy of that spirit they take the measure of virtue very short and disproportionable their intentions being infirm the works are likewise the more feeble not squarely answering the model of knowledge from whence proceedeth a general corruption I affirm not all Christians ought to embrace the perfection of S. Francis and of S. Teresa No. There are some whom the Divine providence will direct by other aims But I say that every Christian is obliged to level at perfection and if he hath any other intention he is in danger to loose himself eternally A bold saying but it is the sentence of S. Austine You should always be displeased with your Aug. Serm. 11 of the Apostle Semper tibi displiceat quod es si viâ— pervenire ad id quod non es Si dixeris sufficit periisti A notable speech of S. Augustine self for that which you are if you desire to attain to that which you are not and if you chance to say it is enough you are undone And who are you that dare limit the gifts of God And who are you that say I will have but such or such degree of graces I satisfie my self with such a sanctity I have proceeded far enough in a spiritual life let us set up our staff here What wickedness is this Is not this to imitate that barbarous and senseless King who cast chains into the sea to tie the Ocean in fetters God hath given us a Xerxes heart of a larger latitude than the heavens which he will replenish with himself and you will straiten it like a snail to lodge him in narrow bounds whom the whole world cannot comprehend Judge if this proceeding be not very unreasonable and if you yet doubt weight two or three reasons which you shall find very forcible and by them you will conclude with me you have no less obligation to be perfect than the most retired Hermit that ever lived in the most horrid wilderness of Egypt The first reason I propose to underprop this assertion is drawn from the nature and essence of perfection At what mark think you should one aim to arrive to this scope If I should say will you be perfect bury your self alive in a sack put a halter about your neck go roast your self in the scorching beams of the Sun go roal your self in snow and thorns this would make you admire your hair stand an end and bloud congeal in your veins But if one tell you God Perfection engrafted upon love hath as it were engrafted perfection with his own hands upon the sweetest stock in the world what cause have you of refusal Now so it is as I say There is nothing so easie as to love the whole nature of the world is powred and dissolved into love there is nothing so worthy to be beloved as an object which incloseth in the extent thereof all beauties and bounties imaginable which are the strongest attractives of amity yea it forceth our affections with a sweet
in all things to bear the seeming scepter Then seeing him dayly become more weak than himself to secure this state upon his own sons he makes the eldest to wit Phaselus Governour of Jerusalem and giveth to Herod his Unhappy Politician youngest the Tetratchie of Galilee Some time after having sucked down all the wind which his ambition presented to him and not knowing what more to do he drank a cup of poyson which in a banquet was offered to him by the slie cunning of Malicus his enemie Behold the current of humane things These Spirits enragedly mad after greatness which they pursue with all manner of toyl and sinister practises are as those little bubbles that rise on the water in time of a tempest they encrease and crack in a moment Antipater being dead his two sons Phaselus and Beginning of Herod Herod divide the succession each one holdeth firmly his share and striveth to possess the heart of Hircanus making him always personate his own part Herod as soon as he was in office even in the life of his father being as yet but fifteen years of age well discovered what he would be by his natural inclinations which proceeded from him as flashing streaks from a cloud to be instantly turned into lightening He had a malign spirit craftie ambitious even to furie and whose fingers perpetually itched after bloud and slaughter And verily he defiled his tender years and first beginning of principalitie with effusion of humane bloud falling not onely upon one called Ezechias reputed a Pirat but he also cut in pieces with him many Jews without either warrant or knowledge of the cause which involved many innocents in this ruin The mothers of those people massacred by young Herod went out of the Temple disconsolate with their hair disheveled requiring justice of Hircanus who was no other than a meer idol of principalitie Notwithstanding much importuned by the cries and lamentations of these weeping women and incited by the Peers of his Kingdom he ordained that Herod should appear before a tribunal of justice In this action the young man sufficiently shewed the boldness of his spirit and fierceness of his courage The other who were accused came to this Parliament of Judea altogether in mourning habit he thither went as to a feast or a Theater waited on with a flourishing retinue clothed in scarlet frisled perfumed and besides with the recommendations of the Romans who sent nothing but armed words commanding the Judges to pardon without any other process He then being but fifteen years old so amazed the Judges and Advocates with his very fashion and countenance that of all those who were prepared for long pleadings against him there was not one to be found that had the heart to mutter in his presence One of the Judges called Sameas an honest man more hardie than Liberty of a judge the rest cried out aloud to King Hircanus there present Sir I wonder not this young Lord commeth in such equipage to this barr every one doth what he can for his own safeguard But I admire that you and your Councel suffer him thus to proceed as if he came hither not to be adjudged but to murther the Judges you presently through favour will enfranchise him but he one day by Justice will assail yours And verily of the whole Senat no one escaped whom Herod being come to the full mannage of the Kingdom put not to death except him who delivered his opinion with such libertie It is reported of Sameas that when afterward there was question moved to receive Herod for King the rest constantly opposing it he freely said he gave his voice to Herod and some amazed thereat Let it not seem strange unto you saith he God in his indignation Grave speech will give unto you a bad King and a worse he cannot find than Herod He is the scourge you stand in need of to chastice your infidelitie Hircanus then seeing the Judges animated by Sameas more inclining to the ballance of justice than mercy caused him secretly to be shifted away For he embosomed him with love and so hatched the serpents egge in his breast Herod nothing inferiour to his father in policie pursuing his plots and examples inseparably united himself to the Romans gayning them with all manner of services and entertaining Hircanus to serve his turns as a shadow with all manner of complacence and flatterie The Kingdom of Judea seemed as yet not to behold him but at distance his brother Phaselus as the eldest held the best part Aristobulus whom you have seen led in fetters to Rome had also two sons the eldest of which was called Alexander father of this chaste Mariamne whose patience we decipher The other was Antigonus with whom Herod had much occasion Or both he discharged himself in Great revolution in the Kingdom of Judea process of time For the unfortunate Alexander successour to the unhappiness of his father Aristobulus putting himself into the field with such troops as he could amass together in the disaster of his fortune was in favour of Herod oppressed by the Romans Antigonus having escaped out of captivitie wherein he was held at Rome with Aristobulus his father gave Herod matter enough to work on For putting himself into the Parthians power he wrought so much with promises and hopes that they undertook to establish him in his Royal throne And thereupon they arm both by sea and land and handle the matter so by force and policie that they stir up Hircanus and Phaselus Herod with much difficultie saved himself and though he had a courage of steel was so astonished with this surprise that it was a great chance he had not ended his life upon his own sword Hircanus unworthily used by the commandment of his nephew Antigonus had both his ears cut off and thereby made for ever uncapable of the High-priestood Phaselus the brother of Herod enraged with the turn of fortune voluntarily knocked out his own brains against the side of a rock Herod who always cleaved to the fortune of the Romans as ivy to a wall seeing his affairs reduced to an extremitie imploreth their assistance representeth the outrages of Antigonus the hostilitie of the Parthians signifieth the services of his father Antipater promiseth on his part all the world and so handleth the matter that beyond his expectation he is declared King and at that instant Antigonus enemie of the people of Rome as a fugitive and ally of the Parthians Herod pursueth him with might and main ayded by the Roman forces The miserable Antigonus after a very long resistance was imprisoned becoming the very first of Kings who by commandment of Mark Anthony was executed with a punishment most unfit for his qualitie and condition and among the Romans not usual leaving his head upon a scaffold in the Citie of Antioch for no other cause but for the defence of the inheritance of his Ancestours But Strabo saith Mark
necessity in it I must obey the advise of my Councol such are the priviledges of Empires I could not otherwise save the repose of my people and secure the lives of my subjects Whensoever I shall fall into the like crime I wish to be used in the same manner Behold the true cause most dear daughter if there yet remain in you any resentment concerning this death I suppose you are wise enough to do that herein which the law of God ordaineth which is to forget what is past and not to be ungrateful for the present If I have hitherto deteined you in my Palace very retiredly it hath been to please your humour which I saw had sincere inclinations to devotion and to breed you as a child of honour which is the portion you are to carry presently with you to your husband My wel-beloved daughter endeavour to love your Countrey and to hold good correspondence with us You submitted to my humours whilst you lived with me you now must undergo those of a husband and in complying with them shall be most potent Forget not the fear of God which ever hath been a faithful companion to you from your most tender years and let us often hear good news from you In saying this he kissed her and the virgin most humbly thanking him for so many remonstrances of affection with promise to honour him all the days of her life began to weep which a Burgundian Gentleman perceiving who was of her train said that so long as he lived he would never confide in the tears of woman For were there a creature in the world which might make bone-fires of joy in her heart it was his Mistress who on this day was delivered from the Lions throat to become the wife of a great King and Queen of a vast Empire The fourth SECTION The arrival of Clotilda into France and the life which she led in the time of her wedlock NEver ship laden with gold so gladly arrived at the Haven after so many tedious tempests and a thousand disasters among Pirates at sea as Clotilda seemed content to behold her self to tread on the ground where she was to command after so long a servitude suffered in a Palace which had all her life time as it were served her for a prison Clodovaeus expected her at Soissons with so great impatience of love that he would have willingly hastened the course of the sun to measure it by his affections When he saw this most beautifull Princess he found she surpassed all the idaeaes he conceived of her and that her presence far prevailed above her fame He then imbraced her most lovingly nor could be satisfied with beholding her For God who was pleased to make use of this maid for the conversion of a great King had as it is said varnished over the Table of this mortal beauty and imprinted with his finger I do not know what kind of graces and attractives which Clodovaeus never had felt before She as an humble Abigail cast her self at the feet of a husband calling him her Lord and King and protesting she entered into his Palace to live there as his most humble hand-maid The Court stood wholy rapt with admiration to behold the worthy qualities of this Princess and took part in the contentment of their King The people ran by heaps on all sides to see â—er and so many poor Catholicks as were then in France looked on her as the dawning of the day which came to charm their cares wipe away their tears break their fetters guild the times with the luster of her Majesty There was nothing to be seen every where but jousts tournameÌ„ts sports feasts largesses to crown the solemnitie of these great nuptials Notwithstanding the good Queen suffered not her self to be transported with the current of her prosperities but that in the midst of pomps she held her eyes firmly fixed upon the many benefits she had received from God and sought out in mind the waies she should take to testifie her gratitude and pour her self as incense upon coals towards the divine Majesty She had one thorn in her heart which then entered very far therein It was that she saw the King spake not at all of the promise he had made to become a Christian and that she having attempted to put him on this discourse he subtilly declined it She knew not in what manner to speak to him of it nor where she might make enterance into his heart In the end she resolved to say unto him Sir I see your Majestie exerciseth at this time your liberalities towords all the world and I would gladly partake therein and receive a favour The King thinking she would beg a gift for a Favourite or some other person Ask saith he confidently for you must not be denied Thereupon she replied If your Majestie bear so sincere an affection to me as you make shew I most humbly intreat that on the first night of my nuptials I enter not into the bed of a Pagan Clodovaeus answered Madam I understand what you would say It shall be done but it is not yet time suffer the fruit leisurably to ripen and then either you shall gather it or it will fall of it self Alas would you now speak to me of Baptism and all your ceremonies Your attractives are not so faint as to permit me to entertain any other thoughts than of you all my devotion should be but of love and my pietie should have nothing but shews but this is not it you desire of me Give me time to look about me and I will advise on the means which I will use for the accomplishment of my promise As for the rest you ought not to have any scruple to lye with a Pagan husband for your law saith as I understand that the unbelieving husband is sanctified by a believing wife The Queen doubted whether that she should intreat him to defer the nuptials at the least for some time and deny him all conjugal company till the accomplishment of his promise but she considered that her conscience was not interessed therein and the law of God commanded her not to separate her self from her Pagan husband that if she used so much cunning it would cause of two things one which were either to exasperate and put him off for ever from Christianity or make him to undertake a dissembled piety which would still be said to have been besieged with importunities and allurements and consequently would never be constant She resolved to render him all the duties of marriage and to gain him rather by the example of a good life and her humble prayers presented on Altars than by any other way Clodovaeus very well liked her humour in this proceeding and well saw she was wise which gave him occasion to honour her much the more He was about the age of thirty years when he married Clotilda and as a Pagan bred up in the liberty of arms he had not
motto which said Haereticum hominem devita that is to say we must avoid an Heretick alluding to his father Levigildus Disputation which concerneth the estate of Princes is a ticklish piece where the most part of those who speak of it use their own interest for text and their passion for Commentary Silence and peace which are the two mansions of a good conscience are of much more worth than all the questions which enkindle divisions I think the best doctrine is that which best knoweth how to cement up concord among Miters Diadems and Crowns entertain the obedience of people towards their Sovereigns and if there be verities which are the daughters of the abyss and silence as those Ancients said to leave them in the house of their father and mother where though they nought avail they shall ever be better lodged than in publick It is not vice but the times which divideth Saints and every one thinketh an affair probable which he hath taken upon the byass of his own understanding S. Leander approved the separation of Hermingildus in Spain S. Gregorie of Towers blamed it in France I enter not into all the considerations of them both but I think this Prince took ways too violent in his beginnings levying arms against his father which were not according to the counsel of his wife and I will have no other Authour but himself since he condemned his own design so soon as he began to become holy The thirteenth SECTION The reciprocal Letters of the father and the son upon their separation HErmingildus extreamly incensed at the affront which he received in the person most dear unto him in the world and who wanted not a Nobility round about him that enkindled the fire of choller burst forth in the beginning with violence The father an old suspitious man felt himself much displeased with this alteration and the step-mother ceased not to throw flames through her throat and crie al-arm as loud as she could to transport affairs instantly unto the utmost point of severity Levigildus notwithstanding before he would proceed to extremities sought to do something by letters which are found couched in the History wherein this Prince flattereth his son with fair words to surprize him Behold here the copy of them SON I would willingly say that unto you present which I cannot sufficiently express in my Letters If you have as much confidence in me as I yet have love towards you I verily think were you with me and alienated from the evil counsels of those who abuse the facilitie of your excellent nature I might do much upon your spirit both as a father and as a King so that at the least if you fear my Scepter you would love my charitie which still openeth its arms to your obedience I have bred you up from your tender infancie to make you heir of my Crown and since you arrived to full age I have conferred so many benefits on you that they have surmounted your hopes and as it were drained my liberalities I have put a Scepter into your hand to serve your father with the more authoritie and not to deliver it over to mine enemy I have caused you to be stiled a King to become a support to my Crown and not a Lord over mine Empire I have given you all to repose my old age upon the hope of your dutie and not to afflict me And yet notwithstanding after I have done all this beyond custom beyond your age and above your merit you pay me with impietie and ingratitude Expect yet a little and the law of nature will give you that which you seek by ambition Alledge not Religion unto me to justifie your arms it hath been a crime in you to take a Religion contrary to my commands and an impietie in your Religion to separate your self from my obedience I counsel you as a friend and command you as a father to render your self as soon as possibly you may at my Court and set your self in the way of dutie otherwise I fear you may implore mercie when there will be no other Kingdom found for you but that of justice Hermingildus deliberated upon the answer he was to make to these Letters but his Councel too fervent shewed him it was now no time to retire back that he had to do with a man imperious and turbulent a mother-in-law irreconciliable who had no other aim but to ruin him and that if he took not arms to defend his own life he would be chased away like a beast and should not find safety even in deserts Behold the cause why he wrote back in this manner Sir I give thanks to my Religion which hath already afforded me patience enough to bear the sharpness of your words and which is more resolution also not to be shaken with the severitie of your menaces I have ever freely protested that I am tied unto you with immortal obligations and am besides ready prest to acknowledge them even to my last breath were it not that some now endeavour with you to render all my duties unjust and my thoughts criminal Your Majestie should quickly see me by your sides if she who will not behold me at your feet but in the quality of a Delinquent had not pre-occupated your heart and ears to stop up the one to charitie the other to justice What assurance can I have of my life in a place where she for whom I live hath been dragged by the hair and trampled under foot The wound sticketh so sensibly upon me that time can neither find a lenitive nor reason a remedie As for the change of Religion made by me I go along with the main current of wisdom and sanctitie of the whole world and where I find my salvation most assured I cannot live with more authoritie nor die with more hope and if you condemn me for it your Majestie shall know that a father requireth obedience out of the limits of nature when he exacteth it beyond conscience Sir I beseech you to adde to so many benefits by you afforded me the liberty of an honest repose lest our arms may be as shamefull for the Conquerour as miserable to the vanquished Levigildus was more exasperated upon these Letters and the wicked Step-mother ceased not to rub the sore as much as she might All designs tended to war the father upon the one side maketh great levies of souldiers the son fortifieth Sevil and Cordova and draweth to his party some Forces of the Empire having sent an honourable Embassy to the Emperour of Constantinople which was at that time Tyberius to intreat great succours Acts of hostility were practised both by the one and other part and in the end Hermingildus is besieged in Sevil where he made his abode the space of two or three years after his departure from the Court King Levigildus who was an old fox endeavoured then to entertain the Catholicks with much sweetness to divert them from his sons
