vincis invincibilem How easily doest thou conquer him that is invincible For man was made to fill up the now-disturbed number of the Angels which were created some while before the World not long for it is not likely that so noble a part of the World should be long created before the whole to which it belonged They fell downe though not from the possession yet from the title of happinesse by pride Not from the possession for had they beene united to God by the Beatifical Visiō they could not have sinned and therfore not have lost it by sin Wee rising up to the seats prepared for them ascend by Humility rising by falling and falling by rising if wee rise before he raiseth us who being dead and buried was not raised but rose from death to life by his own power Pride and Humility are of contrary dispositions and moreover they worke contrarily upon the subjects in which they are lodged and are in the effect and course of their proceedings contrary even to themselves Pride was the first sin in the Angels and therefore Humilitie is the first vertue in men and all your thoughts words and actions must be steeped in it Other Vertues keepe within a compasse or only now and then goe some of them together or always or direct all Vertues outwardly in respect of the Vertues as Prudence but Humility is an ingredient in every Vertue RULE 4. IN your entrance upon every worke having first examined the motives ingredients and circumstances for one evill circumstance will corrupt the whole lumpe and poyson a good action and it is not vertuous to pray ordinarily in the streets with outward observance though it be vertuous to pray and it being now cleere to you that your intended work falleth in wholly and meeteth in the same point with Gods holy will commend it seriously to GOD. And when you goe to dinner or to bed or turne to the acts and exercises of your Vocation begin all with a cleane and pure intention for the love and honour of GOD. And even the naturall work to which your nature is vehemently carried and by which you gaine temporally being turned towards the true Loadstone and put in the way to Gods glory doth rise above nature and above it selfe and is much more gainfull spiritually as being performed not because it is agreeable with your desire but because it is conformable to the divine will And often in the performance and execution of the worke if it require a long continuance of action renew and if need bee rectifie smooth and polish your intention for being neglected it quickly groweth crooked And when you are called to a difficult work or a work that lyes thwart and strives against the current of your naturall inclination dignifie and sweeten it often with the comfortable remembrance of your most noble end And whereas wee are openly commanded so closely to carrie the good deeds of the right hand that the left hand be not of the Counsell and again to turn so much of our selves outward that our light may shine before men it is in our duty to observe the Golden Mean and keep the middle way betwixt the two Rocks Carry an even hand betvvixt your concealing your good vvorks and your being a light to others You must not conceale all neither must you shine onely Hide the inward but shew the outward not alwayes nor with a sinister intention to the left hand but to GOD and those that will bee edified Every Vertue standeth betwixt two extreames and yet toucheth neither whereof the one offendeth in excesse the other in defect The one is too couragious the other is over-dull but under the Vertue Now the Devill delighteth much to shew himselfe not in his own likenesse but in that extream which is like and more nigh to the Vertue or at least to the appearance of it as Prodigalitie is more like to Liberalitie then Covetousnesse God hath true Saints and true Martyrs which are both inside and outside The Devill hath false Saints and false Martyrs which are all outside like his fairnesse As Prudence is the Governesse of all Vertues so principally of Devotion RULE 5. KEep your heart always calme and suffer it to be stirred onely with the gentle East and West-winds of holy inspirations to zeal and vertuous anger Examine your inward motions whether they be inspirations or no before you cry come in for when God offereth an inspiration hee will stand waiting with it while you measure it by some better known and revealed Law of his And be very watchfull over such Anger For it is a more knottie and difficult piece of work to be answerable to Ephes 4. 26. the rule of Saint Paul Be angry and sin not the Prophet David spoke the same words from the same spirit then not to be angry As the Curre taken out of the kennell and provoked to barke will need an able and cunning hand to hold him And maintaine alwayes a strong Guard before the weake doores of your senses that no vain thing invade the sense of seeing hearing or the rest and use in times of such danger Ejaculations and Aspirations which are short sayings of the soule to God or of things concerning God and are like darts cast into the bosome of our beloved These motions will do excellently at all times when they come in the resemblance of our pious affections As upon this occasion Lord shut the windows of my soule that looking thorow them she may not be defiled O sweet Comforter speak inwardly to my soul and when thou speakest to her speake words of comfort or binde her with some other chaine that busied in listning to thee shee may not heare thy holy name dishonoured And upon other occasions Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of teares that I Jer. 9. 1. might weepe day and night O Lord Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is Psal 73. 25. none upon earth that I desire besides thee Take counsell my soule Commit thy way unto the Psal 37. 5. Lord trust also in him and hee shall bring it to passe Hearke my soule when we taste the thing we taste is joyned to us We neither see nor heare in this manner and having tasted we know And when the Body tasteth wee commonly see first and afterwards taste In our conversation with God wee first taste and then see I speake not of Faith being of another order O taste and see that the Lord is good Holy Scripture will give us matter Psal 34. 8. without end This is a delicious communication of our selves with God our selves when we are present onely with our selves and with God Keepe the double doores of your teeth and lips the forts of silence close that your nimble and busie tongue speake nothing but what some way directly or indirectly pertaineth to Gods glory agreeably to his good pleasure And therefore always before you speak
the furnace did not burne the three children because God as he is the worker of miracles ascending as it were above himselfe as he is the Author of Nature denyed the continuance of generation to the power of burning in the fire and so the conservation of it ceasing it perished for a time but the three children being removed God quickly remembred that he was the Authour of Nature and the fire burnt againe And here was another miracle For God having suspended his concourse and held it from that part of the fire where the children walked doubled it above Nature upon that part of the fire which destroyed the Persecutors which now was elevated above the ordinary condition of fire And thus it is evident that my soule now something once nothing hath offended the best thing in the worst manner upon which it and all things hang both in being and operations and by which onely it is the hopefull thing it is as if some good and mercifull man should hold me up from being swallowed into a gulfe or a deepe Well and in the meane time I should enrage him with foule words and stab at him It is part of the first massage which God sent by Moses to the children of Israel I AM hath sent me unto you He Exod 3. 14. cals himselfe I AM because he onely is ens per se subsistens a thing subsistent by himselfe he is the fountaine of all kindes of being he onely stands without a prop. And I AM is Gods most ancient name because Being is the first thing conceiveable in him And I AM had best authority to send because his power cannot be derivative or ministeriall I AM could not be deputed as a Delegate to the office of sending The quality of the injury is alwaies proportion'd to the quality of the person injured and alwayes measured by it with reference to the condition of him who offers the injury It was said long agoe by Aristotle injuria crescit ex indignitate personae Arist lib. 5. Ethic. c. 5. illam inferentis the injury is more great when it is offered by an inferiour person And I a person of no account have injured most highly three most high persons what high persons the three greatest highest persons in one God whereof all are so great that all being most great one is not greater then the other Lord helpe me CHAP. XIII BUt how have I injured God by sin the onely meanes by which he can be injured Now to aske what a kind of thing sinne is is to pose all kindes of learning Logick from which we require the nature of a thing by a definition confesses that she is altogether ignorant how to define it Divinity stands amaz'd and is troubled at the sight of she knowes not what breaking within her holy bounds it is so blacke so deformed such a monster as being halfe something and halfe nothing and wanting due parts not to it selfe but to a good thing and being imperfect beneath all comparison It is no easie taske exactly to tell what is darknesse blindnesse lamenesse sicknesse death But to tell what sinne is is so hard how hard so hard that it cannot be done For as the worthinesse of God cannot be sufficiently expressed for its singular prerogative of excellence so neither sinne by reason of its particular unworthinesse It hath a title or a short description rather and that is malum infinitum It is an infinite evill because extreamly opposite to an infinite good 'T is a thing not a thing which God who is omnipotent and made all things we ever saw and a great deale more and who is able to make more perfect creatures then we have yet seene yea then the Angels cannot with all his heavenly power be the cause of For although impotencie which includeth weaknesse may not touch him that is omnipotent yet some things God cannot doe either because he followes the ordinary law to which he hath obliged himselfe from all eternity or because he is tyed by a Decree or by a promise or because himselfe hath necessarily bound himselfe to himselfe to doe nothing contrary to the perfection of his Attributes and the commission of evill would be most contrary to the perfection of his goodnesse Nam quid saith Saint Ambrose impossible est Deo non S. Ambro. annot in c. 23. Num. quod virtuti arduum sed quod naturae ejus contrarium Impossibile istud non infirmitatis est sed virtutis majestatis What is impossible to God not that which is simply hard with relation to his power but that which is contrary to his nature This impossibility is not an argument of his weaknesse but of his most perfect power and most high Majesty Mali nulla natura est saith Saint Austin disputing against the S. Aug. lib. 11. de civit Dei cap. 9. Manichees The evill of sinne hath no nature for had it had a nature God had made it Sinne is a mischiefe so malitiously grievous and so grievously malitious that no man not the greatest Doctor that ever flourished in the Church of Christ that no Angell no not the greatest Seraphin of them all notwithstanding all their deepe and searching knowledge sufficiently ever knew the malice and grievousnesse of one sinne And yet I desperately commit many sins and many sorts of sinnes every day O good Lord what doe I when I sinne God onely knowes how venemous a thing sinne is And the reason is as plain as the doctrine is strange God onely knowes knowes perfectly his owne infinite goodnesse and therefore God onely perfectly knowes all extreme opposition to his owne infinite goodnesse For how can we or any power under God made or possible to be made exactly know the nature of a contrary as contrary or that we call the nature of it when wee cannot fully graspe the perfection of that to which the contrary is contrary But sinne is only and wholly contrary to God and in the first place to his infinite goodnesse and that which is contrary to all an infinite must be infinitely contrary to it Hence it is not deduced but runs of it selfe that all Gods Attributes of which every one is all his Essence his Goodnesse Wisedome Providence Mercie Justice Power Purity Infinity Immensity Eternity and all are exceedingly struck at in every sinne Struck at struck beaten buffeted so that no little part as I may say of the divine Majesty is left unwounded unmaimed unbruised And as all the perfections of goodnesse and honour which are and are found in creatures by creatures as foot-steps of the Creatour are also originally and therefore most perfectly and therefore most eminently and infinitely in God So mark this my soule because sinne is Gods onely enemy and because there is a combination of evill the onely contrary to all kindes of goodnesse linked together in themselves because joyned together in God one sinne containeth and comprehendeth all kindes of filthinesse all
