Right which my Birth doth give me to the Realm of England and the Catholick Religion are the causes of my condemnation although they disguise them as much as they are able by their calumnies They have taken from me my Almoner and deprived me of the consolation of the Sacrament which I intended at my death pressing me with all violence of importunity to receive the assistance and the Doctrine of their Ministers but I will never do any thing that shall be unworthy of my Birth or my Religion These who shall conveigh unto you the last sighs of my life shall assure you of my constancy It remains that I beseech you since you have always protested to have loved me to render to me the proofs of your charity to pray to God for a most Christian Queen who dieth a Catholick as she hath lived and to command that some reward may be given to my dear Servants for I depart this world deprived of all worldly goods As for my Son I recommend him to you as far as he shall deserve for I can not answer for him I have assumed the boldness to send you two stones which are very rare for health which I wish you may find perfect and happy in a long life you shall receive them from your most affectionate Sister in Law who dieth in giving you the last testimonies of her heart I recommend again my desolate Servants to you and if your Majesty shall bestow on me wherewith to found a little Covent and Alms requisite to it for some who shall pray for me you shall send my Soul unto God enriched with more merits This I beseech you for the honour of Jesus Christ whom near unto my death I pray unto for you in the quality SIR Of your most affectionate Sister in Law QUEEN MARY I am of opinion that the letter which made its address to the Duke of Guise was of the same substance The letter to her Confessor did import the Combats she had suffered for Religion and the zeal which did transport her to die in the Catholick faith and that most cruelly she had been denied to make her last will or to have her body transported or to have permission to confess her self In defect whereof she doth confess her sins in General as she had intended to rehearse them to him in particular She desired him to pray and to watch that night in spirit with her and to send her his absolution and to prescribe unto her the prayers which he thought most proper for her for that night and for the morning following adding that if she could see him at the hour of her suffering she would kneel down and take her leave of him with a desire of his Benediction This being done she took a Review of her Testament and caused the Inventory of her goods to be read and wrote down the Names of those to whom she had bestowed her wardrope she also distributed money to some with her own hand afterwards being retired she spent the rest of the night in watching and prayer Others affirm that having said her prayers she threw her self upon the bed and slept some hours very quietly to make her self more strong for the next days conflict Afterwards awaking she began to enter into an agony and her naked knees being humbled on the ground she did read the Passion to incourage her self to her last combat mingling almost already her tears and her bloud with the tears and the bloud of her best beloved she passed many hours in meditations untill she had wearied two of her servants whom she commanded to take their rest Her last day which was on the twenty eighth of February in the year 1587 and on the eighteenth of February according to the English account the sun beginning to rise she did put on those habiliments which she did usually wear on Festival dayes and having again assembled her Servants she caused her Testament to be read unto them and desired them to take in good part the small Legacies which she had given them because the condition of her Estate did not permit her to bequeath them greater She gave them all her last Farewell exhorting them to the fear and love of their Creatour to the preservation of their Religion and of concords amongst themselves and desired them to pray for the safety of her poor Soul In the end she kissed all the women and permitted the men to kiss her hand The Hall was filled with cries and lamentations and sighs and sobs and followed almost with an inundation of tears which they could not wipe away But as she had all her thoughts advanced to Heaven she retired her self again into her Oratory where she continued a long time imploring the Grace of God with sighs and with the groanings of a Dove until that Thomas Andrews Lieutenant of that County did signify unto her that it was time to come forth She suddenly obeyed him and came forth in a posture full of Majesty and with a joyfull Countenance Her habit was most modest her head was covered with a veyl which hung down beneath her shoulders She had a Chaplet at her Girdle and an Ivory Crucifix in her hand The Commissioners received her in the Gallery where they did attend her And Melvin her Steward did present himself before her and weeping fell on his knees to understand her last commands Weep not she said but rather rejoyce for this day you shall see Mary Stuart delivered from all her sorrows I conjure you to acquaint my Son that I have always lived and do die in the Catholick Religion and that I do exhort him with all my heart to preserve the faith of his Ancestors to love Justice and to maintain his people in peace and to enterprize nothing against the Queen of England I have committed nothing against the Realm of Scotland and I have always loved the Kingdom of France God pardon those who do thirst after my bloud as the Hart panteth after the fountain of waters Thou O Lord who art truth it self and soundest the deepest secrets of my heart thou dost know how much I have desired peace and the Union of the two Realms of England and Scotland Her Royal heart growing tender on her Son on the consideration of the cruelties and the persecutions of the Catholick Church and on the Indignities which most innocently she suffered her eyes poured down some tears of compassion which she suddenly wiped away Then turning to the Lords she desired that her poor Servants might after her death be used with humanity that they might be suffered to enjoy those poor Legacies which she had given them in her Testament that they might be suffered to assist her at her death and afterwards be sent safe into their Countreys upon the publick faith The Inhumanity of the Earl of Kent would not permit that her own Servants should assist her and said They would but serve to increase Superstition but she replied Fear
others through a compliance with the humours of Ahab and Jezabel The news of his death comes instantly to the Court and Jezabel carries it to the King without specifying to him any other thing telling him onely that Naboth was out of the world and that he might now enjoy his spoils all at leasure To speak Truth Great ones have great cause to make to God Davids Prayer and to beseech him to deliver them from others sinnes and from those that are hidden from them Unfortunate Ahab knew nothing of all that had passed and takes not the pains to inform himself of the manner of that death He trusted all to his wife and gave her his signet his authority his heart and Counsels It was enough to make him guilty to put the Government of his Kingdome into the hands of that Sidonian woman who he might well know had great inclinations to bloud and rapine Princes do wisely not to rely too much in every thing upon their Counsellours of State without watching over their actions and using all diligence to discover their deportments without believing any thing lightly either on one side or the other Ahab without taking any farther information was going to possesse himself of Naboths bloudy spoil when the Prophet Elijah by the command of God came and found him upon the way and began to roar against him as a Lyon What sayes he Murther the Innocent and take away his Inheritance bedewed with his bloud After this what is there more to do Know Sir that the Vengeance of God hangs over your head and that in the same place as the Doggs licked the bloud of Naboth they shall lick yours This unhappy Prince extreamly amazed at so thundering a speech was not incensed against the Prophet but endeavouring to pacifie him said to him Wherein have I offended you and in what have you found me your enemy that you use me with all these rigours You are enough mine enemy sayes the Prophet seeing you are Gods and since yee have sold your selfe through love to an Idolatrous woman to serve her passions and commit so many wicked acts in the face of God In punishment of your crimes He will ruine your House and blot out your Posterity the bloud of that murthered Innocent will cost Jezabel dear for she shall be caten up of Doggs in the field of Jezreel Poor Ahab returns hanging down his head without passing farther tormented on one side by the remorse of his own Conscience and on the other by the love he bare to his Sidonian whom he would not any way displease He said nothing to her of all that shee had done without his privity in Naboth's businesse whether through affection or through fear of her wicked Spirit He revenges himself upon himself he rents his Clothes he fasts he covers himself with sackcloth without putting it off even when he went to bed which softned the heart of God who ordained that the Kingdome should not be taken from him during his life but that his Posterity should be deprived of it Three years were slipt away and Elijah was absent when Ahab resolved to proclaim warre with the King of Syria to recover Ramoth one of his Cities that the other had usurped and engaged Jehosaphat King of Juda to his party making a new Alliance of Arms and Interests with him When they were assembled Jehosaphat which had a zeal to the true Religion said That it would be good to consult with some Prophet before they enterprised the warre and Ahab to content him called for four hundred but they were the false Prophets of his wife who were none of the best and who foretold him all falsoly that he should have an happy issue of his enterprise King Jehosaphat asked Ahab whether amongst that great number of Baals Prophets there were never a Prophet of the true God that one might hear speak meaning by this to induce him to his duty and to the knowledge of the true Religion Ahab replyed that there was none at present but a certain man named Michaiah but he could not endure him because he prophecied nothing but mischief to him Jehosaphat said that he ought not for that to hate him but that it would be good to hear him and instantly was sent away a Gentleman of the Court to call him This man ceased not to advise him upon the way to remit something of that rigour that was usuall to him and to render himself complacent to the King as all the other Prophets had done whereto he answered That he could do nothing against the Spirit of God nor against his conscience When he was come he perceived a great assembly of false Prophets who all approved that warre One among them named Zedechiah had made himself iron horns to signifie to King Ahab that he should ransack all Syria with a mighty power and that nothing should resist his Arms. But Michaiah being asked spake at first by fiction as the other Prophets foretelling prosperities without end Whereat the King being astonished that he did it against his custome conjured him not to flatter him and to tell him openly the truth To which he answered that he would not counsell him to hazard a battell against the King of Syria for if he did his whole army would be scattered and added also that God had given permission to the wicked spirit to deceive him and that he had found no better way to do it then to speak by the mouth of so many false Prophets that encompassed him Whereupon Zedechiah being incensed at that speech gave him a blow and the King commanded his Person to be seized on and to be put in prison to be kept there fasting with bread of tribulation and water of anguish till his return But the Prophet assured him that if he went he should never return again It is a strange thing that we cannot believe Truth that comes from the mouth of Gods servants because it complyes not with our passion It is also a manifest punishment to those that despise it not to consider that God begins the ruine of their fortune by the blinding of their Counsels Ahab obstinate to his miserie marches with all his Army against the King of Syria Jehosaphat engaged through inconsideration in that league pursues what he had ill begun and thinks that there is no better means to justifie an errour then Perseverance When the two Kings approached the enemy and the Armies were ranged in Battell the King of Syria gave expresse charge to his most resolute men to aim at the King of Israel and to endeavour to carry him it being the true means to dispatch the businesse and put an end to the warre Ahab began to fear his unhappinesse and prayed Jehosaphat to go into the mingling putting him forward with courage out of a design perhaps to cause him to be destroyed and to draw all the weight of the Army upon him by diverting it from his person And indeed when the
informed that Walsingham one amongst you who hath conspired my death and the death of my Son doth make use of such artifices and hath counterfeited a letter from me in answer to that of Babingtons which he intercepted The other innocently believed it and took his oath that it came from me but all this is no more than one simple conjecture There should be a million of witnesses more clear than the rays of the Sun to impeach a Sovereign Queen who comprehends within her Authority so many millions of lives And a man unknown a man half dead is believed against me who spake all that he knew and that he knew not to deliver himself from the horrible cruelties of his Examiners Let them produce but one letter of my hand one shadow of the crime and I will yield my self convinced I speak it in the sincerity of my heart and of the tears of my eyes I would not conquer a Kingdom with the bloud of the vilest person picked out of the scum of the people much less with the bloud of a Queen I will never make a shipwrack of my soul in conspiring the ruin of a person to whom I have vowed so much honour and friendship For my Secretaries I did alwayes take them for honest men if they do charge me and accuse me in their Depositions to have dictated an Answer to Babington's letter they have committed two great faults the first in violating the Oath which they have made to be secret and faithfull to their Mistress the second in inventing so detestable a Calumny against her to whom they ow all Reverence and Fidelity In a manner all the belief that you draw from them doth amount to more than that it comes form perfidious men O good God In what a desperate condition is the Majesty and the safety of Princes if they depend upon the writings and the witnesses of their Secretaries in affairs of so high a consequence How many are of them who prostitute themselves to the uncertainty of riches How many of them for fear onely do comply with the menaces of the great-ones They are men of Fortune who follow the ebb and flow of Inconstancy If those poor men have taken their Oaths as you say it was onely to deliver themselves from the horrour of your torments and put all upon the crowned head of a Queen which they thought was inaccessible to your Commissions But what Lawyers are you to put Babington to death without bringing him before me face to face To open his mouth by torments to tell a lie and then to shut it up for ever against the Truth If my Secretaries are yet alive let them come into my presence and I assure my self that they will not persist in that Deposition which you object against me Doth it not easily appear that you proceed here on a bad belief and that you borrow these poor Formalities to give some slight tincture to your prejudgings I never did dictate any thing to my servants but what Nature did suggest unto me for the recovering of my liberty This is the third Objection of your Proces And I demand of you if I have not committed a great crime to desire a benefit which every common voice doth teach us which the laws do approve which all men do practise which Nature prompts the Nightingales and every little Bird unto that are imprisoned in their Cages what can he do less that sees himself in irons but implore the assistances of his friends and desire that some strong hand of mercy might open the prison for him I confess I have had the desire of liberty but I deny that I sought the effect thereof by that means which you alledge It is a strange thing that a Prisoner all whose action are spied into and every step she treads is counted should do the affair which great Sovereigns though of a free and most absolute power could not remove So many years are now passed since I have been as it were in the chains of miserable captivity yet neither the offers which I have made nor the assurances which I have given nor the increase of my sickness nor the declining of my age could move my Sister to my inlargement Have I not offered to contract a strict Friendship with her to cherish her to respect her above all the Princes in Christendom to forget all offences to acknowledge her the true and legitimate Queen of England submitting all my Rights to the benefit of her peace neither to pretend to nor take any part of the Crown during her life and to remove both the Title and the Arms of the Kingdom of England which I did attribute to my self by the commandment of Henrie the Second King of France And yet all these submissions have prevailed nothing for my Deliverance Am I so much to be blamed if I have desired forreign Princes my Friends and my Allies to draw me out from the depth of these miseries And yet I neither have nor was ever willing to confirm into the hands of the King of Spain the Right which he pretended to the Crown of England although he hath been angry with me concerning it but I have given respect unto my Sister so far that I have neglected both my life and liberty to satisfie her interests and have delighted my self with the prayers of Esther and not with the sword of Judith But I now speak and declare that since England is inequitable and so unkind unto me that I neither ought nor will misprise the aid of other Kings I have here sincerely declared my thoughts and my counsels to you on this Accusation and if Right and Equity must give way to Power and Force must oppress the Truth amongst men I do appeal to the living God who hath an absolute Empire of command over Elizabeth and my self I swear unto you by God and protest unto you on my honour that for this long time I have had my thoughts on no Kingdom but onely that of Heaven which I look on as the haven after my long sufferings I believe I have now satisfied all your Objections And you know indeed in your own conscience that nothing doth charge me but my birth nor render me guilty but my Religion But I will not deny that to which by Gods goodness I am born nor remove the character which I received in the day of my Baptism I have lived and I will die a Catholick It is the crime alone for which I need no Advocate to defend me in which I desire all the world to be my witness and fear not the severest Judges The poor Princess did mingle these words with her tears fore-seeing the persecution of her friends and considering how barbarously her Royal Dignity was exposed to the Advocates of the Palace who did all seem to have sworn her death Howsoever in their consciences they were touched to the quick because that what she represented was most true even by the
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
Ancients both Greek and Latine they will tell us wonders but let us hearken to Holy Scripture and Fathers First Immisit Deus soporem in Adam cumquè obdormivisset tulit unam de costis ejus replevit carnem pro eá aedificavit Deus costam quam tulerat in mulierem Adam particeps Angelicae curiae intravit in sanctuarium Dei August l. 9. de Genes ad lit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aquila 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Symach 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tertul. Accidentium spiritus in Genesis chap. 2. where the creation of woman is declared it is said that God caused a profound sleep to steal upon Adam and that being asleep he drew woman out of his side These words are very considerable What meaneth it that God before he made woman caused sleep to steal into the eyes of Adam I will not here tell you that some have glossed that he could not have admitted this production of woman in any other manner but I affirm with the Septuaginta this sleep was an extasie with Saint Augustine that it was a repture and with others a trance of spirit For he then had need enough to fortifie himself with consideration since woman came into the world who would bid him many battels Poor Adam fell into an apoplexy into a convulsion into swooning fits as already feeling the cross thwartings passions and afflictions he should receive from woman Moreover who can but admire the phrase which the Scripture useth in this creation where it is said woman was built Good God! what meaneth this thou already hadst erected so many goodly buildings Heaven and earth the high and low stations of the world thou hadst created Adam with a plentiful concurrence of many parts and yet the Scripture saith not thou then didst build but when woman was to be created God built God made his first piece of architecture And why It is because woman is a house wherein the heart of man should inhabit who is alas there but too often captive Or is it that a woman costs as much in making as a fair house To build a house you must have so much sand lime stone timber iron-work manufactures hands strokes of hammers masons carpenters and to dress and attire a woman so many coiffs kerchiefs cawls so many false hairs paintings gowns petticotes chopins verdingals whalebones so many carcanets gold chains jewels gemmes attendants that a house were almost as soon built as a woman furnished What doth she when she is built Saint Augustine saith she becomes the scholler of a serpent the gate of sin the fountain of errour and the rust of pietie Good God! what unhappiness is this If from the side of man a flaming dart or keen sword had been drawn they would have done less hurt than an evil woman which I speak without prejudice of the virtuous The first woman ungrateful towards God a traiteress to her husband a murderess of her race made a bridge for Satan to pass into the world and needs would lodge him in her heart whom God had confined to the deep pit of hell Others who have prostituted themselves to evil for these five thousand sixe hundred and thirtie years that the world hath circumvolved have acted upon this large Theatre of many forms so many bloudy tragedies that they make histories to blush thereat The daughters of Loth the Thamars Athaliaes Jezabels Vasties Helenaes Fredegondaes approve it and their ashes also incessantly produce others into the world Work-mistresses of all mischief Alas Mothers instruct your daughters well whilst they are young breed them up in the fear of God frame them to duty imprint on their tender hearts as with a searing-iron the love of chastity modesty in their behaviour and devotion in their souls And you young men who suffer your selves to be cheated and deceived by impudent women permitting them to bewitch you with love-drinks and wicked attractives open your eyes and behold the precipice before you and then I doubt not you will abhor it Trust not their familiar conversation Efficacissimum est glutinum ad capiendas animas mulieris August and dalliances know they are full of danger and that there is not any can resist them without the particular grace of God Strength little availeth the Sampsons sunk to the ground Wisdom is to seek the Solomons fell Valour therein is short the Davids found it Sanctity is not free from their batteries the Elishaes were persecuted by women and the John Baptists therein lost their heads That venerable face those eyes enflamed with heavenly rays which won reverence from the wild beasts of the desert could not mollifie a female dancer That wise head where the maxims of eminent virtues resided was taken from the shoulders of a Saint carried in a dish to a banquet by the sacrilegious hands of a shameless woman That tongue from whence distilled a stream of honey was pricked and pierced with a bodkin wherewith the wretch used to curle her hair Now according to the counsel of Saint Chrysostom take into your hands this bloudy head ask of it O head which should never die who hath drenched thee into the wanness of death Who hath bathed thee in this bloud Who hath put out thine eyes the torches of the elect and thunder-strokes of the wicked Who hath layed an eternal silence on that tongue which first of all announced the Kingdom of Heaven The love of women Lyons and Tigers reverenced me in wildernesses and women massacred me in a Kings Palace women mingled my bloud with wine and made me as a pompous morsel of their tragical banquets When I say this I not onely accuse women but carnal men who suffer themselves to be allured and surprized with sottish love and trampling under foot the honour of God the presence of Heaven and Angels the conjugal bed and faith promised to their wives wallow themselves in execrable adulteries which fill families with opprobrie confusion and tragedies why say I families nay Kingdomes and Empires and if we will well examine it we shall find the greatest part were turned topsie-turvie by foolish love O you that sigh hearing speech of the furious disorders this unhappy sin brings into the world I beseech you with Saint Paul by the very bowels of our Lords mercy offer your bodies to God as an hoast lively holy and acceptable to the Divinity and you especially who are in the state of marriage entertain your beds honourable and chaste cemented with a perpetual knot of faith love and peace that God may please thereon perpetually to shower down from on high his holy benedictions and after the course of this painful life crown you with comforts in the glory of the Blessed The thirty fifth SECTION That the evils of marriage ought not to be imputed to sex but sin and of the disorders committed in this Sacrament IF the unhappiness of marriages proceeded onely from women we might necessarily conclude they were alwayes unfortunate