not yet come yet withal commanded this man who rather chose death than to become an Authour of impiety in the re-establishment of this Temple The rage of Idolaters by the Magi professed enemies Terrible persecution of our Religion was not wholly extinct in the bloud of Audas but stirred up a violent persecution which almost proceeded to the undermyning the foundations of Christian religion in Persia Men were every where seen to be flayed and roasted pierced with bodkins and arrows thereby becoming spectacles of terrour and pitie to all those who beheld them Some were exposed to wasps in the boyling ardours of the Sun Others thrown into caves and places filled with infection to be devoured by rats and slowly gnawn by ugly vermine Their members fell in pieces and their life daily distilled drop after drop their faith unshaken which the sword of persecution sought for even in their entrails Their members were not tormented for they had none but wounds for they were all over covered with them and as torments redoubled one upon another gave no end to their sufferings so God found the means to finish their pain and life by the eternity of their crowns The King seeing so dreadfull tortures rather served to publish the glory of the Combattants than ruin their virtue resolved upon other cruelties which being apparently less violent were in effect much more pernicious There were among the Christians two Lords of prime quality the one whereof was called Hormisdas the other Suenes who being the two eyes of the Court and Standard-bearers of Christianity the endeavour of the Gentils was most violent against them to force them to abjure Religion Hormisdas is first summoned Hormisdas â—he strength of his will to return to the Persian superstition and being sent for to the Palace the King who much esteemed him both for his great nobility for he was of the bloud Royal as also for the services his father had done to the Crown in the quality of the Governour of a Province unwilling to loose him he made tryal of all sorts of allurements to gain him to his opinion But the brave Champion stood firm in his belief telling the King with many excellent reasons that destroying the faith of his true God in Persia he would bury the loyalty due to his Majesty in the ruins thereof which was the cause that Ildegerdes in stead of yielding the homage he owed to reason and truth became furiously chollerick so that degrading him of honour and confiscating all his goods yea leaving him nought at all but a poor pair of linnen breeches he sent him out to keep the camels of the Army adding to this great inhumanity the most barbarous scorn could be invented against a gentleman endowed with such excelleÌ„t parts But this couragious heart which had studied the glory of the Cross in the deep abyss of the ignominie of Jesus drave camels before the eyes of an Army wherein he had commanded with such alacrity as others govern Empires and thought his nakedness more glorious than the purple of Monarchs The King one day beholding him out of a chamber window among the camels roasted under the scorching Sun and all covered over with dust felt his heart mollified by the effect of his own cruelty and calling him into his palace after he had laid before him the worth of his extraction and the noble employments wherewith he meant to honour him he clothed him with rich apparel and conjured him by all the ways of friendship to return to the throne of honour by forsaking his Religion But Hormisdas displeased with such discourse took the robes were cast over his shoulders and tore them in pieces in the Kings presence saying Sir keep your gifts and impieties and know Hormisdas will never do any thing unworthy his courage which was the cause Ildegerdes thrust him naked out of the Court and sent him back again to his camels where he ware out a long painful martyrdom The same storm fell at that time upon Suenes one of Suenes perfecuted the wealthiest and most powerful in the kingdom and who had a thousand servants in his family Officers were sent to seize on his whole estate possessed by him not to maintain riot but cherish piety so that in a short time he saw himself reduced to beggery But he weighing how Almighty God who clotheth Heaven with beauties of light and in the spring-time maketh a garment for the earth bordred and adorned with so many millions of flowers had for us put on nakedness scorned all these violences and said aloud They were not near taking away the treasure of faith he bare in his heart who attempted it on this silly moveable of fortune The King purposely to afflict him the more took all his children from him to thrust them into servitude and fetters if they would follow their fathers example wherewith somewhat softened seeing they snatched from between his arms those who in the imbecility of age had more need of his example than wealth he kissing them said Children Keep constantly An excellent instruction for children the faith of your poor father and leave greatness and worldly fortunes to others You shall ever be wealthie enough if you persist loyal to God Faith will wipe away your tears will enrich your povertie glorisie your chains and immortalize the honour of your death This persecution is a cloud that passeth but we shall quickly behold a bright day which neither admitteth end nor darkness This constancy which should make all the world Stranger persecution of a man wonder exasperated the infidels so that daily seeking out all the ways how to torment and burn him with a soft fire they advised to give the confiscation of all his goods to one of his servants who had been the most treacherous and cruel against his Master He had nothing left but a wife who possessed in his heart the place of those chast correspondencies which the law of God afforded him and she in the beginning making a shew of willingness inseparably to follow the fortune of her husband much comforted this generous soul who thought nothing was his but what he gained to Jesus Christ But behold a strong battery to take from him the remainders of his consolation The King caused this woman to be vehemently solicited to make a divorce from her husband and to marry his servant to whom he already had given possession of his great estate This at the first a little startled the soul of this Lady she yet having some humanity in her but saw her self encompassed with many kinred and worldly friends who suggested according to the maxims of impiety That it was a folly to forsake a blessing so present to run Violent temptation of a woman after a fantasie of felicitie That the command of Kings must be obeyed who are visible gods on earth That a husband despoiled of all his means retaineth nothing of man but bodie nor
world the benefits that God hath conferred upon their families is it not most fitting that we endeavour to acknowledge in some manner the liberality of the Divine Majesty This act consisteth in three things First in the Memory which represents to the Understanding the benefit received and this Understanding considers the hand that gives them and to whom and how and wherefore and by what ways and in what measure Thereupon an affectionate acknowledgement is framed in the Will which not able to continue idle spreads it self into outward acts to witness the fervour of its affection To practise this well it is requisite to make a catalogue of the benefits of God which are contained in three kinds of goodness and mercy The first is that whereby he drew this great Universe out of the Chaos and darkness of nothing to the light of being and life for our sakes creating a world of such greatness beauty profit measure order vicissitude continuance and preserving it as it wereby the continual breathing of his spirit affording to every thing its rank form propriety appetite inclination scituation limits and accomplishment But above all making man as a little miracle of Nature with the adornments of so many pieces so well set to bear in his aspect the beams of his own Majestie The second bounty is that whereby he hath decreed to raise in man all that is natural to a supernatural estate The third that whereby he hath raised the nature of man being fallen into sin into miserie into the shadow of death to innocence bliss light and eternal life This is the incomprehensible mystery of the Incarnation of the Word which comprehends six other benefits that is the benefit of the doctrine and wisdom of Heaven conferred on us the benefit of our Saviors good examples the benefit of Redemption the benefit of Adoption into the number of Gods children the benefit of the treasure of the merits of Jesus Christ the benefit of the blessed Eucharist Besides those benefits which are in the generality of Christianity we are to represent in all humility often to our selves the particular favours received from God in our birth nourishment education instruction in gifts of soul and body in means and conveniences in friends allies kinred in vocation estate and profession of life in continued protection in deliverance out of so many dangers in vicissitude of adversities and prospeâ—ity in guidance through the degrees of age wherein every one in his own particular may acknowledge infinite passages of the Divine Providence All this pouring it self upon the soul with consideration of the circumstances of each benefit at last draws from the Will this act of acknowledgement which maketh it to say with the Prophet David Who am I O Lord God and what is my house that thou hast brought me bitherto 2 Sam 7. 18. The seventh SECTION A Pattern of Thanksgiving HEreupon you shall give thanks for all benefits in general and particularly for those you have received at present which at that time you are to set before you that may season this action with some new relish The Church furnisheth us with an excellent form of Thanksgiving to God in the hymn Te Deum or else say with the blessed spirits O God power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and blessing be unto thee for ever and ever O God glory be to thee on high and on earth peace good will towards men I bless thee I worship thee I give thanks to thee for thy great glory and thy benefits O Lord God heavenly King God the Father Almighty and thou also O Lord Jesus Christ my Saviour onely Son of the Heavenly Father perfect God and perfect man Thou that takest away the sins of the world and sittest at the right hand of God the Father And thou O Holy Gbost consubstantial with the Father and the Son most blessed Trinitie receive my prayers in giving thanks The eighth SECTION Of Offering or Oblation The third Act of Devotion REligion and Sacrifice had their beginning in the worlds infancy and ever since have been linked together by an indissoluble tie God who giveth all will have us give to him meaning we should take out of his store that which our Nothing cannot afford Observe here a thing remarkeable That as in the Law of Moses there were three kinds of Sacrifice that is Immolations Libations and Victims Immolations which were made of the fruits of the earth Libations of liquours as oyl and wine Victims of living creatures so likewise God requires that we give him our actions for fruits our affections for liquours and our selves for victims This is done by the act of Oblation or Offering which is a way of sacrifice by which we offer our selves and all that belongeth to us at the Altar of the Divine Majesty To perform this act well we must have first a pure apprehension of the power and dominion which God hath over us secondly an intimate knowledge of our own dependence upon him considering that we not onely have received being and all things annexed to being from his goodness but that we are also sustained perpetually by his hand as a stone in the air and that if he should let go never so little we should be dissolved into that Nothing out of which we are extracted From thence will arise an act of Justice in the will ready to give to God that which is his and as the Holocaust where the hoast was quite consumed in honour to the Divine Majestie was heretofore the noblest of all Sacrifices so will we imitate this excellent act of Religion by consecrating not onely our actions and affections but all that we are unto God wishing to be dissolved and annihilated for his sake if it might be for the glory of his Divine Majestie But if this annihilation cannot be real we must at the least form it to our mind in an extraordinary manner acquiring to our selves as much as is possible twelve dis-engagements wherein the perfection of the Holocaust consisteth The first is a divesting our selves of all affection to temporal things so that we no longer love any thing but for God of God and to God The second a dis-entangling from our own interest in all our actions The third an absolute mortifying of sensuality The fourth a separation from friendships sensual tural and acquired that they have no longer hold on our heart to the prejudice of virtue The fifth a banishing of worldly imaginations in such a manner that the meer representation of them may beget aversion and horrour in us The sixth a discharge from worldly cares not necessary to salvation The seventh a deliverance from bitterness of heart and discontents which ordinarily arise from eâ—cessive love to creatures The eighth a valiant flight from all kind of vanity of spirit The ninth a contempt of sensible consolations when God would have us to be weaned from them The tenth a renouncing of scruples of mind
on thy part what ingratitudes on mine Preserve me in what is thine and wash away with the precious bloud of thy Son what is mine Shelter me under the wings of thy protection from so many shadows apparitions and snares of the father of darkness and grant that though sleep close my eys yet my heart may never be shut to thy love Lastly fall asleep upon some good thought that your night as the Prophet saith may be enlightened with the delights of God and if you chance to have any interruption of sleep supply it with ejaculatory prayers and elevations of heart as the just did of old called for this reason The crickets of the night Thus shall you lead a life full of honour quiet and satisfaction to your self and shall make every day a step to Eternity The marks which may amongst others give you good hope of your predestination are eleven principall 1. Faith lively simple and firm 2. Purity of life exempt ordinarily from grievous sins 3. Tribulation 4. Clemency and mercy 5. Poverty of spirit disengaged from the earth 6. Humility 7. Charity to your neighbour 8. Frequentation of the blessed Sacrament 9. Affection to the word of God 10. Resignation of your own mind to the will of your Sovereign Lord. 11. Some remarkable act of virtue which you have upon occasion exercised You will find this Diary little in volume but great in virtue if relishing it well you begin to put it in practice It contains many things worthy to be meditated at leisure for they are grave and wise precepts choisely extracted out of the moral doctrine of the Fathers Though they seem short they cost not the less pains Remember that famous Artist Myrmecides employed more time to make a Bee than an unskilfull workman to build a house EJACULATIONS FOR THE DIARY In the Morning MY voice shalt thou hear in the morning O Lord In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee and will look up Psal 5. 3. Thou shalt make thy face to shine upon me and all the beasts of the forest shall gather themselves together and lay them down in their dens Psal 184. 22. My dayes are like the dayes of an hireling Untill the day break and the shadows flie away Job 7. 1. Cant. 4. 6. Beginning a good work In the volume of the book it is written of me I delight to do thy will O my God yea thy Law is within my heart Psal 40. 7. 8. In good Inspirations The Lord God hath opened mine ear and I was not rebellious neither turned away back Isaiah 50. 5. At Church How amiable are thy Tabernacles O Lord of hosts Psal 84. 1. Before reading Speak Lord for thy servant heareth 1 Samuel 3. 9. Speaking My heart is inditing a good matter I speak of the things which I have made touching the King Psal 45. 1. Eating Thou openest thine hand and satisfiest the desire of every living thing Psal 145. In Prosperity If I do not remember thee let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth If I prefer not thee above my chief joy Psal 137. 6. Adversity The Lord killeth and maketh alive 1 Sam. 2. 6. Shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil Job 2. 10. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glorie Luke 24. 26. Troubles Surely man walketh in a vain shew surely they are disquieted in vain Psal 39. 6. Calumnies If I pleased men I should not be the servant of Christ Gal. 1. 10. Praises Not unto us O Lord not unto us but unto thy Name give glorie Psal 115. 1. Against vain hope As a dream when one awaketh so O Lord when thou awakest thou shalt despise their image Psalm 73. 20. Pride Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased Luke 14. 11. Covetousness It is more blessed to give than to receive Acts 20. 35. Luxury Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ 1. Cor. 6. 15. Envy He that loveth not his brother abideth in death 1 John 3. 14. Gluttony The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink Rom. 14. 17. Anger Learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart Matth. 11. 29. Sloth Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord negligently Jer. 48. 10. Rules of Faith God cannot be known but by himself What is to be understood of God is to be learned by God Hilar lib. 5. de Trin. God doth not call us to the blessed life by hard questions In simplicity must we seek him in piety profess him Idem lib. 10. Remove not the ancient bounds which thy fathers have set Prov. 22. 28. Many are the reasons which justly hold me in the bosom of the Catholick Church Consent of people and nations Authority begun by miracles nourished by hope encreased by charity confirmed by antiquity August lib. De utilitate credendi To dispute against that which the universal Church doth maintenance is insolent madness Idem Epist 118. Let us follow universality antiquity consent Let us hold that which is believed every where always by all Vincentius Lyrinensis De profanis vocum novitatibus Acts of Faith Lord I believe help thou mine unbelief Marc. 9. 24. I know that my Redeemer liveth c. Job 19. 25. Hope Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me Psal 24. 4. I will be with him in trouble I will deliver him and honour him Psal 90. 15. Charity Whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee My flesh and my heart faileth but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever Psal 73. 25 26. Feed me O Lord thy suppliant with the continual influence of thy Divinity This I request this I desire that vehement love may throughly pierce me fill me and change me into it self Blosius PRAYERS for all Persons and occasions For the Church WE beseech thee O Lord graciously to accept the prayers of thy Church that she being delivered from all adversitie and errour may serve thee in safety and freedom through Jesus Christ our Lord. For the King WE beseech thee O Lord that thy servant CHARLS by thy gracious appointment our King and Governour may be enriched with all encrease of virtue whereby he may be able to eschew evil and to follow Thee the Way the Truth and the Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. For a Friend ALmighty and ever-living Lord God have mercy upon thy servant N. and direct him by thy goodness into the way of eternall salvation that through thy grace he may desire those things which please thee and with his whole endeavour perform the same through Jesus Christ our Lord. For Peace O God from whom all holy desires all good counsels and all just works do proceed give unto us thy servants that peace which the world cannot give that both our hearts may be set