away into fruitlesse scum which remaineth here and there on the top of the water to obey all tides and to be tossed and tumbled with every winde Invention can assigne no other cause of all this but sinne All the punishments that ever were are or shall be inflicted upon men All the evils which ever did doe now or shall hereafter fall heavie upon Creatures be they sensible or unsensible appointed for mans use draw life breath strength sinewes and all their force from the foule sinnes and superstitions of the world Pause here a little and give place to a pious meditation If Almighty God did so rigorously punish those adulterate Cities of Palestine with Sodome the chiefe head of them that besides the present punishment of a sudden overthrow by fire and brimstone from Heaven as if justice could not stand quiet in such grievous crimes the Countrey which once was a second Paradise another garden of the world now at this day lies so pitifully desolate that nothing is to be seene but black and sutty ground ashes and stones halfe burnt there remaining in the middle a great Lake called by a scornefull name mare mortuum the dead Sea from which a darke smoke continually rises most pernicious to man and every living creature where are no trees but such as are hypocritically fruitfull Apples indeed hang openly and which in the judgement of the eye are ripe but come to them enticed with their colour presse them with the least touch they scatter presently into vaine dust The substance of this we read even in Heathen Authors Solinus Cornelius Tacitus but especially Solinus c. 84. Corn. Tac l. 5. hist Joseph de bell Jud. l. 5. c. 5. and with a more free addition of circumstances in Josephus the Jew borne and bred up not farre from this unfortunate Countrey Behold here a wofull extremity It was a rainy morning with them and yet wondrous light The were burned to ashes before they could rise either from their beds or their sinnes And because they were such deserving sinners and yet were not quick in going to Hell Hell came to them in fire and brimstone Five great Cities and every part of them were all on fire together and it burnt so violently that all the Sea could not have quenched the flames And was not Gods Anger burning hot me thinkes now I heare the damned in Hell cry from all sides fire fire fire and yet no creature will ever be able to quench the least sparke of it O the goodnesse of God that holds me up over the great Dragons mouth and yet still out of his mouth though he does crave and whine and cry for me If I say God Almighty imprinted with an iron instrument these horrid markes of his anger on the hatefull forehead of one Countrey for the sinnes of some few people what O what will hee doe or in what strenge and new kind of anger will he expresse himselfe in the black day of judgement for the sinnes of the whole world Especially since that sinne is now growne exceedingly more diverse both in the species and in the particulars then it was in the infancie or childhood of the world In the day of judgement when the Devill questionlesse as Saint Basil observes will say something before the Bench to aggravate the matter Heare great Lord of Heaven and Hell I created not these people nor could I bring them from nothing Nor did I engrave my great signe and Image in their soules I did not take their nature I did not sweat bloud nor die for them I did not send Apostles and Preachers to signifie my will to them in a most powerfull manner or give grace to effect it I never wrought a miracle to bring waight to my sayings Nor did I promise them a Kingdome or eternall blessednesse but truely prepared for them a dark Dungeon where they shall lie and die with me eternally And yet behold mighty Judge my cursed crew of reprobates is the greatest by infinites whom though I much hate yet I much love their company And if we looke before Sodome God in his dreadfull anger drowned all the world for sinne both man and beast behaving himselfe in regard of mans beastly sins as if he scarce knew which was the man and which the beast Had we beene as we might have beene in the number of those poore lost wretches where had wee beene this day Distressed creatures they climed the trees they flew to the tops of the mountaines to save their lives Happy was he or she that stood highest But all in vaine The waters rose by some and by some they waiting with trembling expectation the Floud gat up as high as they the waves tooke them roaring as loud as they and their sinnes sunke them Part of them cleaved to boards plankes and other floating moveables for a while the drunkard to the barrell the covetous man to his chest of mony as very desirous to stay in the world and sinne againe but no creature of God was willing to save his enemy And every one that is like to Vlysses praised by Homer with this elogie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hee knew the Cities and manners of many people may quickly give us to understand how strangely the world in many places is defaced and wounded for sinne Vae laudabili vitae hominum saith Saint Austin si remota misericordia discutias eam Woe to the good lives of men if thou O Lord shalt discusse them without mercie We then with our bad lives how many woes shall we undergoe And the rather because it is most true which the same Saint Austin teacheth Multa laudata ab hominibus Deo teste damnantur S. Aug. lib. 3. Confess c. 9. cum saepe se aliter habent species facti aliter animus facientis Many things praised by men are condemned by God because oftentimes the outward barke and appearance of the deed doth not correspond and fall in with the minde of the Doer O Sinne it is a great vertue to hate thee A Toad is a very pretty thing in comparison of thee And now I remember a Toad is Gods good creature and if it could speake might truely say Lord such a one as I am I was made by thee And howosoever I looke blacke and cloudy that I move hate in passionate men yet thou lovest me Yea verily the loathed Serpent might say if it had mans tongue and understanding Although I creepe in the dirt lick the dust of the earth and draw a long ugly traine after me though under variety of colours and a spotted skinne I shroud poyson it being observed that the Serpent with the brightest scales hideth the most dangerous venome though my life is wedded to such a body as the Devill first abused to appeare in though men are so farre from yeelding me any helpe that they runne speedily from me yet I have the same maker as they and derive the worth of my being
snowes beleeved it was black and the maine point of his doctrine was that sence playd foule with reason and snow was black We are all mortall some of us dye every day and all in a due time Yea saith S. Ambrose Vitae hujus principium mortis exordium est nec prius incipit augeri S. Ambr. lib. 2 de vocat Gent. cap. 8. vita nostra quà m minui Cui si quid ad icitur spatii temporalis non ad hoc accedit ut maneat sed in hoc transit ut pereat The first entrance into this life is the beginning of death neither doth our life begin to be encreased before it beginneth also to be diminished To which if any time be added it doth not come to remaine with us but to leave us and come no more Those who lived in the Age before us our Fathers and Grandfathers are dead and turn'd to dirt and we now in their places we also must shortly dye and turne to dirt and others succeed us and they likewise must take their turne and thus we all turne by turnes one after another into plaine dirt and this is the meane and homely end of all our bravery And yet an infamous sect of Heretikes in St. Justine firmely beleeved they forsooth were immortall and should never dye and this although they saw the brethren of their Sect sicken and dye like other men and then be buried in Graves and there lye still The old Annals of Egipt and Italy tell us that Flouds Trees Mice Cats and Crocodiles were honoured by the Egyptian Sages for gods and when the Cat kill'd the Mouse they said one god in his anger destroyed the other the more great the lesser and as meane creatures by the Roman Senatours And as S. Justine observeth the same creatures were esteemed S. Just Apolog 2. as they were Beasts by some by others used as Sacrifices to please the gods and by a third sort adored as gods Three things S. Austen would have seene if God had so ordered it in his providence Paulum in ore Romam in flore Christum in corpore Saint Paul the divine Oratour in his flourishing time of preaching the Gospell Rome in her flower Christ in his body And in Rome when she was in this pompous estate the Ague was honoured as a Goddesse and there also by ill fortune ill Fortune had her Temple Feare Palenesse what not The Lacedaemonians all the time of their life adored death Amongst another wise Generation of people rich Altars were dedicated to Poverty and old Age. Another grave Tribe beleeving fire to bee a most powerfull God travelled from Country to Country in the reigne of Constantine the great and provoked by a generall Challenge the Gods of other Countries to encounter their God And overcōming them as being compacted of wood or other matter subject to fire they came at last to Alexandria in Egypt where the River Nile by the due spreading of which that Country is fatned was accounted a God The statue of Nile being brought forth as it was hollow and full of water having on every side little holes covered with wax and fitted in all points for the purpose and fire being applied for a set battell the wax melted the water found way and the victorious God Fire was put out and there was an end of the journey And all these people cried up for Gods the things they conceived to be good ut prodessent that they might help and profit them and the things they found to be hurtfull nè nocerent that they might not hurt them CHAP. 6. MAhomet in his Alcoran describing the Turks Paradise saith it is beautified with pleasant Brooks enriched with beautifull fruits adorned with rich hangings and the like We may fitly say of him as Eusebius saith of Cerinthus an old Heretick who thought and taught that the happinesse of the other life consisted in the pleasures of marriage to be enjoyed in the fulnesse of delight for a thousand yeares in Hierusalem Quarum rerum cupiditate ipse ducebatur in eisdem beatam vitā fore somniabat Euseb li. 2. Eccl. hist cap. 22. He dreamed happinesse to be placed in those things with which himselfe was tickled And the Thalmudists the stricter and more rigid part of Jews have stuffed their Expositions with most idle Stories as that God doth punish himselfe at certain times for having beene so rough to them and the like stuffe The Indian Priests were as vaine who instilled this doctrine into all their simple Followers that when a Master should dye the Servants ought all to kill themselves that so they might readily serve him in the other world A grave Author writes of a people so fond that the first thing they saw in the morning was their God for that day and so perhaps they loved as many Gods as they lived days It hath been alwayes the maine plot of the devil to canker and corrupt the world with false opinions and chiefly with the practice of Idolatry For as the understanding is opinionated so the will works and if wee faile in the keeping of one of the two first commandements wee strike at the head of him that enableth us in the keeping of all the rest The devout Christians in the Primitive Church went in great numbers to see the places wherein Christ was borne was conversant and was crucified But the devill had quickly so stirred in the businesse and squared the matter by the power of the Pagan Emperours that the Christians comming afterwards and thinking to finde the crib in Bethleem found the image of Adonis Venus her white Boy and found nothing of the Crib but onely that it was not to be found And turning from thence to mount Calvarie they found the scene chang'd there also and beheld the statue of Venus placed with such evident signes of open warre against Christ and the profession of his name and faith Vt si quis Christianorum Ruffi Eccl. hist. lib. 1. cap. 7. saith Ruffinus in illo loco Christum adorare voluisset Venerem videretur adorare that when the sincere Christian should come with a rectified will to adore Christ his action if not his devotion might goe a wry and honour Venus The devill would faine have taught them to adore an Image which they saw rather then God whom they saw not And even amongst Christians the devill who in other matters is alwayes the wilde Authour of Confusion and Disorder hath yet opposed the Articles of the Creed in order For first Simon Magus Marcion and others strove against the title of God the Father Almighty maker of heaven and earth Secondly Arius in the first generall Councell of Nice in Bithynia laboured against the Divinity of Jesus Christ his onely Sonne our Lord. Thirdly Macedonius planted his Engine against the Holy Ghost and was condemned in the Councell of Constantinople Which observation may be also made plain in the other Articles And because the Holy Ghost