my sufferings in satisfaction and my patience for sacrifice THE FOVRTH BOOK Of the impietie of COURTS The unhappie Politician HItherto having proposed the motives and obstacles that men of qualitie find in the way of Christian perfection I have made a collection of the most wholesom instructions which may guid them to the wisdom of heaven Consequently I purpose according as time and leasure will permit to write the historie of the holy Courts pursuing the course which I proposed in the Preface But this volume being become big alreadie in the press requireth nothing but the seal upon it Behold the cause why I have been willing to affix it thereon with two books of grave and admirable histories which may serve as a scantling of the whole piece I intend The scope of all this work is to declare a most worthy saying of S. Augustine That nothing is so miserable as the prosperitie of the wicked nothing so happie as true and solid pietie To bring these two verities into their full lustre of light as well by example as precept I have chosen two Courts very different The one is the Court of Herod the other of Theodosius the younger In the one the disasters of impietie are beheld in the other the happiness of virtue Verily I have cast the eye of my consideration upon divers histories and have seen none which may make great men more sensibly apprehend how those who rule in Courts and places of dignitie by meere policie and humane prudence accommodating Religion to their own interest are deceived than the life and death of this unfortunate King of Judea He had an infinite natural judgement an admirable penetrating wit a courage unspeakably dauntless A man who derived from nothing advanced his fortune even to the Regal throne and established it amongst so many thornie affairs as to make himself admired by the wisest of the world But because he built upon this Maxim of impietie that Religion and Law must be made to serve our proper interests he led a life full of crimes and disturbances concluded with the most disastrous death that may be imagined That also which hath made me resolve upon this historie drawn from Josephus with some other little fragments and memorials dilating it according to the talent of my stile without using any other transcription is that besides the unhappie Polititian you shall read therein Innocencie persecuted in the life of a Lady who hath been a true mirrour of patience and whom I purpose to propose as one of the greatest ornaments of our holy Court It is from hence I may truly gather a most beautiful rose amongst the sharpest throns shew calmest serenitie in the roughest storms and seek the honey-comb in the lions throat since I in Herods Court endeavour to find out the patient and chast Mariamne the true Table of innocencie Mariamne wife of Herod the picture of patience unworthily used The sufferance of this poor Queen would deserve to be consecrated with a pen of Adamant in the Temple of Eternitie since she is able to dazle the eyes of the most hardie to replenish the mouthes of the most eloquent and ravish the minds of those who admire no vulgar things God who ever raiseth the glorie of his Elect as it were upon the depth of the greatest miseries seeing the soul of this Princess amongst the most eminent and illustrious thought he must give her a large field for encounter to reap the richest palms of patience and he gave her Herod a bad husband a barbarous persecutour an infamous executioner but ever more sutable to the patient Mariamne in the qualitie of a persecutour and a hang-man than in the office of a husband To conceive the strength of this anvil we must know the force of the hammer which beateth on it To speak sufficiently of the singular virtue of this Queen we must thereunto oppose the malice of Herod we necessarily must behold how this disloyal man holding his life scepter and crown from the house of Mariamne for recompēce therof took from her her scepter crown and life after he had drawn her bowels out causing her nearest of kin to be put to death before her eyes then casting her all bloudie upon the pyle where the bodies of her parents and brethren were burned as the last sacrifice of his furie yet never at all startling her invincible patience Every man speaketh of Herod as of a man of morter steeped in bloud as of a Tyrant who would murder mercie it self but every one knoweth not the wiles he used to possess himself both of the Queen Mariamne and scepter of David oppressing the one with all ingratitude and governing the other with unspeakable mischief About some fiftie years before the Nativity of our The estate of the Kingdom of Judea before Herod came to the crown Lord and Saviour the kingdom of Judea which had subsisted although amongst strange eclypses and horrible vicissitudes from King David almost a thousand years after it had so many times tottered and so often by many shocks and concussions been established in the end found its total ruin and tomb in the discord of two brothers At that time Hircanus Hircanus reigned a good man but a bad King who neither had fortitude valour nor courage He used as much remisness in his charge as he practiced innocencie in his manners His overmuch easiness made him degenerate into a certain stupiditie and being unapt to do ill he rendered himself capable to be an instrument of all kind of evils by being too easie for the impressions of another He acknowledging his own weakness freely resigned the dignitie and burden of rule to his brother Aristobulus a valiant and Aristobulus hardie man who had little success and many enterprises In the mean time Palestine during the inconstant Antipater the father of Herod affected the Kingdom of Judea wavering of this Royaltie was much courted by her neighbours but above all by Antipater father of Herod an Idumcan by Nation an Arabian in manners wealthie factious able to overturn a large Empire by his subtil wiles had for a long time a plot upon the Kingdom of Judea He well foresaw it would be a matter very difficult for him to force a passage for his wicked ends whilst this couragious lion Aristobulus bare sway but were he dismounted and Hircanus seated again in his throne all would be in his own power What doth this Arabian then he soweth in the souls and minds of the people seeds of revolt against Aristobulus saying They were very remiss and disloyal so to suffer Hircanus their lawful King to be dethroned to whom nature had granted Empire to transfer the Kingdom to a mutinous and turbulent spirit who quickly would with ill manage make them feel the ruin and desolation of all Palestine That they had forsaken a King blame-worthie in nothing but in surplusage of goodness to take another who having made entry into principality
perpetrated The tears of the disconsolate mother were not omitted in her absence Cleopatra made this whole Tragedie to be presented the combate was much enkindled and the battery was forcible Herod who wanted no eloquence in his own occasions replieth with a countenance very lowly and modest Prince and you Sirs who are of the Counsel I hold the Apologie of Herod full of craft scepter of Judea neither of Hircanus nor Alexandra never having had any purpose to flatter them for this end yea much less to fear them You know Most Illustrious Anthonie the Kingdom is in my hands I hold it of you from you all my greatness ariseth and in you all my hopes are concluded If you command I am at this present ready not onely to leave the scepter but my life also which never have I been desirous to preserve but for your service But it troubleth me the way of death being open to all the world the path of reputation which is more dear to me than life should be shut against my innocencie I am persecuted by women and much I wonder how the soul of Queen Cleopatra wholly celestial can nourish so much spleen against a King who never hath failed in any respect lawfully due to her merit For Alexandra it is not strange that she raise such a storm against me her fierce and haughty spirit hath always opposed my patience endeavoring by all means to disparage my government to pull a crown from me which a more puissant hand than her Ancestours hath placed on my head What apparence is there that being by the favour of the Romans a peaceable possessour of a Kingdom the which even by the consent of my adversaries I sought not so regular was my ambition I should attempt a horrible crime which cannot fall but into the mind of a monster No man will be wicked in chearfulness of heart the memorie of the recompence which man proposeth to himself ever beareth the torch before the crime To what purpose should I attempt upon the life of Aristobulus to settle my affairs They were already established your gracious favour most Noble Anthonie hath afforded me more than all their machinations can vanquish But I perpetually have kept back the bloud Royal from dignities What keeping back is it when I have cherished them in my own bosom as much as possible Every one knows Hircanus the prime man of this Royal family being held as a prisoner among the Parthians I bent all my spirits employed all my credit to have him set at libertie and to procure his return to Court where he now liveth in full tranquilitie enjoying all the priviledges of Royaltie but the carefull sollicitude of affairs It is known I have divided my crown and bed with his grand-child Mariamne making her both Queen of people and wife of a King I have given the High-Priesthood to her brother Aristobulus of my meer and free will not enforced by any constraint as being absolute in the mannage of my own affairs and if in ought I delayed him it was because the minority of his age ran not equal with my affections but in effect he hath been beheld High-Priest at eighteen years of age which is a favour very extraordinarie Alexandra his mother who maketh way to this business hath ever had all the libertie of my Court except the licence of ruining herself which she passionately pursueth For what reason had she to hide herself in a coffin and cause herself to be carried in the night as a dead bodie to steal from my Court and after she had wronged me in mine house to traduce me among strangers If she desired to make a voyage into Aegypt she needed to have spoken but one word it had been sufficient But she pleaseth herself in counterfeiting a false peril in a real safetie to thrust into the danger of life those who make her live in all reposed assurance I having discovered this practice did not let fall one word of bitterness against her desirous she should enjoy at her ease the sight of me as a spectacle of patience thinking all folly sufficiently punished with its own proper conscience Certain time after the death of this young Prince happened which draweth tears of compassion from me for I loved him and much it troubled me his mother perverted the sweetness of his exellent nature and cut more stuff out for his youth than he was able to stitch together He is dead not in my house but in the house of his mother dead by an accident which no man could prevent dead sporting in the water a faithless element where a thousand and a thousand have without any such purpose perished dead among the youth of the Court with whom daily be disported himself His own meer motion bare him into the water the bravery of his youth caused him to dally even in danger it self without any possibility to divert him and his own mishap hath drowned him It is to tie me to bard conditions if Alexandra will make me both accountable for the youthfull levities of her son as if I were his governour and of the frail inconstancy of elements as if I were Lord of them This pernicious spirit spake this with so much grace and probability that he gained many hearts So much force had eloquence even in the hands of iniquitie Behold him now on the shore out of peril remaining in Anthonie's Court in all liberty to attend the sentence of his justification In the mean time being as he was wise and liberal in all occasions by force of presents he purchased the hearts of the chief and made all the accusation of Cleopatra appear to be the passion of a woman ill advised Mark Anthony himself said to Cleopatra she did ill to intermeddle so much with forreign Kingdoms and that if she took this course she would raise enemies prejudicial to her estate That Herod being a King it was not fit to use him like a subject and that it would be her happiness rather to have him a friend than an enemie As these things were handled in Anthonie's Court the Queen Mariamne and her mother Alexandra ceased not to be observed by the sollicitous diligence of the mother and sister of Herod Joseph his uncle An act of great stupiditie in Joseph uncle of Herod played the Goaler and often visited Queen Mariamne sometime to treat some affairs with her sometime in the way of complement This man began to burn like a butterflie in the eyes of this incomparable beauty and much affected her although he saw himself far off from all manner of hope Notwithstanding he found some contentment to have fixed his affection in so eminent a place This passion made him foolish and full of babble having already rudeness enough of his own nature which made him utter strange extravagancies For one day there being occasion to speak of Herod's affection to Mariamne his wife Alexandra the mother mocked thereat in an exorbitant
he had very lately rejected this suit at his Councel-table resolving with himself to refuse it the second time But the battery was too forcible Eudoxia declared it was an ill presage not to ratifie the first grant her son had made by a kind of miracle in such an age such a habit on such a day and among such shouts of the people I know not who could have resisted such sweet violences Arcadius will he nill he was constrained presently Marna destroyed by the infant Theodosius to sign the petition without restriction or modification and which is more to constitute express Commissioners for the execution thereof who failed not upon the urgent sollicitation made by the Empress to raze the temple of Marna and build a most stately Church in the place Behold how potent and religiously cunning women Women stout to do good are when they addict themselves to good But God made all these passages conduce to the glory of his well-beloved Theodosius willing that hell should howl and tremble already under the feet of an infant who was no more than born to make him one day dreadfull to all the powers of impietie The joy the parents conceived for the birth of Contentions between the Empress Eudoxia and S. Chrysostom Theodosius was not long I know not through what mischance Eudoxia contested again with S. Chrysostom upon a wilfulness as forcible in the pursuit as unfortunate in the issue for it steeped the remnant of this poor Princess days in bitter distasts and headlong threw her into a death disadvantagious to the reputation of her life to teach Great-ones and above A good document for Great-ones all Ladies to bridle their passions and never to oppose the authoritie of the Church The Miters of Prelates are as the Crowns of the Kings of Aegypt they carry aspicks which insensibly sting those who too near approach with intention to offend them having justice on their side It was a shamefull spectacle for Christendom to see upon this great Theater of the world a woman contest with a Bishop and hazard her reputation against the most eloquent tongue of the world This Princess was ardent in any thing she enterprized and made all affairs dance to the tune of her intentions she so powerfully wrought the Bishops that they assembled a little Councel of Prelats passionate and plyant to her will who passed a sentence of condemnation against Chrysostom S. Chrysostom banished under pretext of a scroul charged with a tedious contexture of calumnies invented against this holy Prelate Eudoxia would free herself and to give contentment to the people it behoved her to proceed therein with some colour of justice Behold him banished into Bithynia It was a bold act to tear out of the throne of Constantinople a man who filling the sayls of eloquence as easily moved the people as winds do the sands of Lybia which stir at their pleasure The people of Constantinople spared not to murmur as do the waves of a mutinous sea and their mutterings were seconded with an earthquake which happened there at the same time all tended to a revolt if Chrysostom had not been repealed from this exile by the Emperours authoritie Being returned to his See he altered nothing of his former manner crying out thundering and violently beating down the vice and corruptions of that Age. And as by chance Eudoxia caused a silver statue to be dedicated to her self in a publick place at the consecration whereof many sports dances and disorders were used this gave new occasion to speak which so vexed the Emperess that she resolved to ruin him whatsoever it cost her Arcadius shewed himself a little soft and obsequious to the humour of his wife who spared no wyles inventions credit nor violence to bring her enterprize to pass She came in the end unhappy as she was to be as prosperous as she wished in this pursuit S. John Chrysostom is exiled to Cucusa a town in Armenia which hath nothing more remarkable in it than to have been honoured with the banishment of this worthy man He swallowed so many toyls and incommodities in this exile that there he left his life the more to illustrate the glory of his death Divers prodigies happened at Constantinople as messengers of the anger of Heaven armed for revenge of his injustice Among others a violent storm of hail which much astonished all the Citie and four days after Eudoxia died in Death of the Empress travel having long endured many bitter throws It is held her sepulchre shook until such time as the body of the Saint carried in triumph through Constantinople seemed by the presence thereof to fix her tomb who had furnished him with so many disturbances in his life The Emperour Arcadius made no long abode in this world after the death of the Empress his wife and S. John Chrysostom behold him surprized with a maladie which he presently knew to be as it were a fore-runner of his death After he had setled the affairs of his conscience he ordered those of his Kingdom and though he had his brother Honorius Emperour of the West he would not rely upon him for the guardianship of his son all great men are jealous and many times diffident of their own bloud But he appointed as Tutour for his little Theodosius who then was onely eight years of age Isdigerdes King of Persia his friend who deputed a great Prince named Antiochus to establish an absolute peace with the Emperour and offer him his aid against all pretenses that might be raised against his state Artemius a Consular man very wise and faithfull took the stern of affairs in hand which most prosperously he mannaged in the great troubles and revolutions of the Western Empire Theodosius was left an Orphan with four sisters Qualities of Pulcheria sister of Theodosius Flaccilla Pulcheria Arcadia and Marina but above all the rest Pulcheria possessed his heart from his infancy She was the pearl of Princesses and one of the wisest women which ever mannaged the affairs of a Kingdom She had a strong and pleasing spirit a solid pietie an awakened wisdom an incomparable grace to gain hearts to her devotion Her brother made such account of her rare virtues that he associated her for a companion of his Empire holding her in the quality of a Queen She was onely two years elder than himself the one was thirteen the other fifteen years old In the fifteenth year of her age behold her already so capable of government that she was Regent of the Empire and as it were a mother to her brother Artemius who had instructed her in state affairs could not sufficiently admire the vivacitie of her wit the solidity of her judgement the equity of her counsels and the happiness which ordinarily accompanied her resolutions She then resolved to live in perpetual virginity not as some have thought to take away the jealousie of a husband towards a brother and
the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereupon this man sought to reprehend him alledging some passages of scripture maliciously interpreted of which he made use to establish the unhappy heresie which denied that the Son was the same essence of God his Father and took away from Jesus Christ the diadem of the Eternal Divinity by making him a meer creature Alexander who was not a man of mean account but such an one as to his sanctity of life added solid doctrine defended himself couragiously against the impostures of this malign spirit very well justifying his belief touching the Divinity of our Saviour which having been throughly proved in the Assembly of an hundred Bishops who were first of all called together for this purpose under Hosius Legat of Pope Sylvester he pronounced the sentence of excommunication against Arius and his complices This wicked man who burst with anger to see this condemnation passed against him by those whom he reputed to be infinitely under him in ability put himself into the field with very much ostent the differences he lately had with these Prelates making him understand his Divinity was odious if he therein used not some colour to disguise the malice thereof He also practised so many wiles that he dazeled the eyes even of those who were men very eapable for after he had deduced his reasons with a great facility of words and large quantity of specious passages and that he thereunto added a cold countenance counterfeiting himself a modest man persecuted for the truth he trained spirits not vulgar to the love of his novelties All the very same proceedings have been seen with the Herericks of this time and if so many corrupt souls had not wholly enclined to their own ruin God gave them sufficient examples in elder evils to avoid the new We Proceeding of Arians may well say when we behold these schisms and heresies to arise that there is some comet of the kingdom of darkness which insensibly throweth plague and poison into hearts It is a strange thing that a little sparkle let fall in Alexandria caused instantly so many fires that having invaded Aegypt Lybia Thebais and Palestine they in the end involved almost the whole world No man at that time cared how to live but every one was ready to dispute Bishops bandying against Bishops drew the people distracted with opinions The Churches houses and Theaters ecchoed in the sharpness of contentious disputations and the Cities forgetting all other miseries rent one another for the interpretation of a word Arius to gain support instantly seeketh for favour from the Court. And knowing that Eusebius Bishop of Nicomedia was of great credit he used all the flatteries of which this man was capable enough to gain him to his side This Eusebius was eminently furnished with all those dispositions and industries which the most subtile Hereticks have at any time exercised to trouble the Church of God He was verily one of the worst men then in the Empire since he had sold his soul to ambition so much the more pernicious as it was covered with a veil of Religion It is true which the Hebrews say that Vineger is an ill son of a good father for it is commonly made of the best wine so there is nothing more sincere than an Ecclesiastick who liveth in the duty of his profession but when corruption falleth thereinto and that he hath once degenerated there is not a worse sharpness nor a more dangerous malice Religion served this wicked man as a buskin for all feet for it had no other bounds but that of his own interests and he ever like weather-cocks on the top of steeples turned his face on what side soever the wind blew In the persecutions of Christendom he made himself an Idolater in the garboyls of Lycinius he leaned much to his side and when he saw Constantine absolute in the Empire never was man more plyable to flatter him Doubtless he had all the qualities we have seen in Luther Calvin and so many other new Sects who have still sought favour from Great-ones by wyles and most perillous charms So wanted he not excellent parts and great eminencies for he had a spirit very subtile speech cunning a face which spake before his tongue and as for his extraction he soared so high as to make himself the kins-man of Caesars The air he desired to breath was the Court and his Bishoprick when he was absent seemed to him a banishment Behold the cause why he drew near to the center of the Empire as much as he could in such sort that being first Bishop of Berytus he put himself forward to the chair of Nicomedia afterward took the heart of the Kingdom and in the end setled himself in the Royal Constantinople This alteration of chairs had in this time a very ill savour and this life of Court so passionately affected by an Ecclesiastick not called thereunto could not in any sort find approbation among good men Great personages are sometimes very lawfully in Court for the service of Kings and publick necessities but they are thereas the birds of Baruch upon Baruch 6. 70. Job 26. white thorns as the Gyants of holy Job which mourned under the waters as those sweet fountains found in the salt Sea An ambitious man who heweth down mountains to arrive thither and liveth not exemplary deserveth to be regarded therein as a fish out of his element or the pyde bird whereof Jeremie speaketh whom all the rest assailed with Jer. 12. 2. beak and talon Eusebius notwithstanding little regarded the reputation of a good Prelate so that he might arrive to the height of his enterprizes To insinuate himself the more into the good liking of the Emperour he gained Constantia sister of Constantine and widow of Lycinius as Calvin did afterward the sister of Francis the first The good Lady who being despoiled of Empire by the death of her husband and had no longer so much employment to number the pearls of her Diadem would needs then intermedle with curious devotion and dispute on the mysteries of the holy Trinity Constantine after the death of S. Helena his mother held her at his Court with much respect that she might the more easily digest the acerbities she had conceived in the loss of her husband and much easier was it to entertain her in the affairs of the Church than in those of Empires Besides he found it not amiss that she might busie her self in the doubtfull questions of Bishops So pursuing the Genius of her curious spirit she passed so far that she became an Arian by the practises of this Eusebius who having already gotten credit with her spake to her of Arius as of a worthy man persecuted by his own side for his great abilities and explicating to her his doctrine in popular terms which said there was no apparence how a son could be made as old as his father and that poor Arius had been banished