to be waited on like Demy-gods and magnifie what comes from their own hands in such sort that their benefits are scorned and we begin to hate that which was too late resolved on or too proudly afforded He must give his Presents according to the common practice of men observing circumstance of place time season persons guild his favour with the gold of graces and not do as they who give so sadly that one would take them for men who deny Friends also who receive ought not to be troublesome there being not any thing which more offendeth firm Amities then the too great importunities of the bold who ever have their hand open to receive and never have a brow soft enough to blush There are many Amities which are by this way dissolved when friends perswade themselves to ask boldly and will not be denyed but think one gives them nothing if they give them not all The fifth condition of a good friend consisteth in Patience most necessary in Amities Advice and correction of friends Non asperè quantum existimo non durites non modo imperioso vitia tolluntur sed magis docendo quam jubendo magis movendo quà m minando S. Aug. in ep ad Aurel. Non caret scrupulo socictatis occultae qui manifesto facinori desinit obviare S. Athanas in Conc. Alexand. a strong patience to bear with the defects of the person he loveth whether they be in the mind the body or in the exteriour Yet it is not that crimes and scandals hidden under the shadow of Amity should be tolerated for that were to be a traitour to the most innocent of virtues Above all it is expedient to observe and in the beginning to touch the passion of one dear unto us with hands of silk and words of sattin not to distemper him if he be somewhat sensible But if light remedies make not impression we must urge sollicit labour with all the liberty which confidence affordeth and not forsake the sick untill we see some little hope of amendment But if the evil daily increase by the contempt of remedies and that it be such that it involves a friend within the danger of infamy a man ought not to think it strange if he be abandoned since he first of all degraded himself of the character of Amity which is virtue Other defects of manners which proceed not to crime ought to be handled with singular sweetnesse and discretion and these of nature and humane accidents cannot be taken by a good friend but as a decree from heaven and an exercise of his goodnesse There are some who have their souls so generous that they love miseries they find deformity to be handsome when it is dressed up in the liveries of Loves plagues and cankered sores breed neither fear nor aversion in them They digest all by the heat of an immortall affection Then it is when we come to perfect fidelity which Fidelity and its excellency is the Basis that supporteth the whole house of Amities It is a virtue really divine and one of the most pretious treasures in the heart of man It is a Bud of Fidelity a proof of an invincible courage a note of Ante Jovem generata Qua sine non tellus pacem non aequora â—ô runt Silius an inviolable goodnesse It is an imitation of the order of the heavens and of the elementary world where all persevere in the observance of the laws which were written by the Divine Providence from the beginning of ages by the help of Fidelity which the principall parts of the universe do observe one towards another It is that which is the cause that stars eternally circumvolve within their divisions not usurping one upon another That which causeth dayes and nights yearly to restore the time they had borrowed one of another and so well to make up their accounts that they pay even to the utmost minute It is that which stayeth the waves of the sea and current of rivers That which maketh masters and servants families and Provinces States and Empites All is quickned all lives all under the divine hands of this great Mistrisse By it Kings have subjects Lords their officers Common-wealths Magistrates Communities Administratours Fields Labourers Civil-life Merchants and Artificers by it the whole world hath order and by it order prospers in all things One must rather break an hundred times then once fail in fidelity to a good friend Were the devil capable of commerce with men he must observe fidelity by how much a more just title ought we to preserve love and honour it even with veneration in holy Amities If a friend one of those who have been very acceptable to you chance to fail whether it be by evil life or through manifest contempt of you or out of other ill dispositions yet must you on the rotten trunk honour the last characters of Love you must rather unstitch then break you must keep the secrets he at other times hath committed to you and not publish his defects Amity is so venerable that we must honour even its shadows and imitate the Pythagorians who celebrated the obsequies of such as forsook their society to bury them with honor These precepts being observed Children will live with Parents in great duty and submission Husbands with Wives will hold together not onely by eyes flesh and bloud which are too feeble tyes but by excellent conjugall virtues Parents will live in all sweetnesse of nature People will be fastned with the knot of indissoluble Concord Great ones will be indulgent to inferiours Inferiours pay obedience to the great and intimate friends gather flowers and fruits of immortall delights in the sacred garden of Amity § 6. Of sensuall Love Its Essence and Source I Here could wish my pen were born on the wings of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hippocrates in ep ad Abderites winds from one pole to another and that it might fall with a strong and impetuous flight upon a passion which maketh attractives charms and illusions to march before it and after it draggeth along furies disasters and rapines The wise Hyppocrates in his time deplored the evil effects of Avarice and said the life of man was miserable because insupportable Avarice like unto a spirit of storms and tempests had poured it self upon mortals and that it were to be wished the best Physicians might meet together from all parts to cure this disease which is worse then folly and which occasioneth a mischief irreparable Because instead of seeking remedies to drive it away false prayses are invented to flatter it I may say the like of Love since it is the most fatall Love is a strange malady plague among all passions It is not a simple malady but one composed of all the evils in the world It hath the shiverings and heats of Feavers the Ach and prickings of the Meagrim the rage of Teeth the stupefaction of the Vertigo the furies of Frenzy the black vapours
make horrible havock unlesse Grace and Reason cause some temper There is not any devil more familiar in Court more injurious to civil conversation more pernicious to States then Choler and Revenge Pride which is born with the most eminent conditions nourisheth it flatterers enkindle it insolent tongues sharpen it fire and sword end it In some it is haughty and cruel as it appeared in Dagobert a young Prince son of Clotharius the Second who in his tendrest years had I know not what of salvage in him which savoured of the manners of Paganisme or the humours of his Grandmother Fredegond Aymonius l. 4. p. Aemilius Annals of France albeit he afterward gained victories over himself The King his Father had appointed him two Governours Arnold to rectifie his manners Sadragesillus to breed him up to Armes and Court-like behaviour The first governed him like the Sun the second as the Northern-wind The one insinuated himself with much sweetnesse the other undertook him with too proud and arrogant an apgroach which in him rather caused Aversion then Choler of Dagobert somewhat rough Instruction From whence it came to passe that he being one day invited to the Princes Table where he did eat apart as the Kings son he placed himself right ouer against him took Dagoberts glasse and drank to him wherewith he was so desperately offended that instantly he fell upon him and taking a knife on the table cut off his beard and most contemptuonsly disfigured him Sadragesillus in this plight presented himselfe to King Clotharius who was likewise enraged and caused his son to be pursued commanding his Guard to apprehend him but he saved himself in the Sanctuary of Montmartre under the protection of S. Denis untill his fathers anger was pacified who spared not to give him a sharp reprehension and to raise Sadragesillus to great dignities to take away the acerbities of the affront he had received Another time S. Arnold asking leave of the same Dagobert to retire from Court out of the desire he had to passe the rest of his dayes in sweet solitude the King many times denied him and he growing a little earnest in a good cause he furiously draws froth his sword threatning to kill him if he persisted in this request A Lord there present stayed the blow and the Queen shewing her husband the unworthinesse of his Choler so gained him that he came to himself gave his Master full satisfaction and permitted him to go whither he thought good most affectionately recommending his person and state to him Seneca hath well said that Choler was not a sign of a courageous but a swoln spirit as it by experience appeared in Dagobert who was little war-like For being but in one piece of service against the Saxons where he received a very slight hurt he made so many ceremonies about it that he sent a lock of his bloudy hair to his father to implore his aid It is true that this Prince being in his youth a little unruly hearkned afterward to the good reasons of his Councel and became very temperate 2. There are Martiall angers which are generous Generous anger of K. Clotharius and bold when a heart upon a good occasion is enflamed to the avengement of some Injustice as it happened to Clotharius the Second who coming to succour his son Dagobert presently appeared marching along the Rhine and made himself remarkable by a notable head of hair whereupon Bertrand Captain of the Saxons darting some insolent words at him the King suddenly passed the river with great danger of his person observeth his enemy pursues him strikes him down from his horse and cuts off his head which he fixed on the top of a launce to fill the Saxon Army with terrour Thus should the anger of a great Prince be bent against proud and unjust adversaries not against his own Subjects This spurre hath sometimes added valour to the sweetest natures witnesse Charles the Simple Valour of Charles the Simple who seeing that Robert had gathered together a huge army of Rebels against him passed the river of Aisne to charge him and the other putting himself into a readinesse to resist him animating his own side and braving in the head of his army Charles looked him in the face as the Butt against which he should unburden all his gall spurs forward directly towards him and so succesfully hits him with a thrust of his lance in the mouth that he tore out his tongue and killed him 3. Yet Choler is extremely dangerous in matter of Arms especially in things where some resolution is to be taken with counsel and maturity For it troubleth The passion of anger is very prejudiciall to Military art in a General the art said an Antient and many times causeth errours irreparable This is but too much verified in the fatall day of Crescy-field where Philip of Valois one of the most valiant Monarchs which ever handled Sceptre gave battel to Edward King of England The English Army bravely encamped heard Masse leasurely took its repast and coolely expected the enemy to fight with firm footing at which time our Philip animated with anger and above all fearing lest the English might escape him hastned his army what he could causing it to march and tyring it out on the day of battel The Monk Basellus a man wel experienced in feats of arms Philip of Valois a great and a generous King loseth a battel out of a peevish humour of anger shewed him it were much better to expect till morning on which he seemed to be resolved but this Choler had already put fire into his souldiers and although some cryed out Stay Ensign-bearers yet those who marched before were so afraid to be out-gone by them who followed that they had not the patience When they came to joyn battel the Genoway Archers who were in the French army protested aloud they were not able to do their duty and instantly disbanded whereupon the King grew into a fresh anger and commanded to cut them in pieces which with all possible violence was executed ours being cruelly bent to devour their members whilst the arrows of the enemy fell upon them like hail and the horse gauled with shot horribly neighing ran away with their riders and all the place was covered with dead bodies This trouble of mind cost the losse of a battel wherein Froissard saith were eight French against one English-man and thirty thousand men where among others the King of Bohemia and Charles Count of Alencon the Kings brother were slaine in the place Behold the disasters of an il-governed Passion which never is well knowne but by the experience of its misery 4. There are other nice and haughty Cholers which are brought forth in the Curiosities of an imperious life as it happened to many Emperours who took a glory in being angry and to make their brutishnesse famous by bloudy effects Bajazet shewing one day the pleasure of hawking to the Count
affrightment in the towns and as many sackings as quarterings Those which sit at the Stern of Empires and Common-wealths are greatly accountable to God for that which hath past in this businesse Kings ought not onely to maintain Justice by their Arms but to teach it by their behaviour and to consecrate it by their examples The Doctour Navarrus hath set down divers sins against Justice by the which Princes Common-wealths and Lords may offend against God mortally as to take unlawfully the goods that belong not to them and to keep them without restitution To govern loosely and negligently their Kingdomes and Principalities To suffer their Countreys to be unprovided of victualls and defence necessary which may bring their Subjects in danger of being spoiled To wast and consume in charges either evil or unnecessary the goods which are for the defence of their estates To burden excessively their subjects with Imposts and Subsidies without propounding any good intent therefore and without having any necessity not pretended but true and reall To suffer the poor to die with famine and not to sustain them with their Revenues in that extremity Not to hearken to reasonable conditions for a just Peace and to give occasion to the enemies of the Christian name to invade their Lands and root out our Religion To dispense either with the Law of God or Nature To give judgement in the suits of their Subjects according to their own affection To deceive their creditours to suppresse the Liberty and Rights of the people to compell them by threatnings or importunate intreaties to give their goods or to make marriages against their wills or to their disadvantage To make unjust Wars to hinder the service of the Church to sell offices and places of Charge so dear that they give occasion to those that buy them to make ill use thereof To present to Benefices with Cure of Souls persons unworthy and scandalous To give Commissions and Offices to corrupt and unfit officers To tolerate and permit vices filthinesse and robberies by their servants and to condemne to death and cause to be slain unjustly without due order of Law and to violate the marriage-beds of their Subjects All these things and others which this Doctour hath noted cause great sins of Injustice in the persons of great ones unto which they ought especially to take heed and to prevent the same it is most necessary that they be instructed in the duties of their charge and in the estate of their affairs bending themselves thereto as the most important point of their safety and seeing that the passion of Hatred or Love which one may bear to some person will trouble the judgement and pervert Justice S. Lewis counselled the King his son strongly to keep his heart in quiet and in the uncertainty of any differences alwayes to restrain his own affection and to keep under all movings of the spirit as the most capitall enemy to Reason Many Princes have often lost both their life and Sceptre for giving themselves to some unjust action and there is no cause more ordinary for which God translates Kingdomes from one hand to another then Injustice as on the contrary those Princes which have been great Justiciaries do shine as the stars of the first magnitude within Gods Eternity and even their ashes do seem as yet to exhale from their Tombs a certain savour which rejoyceth people and keeps their memory for ever blessed But one cannot believe the rare mixture that Justice Goodnesse its Excellency and Goodnesse make joyned together Goodnesse is an essence profitable and helpfull which serves as a Nurse to Love it hath its originall in the Deity and from thence disperseth it self by little veins into all created Beings and mixeth it self with every object as the light with every Colour It drives away and stops up evil on every side and there is no place even to the lowest hell where it causeth not some beam of its brightnesse to shine Beauty which amazeth all mortall eyes is but the flower of its essence but Goodnesse is the fruit thereof and its savour is the savour of God which all creatures do taste and relish God which as Casiodore saith is the cause of all Beings the life of the senses the wisdome of understandings the love and glory of Angels having from all eternity his happinesse complete in his own bosome hath created man that he might have to whom to do good as Gregory Nyssen writes and S. Cyprian saith that this eternall Spirit did move upon the waters from the beginning of the world to unite and appropriate the Creature to its self and to dispose it for the loving inspirations of its Goodnesse The Prince which according to the obligement of his Charge would make himself an imitatour of God ought to be exceedingly good with four sorts of Goodnesse of Behaviour of Affability of Bounty and of Clemency I say first of Behaviour for that there is small hope of any great one which is not good towards God which keeps not his Law and rules not his life thereby if he have any virtues they are all sophisticate and if he do any good it is by ebbing and flowing by fits and for some ends No person can be truly good towards others which doth not begin with himself he must needs have Christian Love without which no man shall ever see God if he possesse this virtue he will first have a love of honour to those which have begot him a conjugall love for his wife a cordiall love to those of his bloud and all his kindred from thence it will spread it self over his whole house and through all his estate and will cause him to love his Subjects with a certain tendernesse as his own goods and as the good shepherd cherisheth his flocks He will imitate our Lord which looked from the top of the mountain upon the poor people of Judea that followed him and his heart melted for them with singular compassion Herein doth truly consist the virtue of Piety which gives so great a lustre to the life of Princes Now according to the Goodnesse that is in his heart he must needs pour it forth upon all his by these three conduit-pipes that I have said of Affability of Liberality and of Clemency Affability which is a well ordered sweetnesse both in words and converse ought to increase together with a Prince from his tender age This is a virtue which costeth nothing and yet brings forth great fruit it procures treasuries of hearts and wills which do assist great ones when need requires A good word that cometh forth of the mouth of a King is like the Manna that came from heaven and fell upon the desert It nourisheth and delighteth his Subjects it hath hands to frame and fashion their hearts as it pleaseth him it carrieth with it chains of gold sweetly to captivate their wills The command that cometh with sweetness is performed with strength invincible and every