angels They shall be your good comforters such as will triumph in your miseries and your most deadly enemies who will now discover to yee all the deceits and by-wayes by which they led yee captive from mee and give yee every houre new names of scorne and reproach Here will be a noise and clamorous out-crie shall fill all the world with shreeks O the divine excellency of holy Scripture It wil not be long to this time And then the world will be gone or going and all on fire Shall I ever forget this day Shall any idle mirth or vaine tickling of pleasure or profit put mee beside the most necessary thought of this day Shall not the consideration of this day crush out of my heart many good and ready purposes As Lord open my eyes touch them with earth and cure my blindnesse that I may see what I am made of and perceive the truth of things For sure I will here stay and begin a new course in the way of Heaven I will no longer be blinde and senselesse That side in which I am weak and batter'd with Gods holy help I will repaire I will now wash my garment and afterwards hold it up on every side When a Temptation stands up in armes against mee I will fight valiantly under the banner of Michael the Archangel against the Dragon vvhat if the common Souldiers be fearfull and timorous creatures our Generall is a Lyon I will search with a curious eye into my heart and dig up all the roots of sin My soule is continually in my hand saith holy David And my Psal 119. 109. soule shall never be out of my hand that turning it continually I may observe and wipe away the smallest spot and make up every cranny by which the devill enters O Lord hold thy hand now once more forbeare a little and all my study shall be to please thee in all companies in all places I will temember thee And when a sin to which I have been formerly accustomed shall come againe for ordinary entertainement I will fright it away with the remembrance of these powerfull words Depart from mee yee cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devill and his angels I will ask my self one question and then I vvill have done that I may begin to doe Canst thou dwell vvith eternall fire If thou canst and vvilt doe nothing for love goe on in the old vvay But if thou canst not dwell vvith eternall fire stop here and repent that thou may'st come at last where they are of whom it is said The soules of the Wisd 3. 1. righteous are in the hand of God and there shall no torment touch them For then Tout va bien as it is in the French phrase All goes well I most earnestly commend these Meditations and others in this Booke going under the name both of Meditations and Considerations to all good Christians that they will vouchsafe to make use of one or more of them in a day that the Jesuits and others beyond the Seas may cease for very shame to boast so vainely that none doe frequently meditate upon God and good things but they For their Meditations which treat of true Subjects I commend them sincerely But all their Meditations are onely naked and short poynts as they call them and they leave him that meditates to discourse upon them which many cannot doe and but few can well doe Saint Austen hath given us an order which they observe not CHAP. 14. BEfore I leave St. Omers I must needs give you a gentle touch of the Jesuits Hypocrisie there For besides other follies of that rank they have set up a large picture in a faire roome above staires where the Schollers come every day In vvhich are pictured two ships at Sea and one is taken by the other A ship of Hollanders takes a ship of Spaniards wherein many Jesuits are The Hollanders look fierce and cruelly the Spanish Jesuits have all good and heavenly faces The Hollanders having bound the Jesuits hand and foot and throwne them over-board they sink and dye like men a spectacle full of horrour onely some of them appeare floating upon the water I suppose their galls are broken with faces very like dead Saints But one of them amongst all the rest can neither dye nor sink because he beares a Crucifix in his hands though they are bound and the Painter hath given him a better face then all the rest I would to God these people did either love God truly or not make a shew they love him And their labour is not onely to bring the Schollers in admiration of other Jesuits by false wayes but also of themselves For they had one in their house at that time who had beene stung by the old serpent and was more crafty then religious in the report of all disinteressed persons that knew him Concerning whom part of the zealous Boyes beleeved and whence could this come but from the Jesuits suggestions that he had seen the virgin Mary and that upon a time for so every tale begins shee had appeared to him when hee was hot in his prayers And when their businesse led them to his chamber they would whisper one to another that is the place where the virgin Mary appear'd to Father Wallys and they would observe that corner with reverence The Jesuits have alwayes Secular Priests Adherents to their body stirring men and such as they are sure of whom they keepe warme with a promise to receive them afterwards into their order but will not presently for some ends either that they may stay with them and buy purchases for them which they must not be seene to look after and the like or to deale some other cunning businesses abroad which will not beseeme them to act in their owne behalfe or to write books in their defence or at least to prefix their names before the Books that they may be defended and praised by other men One example will not take up much room A Secular Priest of this quality was sent from England not many yeares agoe into Germany and there presented a petition to the Emperour to which many English Papists had subscribed their names I suppose all Jesuited Papists And the matter was to begg an English Colledge in Germany which might be governed by the Jesuits which appeared a very faire Petition because the Messenger was a Secular Priest Sure the Apostles of Christ had little of this wisedome Such a man there was now at S. Omers who shewed often to the young Frye a prâ—â—ious Relique calling it a feather pluck'd from one of the wings of S. Michael the Archangel I know there hath been a Story related formerly of them somewhat like this And I am certaine that most if not all their tricks are fashioned in the likenesse of things formerly done or said to be done for many reasons Invention is not so happy as it hath beene And all wonders must be like that they
much approved in the Councell of Chalcedon Conc. Chalc. As when the body of man suffereth the soule indeed knoweth that and what the body suffereth but in it self remayneth impassible So Christ suffering in whom the Godhead was the Godhead in him could not suffer with him If as in God there are three persons and one nature and three persons in one nature so in Christ we consider two natures in one person and lay them out to their proper acts all is easily perceived Excellently Cyril of Alexandria alleaged in the first generall Councell Cyr. Alex. in Conc. Ephes 1. of Ephesus Factus est homo remansit Deus servi formam accepit sed liber ut filius gloriam accepit gloriae Dominus in omnes accepit potestatem rex simul cum Deo rerum omnium He was made man but he continued God he took the forme of a servant but he remayned free as a sonne he received glory but was the Lord of glory hee received power over all but was King together with God of all things With what a ready finger the holy Evangelists touch every particular string in the dolorous discourse of our Saviours Passion They were not ordinary men drawn every way with carnall desires but extraordinary persons carried aloft upon the wings of a divine spirit For in the relation of those things which manifested the glory of Christ and pertained to the demonstration of his God-head they do not stay they give a naked declaration and passe to that which followeth But in the cloudy matters of his disgrace and especially in the Funerall Song of his Passion they are copious and full of matter Which if they had vainly affected the glory of the World they neither should nor would have done Thus evidently shewing they did not glory in any thing but with Saint Paul in the crosse of our Lord Iesus Christ Saint Luke opening the glory of Christs Nativitie openeth and shutteth all as it were with one action And suddenly Luk. 2. 13 14. there was with the Angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying Glory be to God in the highest and on earth peace good will towards men That strange comming of the Wisemen or Eastern Princes Saint Matthew comes as quickly over And fell down and worshipped him And Mat. 2. 11. when they had opened their treasures they presented unto him Gifts Gold Frankincense and Myrrhe In blazing the Transfiguration of Christ they put it off without any blazing figure without a transfiguration of words as willing onely to insinuate that Christ opened a chink of Heaven and gave a little glympse of his glory before his Passion to prepare and confirme his Disciples And forced at last upon his Ascension it fals from them in short Hee was received Mar 16. 19 up into Heaven All which they might have amplified by the help of their infused knowledge which virtually contained the inferiour art of speaking with glorious descriptions But in the dolefull Historie of his Passion wee have a large discourse of apprehending binding judging buffeting whipping scorning reviling condemning wounding killing and if any thing slip under the rehearsall it is to be a scarff over the face and to shew the griefe could not be expressed and moreover to stirre mens thoughts to expresse more in themselves to which wee may referre that of Saint Luke And many other things blasphemously spake they against him These blessed Evangelists Luk. 22 65 proved themselves to be the true Disciples of Christ For Saint Matthew saith From that time forth began Iesus to shew unto Mat. 16 21 his Disciples how that he must goe to Hierusalem and suffer many things of the Elders and chiefe Priests and Scribes and be killed and be raised again the third day The Resurrection had but a very little roome and it should have had no roome had it not fitly served to sweeten the relation of his sufferings Hee did not much stirre his head in his passion without a Record without a Chronicle Saint Iohn saith hee bowed his head And thus doth the flower when it John 19. 30 beginneth to wither Hee bowed his head and gave up the ghost He bowed his head Stay there it is too soone to give up the ghost Father of Heaven wilt thou suffer this O all yee creatures help help your Creatour But they stir not because he hath bowed his head the most high and most majesticall part of his body Did hee bow his head Hee the great God of Heaven and of the World betrayed by his owne Disciple crucified by his owne people led by him to the knowledge of him when all the World was given into their own hands and brought by a strange and a strong hand out of Egypt the house of bondage the black figure of this World into the Land of Canaan the Land which flowed with milk and honey the beautifull Embleme of Heaven Did hee bow his head no instruments but his own creatures being used to his destruction when the weighty sins of the whole world were laid upon his guiltlesse back and when he could in one quick instant have turned all the World to a vain and foolish nothing And shall one of us dirty creatures frowne and be troubled lift up the head speak rashly and kick against the thorn moved by every small and easie occasion Shall we murmure and trouble all with the smoake and fames of angry words As thus for the deceits of the Devill are wonderfull If that Miscreant that shape of a man had not put my honour upon the hooke I had not beene troubled Such another man is not extant me thinks hee has not the face of an honest man The carriage of his body is most ridiculous God forgive me if I think amisse my heart gives mee hee never says his prayers Pray God he believe in Christ This makes the Devil sport What are we How soone we take fire how quickly we give fire how long we keep fire In what mists or rather fogs wee lose our selves Why did God send some of us now living into the World and not rather create us in glory if he did not mean we should passe through a field of thornes into a garden of flowers through the Temple of Vertue into the Temple of Honour by pain to pleasure MEDIT. 3. HE gave up the ghost They say men that die give up the ghost Did Christ die It cannot be Yes and more He died willingly like a meeke Lambe sobbing out his life For hee gave up the ghost it was not taken from him And therefore a good man hath not feared to say that Christ held his life by mayn strength some little while beyond the date of nature that it might not seem to bee taken from him by force of armes Greater love hath no man then this that a man lay downe his life for his friends Joh. 15. 13. Life is the last of all our possessions in this