sufficient she pleased the King his Majesty who was not ignorant of her perfections and for the matter of Religion which was the most considerable he hoped the King would put on a resolution to become a Christian The Burgundian replied this affair was of such importance that he would not confide in successes upon hopes which are always uncertain but that he must see an express promise from the King of France and thereupon dismisseth the Embassadour thinking he had sufficiently hindered the business But the brave Aurelianus speedily dispatched a Currier to Clodovaeus to shew unto him where the obstacle lay and to get a promise from him to become a Christian The King who was so transported with affection that he was on tearms to refuse nothing hastily gave the promise required of him which being afterward presented to Gombaut by the Embassadour it made him sweat apace not knowing further what invention to make use off to avoid this fatal blow notwithstanding he answered that this marriage was of so great consequence that it could not be decreed but in an Assembly of his States thinking by this trick he might dissolve the design of Clodovaeus or draw the affairs out at length with such delayes that he should trouble all the world But this was it which transfixed him so far humane prudence is cunning to ruin it-self by its proper inventions For the most active French Nobility so journing in Burgundy in the expectation of the States sowed in the spirits of the Magistrates and people the great good would enfue to their Nation by this alliance when they should come to be all united together as brothers but if they once refused the request of a great Prince so replenished with honour and courtesie they must necessarily proceed to arms which could not but be fatal to their Kingdom The Burgundians hungry after repose very well tasted these reasons and the prudent Clotilda spared not silently to strike her stroak insensibly gaining the chief of the Councel to follow her inclinations Aurelianus who had a very sharp and clear-sighted spirit much pressed the States nor could Gombaut make so many knots but that he still dissolved them In the end he must come to the point The States assembled and the King came thither with a studyed speech wherein he had heaped together with very great subtility all the reasons which made him apprehend this alliance with the French but God who maketh great alterations in Kingdoms as billows in the sea so disposed the hearts of the Burgundians that all allegations opposed against the design of this marriage seemed but dreams and Chimaeraes One of the greatest States-men rising up made a long speech and declared to the King That the repose of his Kingdom at which he aimed in all his discourse consisted in this alliance That marriages had in all times been rather the knots of peace than incentives of war that the comfort which might grow from such an action would destroy all the acerbities and divisions of factious spirits that the greatest troubles of Kingdoms had been often pacified by good alliances that the French were become so powerful it was not fit to deny them any thing that the request of Clodovaeus was so fair it could not be rejected without a notable act of incivility That there was not any beast more cruel in the world than love changed into hatred and that it was to be feared least intreaties of a lover might end in the fury of a conquerour That the offer he made to become a Christian would for ever be glorious to their Nation for furthering such a piety That Clotilda had naturally affection for her Countrey and wit enough to gain her husband and wholly transport him to the love of her Nation That the people were tyred with so many wars which would infallibly grow much more bloudy than ever if they slighted the faithful love of so great a Monarch This man connected so many reasons one upon another that he prevailed and almost all came to this conclusion that they must with all speed send the Princess to the King of France who required her The miserable Gombaut finding himself ruined on all sides said he would use no obstacle but did think it fit to observe the deportments of his niece for she had vowed her self to God and to enter into Religion The Embassadour understanding this last evasion extreamly laughed from the botom of his heart and said if the Princess were that way disposed the King his Master would not be so earnest in her pursuit as to cause her to break her vow But that it was fit she should be heard which was done and she being asked thereof answered that her devotion had never hitherto transported her so far as to make any vow of virginity and although she were infinitely pleased with the sweet retirement she enjoyed in the Court of her uncle notwithstanding if it were his good pleasure to marry her to the King of France on this condition that he became a Christian she would not be so indiscreet as to hinder it Upon this answer of the Princess the Deputies of both Nations there present gave a loud applause and cried out the marriage was concluded The King himself dissembling his passion forced a smile and well saw it was high time to forgo what he could hold no longer He disposed of her train very poorly as a man naturally covetous saying His neece was too fair for him to give her so many rich attyres That the rose was sufficiently beautified with its leaves and the sun with his rays and that all humane arts arrived not to the perfections of nature Aurelianus did not with much earnestness insist hereupon so much he feared least the disposition of this man might change and he invent some new tricks to hinder their departure But he resolved instantly to carry this Princess away The uncle seeing her upon her journey began much to flatter her which he had never done before saying Go too neece I well perceive that notwithstanding your devotions you are of the humour of other women and affect glory You are weary to abide with an uncle you will have a husband and needs must he be a King Proceed I shall not be against it let every one settle their affections where they may expect their felicity Good daughter you see how much I endeavour to content you and how it being in my power to hinder this marriage which I thought to be little advantagious to my Realm yet have I been willing to cause it to be confirmed in a general assembly of my States to render your desires the more assured This affection which I at this present witness sufficiently declareth that I for a long space have entertained most sincere and hearty affections for the good of your house For that which passed concerning your father and mother troubled no man so much as my self God is my record thereof But dear daughter there was a
to the Saviour of the world which is yet at this time to be seen hanging over the Altar of Saint Sophia So did Mauritius so Henrie the Emperour at Clunie who made offer to the Church of a World all over diversified with most exquisite precious stones This is the cause why the King sent this present Flodoardus Philippus Bergomensis Savaro p. 15. de pietate Regis Ludovici as the History expresly mentioneth to be hanged up before the chief Altar of Saint Peter at Rome in token of the offer he made to God of his person and estate as the eldest Son of the Church And he that would well consider the foundation of the History shall find this Diadem called the Kingdom or Realm was a kind of crown come from Constantinople For it is said that the Emperour Anastasius who sought support from the favour of the King of France against the Goths that swayed in Italie understanding the great feats of arms done by our Clodovaeus sent a solemn Embassage unto him to congratulate and offer him the title of an honourable Consul the purple robe and the Crown which the Grecians of this time called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clodovaeus very gladly entertained this Embassage and shewed himself attired with those ornaments in the Church of S. Martin where he made a largess of gold and silver then acknowledging all these prosperities came to him from God after he was baptized he consecrated this rich jewel which had been presented to him by the Emperour in the chief Church of Christendom to serve as an eternal monument of his Religion Behold how this illustrious Monarch began at that time to manifest the marks of his zeal and to cement together the good intelligence which France afterwards had with the Pastor and spiritual Father of the whole world I am bound to touch this as I pass along with all sincerity being naturally an enemy of these questions which are many times moved with too much servour and inconsideration in the point of contestations of the jurisdiction of Sovereign authorities We are learned enough when we know that Jesus Christ who had the source of power in himself distributed it to Popes and Kings constituting the one for spiritual government the other for temporal It is his pleasure we honour the character of his authority both in the one and other and not to argue upon fantasies God hath set them over out heads to admire their lustes and not to controul their power Amongst the follies of Nero it is reported that one day beholding a space of land which separated two seas and held them in excellent order he had a desire to cut it that these two seas might encounter and himself see what countenance they would carry when they commixed together Take you good heed saith the Oracle unto him otherwise they will overflow to drown you Leave matters as God hath appointed and confound not the limits of nature It is true Ecclesiastical and civil power are two great seas God hath limited and divided them by the interposition of spiritual and temporal administration Both exercise their functions and live in fair peace God preserve us from those miseries which may dis-mantle the wall and cause them to intermingle together so that we may behold the world in a deluge of calamities To what purpose is all this The Sun doth not the work of the rain nor the rain of the Sun Constantine Communis Episcopus corum que extra exclesiam said the Bishops were Bishops in their Churches in that which concerneth Religion and God had appointed him for the government of his Empire in matters temporal Let us rest in these limits Give we to Caesar that which belongeth to Caesar to God what appertaineth to God We have better learned to live than dispute and our Ancestours have preserved a Monarchy so flourishing the space of twelve hundred years not with disputations and unprofitable wranglings but with the arms of wisdom obedience and courage We have always rendered to the Pope the honour 1 Pet. 2. Sub diti estote omni humanâ— creaturae propter Deum sive Regi quasi praecellenti sive â—ucibus tamquam ab co missis he deserveth as to the Sovereign Pastour of the Universal Church which is under Heaven We have confessed and do acknowledge the King true and absolute Monarch in the government of temporal things singularly honouring him and with most cordial affections loving him as an animated pourtraictute of the greatness of the Divine Majesty God thereupon maketh us to prosper and tast by experience that there is no science more noble than obedience nor any felicity but the accomplishment of the will of the sovereign Master On the contrary it is observed in the History of so many Ages that the wounds from Heaven have on all sides fallen upon those who have sought to cast the apple of discord into the house of God The wind blown from their moutheâ— returned on their heads since it is fit iniquity should first kill it self with its own poison The eighth SECTION The good success which God gave to Clodovaeus after he became a Christian CLodovaeus was no sooner become a Christian but that it seemed God had tied to his arms some secret virtue which made him triumph over his enemies and crown all his enterprizes with most glorious successes The first war he undertook after his Baptism was against Gombaut King of Burgundie of whom we have very amply spoken heretofore I much wonder at certain Authours who measuring the affections of Saints with the weaknesses of their own spirits and esteeming it a sweet glory to be revenged upon enemies from whom some notable injuries are received have said that Clotilda excited her husband to the ruin of her uncle to derive an account from him of the death of her father and mother This is too inferiour a conceit of a Lady who was arrived to so high a degree of perfection nay it was so much otherwise that she should enkindle the fire of this war that Gombaut being in the full possession of Clodovaeus to bereave him of life she withheld the fatal blow afterwards seeing he by his ill deportment had lost his Kingdom she did all that possibly she might to preserve a part thereof for Sigismund son of Gombaut her cousin-germane That which first of all ruined this unhappy King Paul Emil. of Burgundie was his heresie which drew upon him the vengeance of God for it being often preached unto him and he convinced by reasons offering himself in private to become a Catholick yet still retained Arianism in publick Behold the cause why he having divided his heart God divided his Kingdom The second cause of his ruin was his nature cruel and covetous which rendered him uncivil and an enemy of all order He sent his Neece as it were in anger to Clodovaeus giving her not any thing in marriage but many complements Whereupon the King making
in the list of combat Clodovaeus quickly alighted from his horse to rid him of life and being about to mend some defect in his cuirass he was treacherously assaulted by two Goths but he having dispatched his adversary defended himself from both these and mounted up again on his horse whom he made to curvet in a martial manner demeaning himself so bravely in all that he seemed to be as it were a flash of lightening sent from the hand of God rather than a man This defeat ruined the hopes of the Goths and cut off all the designs of heresie which subsisted not but by their favour From thence Clodovaeus marched all covered over with laurels into the Countreys of his conquests with so much good success that being before the Citie of Angoulesm which made shew of resistance the walls miraculously fell down as did heretofore those of Jericho he having by the advise of Apronius his Chaplain caused some holy reliques to be lifted up whereunto he dedicated a singular devotion What need we here make mention of the adventures which he had with the Kings Chararic and Ragvachairus whom he defeated as it were without blows This man went every where as confidently as one who seemed to have a Guard of celestial Virtues by his side his hands were fatal to purge the earth from many infidel Princes that infected it with heresie tyrannies and sacriledges Who can but wonder that in so short a time he extended his Empire from Rheine to Seine from the river of Loyre to Rosne and from the Pyrenei to the Ocean Who can but admire that he was so feared by all the Monarchs of his Age as the Grecians who have written Suidas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after that time under the title of King intended for the more excellency to speak onely of the King of France Who will not highly esteem his great authority in that he first of all stampt golden coyn which the Emperours had always forborn through extream jealousie causing the marks of his faith to be impressed on this money And who can sufficiently marvel that having at his death left four sons to succeed him he hath besides been followed by seven and fifty Kings who constantly rendering themselves imitatours of his belief have likewise shared with him in his felicity I demand of you whether one must not become blind deaf and dumb not to see understand nor declare that all the happiness and prosperity of France is inseparably tied to the piety of our Ancestours since the hand of God thundering and lightening at the same time upon so great a number of Diadems of heretical Kings as of Gombaut Godemar Chilperic Godegisilus Alaricus and in the end on Theodorick himself led Clodovaeus by the hand through so many smoking ruins so many swords and such flames to establish him with all his posterity in a Throne whereunto the great Saint Remegius hath promised an eternity of years so long as it should remain cemented with the same faith and religion which first of all consecrated the Lilies to the service of the Divine Majesty The holy Clotilda amongst all these conquests of her husband lifted her innocent hands up to Heaven to apply the forces of the Saviour of the world to his Royal banners In the end having drawn him to Paris after so many bloudy wars and sweetened the extravagancies of his nature a little too violent propending to excesses of cruelty she caused him to tast in his repose devotion and justice in such sort that having closed up his eyes in the exercises of piety she enterred him with a most honourable reputation V. Kal. Dec. Depositio magni Regis Clodovaei Du Pleix There is yet to be found an old Calendar of the Church of S. Genovefue which maketh mention of the day of his death on the seven and twentieth of November The ninth SECTION The life of Clotilda in her widow-hood her afflictions and glorious death CLotilda vehemently desired to bring forth male children for the establishment of her State and though this affection seemed to be most just notwithstanding God who purgeth all the elect in the furnace of afflictions found a rough Purgatory for this good soul in the enjoying her desires She had sons as she wished whom she endeavoured with all her power to breed in the fear of God whilest she might bow them but these children who tasted too much of the warlike humours of the father and had not enough of the piety of the mother being arrived to an age wherein it was not possible any longer to restrain them they fell into many terrible extravagancies which transfixed the heart of the mother with a thousand swords of sorrow It happened that Sigismund the cousin-germain of Clotilda for whom she had procured the Kingdom of Burgundie after the death of his wife by whom he had a son named Sigeritus suffered himself to be surprized with the love of a Ladie waiting in Court whom he afterward married to the great heart-burning of the son who could not endure to see her clothed with the spoils of his mother This step-dame being drawn from servitude and wantonness to enter into the bed of a King beholding her self crossed in her loves by this Heir of the house conceived so much gall and rage against him that she prepared a most fatal calumnie for his ruin accusing him to have a plot upon the life of his father Sigismund who was of an easie nature stirred up with love and ambition quickly believed this shameless creature and after he had called this poor young man to dinner under colour of affection he commanded him in his sleep to be strangled by the hands of his servants But the miserable man delivered out of the gulf of his passion and seeing himself defiled with an act so black and wicked publickly confessed his sin and for it performed a most austere penance but God who ordinarily blotteth out the crime not forgiving the pains and satisfactions due to his justice deprived him of Scepter and life by the hands of his allies raising up a sharp revenge to give to such like an eternal horrour of his iniquitie The children of Clodovaeus who had already shared the Kingdom of their father were not yet satisfied but desired to advance the limits of their division as far as the point of their launce might extend Behold the cause why Clodomer who was the eldest of the legitimate seeing the Kingdom of Burgundie in this danger entereth thereinto with great forces and found little resistance Sigismond being formerly convinced by his crime Having possessed himself of the places most important he took the miserable King and led him away prisoner to Orleans to dispose of him according to his pleasure But Godimer the brother of Sigismund who had retired to the mountains while the French made all this notable havock returned with a great power and having slain the French Garrisons made himself Master of the Kingdom Clodomer
of this repose news came unto her very hastily that she must return to Court to appease the discord between her children who were ready to encounter one another and to embroil the Kingdom in the desperate desolations of Civil war The good woman did not as those who hold retirement from the vanities of the world as a punishment nor ever are with themselves unless necessity make them take the way which they cannot elect by reason So soon as she understood these importunities which called her back to the affairs of the world she hastened to prostrate her self at the sepulcher of S. Martin shedding forth bitter tears and saying My God you know my heart and that it is neither for fear of pain nor want of courage that I retired from the Court of my children but that seeing their deportments and affairs in such a condition that I could not think my self any ways able to profit them by my counsels I made choice of the means which I thought most likely to help them which are prayers And behold me here now humbled at the tomb of one of your great servants to beg of you by his merits and ashes to pacifie the differences of these unfortunate children and to behold with the eye of your accustomed mercies this poor people and Kingdom of France to which you have consigned and given so many pledges of your faithfull love My God if you think my presence may serve to sweeten the sharpness of these spirits I will neither have consideration of my age nor health but shall sacrifice my self in this voyage for the publick but if I may be of no other use but to stand as an unprofitable burden as I with much reason perswade my self I conjure you for your own goodness sake to receive my humble prayers and accommodate their affairs and ever to preserve unto me the honour which I have to serve you in this retirement A most miraculous thing it is observed that at the same time when the holy woman prayed at the tomb the Arms of the brothers now ready to encounter to pour forth a deluge of bloud suddenly stopped and these two Kings not knowing by what spirit they were moved mutually sent to each other an Embassage of peace which was concluded in the place to the admiration and contentment of the whole world Thus much confirmed Clotilda in her holy resolution wherein she lived to great decrepitness of age And in the end having had revelation of the day of her death she sent for her two sons Childebert and Clotharius whereof this who was the most harsh was in some sort become humble having undergone certain penances appointed him by Pope Agapetus to expiate many exorbitances which he had committed for such is the most common opinion These two Kings being come the mother spake to them in these terms I was as it were resolved to pass out of the world without seeing you not for the hatred of your persons which cannot fall into a soul such as mine but for the horrour of your deportments that cannot be justified but by repentance God knows I having beheld you so many times to abandon the respect you ow to my age and the authoritie which nature gave me over your breeding never have endeavoured to put off the heart of a mother towards you which I yet retain upon the brink of my tomb I begged you of God before your birth with desires which then seemed unto me reasonable but which perhaps were too vehement and if ever mother were passionate in the love of her children I most sensibly felt those stings yielding my soul as a prey to all cares and my bodie to travels to breed and bring you up with pains which are not so ordinarie with Queen-mothers I expected from your nature some correspondence to my charitable affections when you should arrive to the age of discretion I imagined after the death of your father my most honoured Lord that my age which began to decline should find some comfort in your pietie But you have done that which I will pass under silence For it seemed to me your spirits have as much horrour of it as mine which yet bleedeth at it nor do I know when time will stench the bloud of a wound so bydeous Out alas my children you perswaded your selves it was a goodly matter to unpeople the world to enlarge your power and to violate nature to establish your thrones with the bloud of your allies which is a most execrable frenzie For I protest at this hour wherein I go to render an account of mine actions before the living God that I should rather wish to have brought you into the world to be the vassals of peasants than to see the Scepter in your hands if it served you to no other use but to authorize your crimes Blind as you are who behold not that the diamonds of a Royal Crown sweat with horrour upon a head poisoned with ambition When you shall arrive to that period wherein I am now what will it help you to have worn purple if having defiled it with your ordures you must make an exchange with a habit of flames which shall no more wear out than eternitie Return my children to the fair way you have forsaken you might have seen by what paths the Providence of God led the King your father to the throne of his Monarchie you might have also observed the disasters of Kings our near allies for that they wandered from true pietie That little shadow which you yet retain of holy Religion hath suspended the hand of God and withheld the fatal blow which he would otherwise have let fall upon your state If you persist in evil you will provoke his justice by the contempt of his mercie Above all be united with a band of constant peace for by dividing your hearts you disunite your Kingdoms and desiring to build up your fortunes by your dissentions you will make desolate your houses Do justice to your poor people who lived under the reign of your father with so much tranquilitie and which your divisions have now covered all over with acerbities Is it not time to forget what is past and to begin to live then when you must begin to die My children I give you the last farewel and pray you to remember my poor soul and to lodge my bodie in the sepulcher of the King your father as I have ever desired The Saint speaking this saw that these children who had before been so obdurate were wholly dissolved into tears and kneeling about her bed kissed her hands having their speech so interrupted with sobs they could not answer one word Thereupon she drew the curtain over all worldly affairs to be onely entertained with God And her maladie daily encreasing she pronounced aloud the profession of the Catholick faith wherein she died then required the Sacraments of the Eucharist and extream Unction which were administred unto her and by her