one naturally delights more to obey him that seemeth to entreat in commanding then a power that cometh with an armed hand and threatens to root out that which refuseth it It is fitting neverthelesse that the Prince dispense his favours according to the deserts of his Subjects for it would be a great inequality to be alike to all the world Affectation oftentimes spoils the profession of courtesie and when one gives too many words at too cheap a price and almost indifferently to every one it maketh one think that they are none of the sincerest false gold is too high in colour and a dissembling courtesie is too glorious in appearance this deceiveth some which are not accustomed to it and have no great skill in discerning carrying it self like the Ivy as fairly over crackt pillars as sound ones but those which are better advised are quickly wary of empty courtesies when they with good reason expect better effects Kings although they are great are not able to enrich the whole world there are very many which must be contented with good words but to think alwayes to escape paying with this coin is to deceive himself and the whole world There are so many hungry ones which cannot feed upon flowers which expect gifts and rewards after they have been at great charges and run through great hazards for the glory of the Prince and the good of the State that it is necessary really to acknowledge their services The Prince which thinks himself bound to give nothing or very little betraies his birth shews himself to be lowly minded and of as low a fortune having little reason to expect a great harvest from that field where he sowed nothing he declares his too much greedinesse after temporall goods and if he knoweth little what the love of his Subjects is worth he heaps up the Indian Clay and neglects that patrimony of hearts wherewith God as rich as he is contents himself it happens oft that he finds himself afterwards in the midst of thorny affairs where his silver without friends serves for nothing but to lose But although it behoveth him to give one can hardly say how difficult this profession is to do it rightly there can be no greater losse then to give away all and to give unadvisedly to those which deserve least He that gives too much and above his ability destroyes his liberality intending to confirm it for that by giving too much he taketh the way to be able no more to give any thing John Michel in his Anatomy of a Body Politick saith that the Doctour Bricot in an Oration which he made to King Francis the Just shewed him that he was like to S. Francis whose name he bore that his hands were pierced and could hold nothing as it were which he gave not away and if that he took not heed this would consume all his Revenues and that thereby he would make more poor in his Kingdome then Saint Francis had drawn to his Religion Those Sovereigns that starve their people to nourish the unsatiable greedinesse of some particular are like those mountains that bear fruit not for the use of men but for the birds of prey they give to a few that which they take from the whole and oftentimes fatten full monsters and abominable ones with the bloud of the Publick that they make the ground to tremble under their feet and the heaven to thunder upon their heads Others give that which they can hold no longer as Manuel Comnenus which offered his silver to his souldiers then when he was in the hand of the Sarazens Others give after an evil manner more for that they are not able any longer to deny then with intent to gratifie Others give slowly and little in such a fashion as after they have long time fed mens hopes with wind they pay them at length almost with smoke Others repent themselves presently for having given that which they could hold no longer and have no other content by their liberality then to repent of their hastinesse He that would be truly liberall and magnificent will avoid all these rocks he will give with good advice according to his ability and with a comely grace to the poor Gentry to the Souldiery maimed by his service to Churches to Religious Persons to people of Virtue Knowledge and Desert which do shew themselves profitable for the Publick But to say truth it is a great gift to pardon that by Clemency which one might justly punish by Justice this is that admirable quality that Kings have and nearest approaching to God they cannot create they cannot raise men from the dead and yet to give safety and life to a man is to give him as it were a second Creation it is to give him a being without a not being and to bestow on him a Resurrection without causing him to taste of death What would a man do which should suddenly be made an half-God and which should be transported amongst the stars what would he dream of in what businesse would he take most pleasure unlesse it were to do good and amongst all good to give and preserve the foundation of all the rest which is life There is nothing more glorious then to be able and not willing to revenge an injury the power makes the greatnesse of Majesty but the good will giveth its perfection The Hebrews said that the chiefest work of God was Mercy that he dwelt in his Tabernacle from the beginning of the world unto the day of judgement and that giving all the rest of the time to Clemency he reserved but one day for Justice Away with those Kings of the Macedonians that would appear in their stateliest walks with the head of of a lion this was not to shew their greatnesse but to testifie their brutishnesse The heart of the King saith the Scripture is in the hand of the Lord within that hand that doth nothing but open it self to fill every creature with a blessing from heaven to earth how can it take then there any thought into it self of rage of killing or of sacking It ought to be mercifull even in punishing taking great heed to do nothing by way of revenge but doing all by Goodnesse Clemency doth not exclude Justice but moderate it and if it suffer the life to be taken away from one that is faulty it is to preserve a thousand Innocents It is a cruelty to pardon nothing but it is a double cruelty to pardon all seeing that one cannot equall the evill to the good in so great an inequality of lives and manners unlesse one overthrow a whole State It behoves him wisely and with good advice to discern that which is worthy of pardon and that which is worthy of punishment there are pestilent crimes scandalous and which draw great consequences with them which the Prince cannot leave unpunished without condemning himself There are other faults committed by errour by frailnesse by surprize by strong inducements mighty
all the miserable betook themselves unto him unto the number of 400. men which entrenched themselves in a fortresse going forth every day for to rob to maintain themselves thereby In the midst of all these misfortunes the good Prince kept alwayes in his heart a true love of his countrey and knowing that the Philistims had laid siege before Keilah he failed not to go to help it and to deliver it although this ungratefull city was intened to deliver him to Saul if he had enclosed himself therein the which he would not do having consulted with the Oracle of God but retired himself to the desert of Ziph whither Jonathan that The visit of Jonathan secret and and very profitable to David burned with a great desire to see him came to find him secretly and they were for some time together with unspeakable expansions of heart This good friend comforted him and assured him that he should be King after his father and for himself he would be content to be his second which sufficiently witnessed the wonderfull modesty of this Prince and the incomparable love that he bore to David But the Ziphims men for the time that would provide for their own safety sent their deputies to Saul to advertise him that David was retired into their quarters and if it pleased him to follow him they would deliver him into his hands At the which Saul was exceeding joyful and entred the chase to entrap him compassing him on every side and hunting him like a poor deer chased by men and dogs with great out cries The danger was very manifest and David in great hazard to be taken had it not been for a happy message it may be procured by Jonathan that advertised Saul that the Philistims had taken the field and made great waste upon his lands at which he returned to bring remedy thereto deferring his former design till another occasion In the mean while David ran from desert to desert The rudenesse of Nabal towards David with his troops and was hardly able to live which made him have recourse to Nabal a rich man and that had great means entreating him for some courtesie for to maintain his people which had used him with very great respect defending his house his flocks and all his family against the spoilings of robbers This Nabal that was clownish and covetous answered the deputies of David that he knew not the son of Jesse but that he was not ignorant that there were evil servants enough which were fled from their masters and that he was not in case to take the bread from his hired servants for to give it to high-way men This word being told to David incensed him so much that he was going to set upon his house for to rob and sack it But Abagail the The wisdome of Abigail his wife wife of Nabal better behaved and wiser without busying her self to discourse with her husband that was a fool and drunk caused presently mules to be loaden with provision necessary for the men of war and went to meet David to whom she spake with so great wisdome comelinesse and humility that she turned away the tempest and stayed the swords already drawn out of the scabbards for to make a great slaughter in her house David admiring the wisdom and goodnesse of this spirit of the woman married her after the death of her husband It is so true that a good deed bestowed on a high A good deed done to a great one afflicted is of much value person in time of his affliction and when he hath most leasure to consider it is a seed-sowing which in its time brings forth and bears fruits of blessednesse After that Saul had driven back the Philistims he returns to the pursuit of David accompanied with three thousand men with a purpose to take him although he should hide himself under ground or should fly through the air And indeed he crept up rocks unaccessible David furiously pursued by Saul which were not frequented by any but by wild goats and as he passed that way he entred into a cave for some naturall necessity where David was hid with a small number of his faithfullest servants which failed not to tell him that this was the hand of God which had this day delivered his deadly enemy into his hands and that he should not now lose time but to cut him off quickly whilst that he gave him so fair play and this would be the means to end all those bitternesses wherewith his life was filled by the rage of this barbarous Persecutour This was a strong temptation to a man so violently His generousnesse in pardoning his enemy very admirable persecuted and whose life was sought by so many outrages Neverthelesse David stopping all those motions of revenge resolved in his heart by a strong inspiration of God never to lay his hands upon him which was consecrated King and contenting himself with cutting off the skirts of his coat he went out of the cave after Saul and crying with a loud voice he worshipped him prostrate on the earth holding in his hand the piece of his casock and saying to him Behold my Lord my Father and my King the innocence of my hands and do not believe them any more which filled you with suspicions of poor David you cannot be ignorant at this time that God hath put you into my power and that I could have handled you ill by taking away your life have saved mine own But God hath kept me by his holy grace from this thought and hath preserved you from all evil I never yet had any intent to hurt your Majesty having alwayes reverenced and served it as your most humble servant and subject whiles that you cease not to pesecute me and to torment my poor life with a thousand afflictions Alas my Lord what is it that you desire Against whom are you come forth with so great furniture of Arms and Horses against a poor dead Dog a miserable little beast I beseech the living God to judge between us two and to make you to know the goodnesse of my cause One may avouch that great and glorious actions The greatnesse and benefit of clemency of Clemency do never hurt Princes but that often they do place or keep the Crown upon their heads God and Men concurring to favour that goodnesse that approches so near to the highest Saul was so amazed with this action that he ran to him and embraced him weeping and said to him This is a sure sign O David which I acknowledge at the present and whereby I know for certain that you must reign after me so great a goodnesse not being able to be rewarded but by an Empire I do pray and conjure you onely to have pity on my poor children after my death and not to revenge your injuries upon them hereupon he swore to him to deal with him afterwards peaceably But as this spirit was unequall
his ambition did here bound it self and promised to speak to the King thereof very willingly which she did going expresly to visit him Solomon went forth to meet her made her very great reverence received her with most courteous entertainment and having ascended his Throne he caused another to be set at his right hand for his mother which said to him That she came to make a very little request unto him upon which it would be a displeasure to her to receive any deniall The son assured her and said That she might boldly demand and that he was no wayes intended to give her any discontent As soon as she had opened the businesse and named Abishag's name Solomon entred Solomons rigour into great anger and said she might have added thereto the Kingdome seeing that he was his eldest brother and that he had Joab and Abiathar on his side and without giving any other answer he swore that he would make Adonijah die before it was night whereupon presently he gave order to Benaiah who supplied the office of Captain of the Guard which failed not to slay this young Prince Those that think that Solomon might do this in conscience He cannot well be justified for the murder of his brother and that one may conjecture that God had revealed it unto him take very small reasons to excuse great crimes and see not that whosoever would have recourse to imaginary Revelations might justifie all the most wicked actions of Princes There is not one word alone in the Scripture that witnesses that after the establishment of Solomon this poor Prince did make the least trouble in the State he acknowledged Solomon for King he lived peaceable he was contented with the order that God permitted for the comfort of the losse of a Kingdome which according to the Law of Nations did belong to him he desired but a maid servant in marriage and he is put to death for it Who could excuse this I am of opinion of the The just punishment of God upon Solomon Dr Cajetan who saith that this command was not onely severe but unjust and I believe that hence came the misfortune of Solomon for that having shewed himself so little courteous towards his mother and so cruel towards his brother for the love of a woman God to punish him hath suffered that he should be lost by all that which he loved most After this murder he sent for Abiathar the chief Priest and gave Abiathar the high Priest deprived of his dignity by a very violent action him to understand that he was worthy to die but forasmuch as he had carried the Ark of the living God and had done infinite services for the King his father even from his youth he gave him his life upon such condition that he should be deprived of the dignity of the high Priest and should retire himself to his house The Scripture saith that this was to fulfill the word of the Lord which had been pronounced against the house of Eli but yet it follows not for all that that this depriving was very just on Solomon's side being done without mature consideration And although God ordains sometimes temporall afflictions upon children for the punishment of the fathers yet one cannot neverthelesse inferre from this that those which torment and persecute them without any other reason then their own satisfaction should not any wayes be faulty for otherwise one might avouch that the death of our Lord having come to passe by the ordinance of God Pilate and Caiaphas that did co-operate unto this order without any knowledge thereof should be without offence As for those that think that the Levites were accusers in those proceedings it is a conjecture of their own invention and if indeed it were so one might yet further reason by what Law could the Levites bring accusation against their chief Priest This jealousie of Government is a marvellous beast and those that would excuse it find for the most part that there is no stronger reasons then swords and prisons and banishments In the mean time the news comes to Joab that he was in great danger for having followed the party of Adonijah and as he saw himself on the sudden forsaken and faln from the great credit that he had in the Militia he had recourse to the Tabernacle which was the common refuge and taking hold of the Altar he asked mercy and his life Banaiah the executour of the murder goes to him by Solomons order and commands him to come forth for which he excuses himself protesting that he would rather die then forsake his refuge which was related to King Solomon who without regard to the holy place caused him to be massacred The death of Joab at the foot of the Altar to mingle his bloud with that of the sacrifices Behold what he got from the Court after fourty years services and one may affirm that if it had been sometimes a good mother to him now it acted a cruel step-mother at the last period of his life There remained no more but Shimei to make up the last Act of the Tragedy and although David had given commandment for his death Solomon seemed yet to make some scruple upon the promise of impunity that was made to him and this was the cause that he appointed him the city of Jerusalem for a prison with threatning that if he should go forth thence and onely go over the brook of Cedron he would put him to death The other that expected nothing but a bloudy death willingly received the condition and kept it three years until the time that on a day having received news of his servants that were fled to the Philistims it came into his mind to follow them without taking heed to that which was commanded him which caused that at his return he was murdered by the commandment of Solomon by the hand of Benaiah Behold the beginning of a reign tempestuous and one must not think to find Saints so easily at the Court especially in those which have liberty to do what they please many things slip from them which may better be justified by repentance then by any other apology That which follows in this history of Solomon is all peaceable and pleasing even unto his fall which may give cause of affrightment The third year of his reign he had an admirable Dream after the manner of those that are called Oracles A wonderfull Dream of Solomon It seemed to him that God appeared to him and spoke to him at the which he was in an extasie and seeing himself so near to him that could do all he desired of him with incredible ardency the gift of Wisdome to govern his people the which pleased so much the Sovereign Majesty that not onely he gave him a very great understanding above all the men of the world but further also added thereto Riches and Glory in so high an eminence that none should equall him There