a man a silly man to be the daily subject of other mens laughter and scorne let him consider that the God of peace dwelleth not in a troubled discontented soul And let him now come hither the shedding of this bloud shal satisfie still his anger for the bloud of Christ will breake the Adamant of his heart and let out the passion hee hath crushed water out of a Rock For what Lion-hearted man can be angry when hee calleth to mind how this innocent Lambe heaven and earth being moved above and beneath him remained calme in the midst and died in the fulnesse of content and patience and let him say come O come great example of sweetnesse open thy armes wide wider yet yet wider that I may run into the Circle of thy sweet imbraces O my beloved Lord I am a spotted Leopard and yet I am not for I am all black and one drop of thy cleane bloud will transform all into perfect beauty O God how beautifull are thy Tabernacles I will prayse thee in Jerusalem the holy Citie of peace Is a man a back-biter or a talkative person Let him seriously think that he hath out-done the Basiliske and killed where and when hee hath not seene let it sinke into him that hee scattereth coles and is able to set on fire a whole Kingdome for if all were known to all persons that is done and said the dearest friends would bare of their love and there would be little if any friendship amongst men let him observe that words which have flown out of one mouth flie from one mouth to another and never leave flying let him now come hither look upon him that opened his mouth in speech but seven times in three long houres upon the Crosse when happily another would have roared in the extremity and have declamed against the ravenous greedinesse of the Jewish cruelty let him here admire in silence for hee will see that which if hee would speak he could not speak worthily let him heere contemplate him that knew the darke hearts and secret sinnes of all the world and yet did not reveal them to his tongue And let him say Deare Lord and Master I perceive now that I am not master of my brother's good name and that I ought not to break silence and speak every true thing and though my neighbour hath stained his credit in one place yet if it be not wholly prostituted by him if it be not a general publike and over-spreading stain I may not recount his weaknesse in places where his good name is firme and entire or at least not bruised in that part O my blessednesse I will make a covenant with my lips and a branch of the covenant shall be My lips shall praise thee Is a man a lover of pleasure Let it enter into his heart that as money profiteth onely when it goeth from us so pleasure delighteth only when it passeth and that it passeth as it commeth and that never any earthly pleasure did please when it was past let him keepe in his minde that whosoever is overcome with the vain ticklings of pleasure is more busied in the exercise of those faculties which he hath common with beasts then of those in which he is like to Angels and in the inference is a man-beast and let him believe for it is certainly true that the greatest pain grief and torment which Christ suffered on the Crosse and all the time of his life rose from a fore-sight in which hee beheld how many would doat upon the short and lightning flashes of the World and how few-would cleave to the great and ever-during benefit of his passion and let him now come hither and fix upon him whose whole life was a map of misery and a sad history of pain who as he hung upon the Crosse suffered most heavy pains in every small part of his body died in pain and left to his Church a large legacie of most painfull sufferings and let him say O thou true lover of souls I will henceforth pursue pain more then pleasure I will prove my selfe to be a naturall member and suffer with my head O goodnesse make me conformable to thee and though I weep and bleed and beare crosses and though I am born up my self from earth and all earthly pleasure on a Crosse I shall not repine at my condition because the servant is not more worthy then his Master Come all kinds of Sinners come on come neere the Crosse take a full view of this bloudy sacrifice offered once for all touch it lay your hands freely upon the wounds and bruises they belong to you Come let us fall down before him and tell him of what weake and glassie matter he hath made us how prone we are to slip what great enemies threaten our ruine that the quarrell is because wee beare his Image and that we are persecuted even to death only because wee are like to him and that in the matter it is his quarrell And then let us humbly dedicate our parts that have sinned to his service For doubtlesse hee that suffered Magdalene to wipe his feet with her hair so often kemb'd sweetned tied up in knots let downe in books and spread in Nets to catch the carelesse youth of Ierusalem and the Country will not reject you or mee or yours or mine Hee that hath feet which have beene swift to shed bloud and quicke in accomplishing the acts of sinne let him kisse these feet and beg part of the satisfaction which they have made for the sinnes of the feet hee that hath hands dipped in bloud and bathed in all the sinks of mischiefe let him kisse these hands and beg part of the satisfaction which they have made for the sins of the hands hee that hath set the casements of his curious eyes wide open to vanitie and never shut them against vaine and wanton fights let him kisse these eyes hee that hath eares blistred with slanders and blurred with foule discourses let him kisse these eares he that hath a mouth plenum amaritudine full of bitternesse delibutum mendaciis bedaub'd with lyes and besmear'd with oaths let him kisse this mouth and beg part of the satisfaction which this mouth hath made for the sins of the mouth he that hath a heart fraught with ill habits and alwayes at worke in hammering sinne let him kisse not with his lips but with his heart this wounded side and a mingled drop of bloud and water from this royall heart shall meet the lips of his heart while hee beggeth part of the satisfaction which this heart hath made for the sinnes of the heart Come all the dying man refuseth no living man you beggar with the crutch come forward no man woman or childe is excepted from the fruit of his passion Every one that is endued with a reasonable soule hath title to it It is only required that we believe in him and keep his Commandements for we ought
the paines the old man tooke And yet riches cannot satisfie the heart of man Saint Austin hath the reason of it in his Meditations Domine fecisti nos propter te irrequietum est cor nostrum donec pervenerit ad S. Aug. in confes te Lord thou hast made us for thee and the heart of man cannot bee quiet till it come to thee and rest in thee And the Prophet speakes not besides the matter When I awake up after thy likenesse I shall be satisfied with it There are holy meditations Ps 17. 15. and vertuous exercises to which wee owe much time and therefore the Devill a cunning dealer keepes the richer part of women busie all the prime of the day in dressing their bodies and undressing their soules and in creating halfe-moones and stars in their faces in correcting Gods workmanship and making new faces as if they were somewhat wiser then God Quem judicem mulier saith Saint Ambrose veriorem S. Ambr. requirimus deformitatis tuae quam te ipsam quae videri times O woman what more true judge can we require of thy deformity that is thy uglinesse then thy selfe who fearest to be seene The Devill is alwayes more forward in seducing women because he knoweth that women are of a soft pliant and loving nature and that if they should love God they would love him tenderly The Devill whither can any of us men or women flie from the Devill Be sober be vigilant saith Saint Peter because 1 Pet. 5. 8. your adversary the Devill as a roaring Lion walketh about seeking whom he may devoure It is not enough to be sober nor enough to be vigilant He is not our friend but our adversary And he is a busie Devill he goes about an angry Devill he goes about like a roaring Lion a hungry Devill for hee does not roare onely but he comes roaring with a greedy purpose to devoure and hee walketh lest going with speede he should run over you and he keepes not one way but walketh about and does not onely devoure those who stand or meete him in his way but he seeketh whom he may devoure and he is alwayes the same alwayes a Devill for when he hath found his prey fed upon it and eate up all he is not satisfied he goes on still seeking whom hee may devoure God blesse every good man and woman from a roaring Lion Sixtus Sixt. II. and second in one of his Epistles directed to a certaine Bishop gives the Devill no good report Si in Paradiso hominem stravit quis locus extra Parad. esse potest in quo mentes hominum penetrare non valeat If he gave man a fall in Paradise what place can there be out of Paradise in which he may not insinuate and wind himselfe into the hearts of men Here is a picture of the life we so much love and so much desire to continue And in the last place an old house fals or an arrow goes out of the way or our feete slip or the Devill comes to us in the outside of a Saint it is his course with drooping and melancholy spirits and tels us religiously that we shall give glory to God or at least ease and comfort to our selves if we cut our owne throats or hang our selves and we are dead gone Perhaps we may leave our pictures behinde us with our friends but what are they a meerely a meere deceit of the Painter our pictures are no part of us neither doe they represent us as we are we are dead we see but one anothers faces when we are alive we are parted in substances we cannot mingle into one another as wine and water and therefore death puls one out of the others bosome And commonly when our hopes are now ripe and the things we long desired at the doore Death comes and overtakes and takes us And any man being wicked himselfe may send with Gods leave a wicked man to Hell in the turning of a hand and then what would he not give to bee with his friends in the world againe Here the reason fals open why never yet from the beginning of the world any wise man died but if he could speake in his last words he cryed out against the vanities of life and of the world My prayer shall be the prayer of one that knew what hee prayd for O spare me that I may recover strength before I Ps 39. 13. goe hence and be no more Meditation 5. IF I consider man in his death and after it He dyes that never dyed before Hee dyes that knowes not what it is to dye Which of us knowes what the pangs of death are and how going naked agrees with the soule It is as true as old Death is of all terribles the most terrible For howsoever the holy Spirit in holy Scripture is pleased to call it a sleep it is not a sleep to the wicked It is recorded of Lazarus Our friend Lazarus sleepeth and of Saint Io. 11. 11. Act. 7. 60. Stephen And when he had said this he fell asleep And of the Patriarchs and Kings of Judah that they slept with their Fathers But this was the death of the Saints so pretious in the sight of the Lord. And the soule of man now leaving the body carrieth no mortall friends with her they stay behind the brother and the sister and the wife and the pretty little children with the sweete babe in the cradle No temporall goods or evils rather nothing but good or evill Revel 14. 13. workes and their workes doe follow them All the fairest goods which made all people in all ages proud are stil extant in the world and will be after us even to the end of the world And although the living talke pleasantly of their dead friends and hope well while one looketh soberly and saith I doubt not but such a man or such a woman is with God another neither truely doe I a third he she there is no question of it if he or she be not in heaven what shall become of me Yet notwithstanding all this plausible and smooth discourse not one of these three tenderhearted and charitable persons nor any one living here in the world knoweth certainly whither they were carried This we all know certainly Many of them are most heavily tormented in Hell and there curse the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation and the world and all their occasions of sin and all their friends and themselves and all Gods creatures in the very span of time wherein their friends speake well and judge charitably of them while they distribute their words without the least change of countenance and little thinke of their most wofull and most lamentable condition And the Devill though it is open to him after this life yet cunningly keepeth from us who are saved and who damned If one of us were now in Hell but it is a darke and horrid place God keepe