INDEGONDIS Issued from the bloud and house of Clotilda transporteth the Catholick faith into Spain ABout the year five hundred four-score and three Levigildus an Arian Prince reigned in Spain who seeing the house of France held supereminency amongst all the Kingdoms of the world sought the alliance thereof and obtained for wife to his eldest son called Hermingildus the daughter of Sigebert grand-child of Clotilda named in History Indegondis She was one of the most accomplished Princesses of that Age in whom beauty grace and virtue made together an admirable harmony to purchase her the hearts of all the world Every one lamented that this bright day-break which began to enlighten France with its rays went at her rising into a Countrey where the Sun setteth and that so many singular perfections were separated from that Kingdom which had given them birth The good virgin who had no other object but the obedience she ought to render those to whom nature had subjected her went well pleased besides was something satisfied with the title of a Queen which she might justly one day expect But little knew she the combats and difficulties that waited on her in the same place where she hoped to gather nothing else but flowers I do not think hell can ever produce a mischief like unto heresie which wholly perverting good affairs instantly hasteneth to drench all the contentments of this innocent soul in a deluge of tears Alas a million of tortures well deserve to be employed upon the criminal souls of those who were the first authours of this monster For it in all Ages hath disturbed States of Princes ruined so much generous Nobility and sowed division among the most settled amities The wise of that time much apprehended the sending of this young maid into Spain to marry her to an heretical Prince to place her in a Court wholly infected with heresie where no other objects should be presented unto her but errour and vice Behold said they a goodly vessel well rigged well furnished well guided which hath sails of linnen cordage of purple and oars of silver but they go about to expose it to a rough tempest Behold an excellent meadow all enamelled with most delicious beauties of nature but they endeavour to oppose it to cruel Northern blasts Behold a chrystal well polished smooth and delicate but they seek to hazard it to the strokes of the hammer Behold a statue all resplendent with gold and precious stones but they trample it under foot What will a child be able to do amongst so much malice An age so tender amongst so many heads grown hoary in sin A great simplicity amongst so many snares A maid which hath no recommendation but chastity and obedience amongst so many wicked commands Do we think that a father-in-law a husband a mother-in-law will have no power over her spirit That pleasures will not allure her That the dignity of a Kingdom will not move her That the lustre of a Diadem will not dazle her eyes and force prevail upon her If that should be given her which she deserveth it were fit to afford her all but the power to ruin her self Others said very temperately that we must not believe that by gaining a Kingdom she should loose religion that she was of bloud so illustrious it received no blemish that she would rather die than dishonour her birth that she would endure all the torments of Martyrs rather than betray her faith And that if needs she must make ship-wrack of all her fortunes that the last plank she would embrace should be a good conscience that she should be assisted by a good Councel that would never forsake her that there were as yet in Spain very many Catholicks whose tears she would wipe away and sweeten their acerbities That her husband a young Prince was not so obdurate but that she might hope one day to joyn him to the Catholick faith Women are infinitely powerful when they once have gained the heart of a man In the end that she must reflect on the example of her grand-mother who had converted her husband with all his Court and if then cold and timorous considerations had been used upon this marriage France might still have been Pagan If the mother overcame an Idolater the daughter may well prevail on an Arian Yet they which spake thus judged not the conversion of hereticks to be much more difficult than that of Pagans as well for the intolerable pride which ordinarily possesseth their spirits as for a certain malediction which seemeth to be tied to those who voluntarily withdraw themselves from the light and shake off the yoke of lawfull powers Yet notwithstanding considerations of State transported her and Indegondis would take her fortune promising her self so much assistance of God that not onely she should stand firm in the piety of her Ancestours but that if it were possible she would save her husband supposing to her self he was neither of marble nor iron not to be mollified with the attractives of her sex The couragious maid was waited on into Spain by a flourishing conduct of French Nobility where she was received with very great applauses for the reputation which the name of France had acquired in the opinion of all people The King Levigildus her father-in-law was married upon second Nuptials to an Arian wife named Goizintha who was as deformed of body as mind notwithstanding she had charmed the heart of this old man by I know not what kind of sleights that she held predominance upon affairs and bent as it were all his wills at her pleasure She shewed in the beginning an extraordinary affection to this marriage and went in person to the Princess giving her such fair entertainment that it seemed she went about to over-whelm her with courtesies Yet was it to behold night and Aurora in one and the same Chariot to see these two Princesses together For Goizintha besides other deformities of her person was become blind of one eye and Indegondis laying aside so many excellent parts which she had from nature appeared on that day in her attaires like unto those Goddesses which the Poets and Painters form according to the most advantagious idaeaes of their spirits Hermingildus her husband beholding her so accomplished easily felt the glances shot from her eyes were rays from her but arrows for his heart from whence he could receive nought but honourable wounds Never any man bound himself to a creature of the world with a love so forcible so honest and so innocent as did this Prince to this admirable virgin From the first arrival and first glance of the eye he felt his soul transported with a sweet violence and it seemed unto him this stranger came to negotiate with him a love much different from that of flesh and bloud It is a position which hath been sufficiently argued by ancient Sages touching the encounter of amities which are so diversly applied to objects sometimes by ordinary ways as
being in the agonies of that fatal hour which took from us this great Queen she embraced my brother and me beseeching you by your chast loves and inviolable faith of marriage to be unto us both father and mother We were then of an age wherein we could not as yet either feel or bemoan our losses Notwithstanding seeing you bowed over the bodie which yielded up the ghost with weeping eyes we gave our infant-tears to her memorie as a just tribute of Nature but you taking your little orphans into your bosom forbade them to mourn which you could hardly do and wiping away their tears promised you hereafter would become to us a father for protection and a mother for indulgence I then grew up under your eyes spinning out the course of my innocent years and am come to an age capable to bear some share in your hopes Had you any thing at that time in the world more dear unto you than your Hermingildus Dignities were for him for him Empires wars were made by him and peace concluded in his name Hermingildus was the object of your thoughts the entertainment of your discourse the contentment of your heart Your Majestie then resolved to marrie me although very young you found out for me a wife daughter of a King sister of a King neece of a King but such an one as by her virtues surpassed all titles of Kingdoms Ah poor maid who would have said then that thou wast reserved to be the subject of so lamentable a Tragedie I was reputed the most happie man of the world since for me were born so many singular virtues and perfections admired by all men I must confess I loved this Princess not so much by the ways of an ordinarie love as a certain admiration of her virtues For I have received the faith by her pietie her example and her doctrine holding in her soul the rank of a husband a disciple and as it were of her own son Thereupon Goizintha began to possess your heart and to gain superemtnence in your affairs so changing your will by her ordinarie practises that she hath turned all your ancient favours into disdain your confidence into suspition your resolution into disturbance and your mud temper into command This woman hath so persecuted me that in your Court I neither enjoyed watchings rest recreation nor affairs without danger But I have willingly passed under silence all that which touched mine own person until she fell upon an action so barbarous which were sufficient to justifie the Scythians and Tartars I have no words to speak it having so much sorrow to feel it Enough is said when there hath been seen a daughter of so many Kings trampled under the foot of a woman whose birth I will not reproch because indeed I well know it not a Princess most innocent beaten even to bloud by a mother-in-law a Ladie replenished with honour disarayed of her garments by unworthie servants and plunged by little and little into a pool in a cold season to consummate a Martyrdom such as the ancient Tyrants never invented more cruel for women contenting themselves to impose oftentimes onely nakedness for a punishment Had I revenged my self of such inhumanitie with sword and fire no man could have thought my proceeding unjust nor my thoughts unreasonable notwithstanding I have still endeavoured to cure my self by the remedie most ordinarie with me which was patience I in silence retired unto a Citie which your Majestie gave me for lively-hood resolved there peaceably to pass my days with my wife whilest we beheld the face of this Court so adverse to our hopes But your Goizintha as if we had committed a great sin in not enduring her to thrust a sword through our throats hath sounded an alarm in your Palace and afterward in all the Province declaring me an enemie to the countrey an usurper of the Crown of my father a Parricide a creature excommunicate and adding thereunto words much more injurious against me and my wife For my part Sir I wish you had rather hearkened to our innocencie than served her passion all then had succeeded better But after strange Levies were made you came thundering upon Sevil to besiege me with a huge Armie so that you seemed to stir all the elements against me I confess it I then followed the instinct which God giveth creatures even the most bruitish to defend their own family and fortune I took arms not to offend you but to safeguard my self and my wife against the furies of a step-mother who makes use of all arrows for our rain Yet seeing my armies reduced to that point that I had no means to escape without giving battel which must necessarily be fatal to both parts I renounced for your sake the laws of nature and am come to render my self up to your discretion I call to witness the Altars holy fire and the Angel-guardians which have seen me prostrated before them of the sinceritie of my intentions and of the tears I have shed for you having not leisure then to bemoan my self Afterward your Majestie sent my brother unto me to give me assurance of your love you called me forth I am come I have suppliantly intreated you have received me I prostrated my self at your feet you have raised me with so many favours and so many tokens of good will that I could require no more for my safetie I ask who hath changed your affection who hath tarnished our joys and withered the olives of peace but she who being not able to ruin me with weapon in hand seeks to have my bloud by form of justice Behold my accusation and crime behold all that which hath made me to be clothed with sackcloth and chained with fetters ordained for Galley-salves The father who was of an ardent spirit interrupteth him hereupon and demandeth where his wife was whether he had not sent her into Africk to pass from thence to Constandinople The Prince answered He had onely projected this in his mind not for any other purpose but to advise upon the safetie of her person not knowing as then how matters would stand and that accidents had taught him he was wise enough in his counsels but less happie than he imagined The King insisteth and interrogateth whether he had not treated alliance with the Emperour Tiberius He thereunto replied that he had never practised any other correspondence but to draw from him some Troups for the defence of his life and that so soon as he saw some overture of peace he had dismissed them resolving to make no further use of them He then was pressed upon divers questions to which he made most pertinent answers shewing very evidently to the miserable father the colours and pretexts which they made use of to ruin him unless passion should cast a film over his eyes In the end seeing he could not convince his son to have practised any thing since the accord was made between them both he made a
mirrour what perfection My eyes dazle in beholding her actions and my pen fails in writing her praises What a courage that a young maid not above fifteen or sixteen years of age entereth into a Kingdom with intention to conquer it for God much otherwise than the Caesars who so many times have devoured it by ambition What a prudence to tolerate the conversation of a step-mother whilest she medled not with her Religion What liberty of spirit and what strength of words to defend her faith so soon as she saw her self assailed in this virtue which was more dear unto her than the apple of her eye What patience to endure to be dragged along upon the pavement by the hair to be beaten even to bloud to be thrown into the river to be used like the dust of the earth for the honour of Jâ—sus Christ not challenging any one not complaining not seeming offended nay not telling her husband into whose bosom she poured forth her most secret thoughts the affront she had received for fear to break peace with a creature who deserved the hatred of all the world What wisdom what grace what eloquence used she in the conversion of her husband What love for his soul what zeal for his salvation what care for his direction What authority to stop with a word the armies of the father and son instantly ready to encounter What resignation of her own will in this separation from her husband And what a heart of diamond against a thousand strokes of dolours to take thankfully a death so bloudy so tragical so pitifull To see her self at an instant bereaved of a son and a husband and of all things in the world offering up unto God in all her afflictions the obedience of her heart prayers of her lips and victims of all the parts of her body What triumph when after her death her brother-in-law who had participated of her good instructions in rememberance of her and her husband was absolutely converted to the Catholick faith and changing the whole face of the Kingdom repealed the banished restored the Bishops to their Sees Religion into force Laws into authority and the whole Province into peace What miracle to see sage Indegondis on the top of all her tropheys whereof she tendereth homage to God in the glory of Saints How ought we here to render to her the offerings of our most humble services Behold here the limits which I proposed to my self so to give an end at last to these Histories having thought it more fit and suitable to my employments to abbreviate my self in these four Models than unboundedly enlarge them yet it hath been somewhat difficult with me to make a resolution to put forth this second Volume among so many duties of our ordinary functions being thereunto sollicited by entreaties which held as it were the place of commands And I may well say I were stupid and ungratefull if I should not confess to have been much excited to prosecute this labour by the honourable invitations which my Lord Bishop of Bellay hath used towards me in his Works I cannot set too high a price upon his recommendation in such a subject For he is verily one of the most able and flourishing wits that ever handled a pen. To see the number of his books one might say he began to write so soon as to live and to consider their worth it is a wonder how so many graces and beauties which other attain not but with much labour encreased with him as in a soil natural for eloquence If there be any slight discourses who amuse themselves to argue upon some words of his writings it is not a matter unusual seeing we are now in an Age where there are some who revive the example of those corrupted Grecians that preferred a sauce made by the Cook Mithecus before the divine Works of Phidias If this piece have given you any contentment take the pains to read it over again sometimes at your leisure tasting the Maxims therein with an utilitie worthy of its subject For believe me the precipitation now adays used in slightly running over all sorts of books causeth a certain indigestion in the mind wherewith it is rather choaked than nourished Reading is never good if the understanding take not occasion thereby to negotiate by meditation and industrie that which concerneth the health and ornament thereof 1 TIM 1. To the King of Ages Immortal and Invisible to GOD alone be honour and glorie given for ever and evermore THE HOLY COURT MAXIMS OF CHRISTIANITIE AGAINST THE PROPHANE COVRT Divided into three Parts WHEREOF The I. Treateth of the Divinitie The II. Treateth of the Government of this life The III. Treateth of the State of the other World THE THIRD TOME Written in French by NICHOLAS CAUSSIN of the S. of JESUS and translated into English by Sr. T. H. DEUS EST NOBIS SOL ET SCUTUM LONDON Printed by William Bentley and are to be sold by JOHN WILLIAMS at the Crown in St. Pauls Church-yard 1650. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LADIE FRANCES Countess of PORTLAND and Baroness WESTON RIGHT HONOURABLE THe excellent endowments of your soul acknowledged even by envie and admired by truth together with your known propension to the reading of pious Books invites me to this Dedication as proper for your sweet retirements and consonant to my intentions which onely aim in some measure to express my humblest respects to your Honour The matters herein handled are Instructions apt to inform the mind by way of Maxims learned discourses made familiar to less able understandings and choise Histories exemplifying both that so all sorts of Readers though of different capacitie disproportionable judgement may find somewhat to entertain their curiositie My scope Excellent LADIE in this Translation is through your Honours hand and under so noble a Patronage to convey the third Part of the HOLY COURT into English light which as the first breathed air under the benign aspect of her sacred Majestie may also hope in this latter piece with like happiness to be crowned with your Honors chearful acceptation The height of my ambition is by this poor way to serve you since more ample demonstrations are wanting to my weak abilities as likewise not to doubt your noble disposition will be satisfied with such my humble acknowledgements The advancement of virtue and depression of vice is my Authour's scope throughout the whole Work which he elegantly pursues and victoriously atchieveth Triumphs of that kind best become his grave and serious pen whilest my task is faithfully in our language to imitate his living figures though in dead and discoloured forms and confidently to tell your Honour that I will ever be The most Obsequious Servant of Your Commands T. H. TO MONSIEUR MONSIEUR THE PRINCE SIR THe excellency of the subject I handle in these discourses makes me reflect on that of your Greatness to offer you a Work which being conceived by your authority must needs seek for