the whole city in flames The Temples were burned with the most sumptuous structures the pictures the statues and the most beautifull works of the Antient Masters crackled in the fiery coals which none extinguished but by humane blood The most religious of the Clergy being come forth to appease the tumult in shewing them the books of the Gospels the images of the Saints and the Shrines of their reliques although they marched at that time in a Procession were trod under foot and in part murdered by the Herules This redoubled the fury of the people who had yet some good sense of their Religion and could not endure the contempt of sacred things The Massacres began afresh on both sides and the images of death fly up and down on all parts The Emperour was for that time shut up within his Palace with his wife the Empresse accompanied with Bellisarius who was newly returned from Africa with Narses and with Mundus and the Regiments of his Guards His heart bled within him to see those horrours and he was so courageous as to be willing to go forth and present himself to make an Oration to his people and to pacific the sedition But the Empresse throwing her self at his feet laid hold on him and conjured him by all that he had most dear not to commit himself to an evident Butchery which caused him to be contented to sound the Ford and to send Messengers to the people to promise them all satisfaction if they would assemble themselves peaceably in the Theatre to hear their Prince The factious began to cry that it was a snare to intrap them and that they had no reason to hearken to a Tyrant that had sold their skins to the Barbarians that there was no more safety now remaining for them but in desperatenesse Thereupon they take Hypatius and having lifted him upon a great Buckler carry him a crosse the multitude place him upon a Throne in the midst of the great Market-place and proclaim him Emperour He was as it were altogether astonish'd between hope and fear when he spake these words with a feeble voyce Friends I am your work I come to live and dye with you I know well what ye have made me be but I know not what I shall be if ye bring not as much force to preserve me as ye have testified affection to elect me In a word the life of Justinian is incompatible with mine and your arms must decide this day which of the two you will keep either the Prince that ye have chosen or the Tyrant that ye have sworn to destroy The Assembly answered confusedly with great clamours Let Hypatius live Let Justinian dye and the stoutest men amongst them take a resolution to assail him in his Palace But this Prince after he had call'd upon the name of God the Protectour of Kings took this perillous businesse into deliberation Narses was of opinion that it was best to fortifie the Royall Palace to damme up the entrances to prepare themselves for assaults within and not to trust themselves without That all rebellions were strong and invincible in their first heat and that time ought to be given to some to think upon their fault and to others to declare their good affection Belizarius lik'd not this opinion and desired nothing but to march and to fall upon the Rebels The Empresse Theodora who held the upper end in all the counsells of Justinian intermeddled very far in this businesse as Historians observe and spake with a loud voyce What seek security in dishonour Endure a siege of our subjects and of the dreggs of the people without taking other arms then those of walls It is a counsell that will give boldnesse to Hypatius and fear to all those that are yet for us I assure my self that the Tyrant wholly trembling in this novelty and that there is not a more sovereign remedy then to prevent him Let us rather dye then leave a blot upon our reputation The name of Emperor and of Empresse sound well in an Epitaph and ought never to be quitted but with life She animated the whole company by her discourses The Emperour himself had a mind to go out amongst them but it was concluded that he should suffer Belizarius to advance with the most resolute Regiments which he did very courageously and removed himself into the place where was the hottest of the combate The Herules that had puissantly susteined the first furies of the enemies took new forces and joyned themselves to the Emperours Court of Guard They began altogether to charge the Rebels with such an Impetuousnesse that they seemed Lyons and not Men. The Faction was no longer equall the heart of the Revolted failed them and they let themselves be killed as Sheep whilst the fury of the Souldiers fleshed in blood slackened nothing of its vehemence Justinian touched with pity commanded that they should spare the rest and to perswade them more efficaciously to their good and safety endeavoured to gain the faction of the Blew-coats and to divide it from the Green by force of Courtesie and of Money This being done Hypatius found himself much astonished and wished then that he had rather put his hand on Thorns then on the Pearls of a Diademe He fights now no more for honour but for his life he seeks out holes to hide himself but those that knew that their security consisted in nothing but in producing him seize upon his person and deliver him into the hands of the Emperour who caused suddenly the law to proceed against him together with Pompey and other great Lords that were their Complices who were all put to death After which the Emperour endeavoured with all his might to Rally his people and to declare to them the pernicious effects of sedition which were but too visible The City being all wasted by the fire and fourty thousand men as Zanoras tells us dead upon the place Behold one of the most hidious Histories that I find in all Antiquity and which ought to teach people to adhere firmly to their Sovereign and never to lend an ear to wicked counsels that cause so lamentable Tragedies It admonishes also great men to enterprise no thing against their lawfull Princes and to place alwayes their Principall Honour in Obedience This Monarch seeing himself settled in his Kingdome by so sensible a protection gave all the thanks of it to God and bent the vigour of his cares to the advancement of his glory An hundred years had already passed since the Vandals a barbarous people and Heretick Arrians had possessed themselves of Africa after they had torn it from the Roman Empire Three Kings were already dead and the fourth that then reigned was a Tyrant named Gilimer revolted from the true King Hilderic his Lord and Kinsman whom he left in a close prison after he had put himself into possession of his Sceptre Justinian that was a friend and Protectour of him that had been Deposed
will if they might have had but the permission given them He saw that he subsisted not but by his favour which he abused so basely He resolved to pick a quarrell with him and asked him instantly What might a Great King do that would honour a Favourite to the highest Point Haman thinking that that Question was not made but in favour and Consideration of him Answers with an Immeasurable Impudence That to honour worthily a Favourite and to shew in his Person what a great Master can do that Loves with Passion He must clothe him with his Royall Cloak put the Kings Diadem upon his Head set him upon his own Horse and command the greatest Prince of the Court to hold his Stitrop and his Bridle and lead him through all places of the City and to Cause an Herald to Proclaime before him That it is thus that Ahasuerus honoureth his Favourites The Prince was astonished at this Insolence and to make him burst with spite said to him that his Opinion was very good and therefore he commanded him to render all those honours presently to Mordecai the Jew that was at the Palace Gate This Divel of Pride was seized with so great an amazement at that Speech that he had not so much as one word in his mouth to Reply and as he was Vain-glorious and Insupportable in his Prosperity so there was nothing more Amated or more Base in Adversity He extreamly racks his spirit to dissemble his discontent The fear of Death and Punishments due to his Crimes if he did resist the Pleasure of the King made him swallow all the bitternesse of that Cup. A strange thing Poor Mordecai that was all nasty covered with Sack-cloth and Ashes is fetched is washed is trimmed up and clad after the fashion of a King Haman presents himself to hold the Stirrop of the Horse and to lead him by the Bridle while his Enemy was shewed in Triumph to the eyes of the whole City of Shushan How much Resistance do we think he made not to accept this Honour What thoughts came into his head whether it was not a Trick of Haman that would give him a short Joy to deliver him to a long Punishment He could not believe his Eyes nor his Reason he thought that all this had been a Dream In the mean while the whole City of Shushan beheld that great Spectacle and could not be sufficiently amazed at so extraordinary a Change Haman after the Ceremony was over returns very sad unto his House deploring with his Wife and friends the sad sport of Fortune The Confusion of their troubled spirits suggests nothing to them but Counsels of despair and they say That since Mordecai hath begun sure he will make an end He was very loath to go to that Feast of the Queens he feared that it would prove a sacrifice and that he should be the offering Hester that saw that her sport was spoiled if he was not present caused him secretly to be engaged and pressed by the Eunuchs of the King who under colour of Civility conduct him to his finall Misery He enters into the Chamber of the Feast The King dissembles all that had been done there was nothing talked of at the first but of passing merrily the time away Every thing flourished every thing Laughed but Poyson was hid under the Laughter and Venome under the Flowers At the end of their Repast the King Conjures the Queen to tell him at last what it was that she desired of him because he was fully resolved to divide his Crown and Sceptre with her Then sending forth a great sigh she cryed Alas Sir I do not sue to your Majesty for any of all the Honours or the Riches of your Empire but I desire of you onely my own and my poore peoples Lives which some would overthrow Destroy and Massacree by an horrible and bloody Butchery Sir I ought no longer to disguise any thing to your Majesty God hath made me be born of that Nation which is given for a Prey under your Authority and destin'd to the Shambels It is me that they aime at If they had gone about onely to make me and my People Slaves I would have held my peace and stifled my groans But Sir what have I done that my Throat should be cut after I shall have seen the Bloud of my nearest Kindred shed before mine Eyes to be thrown as the last Sacrifice upon a great heap of Dead Bodies and Buried in the Ruines of my dear Countrey Alas Sir shew us Mercy You that are the Mildest of all Princes restore me my soul and the lives of my whole Nation The King entered into an Admiration of Extasie upon these Words and said to the Queen I know not to what this Discourse tends or where the Man or the Authority is that dares do this without my command Then she replyes He to whom your Majesty hath given your Seal that Traytor and perfidious Haman It is he that hath caused bloudy Letters to be written through all the Provinces to deliver me and my People up to Death and know Sir that his cruelty rebounds upon your head Haman quickly perceived that he was a lost man and the Palenesse of Death came at the same instant into his Face The King rises from the Table and walks into the Garden that was hard by to chew upon his Choler The Queen that had put her self into a Melancholy casts her self down upon the Bed Haman throwes himself at her feet and as a man that is drowning layes hold on what ere he meets with He beseeches her he Urges her he Conjures her to shew him Mercy and in saying so bowed himself down upon the Bed and approached very near unto her The King entring at the same time into the Chamber and finding him in that Posture How sayes he will he also violate the Queen my Wife in my Presence and in my House Let some body take him away Instantly they come and cover his Face as they were wont to do to those that were carried away to Punishment and one of the Eunuchs thought of saying That he had prepared a pair of Gallows of fifty Cubites high for Mordecai the Preserver of the Kings Life It is that which is his Due answered Ahasuerus and let him be hanged suddenly upon the Gibbet that he hath set up This was executed without delay there being no body that was not extream joyfull of his Ruine Mordecai was called to the Palace to take his Place and to Govern all the Houshold of the Queen that now acknowledged him in the presence of the King her husband for her Uncle Hester afterward beseech'd the King to command Dispatches to be sent through all the Provinces to countermand and to make void the Letters of Death which cruell Haman had caused already to be spread through all the Kingdome This was found very reasonable and they were forthwith Expedited in these Termes Artaxerxes the Soveraign Lord and King of
at the party that was made against him withdrew himself to the K. of Parthia to desire assistance of him where it hapned that by the calumny of his enemies he was clapt up in an honourable prison as if he had come to make an attempt upon the Kingdome of his neighbour His spirit that was alwayes wanton made love even in that captivity and debauched a daughter of that King his host whom he was constrained to wed although he was already married and when he had stoln out of prison he was caught and brought back again to this new wife Tryphon knowing what had befaln him caused his Pupil to be murdered by an execrable cruelty feigning that he had been taken away by a naturall death and took the Diadem professing himself to be the revenger of the Tyrant and the lawfull King of Syria After some time the liberty of the young Demetrius was mediated but his wife Cleopatra that had a crafty and proud spirit vext with the inconstant loves of her husband and wearied with his loosenesse raised up against him puissant enemies that massacred him and some are of opinion that she her self was one of the complices of that attempt and that Demetrius his brother whom she married afterwards was not innocent of it My pen hath horrour at these bloudy tragedies and passes over them as upon burning coals Antiochus Sidetes seeing himself on his brothers Throne eagerly pursued Tryphon and besieged him in the city of Dora where finding himself extremely straightned and out of all hopes of succour he killed himself with his own hand and yet could not deface by his bloud the villanous stain of perfidiousnesse that remained upon him by the death of the young King The Conquerour perceiving himself above his businesses saw that the Maccabees in the troubles of Syria possessed by so many Kings had made great progresses would represse them and made warre against Simon that succeeded his brother Jonathan and who was afterward assassinated at a banquet by Ptolomy his son-in-law The King as 't is thought upholding by his favour that cruel basenesse two of his sonnes were involved in the misery of the father and the murderers were already dispatched to adde to them John Hircan son of the same Simon But he having had intelligence of that first design stood upon his guard and governed Judea the space of more then thirty years with much prudence and happinesse out-living a long time that last Antiochus that was stoned to death as he was going to pillage the Temple of Mannaea Hyrcan had for Successour his son Aristobulus who took the Diadem and resumed the name of King among the Jews after a long discontinuation which hapned an hundred years before the Nativity of our Lord. Those of his race failed not to continue the Regall Dignity in their house till that Hyrcan which was so cruelly spoiled and mafsacred by Herod as I have said in the history of Mariamne Behold how the virtue of Judas Maccabeus extended it self through many Ages and without thinking of it put the Crown upon the head of those that were of his family and of his name God recompencing his Zeal and Justice beyond the fourth generation I have endeavoured to make in this discourse a little abridgement of that which is contained in the two books of Maccabees and relate it to you my Reader in a streight line and a method clear enough hoping that you will have content and edification to see the Justice of God reign over so many crowned heads who ceases not to punish the wicked and to render to the good safety and glory for a recompence of their virtue GODFREY of Bovillon GEORGE CASTRIOT GEORGE CASTRIOT OR SCANDERBERG GODFREY OF BOVILLON IT was not the voyce of a man but an Oracle of the holy Spirit that Pope Vrban the second pronounced when he gave to the Crofier for a Devise God will have it so This speech was the soul of all the Intentions of Godfrey of Bovillon It was the But of all his Actions God never made the prodigious effects of his power more visibly appear then in the conduct of this most Illustrious Personage It was a Captain formed in his Bosome and instructed by his hand that was to break the chains of the Christians and to pull down the pride of the Sultans So many other Expeditions were almost all splitted but this of Godfrey bore a God would have it so and nothing resisted its Good hap Many men torment themselves all their life-time in great designs that are as the Dragons the Chimera's and armed men that our fancy shapes upon the body of a Cloud The wind drives them the divers postures confound them the Asspects change them and all that we behold with admiration in the Heavens falls in water upon our head and makes morter under our feet How many Princes have made great preparations both of Men and Elephants of Horses and of Ships of Arms and Ammunitions out of a design to make great Conquests and all this hath vanished for want of a God will have it so There are certain impressions in great affairs which are never found without the favours of heaven One God will have it so will make us sail in the Sea upon an Hurdle or upon a Tortoise-shell one God will not have it so will drown us in a well Rigged Ship It was a God wills it that seized in an instant the spirit of the most excellent Cavaliers of Europe to undertake a voyage into the Holy Land It was a God wills it that made them followed by innumerable multitudes of Mortals But it was also a God wills it that made them cast their eyes upon Godfrey of Bovillon as upon the most valiant the most happy and the most able to pluck Jerusalem out of the hands of Saladine The King of the Bees appears not more visible in the middle of his swarm then this great Captain appeared amongst an infinite number of Cavaliers assembled to revenge the holy Sepulchre There was not one onely ray of the eyes that beheld him that did not expresse some favour to his Merit he had as many Approvers as Spectatours and every man signed him his Commissions even by his silence That illustrious blood of the Heroes that ran in his veins that advantageous Stature that raised him the head above so many Millions of men that face that Majesty had chosen for her throne that tongue that carried insensible chains to captivate mens hearts that comelinesse of the forehead that was at once modest and bold that valour that was painted on all his limbs that courage that kindled a delightfull fire in his eyes All the Virtues that seemed to march about his Person and in fine that finger of God that had imprnited on him the Character of Conquerour made him be chosen as the first Moover of that wonderfull design There was nothing but his Modesty that opposed the desires of all the World and that would