us from it hee would quickly thinke Had I my body and life againe whither would I not goe What would I not undergoe to shun this wofull extremity I would lye weeping upon the cold stones all covered with dust and ashes if it might be suffered a million of yeares for my sinnes I would begge my bread of hard-hearted people in a new world from one end of it to the other I would spend as many life 's in trembling feare and fearfull trembling if I had them as there bee lifes in living creatures I would doe any thing Now my soule doe not grieve that Hell is provided for sinners for such griefe stands so farre under the lowest degree of vertue that it is a sinne but give two teares at least from the eyes of thy body because thou hast sinned against thy good God Such teares are Pearles and rich ones and will in time make thee a rich man The holy Fathers call these teares the jewels of Heaven and the wine of Angels And as the world was a gallant world and there were such creatures and such doings as we now see before I was any thing so it will unlesse God please in the meane time to cut off all by his glorious and second comming remaine a very gallant world and there will againe be such creatures and such doings when I shall lye quietly under ground corrupt and putrifie and by little and little fall away to a few wretched bones and these shall remaine to mocke at what I have beene And he that is now so trim and so much talk'd of shall not be so much as remembred in the world his generation shall forget him and people will speake and behave themselves as if he had never beene CHAP. V. REader beware the Papists are crafty and profound in craft And they will object to relieve their cause one of these two things or both I have beene long trained in the knowledge of their wayes That I owe them thankes for many devout observations Something I have learned of them and I thanke them for it yet little if experience stand aside but what I might have learned in England My friends know that when I was a boy at Eton Colledge I began to scribble matters of devotion And I have seene much unworthinesse in them beyond the Seas not to be imitated which I could not have learned in England But the knowledge which they worke by shall lye dead in me Their other prop will be that my writings come not from the spirit of devotion but of oratorie I am short in these revelations that point at something in me who am nothing Reader thou hast the language of my spirit but I must digge farther into this veine of Meditation or Consideration Consideration 1. THe reasonable soule though now of composition is composed of three faculties the Understanding the Will the Memory All faculties being active have one most proper act or exercise to which they are most and most easily inclinable if not restrained The most proper act or operation of the Understanding is to see or know Truth Of the Will to will and love good Of the Memory to lay up and keepe in it selfe as in a Treasury all profitable occurrences By the sinne of Adam the Understanding is dazled in the sight or knowledge of Truth By the sinne of Adam the Will becomes chill and colde in the willing and loving of good so colde that it wants a fire And from the sin of Adam the Memore hath learn'd an ill tricke of treasuring up evill where it shall be sure to be found againe and of casting aside good where it may be lost with a great deale more ease then it was found Where one part is wounded and one well one part may succour and cherish the other the part well the wounded part In the soule all parts are wounded And therefore there is great neede of Grace and supernaturall helps that strengthened by them wee may recover health and partes deperditas the parts we have lost Lord assist my contemplation with thy Grace Wherefore the holy Apostle speaking of those who in all their adventures were guided onely by the weake directions of nature sayes they became Rom. 1. 21. vaine in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkned First vaine and then more darke Saint Hieromes Translation speaketh after this manner in Genesis The Gen. 1. 2. earth was vaine and voide and darknesse was upon the face of the deepe What the Eye is in the body the Understanding is in the soule The Eye is the naturall guide of the body the Understanding is the naturall guide of the soule For when we beleeve as well as desire the things we doe not understand even then also we take a naturall direction from the Understanding which he holds a convenience of such things in respect of the motives with beliefe and desire though not with Understanding The Eye sees the outward shape of a thing the Understanding sees both outwardly and inwardly as being advanced more neerely in its degree and therefore also in its making to God The Eye discernes one thing from another the Understanding conceives as much The Eye judges of colours the Understanding judges of white and blacke of good and evill The Eye cannot see perfectly many things at once and such a one is the understanding For the more a power be it spirituall or corporall being finite is spread and divided in its operation the lesse power it hath in every particular The eye sees other things but I cannot turne it inward to see it selfe the Eye of the soule lookes forward but in the body it shall never obtaine a sight of it selfe in its owne essence Indeed the Understanding is a kinde of Eye and the Eye is a kinde of Understanding Such an excellent sweetnesse of agreement there is betwixt the soule and the body which moved to the marriage and union betwixt them Now this Understanding this Eye of the soule is not altogether blinded by the great mischance of originall sinne For omnia naturalia sunt integra as Dionysius sayes of Dionys Areop the fallen Angels all the naturall parts are sound How from being broken not from being bruised This Eye then although darke so farre sees that it sees it selfe lesse able to see somewhat darke in the sight of naturall things and much more then somewhat darke in the sight of spirituall things I may stand betwixt both and clearely behold the different case of the soule before and after the fall of Adam in order to spirituall contemplation and practise if I looke upon the various condition of a man in health and sicknesse in order to the actions and operations of life The sicke man is weake and ill at ease his principall parts are in paine his head his heart He cannot use his minde seriously but his head akes he cannot looke stedfastly nor at all upon a shining object discourse is tedious to
beene so busie and so movable in accomplishing the foule acts of wickednesse shall now be as quick and ready in the performance of workes agreeable to thy sacred will My feete that have carried my body with such nimblenesse in the darke and dirty turnings of mischiefe shall now strive one to goe before the other and be as forward and swift in the faire and direct way of holinesse I let goe the reines and freely consent to all the acts of charity justice patience and other vertues inward or outward in earth or in heaven as farre as heaven is capable of them before now or hereafter performed And I pull up the reines and with-draw my consent from all acts contrary to God and goodnesse Woe to me wretch when I am out of thy favour me thinkes the Lilies are blacke and the red Roses pale The Birds sing idle tunes and the Sunne doth not shine when it shines When the Clock striketh say Lord give me true repentance for the procuring of which this houre is added to my dayes Or Lord give mee grace to redeeme the time Or Lord prepare me for my last houre and let not death rush suddenly upon me unlesse in a time when I am provided for thee and have washed away my last sinne with true repentance When thou goest to bed think of thy Grave and say if sleepe this night should steale away and leave the possession to death as it may easily happen how is my soule affected When thou risest think of the Resurrection and say what if I were now called to an exact and rigid account for all the sinnes and disorders of my life And let the last Trumpet cry alwayes in thine eares with a mournfull sound Surgite mortui venite ad judicium Rise yee dead and come to judgement And let day and night put thee continually in minde of Heaven and Hell And remember that the accounts shall differ according to the differences of talents helps and cals from God For some are by nature more prone to some kindes of sinnes then others And great persons have greater temptations to sinnes that are fed with plenty Rule 9. EVery morning and evening examine your conscience and call your selfe to a strict and severe account how you have offended God that day or night And that you may the better render to your selfe the account of the day think what was your businesse where you were and with whom you conversed Then confesse your sinnes to God procuring by the helpe of his grace sorrow for them returning all possible thankes because you have not waded farther into sinne And at those times cleanse and purifie your heart from the dregs of envie and malice and from the lees of ill desires and vaine affections And so levell your selfe that all who see you may clearely perceive you are in perfect charity with them and with all the world For it is not the last rule of our obligation to forgive our Adversaries privately in our hearts We must likewise unfold open and expresse our selves to them and if they have any thing against us as it is written we must in a pious and reasonable manner cleare the matter And also in every examination of your selfe try your heart whether it goeth forward or backward in the cleane path of vertue For the way to Heaven is Jacobs Ladder you cannot stand still upon it Two speciall things are necessarily requisite to salvation the one pertaining to faith the other to manners First to know I meane what they are and firmely beleeve by a faith given from Heaven the chiefest and most materiall points of Christian beleefe Secondly to banish all complacence and liking of our former sinnes and the close and implicit will of sinning hereafter and to wash away all our sinnes yea the very last I doe not say every one in particular but all considered in the lump if the last be included with true and hearty repentance which is the gift of God and supernaturall and full of difficulties Rule 10. VVHen difficulties in the great affaires of conscience do occur for example how you may give rules to your soule in such a case in a case encircled with such circumstances whether such and such a bargaine or such and such dealing will stand in conformity with justice desire the grave advice of your Pastour or of some other vertuous and learned person As also when you are over-tempted and exercised though not above yet to the full height of your strength flie quickly to your spirituall Physitian and open the secret of your disease For now he supplieth the most high place of God who revealeth no mans weaknesses And he knowing the soare may fit his medicines accordingly and truly worke more effectually then in the Pulpit where for the most part hee doth speake to the present purpose by guesse and where he cannot fit himselfe to the sins of all his Hearers You will urge perhaps my Pastour is not a man of a good life and therefore though his counsell may helpe me his prayers cannot I answer that he is not a man of a good life I am heartily sorry But he beareth two persons in his owne person of himselfe as he is a man and like other men and of himselfe as he hath received holy orders from the Church as he is lawfully sent and commeth in by the doore and as hee representeth Gods person As he is himselfe a wicked man the remembrance of thee will be little acceptable to God in his prayers but as he is a Church-man hee may stand betwixt God and thee and keep off the blow But if he neglect thee or suite not with thy devotion flie to another Rule 11. ENdeavour to learne alwayes by good example Virtuosus saith Aristotle est 10. Eth. c. 5. parwn ante sinem mensura regula actuum bumanorum a vertuous man is a rule of life by which others ought to measure their actions And to pray alwayes by a continuance of good actions and alwayes privately marke how Gods attributes his goodnesse mercie wisedome power providence doe play their severall parts here in the world and how strangely his justice doth oftentimes fall heavie upon sinners and lay them open to the eyes of all men No childe would grow to the ripenesse of a man or woman unlesse upheld daily by the speciall providence of good And observe the miserable ends of drunkards of lewd proud and profane persons and the condition of solitary sins and of sinnes that keepe ill company as Drunkennesse Adultery Murder which are many times found in the same knot And lay up all things in thy heart It hapneth oftentimes that a man killeth his neighbour and by that foule act doth execute the severe justice of God upon the man whom he killeth upon himselfe and upon friends on both sides Learne that men being touched in a soare part are most troubled Rule 12. SPeake not willingly of other mens faults or