of the law and yield your souls up for the testament of your Ancestours Children will you not answer what the holy Machabees did by the lips of their elder brother Let us die in virtue for our brethren and not defile our glory by any crime which may be objected against us Let war be proclaimed against Libertines and blasphemers who will still persevere with deliberate malice in their impiety Let these infernal mouthes be stopped and condemned to an eternal silence Let the standard of the Cross be adored by all Nations and the enemies of Jesus dissolved as wax melted on the flames of burning coals as smoke scattered in the air Let a chast and sincere worship of God flourish every where and sacrifices of praise mount to Heaven to obtain benedictions on earth But you SIR who most near approch to the Kings person having given so many testimonies of your prudence your courage and fidelity seem to speak unto him with the same tongue which holdeth ears enchained by the charms of your eloquence and say what France pronounceth 7. GReat King for whom our Altars daily smoke An Apostrophe of France to the King in Sacrifices and for whom our lips cease not to send forth thanksgivings of prosperitie to Heaven The monsters are not all as yet vanquished Behold the last head of Hydra which God hath reserved to this triumphant sword which the Cross guideth valour animateth justice moderateth and the stars crown Needs must impietie be crushed under those feet which have already trampled on so many Dragons and be fettered with an hundred iron chains under the Altars we daily charge with our vows When Libra the constellation of your birth ariseth the Ram falleth It is not time O Monarch of flower-de-luces that appearing on the throne of justice with Ballance in hand all sparkling with the rays of glorie which environ you after so many battel 's concluded by your victories you humble the horns of this Ram of insolent impiety which dares so confidently oppose both by words and actions the Religion which crown you the spirit which possesseth you and the power which directeth you Alas Alas SIR To what purpose were it to have walked on the smoking ruins of so many rebellious Cities What would it avail to have thrown down in one Rochel so many surly rocks with the help of so great so faithfull and happy counsel and opening one gate there at your enterance to have shut up a thousand against factions and civil wars What contentment could your Majesty have by wiping away the sweats on the Alps you had gotten on the Ocean and to have gathered palms perpetually verdant for you as well in the frozen ice of winter as the scorching beats of summer if you must again behold at your return that Religion you so often defended trodden under the feet of impiety wounded by slanderous tongues outraged by blasphemies and contaminated by insolent spirits who know not God but to dishonour him It now at this time presenteth it self to you with sighs in the heart and tears in the eyes It sheweth unto you the robe which Clodovaeus Charlemaigne and S. Lewis your Predecessours gave you with so much splendour now torn in pieces with such violence it imploreth your assistance it expecteth your power it breaths an air much the more sweet in the confidence conceived of your zeal and courage I call to witness that great Angel which hath led you by the hand to so many conquests and triumphs making you dreadfull to your enemies helpfull to your Allies awfull to your subjects and amiable to all the world it is not here where he will limit your actions and fix the columns of your memorie We still hope quickly to see the day which shall drie up the tears of the poor shall ease their burdens shall sweeten their pains shall â—our oyl on their yokes And from whom should we expect all this but from a Prince so pious so benign We promise our selves to see a Clergie which shall speedily put it self into so good a way under your favour entirely purified from the dregs of simonie ignorance and the liberty of evil actions Who can give us this happiness but a King who hath under his heart a Temple for true piety We sigh for that great day that day which shall for ever wash away the stains of bloud impressed on the foreheads of French Nobilitie which shall dissipate disorders shall stop the current of so many dissolutions and what can assure us of it but the certainty of your Edicts We most earnestly desire to behold an absolute regularitie in justice and in all Officers that a golden Age may shine again which hath so often been varnished through the corruption of souls set at sale And who shall do it but a King that from his most innocent years so much hath cherished the title of Just that be for it contemned the name of a Conquerour which his valour presented him and of Most Sacred which the veneration of his virtues afforded him Impiety vanquished beareth the keys of all these hopes nor shall we have any thing more to fear or desire when that shall be throughly suppressed throughout all the parts of the Kingdom Dear delight of Heaven is it not for this God drew you the last year from the gates of a sepulcher and restored you to life to render us all to our selves Alas Great God what a stroke of thunder was the news of this maladie What a terrour to all Cities What astonishment in all Orders What a wound in the heart of the whole Kingdom Your poor France remembered the 27. day of September made sacred by your royal birth It considered this nativitie had done to your state what the infusion of the soul into a bodie and saw you almost taken hence at the same time that your Majestie entered It beheld all that greatness and those comforts readie to be shut up within your tomb The Queens drenched in their deep sorrow could not speak but by their tears and sobs Your good Officers dissolved in lamentations at the foot of your bed which was become at the Altars of grief All humane hopes were cut off by the violence of the maladie Nothing was expected but the fatal blow which all the world deplored and which no man could divert But who knoweth not SIR God permitted it to let us see your virtues by their bright reflection The lustre of beautifull paintings must be suffered a little to mortifie before we can judge of them We could not sufficiently know your Majestie in the bright splendours of fortune and such good success of arms Needs must we have a character from God of men afflicted and a mark of the Cross of Jesus to consummate so excellent qualities And what heart was not then seized with admiration when we saw a young King so great so flourishing so awfull to look death in the face with a confident eye to expect it with
in grace and enjoy in the other thy eternal joys in the bosom of Glorie So be it The fourteenth SECTION Of the time proper for spiritual reading BElieve me you shall do well at this time of the morning when your mind is freest from earthly thoughts to use some spiritual reading sometimes of the precepts sometimes of the lives of the Apostles and Saints calling to mind that saying of Isidore in his Book of Sentences He that will live in the exercise of God's presence must pray and read frequently When you pray you speak to God and when you read God speaks to you Good sermons and good books are the sinews of virtue Observe you not how colours as Philosophie teacheth have a certain light which in the night time is obscured and buried as it were in matter But as soon as the Sun riseth and diâ—playeth his beams on so many beauties that languished in darkness he awakes them and makes them appear in their true lustre So may we truly say that we have all some seeds of knowledge which would be quite choaked as it were with the vapours arising â—rom our passions did not the wisdom of God which speaketh in the holy Scripture and in good spiritual books stir them up and give them light and vigour to enflame the course of our actions to virtue Always before you take a book in hand invoke the Father of light to direct your reading Read little if you have but little leisure but with attention and make a pause at some sentence which all that day may come into your memory You will find that good books teach nothing but truth command nothing but virtue and promise nothing but happiness The fifteenth SECTION An Abstract of the doctrine of Jesus Christ to be used at the Communion JOhn 14. 6. I am the way the truth and the life no man cometh to the Father but by me Mark 1. 15. The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand Repent ye and believe the Gospel Matth. 11. 28. Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest 29. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls 30. For my yoke is easie and my burden is light Matth. 7. 12. All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them for this is the Law and the Prophets John 15. 12. This is my commandment that ye love one another as I have loved you 13. Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friend 14. Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you Matth. 5. 44. Love your enemies bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you 45. That you may be the children of your Father which is in Heaven For he maketh his Sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust Luke 5. 35. Be ye mercifull as your Father also is mercifull 23. Judge not and ye shall not be judged condemn not and ye shall not be condemned forgive and it shall be forgiven 30. Give and it shall be given unto you Luke 12. 15. Take heed and beware of covetousness for a mans life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth Matth. 7. 13. Enter ye in at the strait-gate for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be which go in thereat 14. Because strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find it Matth. 10. 38. He that taketh not his Cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me John 16. 33. In the world ye shall have tribulation but be of good cheer I have overcome the world Matth. 28. 20. Lo I am with you alway even unto the end of the world Matth. 26. 41. Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation the spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak Luke 12. 36. Let your loyns be girded about and your lights burning 37. And ye your selves like unto men that wait for the Lord when he will return from the wedding that when he cometh and knocketh they may open unto him immediately Luke 21. 34. Take heed to your selves lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfetting and drunkenness and cares of this life John 5. 28. The hour is coming in the which all that are in the grave shall hear his voice 29. And shall come forth they that have done good unto the resurrection of life and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation The sixteenth SECTION What is to be done at the Celebration of the Sacrament AT the Celebration of the Sacrament you shall endeavour to stir up in your self a great reverence of this incomparable Majestie who cometh to fill the Sacrifice with his presence and say O God dispose me to offer unto Thee the merits of the life and passion of thy well-beloved Son At this present I offer up to thee in the union thereof my understanding my will my memorie my thoughts my words my works my sufferings and consolations my good my life all that I have and all that I can ever pretend unto Afterwards at the Preface when the Priest inviteth all to lift up their hearts to God or when the Angelical Hymn called by the Ancients Trisagion is pronounced may be said as followeth being taken out of the Liturgies of S. James and S. Chrysostom TO thee the Creatour of all things visible and invisible To thee the Treasure of eternal blessings To thee the Fountain of life and immortalitie To thee the absolute Lord of the whole world be given as is due all praise honour and worship Let the Sun Moon and Quires of Stars the Air Earth Sea and all that is in the Celestial Elementarie world bless thee Let thy Jerusalem thy Church from the first-born thereof alreadie enrolled in Heaven glorifie thee Let the elect souls of Apostles Martyrs and Prophets Let Angels Arch-Angels Thrones Dominations Principalities Powers and Virutes Let the dreadfull Cherubims and Seraphins perpetually sing the Hymn of thy triumphs Holy holy holy Lord God of hosts Heaven and Earth are full of thy glorie Save us O thou that dwellest in Heaven the palace of thy Majestie O Lord Jesus thou art the everlasting Son of the Father When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man thou clothedst thy self with flesh in the Virgins womb When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death thou didst open unto us the Kingdom of Heaven Thou sittest at the right hand of God in the glory of the Father and shalt judge both the quick and the dead O Lord help thy servants whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious bloud
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
Come O my adored Master walk upon this tempestuous Sea of my heart ascend into this poor vessel say unto me Take courage It is I. Be not conceited that I will take thee for an illusion for I know thee too well by thy powers and bounties to be so mistaken The least thought of my heart will quiet it self to adore thy steps Thou shalt reign within me thou shalt disperse my cares thou shalt recover my decayed senses thou shalt lighten my understanding thou shalt inflame my will thou shalt cure all my infirmities And to conclude thou onely shalt work in me and I will be wholly thine The Gospel for the first Sunday in Lent S. Matthew 4. Of our SAVIOUR's being tempted in the Desart THen Jesus was led of the Spirit into the Desart to be tempted of the Devil and when he had fasted fourty days and fourty nights afterward he was hungry And the Tempter approched and said to him If thou be the Son of God command that these stones he made bread Who answered and said It is written not in bread alone doth man live but in every world that proceedeth from the mouth of God Then the Devil took him up into the holy Citie and set him upon the pinacle of the Temple and said to him If thou be the Son of God cast thy self down for it is written That he will give his Angels charge of thee and in their hands shall they hold thee up lest perhaps thou knock thy foot against a stone Jesus said to him again It is written thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God Again the Devil took him up into a very high mountain and he shewed him all the Kingdoms of the world and the glory of them and said to him all these will I give thee if falling down thou wilt adore me Then Jesus saith to him Avant Satan for it is written the Lord thy God shalt thou adore and him onely shalt thou serve Then the Devil left him and behold Angels came and ministered to him Moralities 1. JESUS suffered himself to be tempted saith Saint Augustine to the end he might serve for a Mediatour for an example and for a remedy to work our victory over all temptations We must fight on his side Our life is a continual warfare and our days are Champions which enter into the lists There is no greater temptation than to have none at all Sleeping water doth nourish poison Motion is the worlds soul fighting against temptations is the soul of virtues and glory doth spring and bud out of tribulations Virtue hinders not temptation but surmounts it Jesuâ— fasted saith the ordinary gloss that he might be tempted and is tempted because he did fast He fasted fourty days and then was hungry he did eat with his Disciples the space of fourty days after his resurrection without any more necessity of meat than the Sun hath of the earths vapours to make us thereby know that it onely appertained to him to teach that great secret how to mannage want and abundance by which S. Paul was glorified 2. The first victory over a Temptation is to know that which tempts us Some temptations are gay and smiling at their beginning as those of love and pleasure which end in terrible and bitter storms Others are troublesom and irksom Others doubtfull and intricate Others rapide and sudden which seize upon their prey like an Eagle Others are close and catching These are the snares of Satan who fomes like a Bore roars like a Lion and hisseth like a Serpent We should always have an eye ready to mark from whence the Temptation comes whither it tends what is the root of it what the course what the progress and what power it may have over our spirit 3. Solitude of heart fasting prayer the word of God are weapons of an excellent temper which the Word Incarnate teacheth us to use in this conflict These things are to be used with discretion by the counsel of a good directour to whom a man must declare all his most secret thoughts and bear a breast of chrystal toward him with a firm purpose to let him see all the inward motions of his heart It is also good to note here that our Lord would expresly be tempted in that Desarr which is between Jerusalem and Jericho where the Samaritane mentioned in the Parable did pour wine and oyl into the sores of the poor wounded man to teach us that by his combat he came to cure the wounds of Adam and all his race in the very place where they were received 4. Sin is killed by flying the occasions of it Absence resistance coldness silence labour diversion have overcome many assaults of the enemy Sometimes a Spiders web is strong enough to preserve chastity and at other times the thick walls of Semiramis are not sufficient God governs all and a good will to concur with him is a strong assurance in all perils and it will keep us untoucht amidst the flames of lust 5. Since it imports us so much to fight valiantly let us bring the hearts of Lions Where is our Christianity if we do not give testimony of it to God both by our fidelity and courage How many Martyrs have been rosted and broiled because they would not speak one ill word What honour can you expect by yielding at the first enterance to a temptation Look not upon the violence of it but contemplate the Crown which you should gain by conquering it think at your enterance how you will come off and know for certain that he who truly considers the consequence of a wicked action will never begin it 6. Lent is the Spring-time for sanctified resolutions it mortifies the body that the spirit may triumph it is a time of grace which tends to salvation and mercy It imports extreamly to commend all to God at the beginning to sanctifie this fasting which is part of our devotion we must abstain from flesh and be content with one meal at seasonable hours without making over large collations except age infirmity or weakness labour or necessity of other functions shall dispence with our diet for those who are unable to fast suffer more by their disability than others do by fasting It is good to follow the counsel of Athanasius who adviseth to eat late and little and at a table where there is but one sort of meat We must also fast by abstinence from vice For to weaken our body and yet nourish our naughty passions is to fast as the devils do who eat nothing and yet devour the world by the rage of their malice Sobriety is a stream which waters all virtues Our soul and body are as the scales of a ballance if you pull down the one you raise up the other and if you tame your flesh it makes the Spirit reign and govern Aspirations O Most mercifull Lord Father and Protectour of all my life how great are the temptations and snares whereunto I am subject when
find the like to whom wouldst thou have me go but to thy self who doest not yet cease to call me The Gospel upon the third Sunday in Lent S. Luke 11. Jesus cast out the Devil which was dumb ANd he was casting out a devil and that was dumb And when he had cast out the devil the dumb spake and the multitudes marvelled And certain of them said in Belzebub the Prince of Devils he casteth out Devils And others tempting asked him a sign from Heaven But he seeing their cogitations said to them Every Kingdom divided against it self shall be made desolate and house upon house shall fall And if Satan also be divided against himself how shall his Kingdom stand because you say that in Belzebub I do cast out Devils And if I in Belzebub cast out Devils your children in whom do they cast out Therefore they shall be your judges But if I in the finger of God do cast out Devils surely the Kingdom of God is come upon you When the strong armed keepeth his court those things are in peace that he possesseth but if a stronger than he come upon him and overcome him he will take away his whole armour wherein he trusted and will distribute his spoils He that is not with me is against me and he that gathereth not with me scattereth When the unclean spirit shall depart out of a man he wandreth through places without water seeking rest and not finding he saith I will return into my house whence I departed And when he is come he findeth it swept with a besom and trimmed Then he goeth and taketh seven other spirits worse than himself and entering in they dwell there And the last of that man be made worse than the first And it came to pass when he said these things a certain woman lifting up her voice out of the multitude said to him Blessed is the womb that bare thee and the paps that thou didst suck But he said Yea rather blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it Moralities 1. THe Almond-tree is the first which begins to flourish and it is often first nipt with frost The tongue is the first thing which moves in a mans body and is soonest caught with the snares of Satan That man deserves to be speechless all his life who never speaks a word better than silence 2. Jesus the eternal word of God came upon earth to reform the words of man his life was a lightening and his word a thunder which was powerfull in effect but always measured within his bounds He did fight against ill tongues in his life and conquered them all in his death The gall and vinegar which he took to expiate the sins of this unhappy tongue do shew how great the evil was since it did need so sharp a remedy He hath cured by suffering his dolours what it deserved by our committing sins Other vices are determined by one act the tongue goes to all it is a servant to all malitious actions and is generally confederate with the heart in all crimes 3. We have just so much Religion as we have government of our tongues A little thing serves to tame wild beasts and a small stern will serve to govern a ship Why then cannot a man rule so small a part of his body It is not sufficient to avoid lying perjuries quarrels injuries slanders and blasphemies such as the Scribes and Pharisees did vomit out in this Gospel against the purity of the Son of God We must also repress idle talk and other frivolous and unprofitable discourses There are some persons who have their hearts so loose that they cannot keep them within their brests but they will quickly swim upon their lips without thinking what they say and so make a shift to wound their souls 4. Imitate a holy Father called Sisus who prayed God thirty years together every day to deliver him from his tongue as from a capital enemy You shall never be very chaste of your body except you do very well bridle your tongue For loosness of the flesh proceeds sometimes from liberty of the tongue Remember your self that your heart should go like a clock with all the just and equal motions of his springs and that your tongue is the finger which shews how all the hours of the day pass When the heart goes of one side and the tongue of another it is a sure desolation of your spirits Kingdom If Jesus set it once at peace and quiet you must be very carefull to keep it so and be very fearfull of relapses For the multiplying of long continued sins brings at last hell it self upon a mans shoulders Aspirations O Word incarnate to whom all just tongues speak and after whom all hearts do thirst and languish chase from us all prating devils and also those which are dumb the first provoke and loose the tongue to speak wickedly and the other bind it when it should confess the truth O peace-making Solomon appease the divisions of my heart and unite all my powers to the love of thy service Destroy in me all the marks of Satans Empire and plant there thy Trophees and Standards that my spirit be never like those devils which seek for rest but shall never find it Make me preserve inviolable the house of my conscience which thou hast cleansed by repentance and clothed with thy graces that I may have perseverance to the end without relapses and so obtain happiness without more need of repentance The Gospel upon Munday the third week in Lent S. Luke 4. Jesus is required to do Miracles in his own Countrey ANd he said to them Certes you will say to me this similitude Physitian cure thy self as great things as we have heard done in Capharnaum do also here in thy Countrey And he said Amen I say to you that no Prophet is accepted in his own Country In truth I say to you there were many widows in the dayes of Elias in Israel when the heaven was shut three years and six moneths when there was a great famine made in the whole earth and to none of them was Elias sent but into Sarepta of Sidon to a widow woman And there were many Lepars in Israel under Elizeus the Prophet and none of them made clean but Naaman the Syrian And all in the Synagogue were filled with anger hearing these things And they rose and cast him out of the Citie and they brought him to the edge of the hill whereupon their Citie was built that they might throw him down headlong But he passing through the midst of them went his way Moralities 1. THe malignity of mans nature undervalueth all that which it hath in hand little esteems many necessary things because they are common The Sun is not counted rare because it shines every day and the elements are held contemptible since they are common to the poor as well as the rich Jesus was despised in his own Countrey because he