instruments of the Justice that he exercised upon the sins of his people King Nebuchadonozor that reigned in that Monarchy six hundred years before the Nativity of our Lord fell upon Palestine with a mighty Army took and pillaged the city of Jerusalem carried away King Jehojakim with the richest vessels of the Temple and abundance of prisoners of the most noted men amongst which was Daniel accompanied with other young children of a good parentage The King gave charge to Ashpenaz chief Gentleman of his Chamber to chuse him Pages of Royall extraction well made without any blemish or disgrace as well of mind as body that should be versed in arts befitting the Nobility well learn'd in exercises docile and well-governed and that he should teach them the Chaldean Tongue which was the Language of the Kingdome that they might wait upon him in his Chamber Ashpenaz having proceeded in the businesse with much consideration resolved to take Daniel and his three companions Ananias Azarias and Misael From hence one may collect that this young child was endowed with most excellent qualities for the conversation of the world and the life of the Court Some have perswaded themselves that he was the son of King Hezekiah but it is without foundation and with ignorance of the Chronology seeing that if this opinion were true it must be inferred that Daniel that is here dealt with as a child and chosen for Nebuchadonozor's Page was at that time fourscore and ten years old which would be a great impertinency Yet it is credible that he was descended from some son or daughter of the same King but however one may assure that he was of the bloud Royall seeing the King had expresly ordered that the Children that were to appear before him for his service should be taken out of that quality Besides his eminent birth he was endowed with a very gentle fashion knowing according to his age dextrous in the exercises of the Court of a sweet and prudent spirit very different from the temper of him that we proposed in the precedent Elogy But to speak sincerely if a good man ought to be considered as a Temple these exteriour qualities make but the portall there are others in the understanding and in the will that compose the Mysteries of the Sanctuary This young child was endowed with a great intelligence in things of Faith and Religion and of a chaste fear of God and of rare virtues that surpassed farre the ability of his age Who can sufficiently commend that which he did at his entrance into the Court with his companions that took light from his spirit and strength from the imitation of his courage They were now come from the siege of an hunger-bitten city from a long voyage and abundance of wearisome toils they find themselves suddenly in the abundance and delicacies of a magnificent Court where they were to be sed as the other Pages with the viands that were served up to the Kings table Youth hath ordinarily a great inclination to a sensuall life and to content all its appetites so that there are some that seem not to eat to live but to live to eat Yet these young children made a firm resolution to abstain from all the delicious food that was served up to Nebuchadonozor's table whether for the fear that they had lest they should have been offered unto Idols or for the love of Temperance they earnestly beseeched the master of the Pages to entertain them with nothing but with pulse and when he feared lest that usage should make them lean and that the King should perceive it they prayed him to try them for the space of ten dayes assuring him that living in such a manner they should be full of health and vigour This was verified by experience and when they were to appear in the presence of the King they were found in good plight active and well instructed above all the rest The Prophet saith That the beauties of the desert Psal 64. Pinguescent speciosa deserti shall be fat and fruitfull so those bodies that are as deserts deprived of the fat and of the abundance that a voluptuous life ministers to the delicate have a certain blessing of God that infuses into them an health a grace and a beauty sutable to a good temper Do we not see that all those birds of prey that feed themselves with the flesh of beasts send forth an horrid cry but the Nightingales that live innocently by some little seeds of plants sing melodiously Daniel was made to charm the ear of a great King by his discourses to live in contemplations and in lights he would have nothing to do with the smoak and ill vapours of Nebuchadonozor's Kitchen He was full three years under this master of the Pages Praying Fasting keeping the Law of God learning the Language of the Countrey and the Modes of the Court This time being expired he was presented to the King amongst other children of divers Nations who liked him exceeding well with his companions and found that he eminently surpassed the capacity of all those of the Countrey and of the rest that were nourished with him When he was advanced in age and now approaching to thirty years it pleased God to render him very famous at the Court as another Joseph by the Interpretation of a Dream King Nebuchadonozor had a great Vision in his sleep which very much disquieted his mind for there remained in him an Idea that he had dreamt of some magnificent thing but his Dream was escaped from him and he could by no means unfold it whether he said true or whether he dissembled to try his Diviners and all those that undertook to foretell hidden things He makes a great Assembly of the Sages of the Countrey in his Palace to know of them what it was that he had dreamed whereat these men were very much astonished and told him with all humility that no man ever dealt so with the Interpreters of Dreams but that the extraordinary manner was to declare the Vision and then seek for the Interpretation This King that was of an impetuous and extravagant spirit said That he was not contented with that triviall fashion of telling his Dreams to give them matter of inventing afterward such an Interpretation as they would but that the true secret of the Science was to divine the Dream it self The Magicians reply'd That there was none but the Gods that could give a resolution of that and that their commerce was farre distant from ours The King thereupon sent them away with anger and without giving vent to his choler resolved to rid himself of all the Diviners in his Kingdome having already given command to his Captain of the Guard to put them all to death All of them fled and were exactly searched for Daniel that was thought to make profession of these extraordinary Sciences was involved in the same danger there being no want of wicked minded men that seeing him
sufficiently in the favour of the King endeavoured to destroy him in that occasion He would not suddenly forsake the Court as one scar'd but assuring himself of Gods protection he presented himself to the Captain of the Guard praying him to make some surcease upon that rigorous Edict and not to dip his hands in bloud by the death of so many men but to permit him onely to present himself to the King and he hoped to give him all content In this he shewed himself very prudent there being nothing better in troublesome affairs and very sudden then to bring some retardment whilst the spirit may give it self leasure to come to it self again and to find expediments to get out of an ill way He spake to the King expressing much compassion even for them that bore him envy and desired some delay which was very reasonable to resolve so crabbed a Question Now when he saw well that it passed the capacity of any created spirit he had recourse to the Creatour by most humble and most fervent prayers which he recommended also to his dear companions that all conspiring to the same design they might the more easily obtain the mercy and the illumination of God in so great and so profound a secret It is thus that good men proceed in all businesses of importance distrusting all their own managery if it be not directed from on high Their prayers redoubled day and night one upon the other forced heaven with a pious violence and the Dream with its Interpretation was revealed to Daniel in the midst of his most ardent Devotions He felt his spirit touched with a glimpse of the first light and saw as in a mirrour all that had passed in Nebuchadonozor's mind with such a certainty as permitted him not to doubt of it Then he was not like Archimedes who having found some secret of the Mathematicks as he was in a Bath leapt out all naked by a strange transport crying through the streets I have found it I have found it This is ordinary to spirits that have nothing in their head but vanity but holy Daniel cryes out thereon Let the name of God be blessed for ever for to him belongeth wisdome and strength It is he that distributeth wisdome to the true Sages and that bestows knowledge on those that range themselves under his Discipline It is he that reveals things hidden in the most deep abysses and knows that which is buried in the most thick darknesse and light dwells perpetually with him I praise thee and I confesse thee from the bottome of my heart the God of my fathers that hast given this strength of spirit and this understanding to penetrate the Kings secret He spake many such like words and rising from his prayer he went to seek the Captain of the Guard whom he besought to save the Sages of Babylon and to cause no more to die because he had found out the secret that was searched after by the Prince which the other received with much joy and failed not immediately to carry news of it to the King who caused Daniel to be called of whom he demanded the performance of his promise Then the Prophet using a great prudence and a singular modesty excused all the Sages of Chaldea that could not find out the Kings secret thoughts and vanted not himself to know them by his own sufficiency but by the inspiration of the God whom he adored In which he expressed a great wisdome and a generous humility not giving any praise to himself but transferring all the glory to the living God that he might work in the King an high esteem of the true Religion S. Gregory saith That those that seek their own glory in the Commission they have from God are like those that espousing in quality of proxies a wife by order of their Master would play the Husbands not contenting themselves to be simple Commissioners Daniel abhorred such proceedings because he was a Starre that would shew his Sun and would not be seen himself but by his favour He made then a large discourse to the King his master and told him his Dream which was touching that famous Statue that had an head of Gold a breast and arms of Silver a belly and thighs of Copper legs of Iron and feet partly of Iron and partly of Earth and added that whilst the King beheld it in his Dream he saw a little stone come from a great mountain that strook the feet of the Statue and tumbled it down immediately scattering the Gold the Silver the Copper the Iron and the Earth as small chaffe dissipated by a whirlewind and that that little Stone changed it self in an justant into a huge Mountain and filled the whole earth After he had so subtilly touched the Vision of the Prince making him remember all that his imagination had framed he descended to the particularities of the Interpretation and said That he was the Golden Head of that Statue God having made him a King of kings and having given him Strength Rule and Glory with a Power over the Earth inhabited by men over the birds of the air and the beasts of the field Then he advertised that after him should come a Kingdome lesse then his that should be as Silver in comparison of Gold And after that second should arise a third resembling Brasse that should command over the whole earth And after that a fourth which as Iron should subdue and break in pieces all that it should meet with And as for that that he had seen the Feet of the Statue composed of Iron and Clay it meant that there should be a great inequality and disproportion in that last Empire by reason of the mixture of very differing parts that could not be fitted well together In fine that God would raise up a Kingdome of Heaven signified by that little Stone that should crush the other Kingdomes and should remain stable to all Eternity The King was so transported with Daniel's discourse that he rose suddenly from his Throne and bending with his face to the earth worshipped him commanding that Sacrifices and Incense should be offered to him and publishing highly that his God was the God of gods and the Lord of kings to whom alone it belonged to reveal Mysteries since he could penetrate into such a secret Wisdome was never upon so high a Throne as to see the proudest of Monarchs at her feet Yet Daniel well knew how to moderate the transports of his spirit and by shewing him the nothing of the creature to draw him to the worship and honour of the Creatour which was the master of Knowledge and source of all pure Light These are the wonders of the Sovereign Monarch to consider that a young man that came to that Court as a slave should find there suddenly in the esteem of his Prince the quality of a God he was shut up continually in his chamber and his spirit walked through the whole Universe he was a
Captive and saw Kings passe before him as the Dream of a night For represent to your selves with what wisdome and with what greatnesse of conceptions he saw in one onely Dream that which should extend beyond six hundred years and that which had been doing thirteen or fourteen hundred years before That Golden Head of the Statue was the chief Monarchy of the World founded as 't is held by Belus whom Ninus his son consecrated for a God causing a great statue of gold to be erected for him which had eyes counterfeited of certain precious stones that were afterwards called Belus his eyes This Ninus took to wife a maid that came from nothing named Semiramis that gained him by her charms and reigned after him in a most imperious way till such time as she was assassinated by her own son when she incited him to a most enormous sin This son that was called Ninias was esteemed but little and followed with about two and thirty sit-still Kings the last of which was Sardanapalus that was spinning out his distaffe amongst the women of his Seraglio when he was surprised by a revolt of two of his Captains and burnt himself with all his most precious wealth that he might leave to his conquerours nothing else but ashes This Monarchy of the Assyrians was then divided into two Kingdomes by those two Chiefs that conspired against their Master Arbaces took the Medes and Belesus the Chaldeans out of this Belesus issued thirteen Kings amongst which were Nebuchadonozor and Belshazzer Arbaces was followed by nine the last of which was Astyages These two Kingdomes were afterward incorporated into one sole Monarchy of the Persians figured by the Silver founded by Cyrus whom God seemed to lead by the hand to the conquest of Nations and to give him happinesse at his disposall to follow no more any but his standards His Monarchy reckoned two hundred years and fourteen Kings when under Darius one of the greatest spectacles of the inconstancy of humane things it was buried by the Grecians after five millions of men had been consumed in three battels Alexander founded this third Empire represented by the Brasse and did that great master-work by which he seemed to have been born onely to shew posterity to what point of greatnesse a man may arrive by the heighth of his enterprises and the vigour of his arms The course of his Reign ended in twelve years and so many conquests were bounded by a glasse of poyson His Princes shared diversly the Empire who after they had dipped their swords so many times in the bloud of the Barbarians washed them in their own and tore one another by horrible Civil Wars Finally the Roman Empire was that Iron which brake the Gold the Silver and the Copper and swallowed up all the Monarchies to contribute to its greatnesse But there was a mixture of Clay and Iron in this that so many stranger-stranger-Kings that were effeminated by luxury were adjoyned to the invincible force of that courageous Nation This was not well founded there was need of an eternall Kingdome which began at the Birth of our Lord seven hundred years after the foundation of the city of Rome and is exercised after a spirituall and eminent manner to the end of all Ages I have desired to trace out this in a few lines toverifie the Interpretation that Daniel gave to Nebuchadonozor's Dream and the great lights that he communicated to him about the estate of the Empires of the earth The King in this consideration could not satisfie himself with admiring of him and raised him unto most high degrees of honour making him as Vice-Roy of all the Provinces of his Kingdome the chief Magistrate and the Prince of the Council of the Sages He was constrained to accept all this by reason of the imperious humour of his Master who in his first motions would no way be contraried but he so ordered the businesse that his cares were divided amongst his dear companions to whom he caused Offices in the Provinces to be bestowed whilst he was alwayes about the Kings person But it seldome happens that good men are raised at Court but that God makes them know by some revolution or other the brittlenesse of all the glory of the world Scarce had they tasted the first-fruits of the honour due to their merit but the Prince alwayes puffed up with his victories and pricked with an high esteem of greatnesse without having any remembrance of the Conduct of his Empire that had been represented to him in his Dream causes a golden Statue of sixty cubits high to be erected for himself that should be one of the most formidable Colussus's that had been ever seen And as it was the custome to make great Ceremonies at the Dedication of these testimonies of honour that were given to Kings he summoned all the principall men of his whole Kingdome the Governours and the Officers of his Crown One reades not that Daniel had any thing to do with it be it that he was absent upon some great employment or be it that he avoyded that occurrence by a shift But his companions were sent for thither because that the great credit that they had by the recommendation of Daniel had already drawn upon them the envy of those of the Countrey who sought for nothing but an occasion to destroy them They might deliberate among themselves whether it were not permitted to render an honour purely civil to the Statue of a King and conclude with reason that such an action tended not to the sin of Idolatry They could not be ignorant that the Prophet Elisha granted leave to Naaman the Syrian to accompany the King his master to the Temple of the Idols and even to bend the knee not with a design to do homage to the false God but with an intention to hold up his Prince whilst he lean'd upon him as was his custome This action seemed more bold because here is mention of a place wherein worship was rendred to an imaginary Deity and although that this Naaman had neither heart nor adoration for it yet those that saw him bow before that Abomination might inferre that he perished in his Superstition yet for all that the Prophet grants him in this thing all that he desired By a juster title seems it that these here ought not to have moved so furious a tempest against their Nation for lack of doing reverence to the Image of a King Neverthelesse these three young men after they had considered that the King pretended to cause himself to be adored in that Statue as a God filled with a sense of their Religion whiles some suffered themselves to go to that adoration and others fled for fear of torments presented themselves to the King and protested loudly that they were the servants of the Living God and that they should hold it for a great sin to render the honour that is due to him to an Idol The King was suddenly moved with choler and