imperfections whether naturall or morall Judge no man neither say or thinke that such a man is proud envious malicious that he hath an ill looke of his owne and so forth Judge not of things which are not plaine and open to thee either for the present secrecie or for the future uncertainty although the person is now blacke it is not farre to the fountain he may be quickly whiter then Snow And he hath the same Creator Redeemer Sanctifier Benefactour and Preserver with thee whom he calleth Father and to whom he prayeth every day who will also bee his Judge and thine Rule 13. VVHen you are afflicted with losse of health or wealth or good-name or with misery meete it with open armes and accept it willingly as a small punishment for your sins saying How good is God to be thus easily put off with a temporall punishment an eternall punishment being due I have deserved more and more and yet more and Christ hath suffered infinitely more in my occasions I see now there is good reason why the blessed are called Blessed of his Father but not the cursed cursed of his Father He blesseth of himselfe and never curseth but exceedingly urged And he did not prepare Hell for man but for the Devill And Christ died rather for men then Angels because it was a more eminent worke of charity to fasten the weakenesse and to relieve the wants of men then of Angels God is said to harden the heart because upon a refusall and contempt of his grace and of him standing at the doore of the heart with his lookes all moistned with the dewe of the morning he justly withdraweth his helpes which he is not bound to continue after which followeth hardnesse of heart And we see that men of high calling and good life if they fall fall to the bottome because they have neglected the more forcible moving and urgent helpes of God Rule 14. MAke a weekely Bill of Gods benefits and thy sinnes and alwayes when the Lords day commeth to which come thou prepared by prayer and humiliation blesse God more plentifully for those and for all his other benefits and crave pardon more seriously for these and for all thy other sinnes And this day principally fold thy selfe within thy selfe and looke backe upon God as hee was before the world Be present with him in the Creation as Wisedome was which saith I was with him making all things Stand by and observe the strangenesse of the workmanship Consider that which thou canst not conceive the nothing that was before the world the thought of darknesse will come the nighest to it Listen and heare God say Let there be light Marke with what quicknesse Light followes Admire it and crie out Lord there was Light before there was light for thou art Light and in thee there is no darknesse at all Consider the different state of the Church from Abel through the Law of Nature the written Law and the Law of Grace to this houre Mark how strangely the providence of God hath carried the publike affaires of the world and the particular businesse of every creature in the world At length come home to thy selfe examine thy memory and discover the different tracts of Gods working with thee from thy child-hood his daily discourse to thy heart and the strange inventions by which he hath called thee to him and thy unkindnesse On the other side labour to lay open the plots of the Devill whether beaten and ordinary or strange and extraordinary endeavouring to know and fortifie thy weakenesse In thy prayers imagine thy selfe to lye prostrate before God amongst the worms amongst the sculs and bones of the dead or at the foot of his Crosse upon Mount Calvarie Mark what God inwardly saith to thee in thy prayers and thence raise good purposes Let thy demeanour in Gods house be seasoned with all possible reverence and with a decent composition of body and face and especially with a watchfull carriage of thy eyes And lastly note as to the devotion of our morning prayer the successe of the day doth commonly answer so from our behaviour on the Lords day every day of the weeke doth commonly take his direction THE FOVRTH BOOKE CHAP. I. THe provinciall of the English Jesuits being my Kinsman and the onely Papist of all my Kindred who died soone after sent me to the English Colledge in Rome And in my journey when I came to Marselles a Port-towne in the remote parts of France I was strongly conceited that by the prayers of Saint Mary Magdalene whose shrine and chiefe reliques were not farre off I should gaine the benefit of a good winde and be conveyed as I was informed I might have beene in foure and twenty houres to Rome And therefore I prayed earnestly to her but shee did not heare me and my conceit was very weake though it was very strong For sixe long weekes passed before I could recover Rome It is worthy to be knowne that in Marselles when I passed through it to it Rome there were but foure or five Jesuits and those in a house in the best roome of which they could scarce all together turn themselves round but two yeares after when I returned their number was exceedingly encreased and they were seated in three faire houses One a casa professa as they call it for their old men another a Colledge for their Students and the third a house for the tutoring of their novices And it is not unworthy to be knowne that there is not a Papist of any worth in England whose worth in the matter of his estate the Iesuits doe not exactly know and have not set downe in writing and that the Jesuits doe every where professe and publish themselves to be in debt that they may be thought poore and lie the more openly open to the Charity of people When I came within halfe a dayes journey of Rome and beheld part of Saint Peters Church I was taken presently and I have often wondred at it with a strange rising of Spirit against the City and Church of Rome By which I did as it were presage what I should afterwards know The Church of this Colledge is all painted in the inward And the pictures counterfeit men and women that were hang'd or beheaded in England as they speake either in the profession of faith or the defence of vertue And the painter played the counterfeit too For he hath cunningly mingled old stories with these of late dayes the more to deceive the beholder and to passe them all under the same cause Truely if my power had beene pound-waight with my will the Schollers should have complained to the Pope of the foule abuses which have besmeared the Government of this Colledge It was significant that F. Fitz-Herbert wrote a booke against Matchiavell for why said one of our Schollers at Rome that he might not seeme to be what he was a Matchiavellian because our craft is void if we are knowne to be
Repentance and therefore in it selfe according to the course and order of Gods proceedings with us even in Christ Jesus not pardonable We cannot grieve with the griefe of true repentance for one sinne or many except we grieve for all because repētance grieveth that we have offended God and every sin is a great offence against God Of this blacke stampe are likewise certaine offences committed against God or his Church As when their honour or goods are taken from them All goods as goods are his goods that is most good I understand by goods taken from God abused Abuti saith Saint Austin est uti aliquo S. Aug. super illud Psal Loquens adversus justum in superbia in abusione ad usum non suum To abuse a thing is to bow it aside to an use for which it was not ordained Gods honour is taken from him in the commission of every sinne every sinne being opposite to his honour and as farre as it is able destructive of it because a violation of his precept and a contempt of his power But the more eminent and more speciall taking away of his honour which accordingly requires a more eminent and more speciall satisfaction is the most foule and deformed act of speaking blasphemous words in the hearing of our neighbours as being a plaine act of open defiance against God The strong foundation upon which this holy Doctrine standeth is Repentance implyeth a revoking of sinne past to the farthest extent of our ability For it necessarily includeth a will which would that it never had beene committed but sinne is not sufficiently revoked if the wrongs of our neighbours bee not redressed and certainely they are not redressed without satisfaction made or forgiven for the rent is not sowed up And againe Repentance supposeth a performance of all the necessary obligations of Charity and one of the first and chiefest is to repaire the ruines of injustice Wherefore with Gods efficacious help according to the Canon of holy Scripture And he shall make amends for the harme that Levit. 5. 16. he hath done I will restore to God his own and because I am his my selfe set his honour free and turne his goods into the channell where at first they were by him set a running towards him I will correct the judgements of the people whom I have perverted and labour to rectifie both their opinions and lives and because the Spanish word is very significant disengannar to undeceive them I will restore if need be and if I am able encrease and preserve the goods and honour of his Church And where I was injurious towards my neighbour I will with all diligence peece up the losse though by the weakening of my owne estate For then I am a very weake creature when that by which I am strong is due by Gods ordinance to another and perhaps another is weake because I am strong by his weaknesse I will endeavour by all possible meanes to know if the goods devolv'd upon me have beene well gotten whether they bee mingled goods or no partly well gotten and partly otherwise and restore what is not mine The Preacher speakes like a Prcacher There is a sore Ecclesiastes 5. 13. evill which I have seene under the Sunne namely riches kept for the owner◠thereof to their hurt I said he speakes like a preacher for the riches that are kept above the Sunne are not kept for the owners thereof to their hurt but under the Sun oftentimes riches are kept for the owners to their great hurt amongst which in the first place are il-gotten riches for they have so much of evill having beene ill-gotten that they seldome turne to good till they are well-gotten againe And although God doth not keepe riches for the owners thereof to their hurt because although he knowes all the secrets of future events all his ordinances are pure and undefiled yet their friends doe for they must needs intend the hurt because ill-gotten goods without any other addition of evill are hurtfull to their owners and the reason is cleare what is unjustly gotten is detained unjustly if the case be not varied by length of time and of all hurts the hurt of wickednesse is the greatest The holy Ghost is the rule by which I worke And Zacheus stood and said unto the Luke 19. 8. 9. Lord Behold Lord the halfe of my goods I give to the poore and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation I restore him foure-fold And Jesus said unto him This day is salvation come to this house It is not I will give but I give and therefore the reward is quick This day And restitution is made although the thing taken be small and the person damnified of small account If I have taken any thing from any man And howsoever the words here run we must first restore and afterwards give It was Lord before but the promise of satisfaction having interceded it is now Jesus And therefore where I have tooke away the good-name of any man I will recover it by the law of God and give it againe And why doth not the Church of Rome which talketh so much of satisfaction give me my owne againe injuriously taken from me Sunt homicidae saith Saint Clement S. Clem. ep 1. ad Jacob interfectores fratrum sunt homicidae detractores eorum There are homicides who murder their brethren and there are homicides also that detract from them If my report was false I will humbly acknowledge my falsehood before the witnesses of my report who if they be farre distant shall be made also witnesses of my acknowledgement by word or letter If my report was of a thing wrapt in the clouds of uncertainty which yet I published under the name or colour of a certainty I will take all the worke to pieces againe and propose all afresh as uncertain but my owne weaknesse If of a thing true and exposed in the light but not in the light of the Sunne but of a Candle as being secret or not knowne where I made it knowne I will conquer the wrong with charitable services If the wronged person be dead I will in matter of goods performe my sacred obligation to his friends keeping my eye upon the just tenour of his will and intention In matter of good-name to his good-name which as it sickens not with him so neither does it give up the Ghost when he dies but may live and be in good and perfect health he being dead and which it selfe being dead may be rais'd againe without a miracle For when he is dead and all other worldly titles are buried with him still in his soule and his ashes he reserves a title to his good-name Where I am deficient by reason of disability in making the satisfaction compleate and absolute in all numbers I will satisfie to the utmost limits of my power and what is wanting make up full and running over with my