was there known to all the world and the disdain of that ungratefull Nation closed the hands of his great bounty Is it not a great unhappiness to be weary and tyred with often communicating to be wicked because God is good and to shut up our selves close when he would impart himself to us Men make little account of great benefits and spiritual helps for that they have them present They must lose those favours to know them well and seek outragiously without effect what they have kickt away with contempt because it was easily possest 2. The choices and elections of God are not to be comprehended within our thoughts but they should be adored by our hearts He is Master of his own favours and doth what he will in the Kingdoms of Nature Grace and Glory He makes vessels of Potters earth of gold and silver He makes Holy-dayes and working-dayes saith the Wiseman his liberalites are as free to him as his thoughts We must not examine the reason why he doth elevate some and abase others Our eye must not be wicked because his heart is good Let us content our selves that he loves the humble and to know that the lowest place of all is most secure No man is made reprobate without justice no man is saved without mercy God creates men to repair in many that which he hath made and also to punish in the persons of many that which he hath not made 3. Jesus doth not cure his brethren and yet cures strangers to shew that his powers are not tied to any nation but his own will So likewise the graces of God are not to be measured according to the nature of him who receives them but by the pure bounty of him who gives them The humility of some doth call him when the presumption of others doth estrange him The weak grounds of a dying law did no good to the Jews who disdained the grace of Jesus Christ And that disdain deprived them of their adoption of the glory of the New Testament of all the promises and of all Magistracy They lost all because they would keep their own wills Let us learn by the grace of God to desire earnestly that good which we would obtain effectually Persons distasted and surfetted cannot advance much in a spiritual life And he that seeks after perfection coldly shall never find it Aspirations THy beauties most sweet Jesus are without stain thy goodness without reproch and thy conversation without importunity God forbid I should be of the number of those souls which are distasted with Monna and languish after the onions of Egypt The more I taste thee the more I incline to do thee honour Familiarity with an infinite thing begets no contempt but onely from those whom thou doest despise for their own faults O what high secrets are thy favours O what Abysses are thy graces We may wish and run But except thou cooperate nothing is done If thou cease to work all is undone I put all my happiness into thy hands It is thou alone which knowest how to chuse what we most need by thy Sovereign wisdom and thou givest it by thy extream bounty The Gospel upon Tuesday the third week in Lent S. Matth. 18. If thy brother offend thee tell him of it alone BUt if thy brother shall offend against thee go and rebuke him between thee and him alone if he shall hear thee thou shalt gain thy brother and if he will not hear thee joyn with thee besides one or two that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand And if he will not hear them tell the Church and if he will not hear the Church let him be to thee as the Heathen and the Publican Amen I say to you whatsoever ye shall bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven and whatsoever ye shall loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven Again I say to you that if two of you shall consent upon earth concerning every thing whatsoever they ask it shall be done to them of my Father which is in heaven for where there be two or three gathered in my name there am I in the midst of them Then came Peter unto him and said Lord how often shall my brother offend against me and I forgive him until seven times Jesus said to him I say not to thee until seven times but until seventy times seven times Moralities 1. THe heavens are happy that they go always in one measure and in so great a revolution of ages do not make one false step but man is naturally subject to fail He is full of imperfections and if he have any virtues he carries them like dust against the wind or snow against the sun This is the reason which teaches him that he needs good advice 2. It is somewhat hard to give right correction but much harder to receive it profitably Some are so very fair spoken that they praise all which they see and because they will find nothing amiss they are ordinarily good to no body They shew to those whom they flatter their virtues in great and their faults in little they will say to those who are plunged in great disorders they have no other fault but that they are not sufficiently carefull of their own health Others do correct with such sharpness and violence that they wound their own hearts to cure other mens and seem to have a greater mind to please their own passions than to amend those whom they would instruct Correction should be accompanied with sweetness but it must carry withall a little vigour to make a right temper and to keep a mean between softness and austerity Jesus in the Prophet Isaiah is called both a rod and a flower to shew us according to Origen that he carries severity mingled with sweetness to use either of them according to the diversity of persons 3. It is not a very easie thing to receive brotherly correction patiently we are so far in love with being well thought of And after we have lost the tree of life which is virtue it self we would keep the bark of it which is onely reputation All shadows proceed from those bodies upon which somewhat shines honour is the child of a known virtue and many when they cannot get one lawfull are willing to have a Bastard This is the cause why so many resemble those serpents which requite them with poison who sing to them pleasant songs Whatsoever is spoken to instruct them makes them passionate and dart out angry speeches against those who speak to them mild and gentle words of truth and tending to their salvation Rest assured you can never get perfection except you count it a glorie to learn and discover your own imperfections 4. There is nothing of more force than the prayers of just men which are animated by the same spirit and cimented together with perfect concord They are most powerfull both in heaven and earth When they desire what
in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms of me Then he opened their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures And he said to them That so it is written and so it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise again from the dead the third day and penance to be preached in his Name and remission of sins unto all Nations Moralities 1. WE think sometimes that Jesus is far from us when he is in the midst of our heart he watches over us and stretches out his divine hands for our protection Let us live always as if we were actually in his presence before his eyes and in his bosom An ancient Tradition doth observe that after our Lords Ascension the Apostles did never eat together but they left the first napkin for their good Master conceiving that according to his promise he was always with them Let us accustom our selves to this exercise of Gods presence It is a happy necessity to make us do well to believe and apprehend that our Judge is always present If respect make him formidable love will teach us that he is the Father of all sweetness There can be no greater comfort in this world than to be present in heart and body with that which we love beast 2. Jesus is taken by his Apostles for a Spirit because after the Resurrection he pierced the walls and appeared suddenly as Spirits do S. Paul also saith in the second to the Corinthians that now we do no more know Christ according to the flesh that is to say by the passions of a mortal body as S. Epiphanius doth expound it We must make little use of our bodies to converse with our Jesus who hath taken upon him the rare qualities of a Spirit We must raise our selves above our senses when we go to the Father of light and the Creatour of sense He teaches us the life of Spirits and the commerce of Angels and makes assayes of our immortality by a body now immortal Why are we so tied to our sense and glued to the earth Must we suffer our selves to enter into a kingdom of death when we are told of the resurrection of him who is the Authour of all lives 3. Admire the condescending and bounties of our Lord to his dear Disciples He that was entered into the kingdom of spirits and immortal conversation suffers his feet and hands to be touched to prove in him the reality of a true body He eats in presence of his Apostles though he was not in more estate to digest meat than the Sun is to digest vapours He did no more nourish himself with our corruptible meats than the Stars do by the vapours of the earth And yet he took them to confirm our belief and to make us familiar with him It is the act of great and generous spirits to abase themselves and condescend to their inferiours So David being anointed King and inspired as a Prophet doth not shew his person terrible in the height of his great glory but still retained the mildness of a shepheard So Jesus the true Son of David by his condescending to us hath consecrated a certain degree whereby we may ascend to Heaven Are not we ashamed that we have so little humility or respect to our inferiours but are always so full of our selves since our Lord sitting in his Throne of glory and majesty doth yet abase himself to the actions of our mortal life Let it be seen by our hands whether we be resuscitated by doing good works and giving liberal alms Let it appear by our feet that they follow the paths of the most holy persons Let it be seen by our nourishment which should be most of honey that is of that celestial sweetness which is extracted from prayer And if we seem to refuse fish let us at least remain in the element of piety as fish is in water Aspirations THy love is most tender and thy cares most generous O mild Saviour Amongst all the torrents of thy Passion thou hast not tasted the waters of forgetfulness Thou returnest to thy children as a Nightingale to her little nest Thou dost comfort them with thy visits and makest them familiar with thy glorious life Thou eatest of a honey-comb by just right having first tasted the bitter gall of that unmercifull Cross It is thus that our sorrows should be turned into sweets Thou must always be most welcome to me in my troubles for I know well that thou onely canst pacifie and give them remedy I will govern my self toward thee as to the fire too much near familiarity will burn us and the want of it will let us freeze I will eat honey with thee in the blessed Sacrament I know that many there do chew but few receive thee worthily Make me O Lord I beseech thee capable of those which here on earth shall be the true Antepasts to our future glory The Gospel upon Low-Sunday S. John the 20. THerefore when it was late that day the first of the Sabbaths and the doors were shut where the Disciples were gathered together for fear of the Jews Jesus came and stood in the midst and saith to them Peace be to you And when he had said this he shewed them his hands and side The Disciples therefore were glad when they saw our Lord. He said therefore to them again Peace be to you As my Father hath sent me I also do send you When he had said this he breathed upon them and he said to them Receive ye the Holy Ghost Whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them and whose you shall retain they are retained But Thomas one of the twelve who is called Didymus was not with them when Jesus came the other Disciples therefore said to him We have seen our Lord. But he said to them Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails and put my finger into the place of the nails and put my hand into his side I will not believe And after eight days again his Disciples were within and Thomas with them Jesus cometh the doors being shut and stood in the midst and said Peace be to you Then he saith to Thomas Put in thy finger hither and see my hands and bring hither thy hand and put it into my side and be not incredulous but faithfull Thomas answered and said to him My Lord and my God Jesus saith to him Because thou hast seen me Thomas thou hast believed Blessed are they that have not seen and have believed Moralities 1. JEsus the Father of all blessed harmonies after so many combats makes a general peace in all nature He pacifieth Limbo taking the holy Fathers out of darkness to enjoy an eternal light and sending the damned to the bottom of hell He pacifieth the earth making it from thenceforth to breathe the air of his mercies He pacifieth his Apostles by delivering them from that profound sadness which they conceived by the imaginary loss of their dear Master
and that which is exacted to husband it for their benefit to employ the customes with the greatest fidelity as the bloud of men redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ This is to take order for the Education of Youth to honour the Church and persons of desert to Authorize good Magistrates to have a particular care of acknowledging the good services of men at Arms which do sacrifice themselves in a thousand occasions for the Common-weal It is to have great compassion on the poor especially Widows and Orphans to hear willingly the Petitions of those that are afflicted and oppressed to take thought for all watch for all to do that in his Realm that the soul infused doth in the Body It is too much power to say that which Nero said by Royalty a mervellous profession the tongue of Seneca Among so many mortals I am the onely one chosen in heaven to performe the office of God upon earth I am the Arbitratour both of life and death I am the distributer of fortunes the favours that come from above are not bestowed but by my mouth I cause the rejoycings of cities and countreys nothing flourisheth but by my favour If I speak but a word I make a million of swords to come forth of the scabberd and if I command I cause them to be put up again It is I that give and take away liberty which make and unmake Kings which remove nations which lay waste rebellious towns which hold the happinesse or unhappinesse of men in mine hands What other thing is this that he vaunts and so proudly boasts himself of but onely to confesse himself responsible to God for so great an account whereof this miserable Emperour acquitted himself so ill that having lived like a beast he dyed like a mad-man There is no man worthy to reign but he that can tremble at the very shadow of Royalty Great Princes are not made by the suffrages of men Great Princes the workmanship of God alone but by the finger of God they are born in Heaven by the Divine Decrees before they appear upon earth by humane birth To speak the truth there are wonderfull qualities required to make a well-accomplished King and this is a thing more hard to Very rare find then the Phenix nest When the children of Israel had this conceit that Moses was lost they repair to his brother Aaron and intreat him to make them a God to sit in the place of their Conductour as if they meant to say after Moses no lesse will serve them then a Deity Neverthelesse God hath never suffered that there should be a perfect Monarch in the World in whom nothing hath been wanting for there would have been a hazard lest he should have been taken for a God and thereby have caused a perpetuall Idolatry The Heathens have made Gods of some Emperours vicious enough what would they not have made of perfect ones seeing that men naturally do bear a certain reverence towards virtue Look a little narrowly into the life of the greatest Monarchs of the World as of David Cyrus Alexander Julius Cesar Augustus Constantine Charlemagne and you shall find that all those beauties which have so dazled the eyes of the World have had their spots and the most part of the rest have inherited a Renown but little commendable that is To be none of the worst amongst many bad ones Whatsoever excellency the most famous of them had proceeded from the especiall gift of God and whatsoever meannesse was in them proceeded from themselves who alwayes mingled somewhat of Man with the work of the great Work-master Neverthelesse good Instructions are very usefull for Princes to rouse up and make active the endowments they have from above yet it is not in those Panegyricks so well composed that they learn their duty for there they may sooner learn to forget it when being puft up by those flatteries they think themselves to be in deed that which they are there but in flourish It is not my intent here to discourse at large how Princes ought to govern themselves but to contract in a few words that which is necessary for their direction and I am perswaded that the Scripture Saint Lewis in his Testament and Lewis the eleventh in that Treatise which he composed himself for the instruction of the King his sonne have said hereto sufficient and that the rules of reigning well cannot be drawn better from any then those that have been of the same profession The perfection of a Prince may be comprehended within these five Qualities Piety Wisdome Justice Goodnesse and Valour Piety fits him for God Wisdome for himself Justice for the Law Valour for Arms and Goodnesse for the whole World Piety or to speak more properly with Saint Thomas Religion is a virtue that appropriates Man to God and makes him to render that honour that is due to him as first Originall and chief Lord of the whole frame of Nature Synesius in that excellent Treatise that he made for the Emperour Arcadius concerning goverment sayes That this is the foundation on the which all firmnesse subsists This is that spirit of life which Kings do breathe from heaven which fills their understanding with enlightning their heart with Divine love and confidence their Palace with holinesse and their Kingdome with a Blessing It belongs to a King above all to be Pious and Devout towards God even by the Title of Royalty it self Who should honour that highest Majesty more then his Vicegerent here on Earth Who should represent his virtues more then his image here below Who should render greatest thanks for his favours more then he that receives them in the mostabundance besides the obligement that binds the Prince unto this virtue he finds the chiefest interest there Prosperity for the most part is found on their side which honour the Deity saith Titus Livius in his History And Aristotle who proceeds by way of Policy onely counsels a Monarch to be exceedingly religious for that thereby he will be more beloved and reverenced by his subjects which expect lesse evil and more good from a Prince which is joyned to God by Religion This also procures him an assurance in his affairs and makes his prosperity the sweeter and adversities the lesse afflicting God who is the Master and Teacher of Princes doth so strictly recommend this virtue to those Kings that were made more especially by his own election that he commands them to receive from the Priests a copy of the Law of God or else to transcribe it with their own hand to carry it alwayes with them and to reade it all the dayes of their life to learn thereby to fear the highest King and to keep his instructions Now the Piety of a Prince ought not to be ordinary but it ought to excell in three things chiefly in an inward sence of the Deity in his worship and zealous affection An Antient said That he which believes the Gods
great spectacle of the Creatures thereby to ascend to the Creatour is not unprofitable for a good understanding that which teaches to reason and discourse is good for every occasion but the Morall Politicall and History make up the best part of a Kings Library and if hee make a little digression into Musick and Painting it cannot but be commendable Promote that knowledge that puffs not up vain spirits but that rather which humbles the solid ones for by learning that which we know not we understand our Ignorance and know by experience that one might make a great Library of that which is beyond the knowledge of the most learned in the World There are none but those that know little and which know ill who take upon them to have a sufficiency of knowledge they crackle like little Rivulets whereas the greater Rivers run quietly That Prince which by reason that he hath studied will carry all his counsell in his own head shews that he hath little profited by his study for in this mortall life a man is so far wise as he seeks still to become so but after that he thinks that he hath atteined it and hath no more need of others help then he begins to be out of the way The use of wisedome is to become wise as that of the eye is to see The wisedome of a King may be seen by a reasonable tincture of Learning by the knowledge that he hath of himself and the frail flourishing of all humane things by the discreetnesse of his words by his modesty in prosperity by his constancy in adversity It will shew it self by a Greatnesse without Affectation a Majesty without Pride an Humimity without Contempt a Comelinesse without Striving where every thing declares a King without any shew of making him seem so it will shew it self by its Temperance by the moderating of his passions and by Prudence in the government of his life and estate This is to have deeply studied to be able to overcome his Anger to disarm Revenge to moderate a Victory to overcome Concupiscence to regulate his Affection to keep under Ambition to restrain his Tongue to over-rule his Delights to asswage his Discontents to live like a Saint and speak like an Oracle This is exceedingly to have profited in wisedome to be able to proceed in all affairs according to the laws of true prudence But the false maketh that its principall which is but the accessary it takes Greatnesse and Pleasures for the chief ayme of a Kings life it consults little it judgeth ill it decreeth nothing But the true Prudence can look unto the end can take a right mark in all businesses it doth all things with advice it brings Judgement without Passion in all occurrences and gives an effectuall order for the performance of all that which hath been wisely concluded the remembrance of that past the understanding of the present and foreseeing of that to come makes up its whole perfection a quick apprehension prepares an accutenesse works it good advice orders foreseeing confirms and performance crowns it It is by these steps that a Prince ascends to the Throne of wisdome which is an unestimable Gift and the true favour of the Deity Saint Lewis whose life might have been the school of the ablest Philosophers although he bore in his mind the best maximes of Empires yet ceased not to reade good Books and as he had seen in the time of his imprisonment in the East that a Sarazen Prince had a Library of the Books of his Law he caused the like to be made at his return in his Palace where he spent many hours and would converse freely with men of learning and desert Demetrius Phalereus advised Kings to instruct themselves often by reading for that there one may learn of the dead which they cannot know by the living The next to Wisedome followeth Justice which performs in a manner the chief duty that is required of a Prince and Royalty seems to be nothing else but an excellent science of Justice as Justice is taken for that habit of virtue by which we render to every one the right that belongs to him Tertullian said That Goodnesse had created the World but that Justice had made the Concords thereof This wise mother of Harmonies ceaseth not to open an ear to the dissents that are made in the World to correct the disagreeing Voices by its own love and to bring all to its own end Ambition inventeth extravagant sounds Covetousnesse sends forth enraged cries tyranny makes an infernall Musick but Justice corrects all these excesses and if it meet with valiant and incorrupt souls to serve it as an instrument it sends forth incomparable Melodies which delight the ears of God and rejoyce the whole fabrick of Nature There are two great Virtues which make all the equalities of mans life Truth equals the understanding to all the objects and Justice the hearts to that which is right Lying and Injustice make every where great inequalities which fill Kingdomes with Disorder Consciences with Crimes and the World with Confusion But Truth and Justice render light to dark things strength to feeble certainty to doubtfull and order to the confused We naturally take a delight to behold the fair bow in heaven which compasseth the air with a crown of glory but Alcuin the School-master of Charlemagne writes That that which makes it the more admired is for that amongst its other beauties it carrieth the ensigns of Justice It shews the fire and the water in its red and blew colours to instruct us that Justice holds the fire in its power to consume the wicked and the water to bring refreshment to those scorching heats of calamities that trouble the miserable Justice is Gods profession and an Antient said that his continuall exercise was to weigh the hearts and the works of men and to distribute rewards and ordain chastisements according to the good and ill deserving of every one in particular The Scripture saith that he is glorious and magnificent but that these magnificences are chiefly seen upon the mountains of wounds and robberies when he beats down with an invincible arm the great ones of the earth loaden with the spoils of iniquitie The Hebrews said that Good took such delight in Justice that he had bestowed even the Saphires of his own Throne to engrave the Law thereon The Saviour of the world is named the Just by the holy Ghost in the writings of his Apostles not in dissimulation but by his Essence All the great Imitatours of God have honoured this quality and have held it in the number of their dearest delights Job maketh it his crown and his garment David his virtue Solomon his wisdome Josias his love Augustus his exercise and Trajan his honour The memory of so many Conflicts Sieges Battels Conquests Triumphs whereby the life of this great Emperour was so famous are found but in the record of a few lines but that which remaineth engraven