who devoured them immediately and published an Edict in favour of the true Religion This King reigned seventeen years till such time as Cyrus by a most particular design of God seized upon the Monarchy and dealt favourably with the faithfull people Daniel remained alwayes very considerable having seen five Kings passe away and was at last honoured even by his enemies themselves for his rare virtues and for the wonders that God had placed in his person One may observe in his life abundance of Lineaments that adorn highly the conversation of a true Courtier as are his constancy in Religion his Devotion the tendernesse of his love to God his Charity towards his neighbour his modesty his sparingness to speak of himself his Moderation in Prosperity his Strength of spirit in Adversity his inviolable Firmnesse never to yield to sin his exact Faithfulnesse towards his Master his Conscience Science and Ability in the Administration of his Charges his Love to his Friends his Compassion to the Miserable his affability towards all the World his patient enduring of the humours of Strangers his Prudence in his Conduct and the blessing of God that made all his enterprises prosper THE RELIGIOUS MEN. ELIJAH ELISHA ELIIAH THE PROPHETTT ELISHA THE PROPHETT BEhold here an admirable Courtier that was never of the number of those flatterers of the Court that keep Truth in Iron-Chains and give to vices the colour of virtue Elijah was a Prophet that included the name of God and of the Sun in his Name and who all his life-time bare the perfections of them both as being a true child of Light of Fire and a visible image of the invisible beauties As he was yet hanging at his mothers breast his father had a vision by which it seemed to him that his son sucked fire in stead of Milk and nourished himself with a most pure flame which without offending him furnished him with an Aliment as delicious as possible So was he all his life a Man of Fire and as it seemed that that King of Elements followed the course of his words and will so he burnt also in the Interiour with that fire that kindles the heart of Angels He was the first of men that set up the Standart of Virginity that consecrated it upon his body when it was unknown and despised in the World who made an Angelicall order of the Mount Carmel to which he hath transmitted his spirit through a long and sweet posterity that hath found sources of contemplation which he derived to the world to water the barrennesse of the Earth that hath traced the Originals of all his virtues upon that fair Carmel upon that sacred solitude that was his first Terrestriall Paradise His Speech was Thunder and his Life Lightning his Example a School of great Actions his Zeal a Devouring fire his Negotiations the affairs of Eternity His Conversation an Idea of the Contemplative and Civil Life his Translation a Miracle without peer I leave to those that have undertaken to write his Life the retail of his Virtues and of his Miracles staying onely upon his Actions that he did at Court treating with the Kings Ahab Jehu Ahazias and the wicked Queen Jezabel He flourished nine hundred years before the Nativity of our Lord in the Kingdome of Israel which was then divided both by Religion and by Policy from that of Judah and Jerusalem Ahab the son of Amri an ill Crow of an ill Egge held then the Empire and being married to a Sidonian the daughter of the King of Sidon which was called Jezabel an haughty and malicious woman he was totally governed by her and to render himself complacent to her humours caused a Temple to be erected to the God Baal and near that Temple a Grove to be Planted where were committed all the Abominations ordinary to Idolaters Elijah that burned with the Zeal of the honour of God was touched with a most sensible grief by so scandalous an action and was stireed up by his great Master to destroy that Mystery of Iniquity Now he knowing that it was hard to Preach efficaciously the Truth to Spirits froliking it in the middest of the smiling prosperities of the world thought by the order of the God of the Universe that it was best to afflict that wicked people by a long famine and great adversities to make them reflect upon themselves and return to the worship of the true Religion He sware then aloud and publickly before Ahab for the punishment of his Idolatry that there should not be during three years either rain or dew upon the earth and that the Heavens should become Brasse to chastise that Age of Iron and that he should not expect that it should be opened during that time unlesse it were by the words of his mouth As soon as he had said this in the presence of witnesses he went away to the Eastern Coast and hid himself at the Brook of Carith over against Jordan where God nourished him by Ravens that brought him orderly every day his portion In the mean while the drought failed not to raise a great famine on the earth and chiefly in the Kingdome of Israel where one could see nothing but people crying with hunger But the Heavens took in hand to revenge the God of Heaven and the Clouds that are as the Breasts of the Earth had no water for a people that abused the Elements and all the Creatures to the prejudice of the Creatour In the mean while God that spares not alwayes the Lands and Goods of his Servants in a common havock that they may not amuse themselves on the vain prosperities of the World permitted that that Brook that furnished the Prophet with water should grow dry as well as the rest But as the Ocean which retires it self out of one River swells it self in another so this great Nursing-father of Elias that seemed to fail in matter of that little Rivulet recompensed it by the miraculous liberality of a poor widdow He forsook not that station that Providence had assigned him although barren before he had orders for it from God his Master who sent him to the Countrey of Sidon to Sarepta assuring him that he had already provided for his nourishment The Prophet arriving at the destined place found at the City-gate a poor Widow-woman the mother of a little sonne and forasmuch as he knew that the Famine was great every where that he might not astonish her at first he desired of her onely a glasse of water which she gave him with a good will after which he prayes her to add to it a morsell of bread but the good woman sware to him that she had but one handfull of Meal left in the great rigour of Famine and that she was going to gather two or three small sticks to make a little fire and to bake a Cake which would be the last that she and her sonne should eat in all their lives for after that repast they must
fifteenth year of her age being himself not much more indebted unto yeares than she was All things laughed at the beams of this bright Morning and it seemed that Felicity her self had with full hands poured down her favours upon a Marriage which had been made in Heaven to carry along with it the approbation of all the earth But who can dive into the secrets which Providence The inconstancy of humane affairs hath in her own breast concealed from us Or who is he that hath tears enough to deplore the condition of great Fortunes when they are abandoned to the pillage and plunder of destruction This young French King having in his way but saluted Royalty after his reign but of six moneths was taken out of the world by an Impostume in his ear All France did groan under this loss by reason of the excellent inclination of that Prince but she was more touched with the impressions which in her heart her most dear Spouse received who desired to sacrifice the rest of her dayes unto the ashes of her husband Nevertheless as the tenderness of the Kings age who was troubled besides with divers indispositions of body and the short time they were married together did not permit that any issue should be left behind him there did arise upon it a report that the young Her return into Scotland Queen should return into her own Countrey where two Crowns did attend her the one in England the other in Scotland she being the true Inheritress of them both of one of which she took possession and was deprived of her rights in the other by the injustice of Usurpation 3. Elizabeth of England now began to torment The first fire of the jealousie of Estate her self with a furious jealousie against her and had already laid the Design to stop her in her return to Scotland but God was pleased that she was gallantly accompanied with a great part of the most generous of the Nobility of France and did pass the seas very fortunately and arrived so suddenly in Scotland as if she did flie in the Air there she was received of all the good Catholicks with wonderfull entertainments of applause and joy Elizabeth who did swell with despite that she failed in her design covering her artifice with the vail of friendship did send a solemn Embassage with Presents to congratulate her arrival and to give her the assurances of an eternal Alliance The good Princess who had a heart as credulous as generous was passionately taken with this friendship and disputed with her self how she should overcome her in honour and in courtesie She took from her Treasurie a Diamond of which she made a Present to her It was cut in the manner of a heart and enriched with a verse of Buchanans who had not as yet his spirit infected with Treason In the mean time Elizabeth not unlike those Sorcerers which from the fairest mornings do produce the foulest weather did not cease under-hand to sow troubles and divisions in the Realm of Scotland endeavouring to destroy her Cousin by the fines of policy whom she durst not attach by the force of Arms. On the first arrival of Queen Mary into Scotland she found the Kingdom overspread with the factions of the Calvinists which at that time troubled all the Estates in Christendom And seeing that the youth and inexperience of her widow-hood was not compatible with the great underminings which her Enemies did daily form against her State she began after the space of five years to think of a second Marriage The small success in her first marriage made Her second marriage her suspect an alliance with strangers and those who were most near unto her did disswade her from it She did cast her eyes on her Cousin Henry Stuart the young Earl of Lenox who for the comeliness of his person was one of the most remarkable in the Kingdom of Scotland and having procured a Dispensation from the Pope she married him This affection The seed of the jealousie of love although most innocent in it self being not mannaged with all the considerations of State did bring upon her the jealousie of other Princes and was in the end attended with great disasters But to speak the truth the Earl of Murray natural brother to the Queen a pernicious and luxurious man who under-hand was the Instrument of Elizabeth of England did sow the first seeds of all these Tragedies In the beginning of these troubles he was called The Prior of S. Andrew as being ordained by James the Fifth to Ecclesiastical dignity but having drunk the air of a turbulent and furious Ambition which Knox the Patriarch of the Hereticks in Scotland had inspired in him he did not cease to affect the Quality of Regent and of King nor sparing any wickednesses to arrive to the butt of his desires As he observed that the Queen his sister being yet Ambition the beginning of all evils very young and very beautifull was sought for in marriage by the King of Spain to be married to his Son and by the Emperour to be maraied to his Brother he used the utmost of his power to divert that Design politickly fore-seeing that such alliances would tend to the diminution of his power and he failed not with most violent perswasions to represent unto her that she should enjoy neither peace nor honour in her Kingdom if she were espoused to a forreign Prince and the better to divert her from it he ceased not to advance the perfections of young Lenox which he did rather to amuse her and to possess her with thoughts of love than in earnest to bring the marriage to accomplishment The generous Princess who understood not yet what Dissimulation meant gave car unto him and overcome by his counsel she proceeded to the effects of the marriage with the Earl of Lenox who was indeed accomplished with all excellent endowments both of body and of mind but being very young had not the qualities requisite to serve him to secure himself This Murray who thought he should reign in him and by him and that having advanced him to the Royal Dignity the King should be but as the instrument of his will did find himself much deceived when he observed the King to grow cold in his behalf and to reign with an Authority more absolute than he intended His fury did proceed to that height that he drew into the field to make war against the King but having bad success therein he was constrained to retire himself into England where he began his designs to destroy his Sister He had in the Scotch Court the Earl of Morton who was unto him as his other-self to whom he gave Commission to throw the apple of Discord on this marriage of the King and Queen This he performed with incredible The effects of Envy and Ambition cunning and finding some disposition by the cooling of his affection he perswaded Lenox That he was
best testimony of full satisfaction As he departed the King came in and then it appeared Love and Piety how Grace and Nature wrought their effects for the innocent Queen fashioning her countenance and her words to the most sensible passion spake thus unto him Alas and wherefore thus SIR Is this that I have deserved for loving you above all the men in the world Must I be forced from your friendship to adhere to my most cruel Enemies If I have deserved death for doing you all the good that lay in the possibility of my power what hath this little Innocent in my womb commited whom I do not preserve but onely to increase your power The Excess of these violent proceedings will tear away the life both from the Mother and the child and then I am afraid you will too late discover the violence and rage of those who perswade you to destroy that which you should hold most dear and to bury your self in my ruins As she spake these words and mixed them with The King reconciled with the Queen her tears the Kings heart was softened into compassion Upon his knees he demanded pardon breathing forth many sighs accompanied with groans and tears of love And having declared to her the conspiracy that was plotted for her ruine he told her That he now came either to live or to die with her This confidence did greatly rejoyce her and having exhorted him above all things to appease the anger of God and particularly to have recourse unto his mercy she gave him instructions necessary for him she counselled him to dissemble this their love and make not the least discovery of it to the Conspiratours but onely to represent unto them that he had found the Queen very ill and that the violence of her malady might be as strong as poison or steel to take her out of the world That there was now no more need of keeping any Guard upon her for in passing affairs according to their advice he would answer for her if God should not otherwise dispose of her This counsel was followed and after the King had perswaded the Rebels to what he had desired he returned to his dear wife and about midnight both of them saved themselves nine or ten thousand armed men being drawn together by the diligence of the Earl of Bothuel who in one morning made the whole rebellion to vanish with the Rebels Now the Earl of Murray had re-possest himself Choller and Vengeance Nejudicial of the favour and good opinion of the Queen but the King who well understood the pernicious counsels of which he was the Authour and that he made him serve to be his instrument at the death of the Secretary could by no means endure him and though the good Queen who would have nothing done violently had expresly charged the contrary he was resolved to seize upon him But Murray apprehending the ill intent of the King towards him did by a most detestable crime prevent it by drawing to him the Earl of Bothuel a man bold of spirit and of hand and prevailing on him to massacre the King assuring him that he should marry the Queen if ever he arrived to the end of his fatal Enterprize This miserable King whom Jealousie had transported to the cruel murder of the Secretary was now again fully reconciled to his wife and loved her most tenderly and conceived an extream pitie to see her youth intangled among such pernicious counsels of her enemies He was then at Glasco sick of the Small-pox which the Queen understanding she immediately repaired thither to bring him unto Edingborough where were better accommodations for him At the same time Horrible inventions of Envy and Vengeance the Conspiratours assembled themselves to accomplish their Design and moreover they had a desire to involve the Queen and her Son in the same ruin but they feared that it would be too apparent and it would be more expedient for them to bring all the Envy of the death of the husband upon the head of his wife whom they conceived to be still highly offended for his ill demeanour towards her To which purpose they undertook to torment her spirit and prompt her to thoughts of vengeance which they never could effect so strong was the new knot of their reconciled love They deliberated amongst themselves to put this miserable Prince to death by fire and because it was inconvenient to perform it in the Palace they entered into counsel amongst themselves to remove him into a fair house which was at the upper end of the Citie where they had prepared a fatal Myne for his destruction His sickness being such the Queen accorded to his removal and very innocently did take her husband by the hand and did conduct him to the Entery of his Lodging where with a singular prudence she disposed of every thing which concerned the recovery of his health And not contented with that she stayed with him without the apprehension of any danger of infection which put the Plotters of this delicate conspiracy into fear but she seemed to be nothing troubled at it and staying with him until midnight she entertained him with all the satisfaction that he could expect from so bountifull a Nature As soon as she was retired behold by the secret The death of Henry Stuart artifice of the powder to which fire was given under the lodging of the King the chamber was blown into the Air and the bed all on fire He found himself to be desperately in wrapped in this calamity and the Authours of the Mischief conspiring with the Elements did dispatch him outright having found him half dead in a Garden into which place the violence of the fire had thrown him The Queen hearing of it was possessed with a wonderfull amazement and lost in the depth of sorrow she feared every thing and knew not what to do or what to hope every hour attending to see the end of that Tragedy to be the beginning of another on her own life The malicious Earl of Murray who now had given the blow by the instrument of his wickedness as he had spoken a little before to those that were nearest to him that the King should die the same night did cunningly retire himself The people murmured and knew not what to take to but the clearest sighted amongst them perceived that it was a work of this pernicious Brother who had a desire utterly to destroy the Royal Family to mount himself upon the Throne And this is that which Cambden assureth us in the Cambden in the first part of his History in the year 1567. first part of his History who though by Religion he was a Calvinist and by profession the Historiographer to the Queen of England yet he hath not dissembled the truth in confirmation whereof he produceth proofs as clear as the day with the attestations of the Earls of Huntley and Argathel two principal Lords of Scotland who