from as high a descent as they doe and as they are sinfull I am more perfect and exceedingly more beautifull in the sight of God and all his Angels I doe not marvell now that the holy Psalmist spoke so heartily when he said Iniquitatem odio habui abominatus Ps 119. sum I hated iniquity and my soule had it in abomination Go sinne the Viper shall take place in our bosomes before thee For the Viper that eateth through the tender wombe of the mother never saw the mother before that blinde act of cruelty so that the Viper is onely cruell before he is borne and before he ever saw a gentle creature or this blessed light to which his mother brought him But the sinner sees God in his creatures And the Viper doth but defeate the body to bring a temporall death thou the soule to bring a death drawne out and lengthened with eternity CHAP. XVI TO sinne is to turne our backs with great contempt towards God Towards God standing in the midst of all his Angels and holding up Heaven with one hand and earth with another and to turne our faces and imbraces with great fondnesse to a vile Creature O that a true sight of this like a good Angell might alwayes appeare to us before we sinne As the proud man and woman turne from God the boundlesse treasure of all excellencie and sit brooding and swelling as upon empty shels upon the fraile and contemptible goods of minde body fortune The angry man and woman turne from God the sweetnesse of Heaven and Earth and side with their owne turbulent passions The Glutton and Drunkard turne from God to whom the eyes of all things doe looke up for their meate and drinke in due season and performe their devotions to their fat bodies and bellies quorum Deus venter est whose Phil. 3. 19. God is their belly Which Saint Paul spoke as it appeareth by the verse immediatly precedent even weeping The lascivious man and woman turne from God the Fountain of all true and solid comfort and take in exchange the pleasure of Beasts The covetous man and woman turne from God without whom the rich are very poore and dance about the golden Calfe making an Idoll of their money For Covetousnesse Coloss 3. 5. is Idolatry The envious man and woman turne from God from whom come both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not inward only but all outward gifts and stick to a repining at Gods liberality in others The sloathfull man and woman turn from God whose providence is in continuall action exercise and give flesh bones head heart and all to the pillow Judas had thirty pence for Christ but we have little or nought for him All the good gifts of the holy Ghost are struck to the heart by sinne S. John beheld in his Revelation a great red Dragon having seven heads and seven Rev. 12. 3. crownes upon his heads And againe a woman Rev. 17. 3. sitting upon a Scarlet-coloured beast having seven heads The seven heads are the seven deadly sinnes which the great red Dragon the Devill begetteth upon the woman the sinfull soule wherewith he resisteth and putteth to flight the seven choice gifts of the holy Ghost I remember the woman whom our Saviour dispossessed of seven Devils and the Leaper that by the Prophets appointment was dipped seven times in the river Jordane The Devill over-commeth the gift of feare The feare of the Lord is the brginning of wisdome with pride and presumption which utterly expell the feare of God With anger he smothereth the gift of knowledge For blinded with anger we judge not according to knowledge With envie he stifleth the gift of piety or godlinesse For by envie we bandy with our thoughts words and actions against our neighbours With lust and luxury he destroyeth the gift of wisedome by which we are made brutishly foolish With covetousnesse hee confoundeth the gift of counsell by which we are violently drawne from all good counsell in the pursuite of base but sweete lucre Covetousnesse being the roote of all evill With Gluttony and Drunkennesse he killeth the gift of understanding by which we are besotted and left altogether unfit to know or understand And with sloth he vanquisheth the gift of Fortitude by which we are made weake and infirme and benummed with feare and sorrow in the search of good things Here is a battell wherein the weake over-come the strong and all because the strong are fallen into the mischievous hands of a most barbarous Traitor a Traitor to God and his owne soule To sinne is to betray Christ and give him over to death and destruction that the sinne that is Barabas the murderer may live Here is a businesse O Lord And to sinne is to banish the holy Ghost with all his gifts to bid him goe go seeke a lodging amongst the rogues beggers And being unwilling to go as he is love it selfe and therefore struggling to stay to thrust him out of the soule by the head and shoulders as desirous in our anger to break a limbe of him if he had one O that we could remember at these times that we are the Devils officers And when sinne is not the privation of Grace because it comes where it is not it the more dimmeth and defaceth nature Sinne is the death and buriall of the soule which onely God can raise againe For as the body dyeth and falleth to the ground when the soule forsaketh it so the soule dyeth and falleth under the ground to Hell-gate when it is forsaken by God O Christian saith Saint Austin non sunt in te charitatis viscera si luges corpus a quo recessit anima animam vero a qua recessit Deus non luges O Christian there are no bowels of charity in thee if thou mournest for a body from which the soule is gone and doest not mourne for the wretched and forlorne estate of a soule from which God is departed One sinne is a greater evill greater above expression then all the evils of punishment that can be inflicted upon us by God himselfe in this world or in the world to come A greater evill beyond all measure then Hell-fire which shall never be quenched One sinne O what have I done many thousand times over It is the truth and nothing but the truth And therfore it is said of the sinne of evill speaking The death thereof is an evill death the grave Ecclesiasticus 28. 21. were better then it The words will beare another sense utilis potius infernus quam illa Hell were more profitable then it And this is proved as easily as written or spokē For the evils of punishment bereave us only of limited and finite goods as sicknesse depriveth us of health death of life But sinne depriveth us of God the onely Good that is infinite And the privation is alwayes by so much the more grievous by how much the good is more good of which
is the great directour of the Church and enemie to the devill in his oppositions of it hee still had a blow at the Holy Ghost first in Theodoret who denied the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son and now in the Grecians But we shall heare more of him anon CHAP. 7. VVHat mervaile now if greene in Age and shallow in experience I gave up my soule into the black hands of errour The causes of my closing with the Church of Rome were three First a consideration of the great sinnes of this Kingdome and especially of that open scandalous and horrible sinne of Drunkennesse which my soule hateth And I weakly argued from a blemish of manners in particular persons to a generall and over-spreading corruption of Faith My thoughts represented a drunkard to me sometimes in this manner What is a Drunkard but a beast like a man or something lower then a beast When he is in his fit no sense will performe his fit office Spectacles in all figures appeare to him hee thinks hee sees more shapes then God ever made A cloud settles in his eyes and the whole body being overflowne they seeme to float in the floud The earth seemes to him to nod and hee nods againe to it trees to walk in the fields houses to rise from their places and leape into the Aire as if they would tumble upon his head and crush him to a Cake and therefore he makes hast to avoid the danger The Sea seemes to rore in his cares and the Guns to goe off and he strives to rore as loud as they The Beere begins to work for he foames at the mouth Hee speaks as if the greater part of his tongue were under water His tongue labours upon his words and the same word often repeated is a sentence You may discover a foole in every part of his face Hee goes like like what nothing is vile enough to suit in comparison with him except I should say like himselfe or like another drunken man And at every slip he is faine to throw his wandring hand upon any thing to stay him with his body and face upwards as God made him Vmbras saepe S. Ambr. lib. de Elia jejunio cap. 16. transiliunt sicut foveas saith S. Ambrose Comming to a shadow of a post or other thing in his way hee leapes taking it for a ditch Canes si viderint leones arbitrantur Idem ibid. fugiunt sayes the same Father if he sees a dogge he thinks it to be a Lyon and runs with all possible hast till hee falls into a puddle where hee lyes wallowing and bathing his swinish body like a hogge in the mire And after all this being restored to himselfe he forgets because hee knew not perfectly what hee was and next day returnes againe to his vomit And thus he reeles from the Inn or Tavern to his house morning and evening night and day till after all his reeling not being able to goe hee is carried out of his House not into the Taverne alas hee cannot call for what hee wants but into his Grave Where being layd and his mouth stopt with dirt hee ceases to reele till at last hee shall reele body and soule into hell where notwithstanding all his former plenty variety of drinks hee shall never be so gracious as to obtaine a small drop of water to coole his tongue Then if it be true as it is very likely which many teach that the devils in hell shall mock the troubled imagination of the damned person with the counterfeit imitation of his sinnes the devils will reele in all formes before him to his eternall confusion In vain doth S. Paul cry out to this wretch Be not drunk with wine wherein is excesse but be filled with the spirit For the same vessell Eph. 5. 18. cannot be filled with wine and with the spirit at the same time In vaine doth hee tell him that wee should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world Sobriè 2 Tit. 12. saith S. Bernard nobis justè proximis pie autem Deo Soberly in our selves righteously S. Bern. in Serm. sup Ecce nos reliquimus omnia or justly towards our neighbours and godly towards God alwayes remembring that we are in this present world and that it is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the present point of Time and but one instant that we enjoy at once And somtimes in this manner my thoughts shewed me a drunken man Hee is a most deformed creature one that lookes like the picture of a devill one who stands knocking at hell-gate and yet it is not able to speak a plaine word and call for mercy one that could stand and goe but now lyes all along in his owne filthinesse one that is loathed by the Court and all the Citizens of Heaven one that for the time doth not beleeve that there is a God or that Christ died for the sinnes of the world one that may be lawfully thought a man of little wit and lesse grace one who is the Ow◠of all that see him and the scorne and abomination even of his drunken companions one who if he should then dye would certainly be a companion of devils in hell fit◠for ever one that is ready to commit adultery murder treason to stab or hang himselfe to pull God out of Heaven or doe any thing that is not good And if it be a firme ground that putting our selves into the occasions of such and such sins we are as guilty of them as if wee had committed them although we did not formally and explicitely intend them how many great sins hath one act of drunkennesse to answer for Drunkennesse is most hatefull to God because it putteth out the light of Reason by which man is distinguished from a beast and all better lights with it and throwes a man beneath Gods creation and therefore drunkennesse is more or lesse grievous as it more or lesse impeacheth the light and sight of Reason Natura paucis contenta Nature is contented with a little quam si superfluis urgere velis saith Boetius which if you shall urge and load with superfluous Boet. things you will destroy And one over-chargeth his stomack and vainely casteth away that for want of which or the like another daily crieth in the streets with a lamentable voyce Good Sir for Gods sake pitty these poore fatherlesse children ready to starve one is hungry and another is drunken And the great end of the 1 Cor. 11. 21. Creator was to supply necessity and the necessity of every creature And Sobriety and Temperance are faire vertues which even the Glutton and Drunkard doe praise and magnifie If wee turne aside into the Church-yard wee shall finde it a dry time there There are no merry meetings under ground no musick no dancing no songs no jesting company Every body sleepes there and therefore there is no noise at all Perhaps indeed as men passe