labours very advisedly to reconcile the son to His reconciliation by the means of Joab the father by the mediation of a very discreet woman of Tecoah which came with a counterfeit pretence and complained to the King that she being mother of two sons the one in a hot quarrel had slain his brother and that they would constrain her to deliver up the other to justice that processe might be maid against him to the end to extinguish all her race And therefore she entreated his Majesty to be gracious to save her son that remained and not wholly to deprive her of all comfort in the world The which David having agreed to she declared to him that he ought to practice the same towards his own son which he would have done for one of his subjects that we were all mortall and that we passe away here below as the current of a stream that we should imitate the goodnesse of God which loves our souls and would not that they should perish As this woman spoke with so much discretion David was in doubt that Joab had instructed her and made her under-hand to act this fine play the which she affirmed and so much gained the heart of David that he gave full permission to Joab to fetch back the banished to his house although it was for the space of two years without seeing him Absolon grew so melancholick by his being so far from the court without seeing the king his father that having oftentimes sent to Joab to put an end to his businesse seeing that he would not come to him for friendship he caused his corn to be set on fire to make him come for anger for the which he excused himself and entreated him to ask of David in his behalf either that he might dye or that he might have leave to see him This good father could no longer dissemble the movings Absolons revolt of nature but having sent for him he embraced him and gave the kisse of peace and re-establishes him in the court The spirit of this Prince was lofty tempestuous movable which could not contain it self any longer within the bounds of obedience For the space of the five years of his removall from the court he had leisure enough to bite the bridle and as it is credible he had projected already the design of reigning his ambition seemed to him sufficiently well founded Amnon his eldest brother was dead Celeab the son of Abigail the second of his brethren made no great noise he saw himself underpropt on his mothers side by the King of Gesher his grand-father This was a Prince well made upright pleasing courteous liberall secret courageous and capable of great undertakeings He saw his father upon the declining of his age who had lost very much of that vigour testified so many times in his battels Adonija was too much a fondling and Solomon yet a childe and not able to His designs oppose him He conceived that the Empire could not slipp out of his hands And indeed there was great hopes for him if he had had so much patience to stay for it as desire to command He made too soon to appear what was in his mind causing himself to be encompassed when he marched forth with souldiers and a guard which was a sign of Royalty Further also he ceased not to gain the hearts and secretly to get the good will of all his fathers subjects He was up betimes in the morning and set himself at the entrance of the Palace to take His ambition notice of all those that had any businesse to propound to the King One never saw Prince more prodigall in courtesies he call'd them to him he embraced them he kissed them he enquired of their countrey of their condition of their suit and of that their negotiation He did justice to all the world and said that there was no other mishap but that the King was old and tyred with businesses and had not a man to hear the complaints of his subjects and to render them justice and that if one day he had the charge which his birth deserved he would give full satisfaction to every one By this meanes he made himself conquerour of hearts and traced out great intelligence throughout the Provinces guiding himself by the counsels of Achitophel who was the most refined spirit the best dissembler and most pernicious that was in the whole Kingdome David did not sufficiently watch over the actions of his sonne and the secret workings of this evil Counsellour the evil increased and their party was already framed Absolon asketh leave of the King his father to go to Hebron under pretence of performing a vow but with an intent to proclaim himself King That which he desired was granted to him he marches under this coverture with a train and splendour carrying many people with him and Sacrifices to offer He gives order in the mean while to all his confederates that at the first sound of the Trumpet they should march forth into the field to go to meet him and to bring him all the Troops that they could gather together All this was readily performed and without further Absolon caused himself to be proclaimed King dissimulation he declared himself and caused himself to be crowned in Hebron the news came quickly to David which brought him word that his son Absolon was revolted against him and had got possession of Hebron and that all the forces of the Kingdome run to him Here one may see a great example of the judgement A great example of the weaknesse of mans spirit when it is left by God of God of the weaknesse of a man left to himself as also the beams of an high and profound humility To speak according to man all that David did in this encounter of affairs was low and feeble He might have taken the field with the Regiments which he had which amounted at least to six or seven thousand men and have unwoven this web of conspiracy at its springing forth And if he had not perceived himself strong enough he had sufficient means to maintein himself in Jerusalem to entrench and fortifie himself there and to tyre out those spirits of his Rebels He might have enterteined him with good hopes promises and treaties and have cooled this first heat by rallying by little and little the affections of his subjects to his own party And if he had conceived his affairs to be in ill plight he should have been the last that had taken notice of it after the manner of those great Captains which carry hope in their faces even then when they have despair in their heart to keep together their Troopes in their duty But this poor Prince at the newes of this rebellion talked of nothing but flying and leaving his chief City and saving himself in the by-paths of the wildernesses he is the first that goes forth without a horse to ride on on his bare
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
Queen in Vashti's place putting the Crown upon her head Mordecai was ravished at this choice and walked every day from the first beginning that she was brought to Court before the Seraglio to hear news of her having recommended her to a certain Eunuch his confident that had of her a very particular care He sent her very opportunely necessary advice to teach her how to behave her self and above all he was so wise as to recommend to her not to declare the Nation whereof she was and to make no discovery that she had any relation to him which he judged to be to the purpose for fear lest Haman who was in so great favour and who hated naturally the Jews should ruine her before she had taken rooting in the Kings heart Behold a wonderfull sport of Providence which tooke a little stone with an intention to beat down a great Colossus and makes in one instant of an earthen pot a vessel of gold Men stand now amazed to think what wind drove this poor Jewesse to the crown of the chief Monarchy that was at that time in the whole world They think that sure it was a great chance but God knew that it was a great counsel digested from all eternity in his thoughts For if command is due according to Aristotle to persons that are most accomplished there was some foundation in the excellent qualities of Hester on which to set a Crown for beside the beauty of her body and the ingeniousnesse of her mind she had great gifts of virtues that rendred her lovely to all the world and might serve for models to all Ladies She was not a lump of flesh or a body without a soul nor a worldly woman that had no other Idol but her Beauty nor other Deities but Pleasure and Ambition as it happens ordinarily to most women who seeing themselves elevated to the top of the grandeurs of the age strangely corrupt their manners and dishonour their condition Hesters chief and principall virtue that made a most pure source of pleasures flow into the rest of her life was That she was devout and that being young of age frail of sex high of condition in a Court of an Infidel King amongst so many other Pagan women she never forgat God but observed punctually as farre as it was lawfull and possible for her the exercise of her Religion making her prayers with an incredible ardour and retaining a faith inviolable in the midst of the Empire of impiety She brought the King her husband to the worship of God and to the love of her people as farre as she could perceive any disposition in him She erected a Temple in her heart having not yet the power to build one in her Kingdome and directed all her Devotions to the sacrificing of her self She was also greatly to be commended for the little care she had of her Body against the nature of that sex which often preferres their flesh before God and all Paradise This appeared evidently at that season when she was to present her self to the King the second time since that in an occasion so important wherein all other women would have had an infinite care of their habit and attire she contented her self with so small a thing and yet in her naturall grace just as a rose adorned with its own leaves she obscured all other beauties even the most tricked and pranked Her art was to have no art at all to take what nature had given her and to render all to God Furthermore she brought to Court a great Humility and a perfect submission which she never quitted being as obedient to her uncle when she had the Crown upon her head as in her lowest age she hearkned to his advice she put it in execution she despised no body but her own self The habit of a Queen was to her a burden almost insupportable and she never found more joy then in her solitude There are few women that are born without self-wilfulnesse and without opinions that augment themselves with age and increase excessively in high conditions which makes us admire this woman in contemplating nearer her deportments and seeing how little she relied upon her own self but although she was endowed with a rare wit yet she hearkned to reason and without much ado yielded to good counsel which rendred her demeanour very happy and all her negotiations most advantageous Besides all this as God had chosen her for great things so he gave her the prudence of the Saints accompanied with a good judgement with docility with providence with discretion with circumspection and with expeditnesse in the execution of affairs To this prudence was joyned a courage and an incomparable generosity even to enterprise by a motive of virtue actions so dangerous that she could expect nothing from them that was lesse then death And for to crown all these virtues she possessed farther an illustrious patience taking every thing from the hand of God and suiting her self to his will in all the successes and events of the businesses of the world Behold the principall qualities that adomed this Princesse and that may be seen in those women that God hath gratified with his favours In the sequel of this story he makes us see the brave employment that he gave her in that Court of Ahasuerus to bruise the head of a great Serpent and to deliver her Nation from a gulf of great and horrible calamities Princes and great men would be happy if without dying by procuration they might live in person They are born often enough with most excellent qualities they are calm seas and killed with riches that might do good to all the world if the winds would but let them runne according to their own nature But as the Beauties of women are courted by many Lovers so high conditions have their flatterers that under a shadow of themselves Adorers make themselves Masters and under colour of Service exercise an Empire even over those that think they command the whole Universe Their name by this means serves for a Passeport to all mischeifs their Authority for a sanctuary to crimes their Taxes for tinder to concupiscense their Power for an instrument to revenge and for a scourge to mankind This may be manifestly seen in the sequele of this History where it is said That Ahasuerus exalted Haman above all the Princes and Nobles of his Kingdome and took the wickedst man of the earth to make of him the most puissant that Crimes might have as much assistance as this Monarch had power and riches His goodnesse was seduced in this point and his too easie spirit was gained by great appearances that stole him from himself and left him nothing but a meer apparition of Dignity This Haman which he thought at first to be a Persian an honest man an able and affectionate to his service was partly an Amalekite and partly also a Macedonian a sonne of the earth that had neither God nor conscience
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
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-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
Princes ears with such like words and to breed a distrust in him of Saint John in such a manner as that he consented that he should be apprehended and put in prison under colour as Josephus saith that he went about to change the peoples minds and to embroil the State This detaining of a man so holy and so renowned made a great noyse through all Judea but the wicked woman had this maxime That one ought to take ones pleasure to content nature and little to trouble ones self at the opinions of the world below nor at the complaints of honest men judging that all mouthes ought to be stopped by the rigour of punishments and that she should be innocent when no body durst any more find fault with her actions She slept not one good sleep with her Herod as long as Saint John was yet alive but fearing alwayes either that her pretended husband whom she thought light enough might be softned with compassion to release him or that the people that held him for a Saint might break open the prisons to take him thence she resolved to see the end of him to give all liberty to her unbridled passions She watches the opportunity of Herods birth-day on which he was accustomed to make feasts and to intertein the principall Officers of his Kingdome This crafty woman tampered with all the wills of those that had any power over his spirit for this design and seeing that her daughter was a powerfull instrument to move that effeminate Prince and that he was extraordinarily pleased to see her dance conjured her to employ all her genius and all her industry all the baits allurements and gentilesses that she had in dancing to gain the Kings heart and that if she saw him very freely merry and on terms to gratifie her with some great advantage she should take heed of asking any thing but the head of John and that he was necessarily to fall if she would not see her mother perish and all her fortunes overthrown The daughter obeyed and fits her self even to perfection to please the Princes eyes she enters into the banqueting house richly deck'd and makes use of a dance not vulgar whereat he was ravished and all the Guests that were perhaps hired by Herodias to commend her made a wonderfull recitall of her perfections There was nothing now remaining but to give her the recompence of her pains This daughter of iniquity and not of nature sayes Chrysologus seeing that every one applauded her and that the King that was no longer his own man would honour her with some great present which he would remit to her own choyse even as far as to give her the moity of his Kingdome if she would have desired it made a bloudy request following the instructions of her wicked mother and required that instantly S. Johns head should be given her in a plate Herod felt his heart pricked with a repentance piercing enough but because he had sworn in presence of the Nobles of his Kingdomes to deny nothing that she should ask would not discontent her but gives command to the Master of his House to go to the prison and to cut off S. Johns head to put it in the hands of this wanton wench As soon as the word was pronounced her mother was not quiet till she saw the execution of it to Prison they run every one thought that it had been for some grace since that it was upon the nick of the feast of the Nativity of the King but they quickly saw an effect quite contrary to that thought when S. John was called for and told that he must resolve to dye What think we did this divine forerunner do at this last moment that remained to him of so innocent a life but render thanks to God that made him dye a Martyr for the truth after he had inlightned his eyes with the visible presence of the Incarnate Word which permitted him not to have any thing left in this world to be desired He exhorted his disciples to range themselves about our Saviour who was the Way the Life and the Truth He prayed for his persecutours and for the easing of the miseries of his poor people afterward having a relish of the first contentments of his felicity by the tranquility of his spirit he yielded his neck to the hangman His body was honourably buried by his disciples and his head brought in a plate to that cruell feast put into the hands of that danceresse who presented it to her mother and the mother according to S. Jerome made a play-game of it pricking the tongue with the needle of her hair All that one can speak is below the horrour of its spectacle sayes S. Ambrose The head of S. John of the Prime man of the world that had shut up the Law that had opened the Gospel the head of a Prophet of an Angell is outrageously taken off and delivered for the salary of a danceresse The soberest of men is massacreed in a feast of drunkards and the chastest by the artifice of a prostitute He is condemned on an occasion and on a time in which he would not even have been absolved as abhorring all that proceeded from intemperance O how dangerous is it then to offend a woman that hath renounced her honour Herod gave her an homicide for a kisse The hangmen wash their hands when they are ready to sit down at table but these unhappy women pollute theirs in the banquet with a Prophets bloud The righteous slain by adulterers the innocent by the guilty the true judge by criminall souls This banquet that should have been the source of life brings an edict of death Cruelty is mingled with delights and pleasure with funerals This horrible plate is carried through all the table for the satiating of those unhumane eyes and the bloud that drops yet from his veins falls upon the pavement to be licked up with the ordures of that infamous supper Look upon it Herod look upon a deed that was worthy of none but thy Cruelty stretch out thine hand put thy fingers in the wound that thou hast made that they may be again bedewed with a bloud so sacred Drink cruell man drink that river which thou seest glide to quench thy thirst Look upon those dead eyes that accuse thy wickednesse and which thou dost wound again with the aspect of thy filthy pleasures Alas they are shut not so much by the necessity of death as by the horrour of thy luxury The vengeance of God delayed not long to fall upon those perverse souls that had committed so enourmous a crime Arethas King of the Arabians resenting the affront that had been given to his daughter by those Adulterers enters in arms upon the lands of Herod who bestirrs himself but weakly to resist him Pleasures held him so fast chained that he had not the boldnesse to go to his frontiers in person to oppose his adversary but contented himself with sending a
propose three Remedies to take away the differences and to re-establish the true Queen in her Kingdom The first was That she should give assurances to the Queen Elizabeth no ways to disquiet her in the Succession of the Crown of England The Second was That she should grant an Act of Pardon and Forgetfulness to her rebellious Subjects for fear the punishment should otherwise extend to a number that was infinite The third was That the Marriage with Bothuel being condemned to be unlawfull she should consent to be espoused to some Illustrious Person in England who should be answerable in all conditions and maintain both Kingdoms in a perpetual friendship to which Queen Mary shewed a singular inclination 9. But the Queen of England was wonderfully The labyrinths of the hypocrisie of Elizabeth amazed at this Sentence and proceedings and although in publick she seemed to be much contented at the justification of her Cousin yet in secret she much raged at it and encouraged the Accusers to prosecute their complaints in full Parliament telling them They were both lazy and impertinent to begin their Suit and not to accomplish it The Process upon this was brought again to the Councel of England where the bastard Murray armed with the outragious pen of Buchanan used all his power even to the affrighting of the Agents of Queen Mary by the Authority of Elizabeth But the best sort of people began to murmure saying that it was necessary that the Traitours should be taken off and the innocent Queen re-established in her Kingdom On the one side Elizabeth ceased not to make delays and on the other she pretended that she would understand what should be the conditions of her Inlargement whether it were to appear civil and humane or whether she would sound the minds of those further whom she thought did talk with too much liberty concerning that affair In the mean time the Spirits which could not clearly enough discover the labyrinths of her dark heart conceived that Truth had now prevailed to publish the innocence of the Queen of Scotland that the Deceitfull hopes Storm was grown into a Calm and that she now began to arrive at her desired haven she now was looked on by every one with another eye and the greatest personages in England did passionately desire an Alliance with her The Earl of Liecester an intimate favourite of Elizabeths observing that his Queen had no intention to be married and that the Scepter of England did look upon this Prisoner did entertain a delicate Ambition to court her in the way of Marriage but the Transalpine humour of his most jealous Mistress did so perplex him that he durst not tell to his own heart what his own thoughts were He most passionately desired that the Queen would make some overture to him of it to submit all things to her discretion and to make her understand that this would be a happy means to take away all doubts and misapprehensions that should arise from Scotland But so it was that he durst not proceed in it so well he understood the spirit of Elizabeth who was as apt to receive an evil impression as she was cruel to revenge it The Duke of Norfolk who was President at the Treason against the Duke of Norfolk and his ruin Trial of Queen Mary was advanced above all others in Dignity and remarkable over all the Realm for his great and gallant qualities The bastard Murray did flatter him with the hope of his Sisters marriage The Earl of Liecester began to dive into his heart concerning that suit and gave him some touches of it whether it were that by that means he would know the pleasure of Elizabeth or whether he were resolved to destroy the Duke who onely was able to cast a shadow on his light Throgmorton who was a friend unto them both did first carry the message and acquainted Norfolk that Leicester had a desire to speak with him on a business of high importance which was concerning his marriage with the Queen of Scotland he told him That he spoke this unto him as of himself but counselled him as a friend to refer the further proceedings on that marriage to the Earl of Leicester who though it was thought did pretend himself to it yet he desired that his modesty would give way that the Earl might advise him because there was no great apparence of any thriving in that motion without his direction He believed this counsel and as soon as the Earl began to open his mouth concerning it he did comply unto him with all honour and submission and did express himself to be indifferent and cold enough concerning that marriage although to speak the truth her Innocence so much persecuted had kindled already the first fire of love within his heart Leicester touched with this courtesie did increase his flame and did remonstrate to him that this Marriage would highly conduce to the benefit of the State because it would prove a happy means to divert all strange Alliances which might carry the Queen of Scotland to pursue her pretensions to the Crown of England and serve absolutely to confirm her in the good opinion of Queen Elizabeth The Duke who was indued with a natural freedom of disposition and knew not how to dissemble beholding himself at one time betwixt two violent fires of Love and Honour did entertain the heat which too soon he did evaporate and besought the Earl since he pretended no more to that affair and that he himself would not proceed in it without his assurance that he would do him a courtesie worthy of the place which he had near the Queen for which he never would be ingratefull This the Earl did promise him and if men may judge by apparence very heartily which did so blow up the heart of the Lover that in thinking of it he did adore his own thoughts It was indeed a strange temptation to propose unto himself so accomplished a Beauty and so eminent a Virtue on whose trayn two Kingdoms did attend The world is not capable to be governed by two Suns and the heart of man suffers more than mortal Agonies when it sustains the shock of two violent passions who unite their forces and designs to make a war upon him The Duke beholding himself flattered with these Great passions of Love and Ambition loves by divers other Agents did write unto the Queen of Scotland with magnifick complements and offers of unparallel'd service with the greater pomp sweetness to enter into the secrets of her thoughts The Prisoner who laboured for nothing more than to break her chains asunder did desire rather to see the end of that affair than to understand the beginning of it but the experience which she had of the dissimulation and jealousies of Elizabeth did make her to go upon these considerations as on a fire covered with ashes Wherefore without being much moved at it she made answer That she must commit the