by a writing signed under their own hands have authentically protested to the Queen of England that the Earls of Murray Morton and Lidington were the Counsellers and Authours of the horrible Parricide committed against the King the good Queen always professing that she did forbid them to do any thing whatsoever that might any way reflect upon her honour or offend her conscience Also this unfortunate Earl of Morton who was afterward Cambden part 3. pag. 336. convicted and executed for this murder did totally discharge the Queen from having any hand in the Kings death and named the Conspiratours who by writing had obliged themselves one to another to defend the murder of his Royal Majesty John Hebron Cambden pag. 128. an 1567. Paris and Daglis who prepared the Myne being put to the Rack to accuse the Innocent Queen did absolutely discharge her protesting before God and his Angels that she was free from all fault and that Murray and Morton did give them commandment to perform it Buchanan a Pensionar of Murrays who Cambden pag. 105. cried down this Queen by his venemous pen being touched at last with the remorse of conscience with tears demanded pardon of her Son King James And being sick to death desired that his life might be prolonged either to clear the integrity of Queen Mary by the light of Truth or by his own bloud to wash away the stains of his reproches Some Protestants being amazed to hear him speak in this manner in the apprehension he had of Gods judgements to fall upon him did give forth that his old age had made him to doat This which I now write was afterwards acknowledged as we shall see anon by a publick and solemn sentence of the principal Nobility of England who although Lutherans and enemies being chosen to examine the business did highly publish the Innocence of this Queen And now Detractours what have you to say Do you not behold wherewith to make your shame to blush and the despite of so many infamous Historians to increase who have made black her whiteness Nay some of the Catholicks themselves being but little versed in the discerning of History having suffered themselves to be surprized concerning this subject not considering that all this calumnie is derived from the Book of Buchanan being corrupted to it by the bastard Murray who promised to make him Patriarch of Scotland if ever he should come unto the Crown And this is it which made this Apostate to write a detestable libel against the honour of this Queen which was condemned afterwards by the Estates of Scotland and retracted by the Authour himself But some Hugenots of the Consistory who are the most pestilent slanderers that ever the earth brought forth have not ceased to give some countenance to this fable and illusion of mankind although it was legally condemned of falshood by the most apparent of all their party It is an unhappiness of most men that they are wilfully given to believe the worst whether by an inclination they have unto it or whether by a difficulty to forsake and to put off that which first they entertained in their belief The most virtuous Queen Dido doth pass perpetually through the world for a woman lost in love although indeed she died in the defence of her chastity chusing rather to be devoured by the flames of fire than to be given in marriage as Tertullian doth affirm 6. But to take into my hand again the thread of The rash love of the Earl of Bothuel my discourse Some time after the Kings death Bothuel who was one of the most powerfull Earls of Scotland did prevent to court this Queen in the way of marriage and the rather because the Earl of Murray had promised her unto him for the recompence of this treason This motion came directly cross to her heart although as yet she did not know that this pernicious man had imbrued his hands in her Husbands bloud having always found him most faithfull in his service But as the report thereof increased she grew very angry with all those who offered to renew the motion to her alledging that there was no apparance that he should be propounded for a husband to her who is suspected for so detestable an act no although he indeed were innocent Besides that she urged that he was already tied in marriage to another woman But Murray the Bastard and other of the conspiratours who with an obstinate resolution had undertaken this business did justifie this Crime by the Judges of their faction and gave the Queen to understand that his first wife was not lawfully contracted to him and therefore she was removed from him All this was not able to perswade her who was wonderfully troubled with the dismalness of these late events which was the occasion that Bothuel being transported with love and assured of the high reputation which he had in the Kingdom did draw forth into the fields with five hundred horse where corvetting before them a wild presumption did invade him to take away the Queen as she returned from Sterlin to which place she was gone to see her Son and to bring him with her to her Castle at Dunbar At which place having with strange submissions demanded pardon for his boldness He represented to her the contract of his marriage signed by the Earl of Murray and the principal of the Nobility of the Kingdom who thought very well of it by that means to remedy the publick calamities of the Kingdom Moreover he protested to her that he would never over-value himself for the Honour he should receive from her Majesty nor for the greatness of his unexpected fortune with which the greatest Monarch on the earth might proudly content himself but that he would always continue her most humble and most obedient servant In this manner did this Philistine adore the Ark in its captivity But she moderating her passion did represent unto him that to proceed in this nature was to overthrow the whole business before it was established that she would be absolutely brought to Edinborough the chiefest Citie of her Kingdom where she would take a resolution to do that which should seem good unto Her On this occasion it came about that the Earl of Murray who had removed himself a little to be the less suspected of the murder did return to Court and brought with him the Suite of the Assassinate rewarding him for it with the obtainment of the bravest Lady in the world as the recompence of his murder He ceased not to importune her to take Bothuel Cambden part 1. pag. 3. doth shew that this marriage was brought about by the fraud and the pressing solicitations of the Earl of Murray for her husband declaring his innocence publickly avouched the splendour of his house the exploits of his courage the proofs of his fidelity which did render him most worthy of her love He added that being alone and without assistance she was no
was his condition of life assigned him from his nativity but by this most detestable murder he is now become the Regenet of a great Kingdom Who had a more labouring desire to see the King out of the world than he who daily expected from the hand of death the just reward of his disloyalty We are here ready to represent unto him a paper signed with his own hand and the hands of his Adherents where amongst them all they are obliged against all to defend that person who should attempt upon the person of the King That execrable writing was intrusted in the hands of Bolfou Captain of the Castle of Edinborough whom at the first they had drawn unto their side and being since incensed against some of the Conspiratours hath discovered all the business This is that which we now manifest with reasons more clear than the day and with assurances as strong as truth it self My Lords We demand what is that which the Rebels oppose against all these proofs nothing at all but frivolous conjectures which are not sufficient to condemn the vilest creature in the world although they are made use of to overthrow the person and Majesty of a Queen Ten thousand tongues such as Murrays are and his Accomplices ought not to serve to make half a proof against the honour of Mary and yet you have the patience to hear them rather than chastise them Her poor servants have bin examined again and again they have been torn to pieces and flead alive to accuse the Queen and could ever so much as one effectual word be racked from them to stain her innocence Have they not in the middle of their torments declared aloud and before all the people that she was ignorant of whatsoever was done and that they never heard the least word proceed from her which tended to the murder of the King All their Reasons are reduced into two Conjectures The first whereof is That the Queen committed the said Act in revenge of the death of her Secretary The second is Her Love and Marriage with the Earl of Bothuel the murderer of her husband these two are the inevitable charges against her But to answer to the first I demand If the Queen had any desires of revenge on whom should she exercise that vengeance Upon her husband whom she loved with incomparable affection whom in all companies she defended as a young man seduced by evil counsels to whom she had given a full forgetfulness and abolition of the murder of David Riccio for fear that one day he should be called to an account for it whom she very lately had received into favour and the strictest friendship to whom she had given the testimonies of a fervent love unto the last hour of his death Is it on him that she would discharge her choller or on those who were the Authours and Executioners of the act If she hath pardoned the Earls of Murray and Morton her sworn Enemies whom on a thousand occasions she could cut off here is it to be believed that a Lady who had ever a most tender conscience would destroy a husband so agreeable to her and whom she knew to have never offended but through the malice onely of these desperate spirits But why then hath she married him who made this attempt against the King her husband This is their second Objection and to speak the truth the onely one which they so much crie up For this it is that they have taken away her Rings and Jewels and put in the place of them infamous letters invented by Buchanan or some like unto him who treat of love not as in the person of a Princess but of a loose licentious woman And these Letters when they were produced did appear to be never made up or sealed but exposed to all the world as if so chaste and so wise a spirit as this Queen could be so stupid or so wicked as to publish her own infamy to the face of all the world But in the end they say the Marriage was accomplished And who did do it but these onely who now do make it a capital Crime These are they who did give advice to this match by reasons did sollicit it by pursuits did constrain it by force and did sign it by continuance Behold we are here ready in your presence to represent unto you the Contract which doth bear their names and seals of Arms which they cannot disprove The Queen hath protested before God and men that she had rather die ten thousand deaths than to have married Bothuel if she had thought he had been stained but with one drop of her husbands bloud and if he had not been proclaimed to be innocent And now judge My Lords with what impudence they dare appear before you and do believe that the Queen of England hath sent you hither to serve their passions and sacrifice so great a Princess to their vengeance We do hope all the contrary and do firmly perswade our selves that the great God the undoubted Judge of the living and the dead will inspire you with such counsels as shall give the Day to Truth for the glory of your own consciences and the comfort of the most afflicted of Queens who desireth not to breathe out the rest of her life that is left her but under the favour of your Goodness This in this manner being spoken the Agents and Deputies for the Queen having aloud protested that they here assembled not to acknowledge any power Superiour to the Crown of Scotland but onely to declare in the behalf of their Queen being unwilling to lose time in words they came to the proofs and did defend them with incredible vigour making in the first place the falsifications which were very ordinary with the Earl of Murray to appear in full Councel In the second place representing the Contract of the Marriage with Bothuel which he condemned to be signed by him and his Adherents Moreover producing the instrument of the Conspiracy against the King subscribed by their own hands and signed by their own Seals And lastly reporting the Depositions of John Hebron Paris and Daglis who being executed for this Act did fully discharge the Queen at the instant of their death before all the people After that the Commissioners had judged the Her justification Queen of Scots to be innocent of all the Cases and Crimes which falsely had been imposed on her by her traiterous and disloyal Accusers and that the proceedings which they made were for no other purpose but to exempt themselves from the crimes which they had committed and to cover the tyranny which they had exercised in the Kingdom of Scotland The Earl of Murray did flie away filled with The confusion of her Accusers fear and with confusion seeing that his life was in great danger if he had not been secretly protected by the Queen of England In the pursuit of this Sentence the most honest of the Councel did
he particularly recommended to all holy minds who breathed after the restoring of the ancient Religion In the second place he entered into the heart and possessed himself with the inclinations of Queen Marie whom he found throughly disposed and animated by a generous spur for the glory of God and the felicity of her Kingdom which kept her alwayes exercised on that high thought and comprehended in it the safety of all that Nation In the last he more and more encouraged all the Catholicks by the desires of their repose of conscience and by the liberty of their functions in the exercise of spiritual things In the third place he treated with those who were in an errour with the Spirit of Compassion of Sweetness and of Bounty complying with them in what he could in civil affairs and endeavouring to take from them the apprehension which they had conceived to themselves that the Change of Religion would ruin their fortunes and the establishment of their houses He caused a report to be spread by many remarkeable and grave Personages that he came not to take away their temporal goods but to give them spiritual blessings And as concerning the Goods of the Church which many Great men had usurped in that general Confusion of Affairs he said he would compose it in the best way that Love and Candor could prescribe him Fourthly He did wisely fore-see that with sweetness he should also bring in Authority which might ruin the resistences of those men if any should appear to oppose so saving a work On which he had recourse to the greatest Potentates in Europe whom he secretly affected to this Enterprize He had been before employed on the Peace between Francis the First and Charls the Fifth He did apprehend and attract the spirits of them both with wonderfull dexterity for having dived into the heart of the Emperour and finding the seeds of the Design which afterwards did discover themselves having been dismissed of the Empire and embraced a solitary life he wrought upon him with the recital of his great actions and the Conquests he had obtained and told him That all those strong agitations of his spirit were but as so many lines which ought to tend to the center of Rest that he ought not to weary and torment his good fortune That it was a great gift of God to confine his thoughts on true glory without attending the tide of the Affairs of the world That it was the duty of an Emperour to endeavour the Peace of Christendom and an incomparable honour to accomplish it He touched his heart so directly with these Demonstrations that he opened it and the Emperour declared to him That he had a great desire to that divine Peace and would embrace all reasonable Conditions that should conduce unto it After that he had effected this he made no delay to address himself to the Most Christian King and knowing that he was puissantly generous he wrought upon him by the glory of the great Wars he had sustained and the immortal actions of valour which he produced that by his invincible courage he had at the last wearied the most puissant Potentate in Europe who had him in admiration and desired nothing more than to hold a fair correspondence with him That a fair Peace should be an inestimable benefit to them both which should give rest unto their Consciences and pull down a blessing from on high upon their persons and be a great comfort to their Subjects who were overcharged with the continuation of the war In the end he did demonstrate to him how extraordâ—narily he was beloved of his people who did attend this Effect of his goodness by which he should crown his Valour with all happiness and abundance in his Kingdom The King took fire at this Discourse and the Cardinal most vigorously did blow it up and did remonstrate That two so great Monarchs who were made for Heaven ought not so greedily to hold unto their interests on earth and that they had nothing now to wish but to part their affairs and to save their honour And this indeed they afterwards performed restoring willingly on both sides all that they had conquered since the ordinance of Reconciliation made by Paul the third who some years before did transport himself to Marseilles although he was of a very great age to pacifie the Affairs of Christendom This Accord being so happily atchieved by Cardinal Pool he gained by it the approbation and applause of all Princes who favoured the Catholick cause He observed that the Emperour had his son Philip to marry and that there was nothing more expedient for the advancement of Religion than to allie him to Queen Marie He carried this affair with such secresie and dexterity that the King of Spain was in England and the Marriage published before the plot was discovered By the counsel of Charls Cardinal Pool did deferre his entery into the Realm until the Marriage was concluded and then he entered with all assurances The King himself came to meet him and Queen Marie with all her people received him with extasies of joy He incontinently did draw unto him the affection of all the principal Lords and not long after he counselled the King and Queen to call an Assembly of the most remarkable persons in the Kingdom to whom he spake thus in presence of their Majesties MADAM SInce it hath pleased God after the Confusions of the His speech to the States late times to shine upon us with his eyes of Mercie and at last to place upon the Throne the true and faithfull Inheritress of the Crown who is so worthily espoused to one of the greatest Princes in all Christendom we have a great subject to satisfie our Discontents and advance our hopes This Realm at this day doth imitate the Creation of the world coming forth from its Chaos and dark Abyss to receive the favourable influences of the light The day which by all good men hath been so passionately desired so suspected by the wicked so unlookt for by the incredulous and so attended by the afflicted is at length arrived to destroy our death and to make us new born in the life of the children of God Behold the true Religion which entereth with triumph into all the Cities of this Kingdom from which Impietie and Furie had dispossessed her she holds out her arms unto you adorned with the Palms and the Crowns with which your Ancestours have honoured her she demands again the place which from the first conversion until the furie of these later times she hold with so much honour and satisfaction Will you yet banish her Will you yet continue to persecute her Can you endure that she should present before God her torn and her bloudie Robe and complain again of the outrages of her children My Brethren There is neither life nor salvation but in this Faith which shineth and speaketh in S. Peters Chair It is that which God hath given us