such huskes God for his Christs sake open your eyes that you may see and know him and his Church and also your selfe Which he prayes day and night that loves you night and day The Answer Sir VVHereas you stile your selfe my old Acquaintance without any farther illustration I have greater reason to feare and to flie then to hope and pursue because amongst my old Acquaintance more have beene evill then good And by the sequell it appeares that you stand in the ranke of the evill ones And that you are my old Acquaintance in the same construction as the World is old of which one sayes Mundus qui ob antiquitatem sapere deberet c. The World which because it is so old ought to be wise growes every day more unwise as it is more old A hand I have received and a good one but that as good a heart came with it will not sinke into my heart The hand is faire but how shall I know the heart is not foule Indeed Aristotle sayes that speech is the picture or image of the minde But hee meanes when the speech is the mindes true Interpreter You cannot be ignorant that it is a received though a close principle amongst the Jesuits We may be free of faire words because they goe not from us as drops of bloud or money with losse or expence O the riches of experience Both the Indies are poore compared with them That you dare not trust me with your name or person gives evidence for me that I am more true to my Superiours then to you And good reason Because I conceive there mediates no reall tie betwixt you and me but the worne and old tie of old Acquaintance And I never learned that God obliging a man to his old Acquaintance joyned them with the bonds of extraordinary love in the least degree or bound them to a performance of the acts depending upon it But I am glewed to my Superiours by the firme tyes of extraordinary love and subjection and therefore of duty and obedience I am in reference to them as an inferiour part in respect of the head and shoulders And therefore if my old Acquaintance shall strike at the head or annoy the body of which I am a foote I shall kick him down if I can even to the ground and say there lies my old Acquaintance The man whom you propose to me under the title of an innocent man and a lover of me and of my soule would have beene more truely described if you had said A wilde Priest a swaggarer a lover and haunter of the Taverne even when the sword of death hung by a small haire over his head It was my chance to meete him in the Kings high-way attired like a Knight or Lord travelling alone in a faire Coach drawne with foure great Horses towards the house of a Lady whose Priests have beene the pernicious cause of many grievous disorders in the Countrey where I live and this in a most dangerous and suspected time And having there endeavoured to pervert me and breake the bonds and ligaments of my duty to God and of my Allegiance to the King besides the concealement of such a treason in regard of the Law how should I have answered such a concealement in fâ—ro interno in the inward court of my heart and at the Bench of my conscience Occisio Animarum the murder of soules is the highest breach of the Commandement Thou shalt doe no murder Was not this a murderous attempt in the Kings high-way And pray does he that attempts to murder the soule of a man love the man If he lov'd me hee lov'd all me or he lov'd not me I confesse we argue differently because our arguments proceed upon different grounds and suppositions If my grounds stand fast my discourse will prove irrefragable You call me poore man And I am so or I am sure was so when you knew me And you pitie me and your pitie is baptized the childe of your love Saint Gregory Nazianzen hath a pretty phrase when he sayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Many speake golden words but their speech though it points at the practique and the object be some practicable thing is both in the act and in effect all speculative that is both the intention and execution end and vanish away in speculation It seemes then that your love is not unlike the water of Aesculapius his Well which no commixtion or approximation can urge to putrifie Let those beleeve it to be sweete that have not tasted of it The bitternesse is scarce yet out of my mouth I am going in hast and you call after me whither so fast And shall I tell you whither Shall I in good earnest I will then I am going and my businesse requires hast to see if I can finde any Priests or Jesuits lurking in the secret corners adjoyning or neighbouring to the Parliament house I know that their life though it be mixt hath so much of action in it that they must alwayes bee doing You desire me to look back At your entreaty I do so And looking back I still finde that every where there are whole swarmes of waspish and turbulent Papists For that which followes God is a Father still and so forth I learned all that lesson in my conversion to the Church of England And I hope I shall never forget it You tell me that I seemed to your people a man of a good nature and religiously enclined Here is a plaine Jesuiticall flattery with a sharpe sting in the taile of it Why now you seeme too seeme to praise when you dishonour But how will you make it seeme that I did onely seeme It is very naturall and proper that bonum reale a reall good should be also bonum apparens should appeare to be good For otherwise it would not trahere in amorem sui draw men to love it But it is an Ethicall observation that men used to foule sinnes are so conscious of them and yet so desirous to disavow them that their guiltinesse still hammering upon their sinnes their obstinacie helped with their cunning presently takes their tongues off from acknowledging them to bee in themselves and because if they be being accidents they must be in convenient subjects fastens them upon others You remember one thing and you understand another I remember likewise that being a young stripling I was active in bestowing my service upon your Church fomented with your envenomed suggestions But give it me in a Demonstration at least a posteriori that your Church is the Catholike Church or Christs owne Spouse Your arguments are like your invincible Armado's which in their first appearance make a mighty Moone but are burnt and confounded in the end by a bold English man or an honest Hollander It is rooted in me that there is little symmetry little proportion betwixt you and the Spouse of Christ She is humble harmelesse bashfull compassionate zealous of her Lords honour and jealous
of every thing which may impeach or impaire it She is filled with the holy Ghost and doubtlesse speakes all languages when she prayes because shee prayes in all her children with understanding that she may offer from the Altar of every heart a reasonable Sacrifice And I doubt not but you have your Emissaries and Intelligencers abroad Certainly had not one of the Presses into which my Book unhappily dropped beene almost it selfe pressed away surcharged with your notorious and scurrilous Pamphlets containing those most horrible and irreligious imputations of so many strange Sects amongst us those as false as foule discourses of Adamites and the like moving and disposing to the ruine and overthrow both of Church and Common-wealth which my experience assures me were yours and moreover had not your humble Petition taken place in it and wrought upon covetousnesse it had beene day with my booke long agoe You will me to to thinke and that without passion if this be not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Your will is to me a law I doe thinke and thinke without passion And now I have thought without passion I have learned that indeed this is to fight against God stay pray leave nothing behinde you if to fight against more then Luciferian pride against Blasphemy against Idolatry and against all other sins be to fight against God Pardon me He that railes is unreasonable either in the matter of his speech or in the delivery When I beleeve and can make it perspicuous to a cleare eye that the Church of Rome is a corrupted and putrified body head-sick and heart-sick and therfore ill all-over doe I fight against God if I labour to prevent and keepe off the infection ne pars sincera trahatur Her head is so weake that she thinkes it stands as high as the clouds at least if not as high as the starrie Firmament Her heart is not well For she is diseased in that which is the very primum vivens and ultimum moriens of Faith the doctrine of Christs merits And therefore her tongue speakes strange languages she knowes not what Her eyes have not the gift of discerning aright An Image appeares to her a little God Her eares are out of order they are more taken with melody then words of edification she doth not praise God in the musicall instruments because shee staies in the noise and ends in delight as it is in use with her to sleep and take her nights rest in opere operato Onely her taste is right and yet she thinkes it is not because she doth not taste the very flesh bloud of Christ Her hands are weak they give almes to force and extort a reward Her feete are worse they run to shed bloud And is she not a very sick creature And therefore you may put up your dagger For the words following wound not And with what weapons c. Concerning the gifts of nature which you call mine improved by industry the account of both Agnosco benefactorem I acknowledge a heavenly Benefactour And though no man is obliged ad optima to the performance of the best things yet in this point how can I better imploy the Talents with which I am intrusted then in the service of Gods Church But you come with a fresh supply Can I call a Church a thing so torne and distracted Can I make a belly-full of husks Was not the Church governed by the Apostles vexed with clamours of people crying I am of Paul and I am of Apollos It is in the body politique and Ecclesiastique as in the naturall body Every quick and sudden alteration cals up all the humours and they being up draw the body into parties either pulling to themselves by Sympathy or putting off by Antipathy The water is troubled but expect a little and it will settle againe For the husks I confesse with sorrow of heart there are many and those meate onely for swine dull and drossie-headed people as the profane rudenesse of shoo-makers Bakers Button-makers in the sacred house of God the contempt of Divine Service and of the Liturgy and consequently of Ministers and their Orders the crying down of Learning and of the reward of it conclusions sucked from Mahomet and now the discourse of vulgar people amongst Christians With such I proclaime it to the world I and my devotions shall have no communion though they were able to lash me to death with their foule tongues but they cannot touch me with them These earthy people doe not understand that minus perfectum ad magis perfectum referri atque ordinari debet every lesse perfect thing ought to submit and be referred to the thing more perfect their weake apprehensions and erroneous consciences to the truth and service of God What if the Logicians say that quae sunt eadem uni tertio sunt idem inter se and yet the Father Sonne and holy Ghost being the same in Essence differ in persons Reason informeth us that as the Pope forsooth or a Bishop will reserve cases to himselfe and his owne Court so God may and must reserve the knowledge of many things and especially of Mysteries to his owne privacie And it is very fit we should now bee ignorant of the things wee shall not hereafter know And every man understanding according to the capacity of his understanding why should not the ignorant man stoope to what is sufficiently expressed to him with consideration to his ignorance Though ignorance hath sometimes Ignorantia purae negationis an excuse obstinacie hath never any And the man that hath but sipped of outlandish experience will easily beleeve that a Papist was the malignant contriver of that swelling and wordy but chaffie senselesse and empty Pamphlet ballassed with the name of A true Relation of a combustion hapning at Saint Annes Church by Aldersgate betweene a stranger sometimes a Jesuit but now thankes be to God reformed to our Church and one Marler a Button-maker c. Wherein the Author of the true Relation hath scarce a true word to beare witnesse that he knowes what is truth And if there be a true word in all the Pamphlet it is that onely reformed to the Church of England For neither was the Preacher a Button-maker but a Divine neither did we joyne any kinde of discourse neither came I neere the Pulpit though invited by the Minister and Vestry-men Your prayer in the end is charitable on your part which with your leave I borrow of you and turne upon you againe But whereas you conclude all with which he prayes day and night that loves you night and day it had beene a truth of truths if it had run thus which he prayes day and night that loves night more then day And thus a sleight worke I have answered with a worke of as loose a composure CHAP. XX. IN the first Chapter of Genesis where the Vers 2. Latins turne it Spiritus Domini ferebatur super aquas the Spirit of God was