it not these poor miserable creatures desire nothing more than to give me my last Farewel and I am confident my Sister Elizabeth would not have refused me so small a courtesie seeing the Honour of my Sex demandeth that my Servants should be present I am her near kinswoman Grandchild to Henry the eight and Queen Dowager of France besides I have received the Unction of Queen of Scotland if you will not grant this courtesie to one of my quality let me have it at least for the tenderness of the heart of men On this consideration five or six of her ordinary Servants were permitted to accompany her to the place of Execution to which she now was going This Divine Queen whom France had seen to walk in such state and Triumph at the pomp of her marriage when she was followed with all the glory of that Kingdom doth now alas go with this poor train to render her neck unto the Hangman She came into the Hall hung round about with blacks and ascended the Scaffold which was covered with the same livery to accomplish this last Act of her long Tragedy What eyes of furies were not struck blind at the aspect of this face in which the dying Graces did shoot for the last light of their shining Glories As soon as she was sate in a chair prepared for that purpose one Beal did read the Command and the outragious Sentence of her death which she heard very peaceably suppressing all the strugglings of Nature to abandon her self to Grace in the imitation of her Saviour At last Fletcher the Dean of Peterborough one of her evil Counsellours did present himself before her and made a Pedantical Discourse on the condition of the life passed the life present and the life to come undertaking according to his power to pervert her in this her last conflict This was the most sensible to her of all her afflictions at the last minute of her life to hear the studied speech of an impertinent and audacious Minister wherefore she oftentimes interrupted him and besought him not to importune her assuring him that she was confirmed in the saith of the ancient Catholick and Roman Church and was ready to shed her last bloud for it Nevertheless this infamous Doctour did not cease to persecute her with his Remonstrances unto the shades of Death She looked round about the Hall if she could discover her Confessor to demand of him the absolution of her sins but he was so busie that he could not be found A poor Maid belonging to her having thrust her self with all her force into the Croud as soon as she was got through them and beheld her Mistress between two Hang-men did break forth into a loud crie which troubled those who were about the Queen to assist her But the Queen who had a spirit present on all occasions made a sign unto her with her hand that she should hold her peace if she had not a mind to be forced thence The Lords then made a semblance as if they would pray for her but she thanked them heartily for their good will saying that it would be taken as a crime to communicate in prayers with them Then turning to the multitude who were about three hundred persons she thus expressed her self It is a new spectacle to behold a Queen brought to die upon a Scaffold I have not learned to undress to unveil my self and to put off the Royal Ornaments in so great a Companie and to have two Hang-men in the place of the Grooms of my Chamber But we must submit to what Heaven is pleased to have done and obey the Decrees of the Divine Providence I protest before the face of the living God that I never attempted against the Life or Estate of my Cousin neither have I committed any thing worthie of this usage If it be imputed to my Religion I esteem my self most happie to shed even the last drop of my life for it I put all my confidence in him whom I see represented in this Cross which I hold in my hand and I promise and assure my self that this temporal Death suffered for his Name shall be a beginning to me of eternal Life with the Angels and most happie Souls who shall receive my bloud and represent it before the face of God in the Remission of all my Offences There was now a floud in every eye and amongst all her Enemies there were not above four who were able to contain their tears The Hang-man clothed in black velvet fell down on his knees and did demand her pardon which she most willingly granted and not to him onely but to all her persecutours After these words she kneeled down her self praying aloud in Latin and invoked the most holy Mother of God and the triumphant Company of Saints to assist her She repeated her most servent prayers for the Church for her Kingdom for France for her Son for her cruel murtherers for England for her Judges and for her Executioner recommending into the hands of the Saviour of the world her spirit purified as well by love as by affliction The last words of her Pravers were these As thy arms Lord Jesus were stretched forth on the Cross so receive me into the stretched forth arms of thy mercie She uncessantly kissed a Crucifix which she had in her hand whereat one that stood by being offended at the honour which she gave unto the Cross told her That she should carry it in her heart to whom she suddenly made answer Both in my heart and in my hand After this she disposed her self to the Block The Executioner would have taken off her Gown but she repelled him and desired that that office might be performed for her by her own maids who approched to her to prepare her for the stroke of Death And she her self did accommodate them in it as diligently as she could and laid open her neck and throat more white than Alabaster and too much alas discovered for so lamentable a Subject This being done she signed her own Attendants with the sign of the Cross kissing them and with a short smile did bid them farewel to shew that she died as comfortably as constantly making no more resistance than the flower doth against the hand that doth gather it Those poor creatures did weep most bitterly and with their sighs and sobs could have cleaved the rocks when the Queen reproved them saying Nay What do you mean Have I answered for your constancie and that your grief should not be importunate and do you suffer your selves to be thus transported with lamentation when I am going to exchange a temporal Kingdom full of miserie for an everlasting Empire filled with fellcitie It was discovered that she had a Cross about her of great value which she intended to have bestowed on one of her nearest friends promising the Executioner to recompence him some other way but this enemy of the Cross did force it from her to satisfie
upon as a man slâ—d down from Heaven whose excellent Qualities did promise him the fullness of glory But he suddenly observed the Affairs of the Kingdom His return to England to be greatly perplexed by reason of the horrible divorce which Henry the Eight resolved on who indeavoured at once to separate himself from his wife and from the Church of God He much desired that Pool who was Famous for knowledge and integrity should approve his intention to the end that finding no assistance from Truth he might beg some apparence from the opinions of men This was no small temptation to this young Prelate The Combat in his spirit who was not altogether so austere as to distast all honour of preferment nor so little versed in Court as not to look on the King as the Original from whence it flowed He a long time consulted with himself to find a mean which might make his conscience to accord with the will of the King His integrity which was to him as another Birth did dispute in his heart with the Interest of his Fortune and he sought after the means to temper them into one One day he thought he had found it and addressed himself to the Court to expose his advise unto the King which was an advise more pleasing than just and he had then a care that the liberty of his words should not hinder the pretences to his dignity O who is he that is able to Counsel a King in his passion If you alledge unto him too much of Justice you hazard your Fortune If you comply unto him with too much Gentleness you do betray your heart The words of a Prince are the surnace which doth prove you where you may behold some to burn and consume away like straw and others to come forth purified like Gold The spirit of God did seize on the heart and the tongue of this wise Councellour he forgot all the worldly and flattering reasons he had prepared to open onely his eyes unto the Truth How Sir said be unto the â—â—ng to labour a divorce He took part with God from Queen Katharine after so many years of your marriage who hath brought you issue to succeed you in the Crown It is true that she was given a spouse to your elder Brother but he died in his youth before his marriage was consummated And you have espoused the Queen in the face of the Church with a dispensation as authentical as the Pope could give and which he granted with your consent at the request of the King your Father of glorious memory And since your Majesty hath had a secret Repugnance caused by a respect to him to whom you ow your Birth that can bring no prejudice to the publick Faith nor to the consummation of a marriage followed by such fruits and Benedictions as ordinarily do attend that mutual commerce Alas Sir your Majesty hath consecrated its Reign by so many Royal virtues and excellent Examples which have acquired you the love and admiration of Christendom will it now eclipse so pure a life and so Triumphant a reputation by a stain which cannot be washed away but by the effusion of the bloud of all your Realm Your Majesty hath sacrificed both its Scepter and its pen by the obedience which it hath rendered to the holy Sea and by the book which it hath made in the defence of the Church Cannot it honestly cast off those Laws which it hath authorized by a publick Testimony What will your people say who have so just an apprehension of Religion What will forreign Princes say who have conceived so high an opinion of your Merit Those who do Counsel you to that divorce are the most capital Enemies of your glorie who do draw upon you the indignation of God the censure of the Sovereign Priest the arms of a great estate who being offended at this affront will conjure your ruin That which hath droven you to it is onely a passion of youth which ought to be moderated it is had Counsel from which you should retire your self it is a mischief which you should labour to avoid In this case the advice which doth least please you will be the best The precipitation of so hazardous an Act can bring nothing but repentance This I speak unto your Majesty being driven to it by the fervent zeal which I have unto the safety of its Soul and by the tender respect which I have always born to your Royal Person I must beseech it that I may not be surprized in so important an affair as this marriage is which had his Ordinance in heaven and its happiness on earth This was boldly spoken by a Man who saw that in accommodating his humour to the King he incontinently entered into the possession of the richest benefits of the Kingdom and that crossing his design he exposed his liberty his Estate his life to most apparent danger Nevertheless he had the constancy to make him this grave Remonstrance without following the Example of those which flatter all evil actions and make Divinity to speak that which the interest of their Fortunes doth suggest unto them Henry the Eighth grown more hardened Henry the Eighth was no way softened at this so grave an Oration but on the contrary he had a most earnest desire to arrest his Cosin Pool and to put him to death which had been put in Execution if the hand of God had not withheld the blow He very well observed that the heart of the King was impoysoned with lust and choler even to the despair of all remedy Wherefore not long after finding his opportunity he asked leave of the King under some pretence to go out of the Kingdom and did abandon himself to a willing banishment because he would not offend his conscience He came Pool banished himself into France and stayed sometime in Avignon from thence he traveled to Padua and from Padua to Venice where he was acknowledged and esteemed for one of the chiefest men of Christendom and renowned Pool made Cardinal for excellent quallities In the end God being pleased to demonstrate that there is nothing lost in serving him and that honours are not onely for them who by a politick suppleness do accommodate themselves unto the Times and the lusts of great men he stirred up the spirit of Paul the third a great lover of learned men who made him Cardinal with approbation of all the world So that forsaking a Bishoprick in England for the satisfying of his conscience and the defence of the truth he obtained by his merit so high a place of Eminence in the Church which all the Crimes of a conscience prostituted to evil could never procure unto them Henry who had already declared war against God and all his Saints by his divorce was inflamed with choler by reason of the retreat and the promotion of this holy man causing him to be proscribed over all England and promising fifty
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
by our glorious Father S. Gregory the Great it is that which our Fathers have embraced it is that which they have defended by their Words their Arms and their Bloud which they have shed for the Honour of it Nothing is left for those to hope for who are separated from it but the tempests of darkness and the everlasting chains of hell It is well known that the change of Faith proceeds from an infectious passion which having possessed the heart of a poor Prince hath caused these reprocheable furies and the inundations of bloud which hath covered the face of England He hath at his death condemned that which before he approved He by his last Testament destroyed that which before he had chosen wherefore those who have followed him in his Errour may also follow him in his Repentance The Peace the Safety the Abundance the Felicity of the Kingdom are ready to re-enter with the true Faith which if you refuse I see the choller of God and a thousand calamities that do threaten you Return therefore O Shunamite Return O fair Island to thy first beginning feign not to thy self imaginary penalties terrours and punishments which are not prepared but for the obstinate The Sovereign Father of Christendom doth continually stretch forth his arms to thy obedience and hath delegated me as the Dove out of the Ark to bring unto thee the Olive Bough to pronounce Peace and Reconciliation to thee This is the acceptable Hour this is the Day of thy salvation The Night which hitherto hath covered thee is at the end of her Course and the Sun of Justice is risen to bring light unto thee It is time to lay down the works of darkness and to take up the Armour of Light to the end that all the earth inhabited may take notice that thou abborrest what is past embracest what is present and dost totally put thy self into the hands of God for the time to come This Oration was attended with a wonderful approbation of all the assembly and the Cardinal being departed from the Councel the King and Queen commanded that they should debate on this Proposition which was presently taken into consideration and it was resolved That the ancient religion should be established The Chancellour made this resolution known unto the people and did powerfully exhort them to follow the examples which were conformable to the advice of the King and Queen and the most eminent personages in the Kingdom This discourse was revived with a general applause for the advancement of the Catholick faith In the end he demanded that they would testifie their resolution in a Petition to the King and Queen and mediate for a reconciliation to the Cardinal Legate of the holy See which incontenently was done the paper was presented and openly read their Majesties did confirm it both by their authorities and their prayers and humbled themselves on their knees with their Grandees and all the people demanding mercy whereupon an authentick absolution was given by the Legate the bels did ring in all the Churches Te Deum was sung All places were filled with the cries of joyes as people infranchised and coming out of the gates of hell After this King Philip was obliged to go into Flanders by reason of the retreat of the Emperour his father Pool was left chief of the Councellours with Queen Mary who did wonders for the good of Religion of the State It is true that Cranmer and other turbulent and seditious spirits were punished but so great a moderation was used that the Benefices and the Reveneues of the Church did continue in the hands of those who did hold them of the King without disturbing them on that innovation all things were continued that might any way be suffered not so much as changing any thing in marriages because they would not ensnare their spirits The heart of the Queen and of her ministers did think on nothing more than to establish Religion to entertain the holy See to render justice to comfort the people to procure peace and rest to multiply the abundance of the Kingdom They did begin again the golden age when after the reign of five years and odde moneths they were both in one day taken out of the world by sickness which did oppress with grief all honest men and did bury with them in one Tomb the happiness and safety of that Kingdom O providencelnot to be dived into by humane reason what vail hast thou cast on our Councels and our works What might we have not hoped from such beginnings What wisdom would not have concluded That felicity had crowned for ever the enterprizes of this Cardinal An affair so well conducted a negotiation so happy a business of State and the greatest that was ever in any Kingdom whatsoever ought it not to carry his progress unto eternity Where are the fine plots of policy Where are the Arms that in so small a time have ever wrought so great an effect The Chariots of the Romans which covered with Lawrels did march on the heads of Kings did not make their wayes remarkable but by stormings of Towns by Flames and Massacres But behold here many millions of men struck down and raised again with one onely speech so many legions of souls converted with a soft sweetness the face of a kingdom totally changed in one Moment and made the happiest that any Ages have seen And after all this to find the inexoarble Trenchant of Death to sap in one day the two great pillars of Estate and ruinate the house of God which should have reached to the imperial heaven O how true is it that there are the strokes of Fate that is to say an order of the secret purpose of God which is as concealed as inevitable nothing can divert nothing can delay it The counsels of the wise are here blinded their addresses are lost their activity troubled their patience tried and all their reasons confounded Poor Brittain God gave thee these two Great Lights not to enjoy them but as they passed by to behold them Thou art soiled with sacriledges and impieties thou art red with the bloud of the Martyrs The sins of Henrie are not yet expiated and the ignominious passions of his life are punished by the permission of the Errour The Powers of darkness have their times determined by God they will abate nothing of their periods if the invincible hand of the Sovereign Judge doth not stop their courses by his absolute Authority It pertaineth to God onely to know and appoint the times of punishment and Mercy and there is nothing more expedient for man than to submit to his Laws to obey his Decrees to reverence his Chastisements and to adore the Hand that strikes him FINIS THE ANGEL OF PEACE TO ALL CHRISTIAN PRINCES Written in French by N. CAUSSIN S. J. And now translated into English Printed in the Year of our Lord MDCL The Angel of Peace to all Christian Princes IF it be
businesse fill'd them with such an amazement that their ranks being in disorder they killed one another without knowing their own party The people of Israel having received intelligence of that rout take heart again and get them out of the caves into which they had retired themselves to range themselves about Saul's person who was thereby transported with such an ardour that he conjur'd all his Army to follow the Philistims without drinking or eating till they were all destroyed This was a precipitation of his unequall spirit and a true Chimaera yet desiring to make that passe for Zeal which was a pure Passion he would needs cause his son Jonathan to be put to death for having sucked a little honey at the end of his rod but the people rescued him out of his hands and desisted to pursue the Philistims being not in a condition to fight with them Some time after Samuel exhorted him to enterprise a puissant Warre against the Amalekites sworn enemies of the people of God and conjur'd him to make every thing passe through the edge of the sword without sparing any body and above all to reserve nothing of the booty that should be made upon them that should not be consumed with fire To this Saul seem'd to be inclin'd with vigour and raised an Army of more then two hundred thousand men so great was the weight of the Authority when Samuel put himself into party He fell suddenly upon the Amalekites and defeated them with a generall rout so farre as to take their King prisoner but he contented himself with destroying and burning all that was caytiffe and unprofitable reserving Agag the King with the best flocks and herds and choicest moveables In the mean while he was so much puft up with this victory that he caused an Arch of Triumph to be erected to himself and spread himself in the vanities of his spirit while God was thinking of rejecting him and giving orders to Samuel to tell him his unhappinesse Yet Saul blind in his sin received the man of God into his Camp with an extraordinary joy vaunting himself for having efficaciously fulfilled the commandment of God and while he was speaking it the voyce of the Flocks that he had put aside was heard whereupon Samuel said What means this Cattle that strikes my ears with its bleatings To which he answered That he had reserved them expresly for an offering to the living God But Samuel replyed That there was no Sacrifice so pleasing to God as Obedience and that Sin which was contrary to him was a kind of Idolatry and that since he had despised the Word of God he should be cast off and deprived of the Kingdome whereat he being astonished confessed that he had offended hearkning more to the voyce of the People then to that of God and beseeched Samuel to excuse his sinne to bear with his infirmities and to go with him to the sacrifice to adore God in sign of reconciliation Whereto Samuel replyed that he would have no more any thing common with a man whom God had abandon'd and saying this steps forward and turns his back to him the other layes hold on the fringe of his robe which remained in his hands which when the Prophet saw Behold said he how your Kingdome shall be divided and given to a better then your self The Triumpher of Israel the true God of hosts is not as a man to change his purposes and repent him of his counsels The King humbled himself again acknowledging his fault and beseeching Samuel earnestly not to leave him but to render him the ordinary respect before the Princes of the people and to come and worship God with him Samuel fearing the disorder of the Army consented for that time but afterward never saw Saul any more to the day of his death He ceased not to weep bitterly for him considering that he that had been chosen by his hand had come to so little good and had carried himself with so much contempt of the commandments of God This wounded his heart and would not let him put an end to his mournings till his great Master comforted him and suggested David to him who should fill up worthily the place that Samuel was about to lose by his iniquity And indeed he performed then a bold enterprise going to Bethleem under colour of a Sacrifice and Anointing David King in Saul's life time although that design was secret that it might be managed with more successe After that time Saul was left visibly by God possessed with an evil spirit and gnawed perpetually with jealousies of State which the person of David caused in him by reason of his valour and great virtues as I shall declare in the following Elogy In the mean while Samuel lived retired from Court without meddling with Sate-affairs and Saul by his departure changed the sins of Vanity and of Fearfulnesse into Sacrilegies and Massacres letting loose the bridle to his fury to retain the phantasme of an Empire that flew out of his hands Good Samuel ceased not in his solitude to bewail two King that he had made looking upon one as an homicide and the other as a sacrifice of death He was afflicted inconsolably to hear of the deportments of that furious Saul that made of one wickednesse a degree to passe unto another inventing every day new butcheries to cement his Throne with the bloud of his brethren He melted himself with compassion for his poor David seeing Saul's sword hang but by a little thread alwayes ready to fall upon his innocent head He deplored the miseries of the poor people which he could not any longer remedy and passing over again in his remembrance all the vicissitudes of mans life and the treacheries of the Court he had an ardent thirst to depart out of this world to go to find Innocence in the bosome of his Fathers God heard him and drew him to himself by a peaceable death the seventy and seventh year of his age the eight and thirtieth of his Government and the seventh after his retreat from Court He was mourned and lamented for by all the people as the Father of his Countrey and magnificent Funeralls were made for him to render him a testimony at his death of the commendable actions of his holy and generous life Saul remained yet two years upon the Throne after him and the Even before his great overthrow the Soul of Samuel returned from Limbus not by the work of the Pythonesse but by the will of God and spake to him and told him of his disastre as I have said in the Maxim of the Immortality of Souls DANIEL DAniel entred into the Court by Captivity stayed there by Mortification made himself known by Prophecy and there also rendred himself renowned by great Virtues To comprehend this it is necessary to know that the little Kingdome of Judea was ordinarily very much exposed to the Armies of the Assyrians which God had chosen to be scourges and the
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