jealous Bern. ser 24. in Cant. Quid miraris ô Cain si non respicit ad te qui ita divisuâ— es in te si manum devotioni quid animum das livori non concilias Deum tibi discors tecum non placas sed peccas si necdum fratricida jam tamen fideicida teneris Cain Thou art amazed that God regardeth not thy sacrifice seest not thou art divided and severed within thy self I shall have somewhat to doe with thy wicked sacrifice It is to much purpose to turn thy hand to an act of religion and thy heart to envy This which thou doest is not to appease God but to provoke him It is to present him with sacrifice in the one hand and a ponyard in the other said S. Bernard And truly to touch the second reason although the divelish malice of this vice cannot gain conquest over hearts to divert them yet ought the calamity it draweth along with it to beget in our souls a perpetual horrour thereof This sin is no sooner born but it hath its torments and executioners attending All that which may truly be called miserable commeth to us from envy and the hatred of our neighbour First it bereaveth us of an infinit number of blessings which we might enjoy by the means of charity Nothing is so rich as the love of God all beauties all riches all possessions are tributary thereunto Yea love in loving I know not by what kind of powerful alchymy draweth all to it-self changeth all into it-self and maketh the whole world it s own This is the discourse which S. Augustin made of it O prodigie Will you know Aug. l. quinquag homiliarum homil 15. tom 10. Congaude illi cui Deus gratiam aliquam donavit tua est Habet ille forte virginitatem ama illam tua est Tu habes forte majorem patientiam diligat te sua est ille potest satis vigilare si non invides tuum est studium ejus Tu forte potes amplius jejunare amet te suum est jejunium quia tu per charitatem in illo es ipse in te est Particeps sum emnium timentium te Psal 118. 63. Ex alienis bonis quae si di ligerâ—tis vestra saceretiâ— bona non diligenâ—o vestra facitis mala Grego in pastorâ—l an effectual means how to become in a short time rich wise fortunat and holy You have nothing to doe but to love Virginity pleaseth you and have you it not Love it in your brother and sister to whom God hath granted it it is yours This man hath more knowledge than you and you perhaps more patience than he love his knowledge and be your patience and you both shall be contented Another is more watchfull than you and you fast better than he love his watchfulness and let him love your fasting and then behold you shall become watchfull and abstinent That which I say of virginity patience knowlege industry and abstinence is also to be understood of all other blessings which we by loving make our own Such was the exercise of David who tasted the good of another as peculiar to himself he sanctified himself in all Saints he instructed himself in all the Sages he enriched himself in all the rich he participated withall the just Behold you not here the admirable Philosophy of love This being true as it is most evident consider the evils and disasters which proceed from envy So many blessings as the Sun dayly discovereth to you in so infinit numbers of creatures may by loving be yours and in not loving every happiness each prosperity of your neighbour is an iron lance in your side a thorn in your heart and a nayl in your eye Have we so few misfortuns in the world that we must seek them in the prosperity of others The earth vomiteth up miseries which dayly draw tears from our eyes sighs from our hearts and compassion for our most obdurate souls yet not content therewith insteed of searching out some lenitive for our wounds in union and charity we envy our neighbour thereby bereaving our selves of all comforts and deep drenching us in all the miseries of the world For what evil is comparable to that of envy to be perpetually like a wretched owle not able to endure the day-light of anothers prosperity to be as a ravenous vultur who flyeth from sweet savours and searcheth out carion to imitate the fly which delighteth among wounds and vlcers What a life is it to run up and down taxing the imperfections of your brethren and never Qualis est animâ— tinea in malum proprium bona convertere aliena illustrium prosperitate torquâ—ri aliorum gloriam paenam suam facere velut quosdam pectori suo carnisices admovere qui se intestinis cruciatibus lacerent secreta cordis malevolentiae vngulis pulsent Cypri de zelo livore to open an eye to the splendour of their vertue What a life is it to make the evil of another your good to have his prosperity your executioner his glory your punishment ever to bear an ill disposition in your brest to cary tallons nayls and sharp combs of iron in your own proper entrailes and never to end your sin to make thereby your torments immortal This is it which the eloquent S. Cyprian spake in these terms Although through envy some profit or parcel of good might be drawn from the subject envied by extenuating the honour or good of a neighbour with some benefit applicable to ones self yet God oftentimes permitteth that by the means of envy the glory of those who are so maligned is made more illustrious So the brothers of Ioseph in being desirous to make him a slave gave him opportunity to become a Lord over all Aegypt So the envy of Saul when he least thought of it set the crown on Davids head and affording him matter of affliction gave him occasion of triumph So Maximian the Tyrant through the jealousie of the honours attributed to Constantine contributed all that which a desperate envy could invent and a great vertue surmount He first made him Generall of an army which he sent against the Sarmatians a people extreamly furious supposing he there should loose his life The yong Prince went thither and returned victorious leading along with him the Barbarian King enchained It is added hereunto that this direful Prince excited by a most ardent frenzy in his return from this battaile engaged him in a perilous encounter with a Lyon which he purposely had caused to be let loose upon him But Constantine victorious over Lyons as well as men slew this fell beast with his own hands and impressed an incomparable opinion in the minds of his souldiers which easily gave him passage to the throne by the same degrees which were prepared for his ruin We must have an Euristheus to make up a Hercules Envy many times layeth the first stone of the
by loving all he loves and hating all he hates Imitation by ever bearing some mark of him upon our flesh according to the Apostles precept who said Glorifie and bear God upon your bodie And to conclude let us often say Feed O Lord thy poor begger with continual influences Blosiâ— of this Divinitie I ask and desire with all my heart thy love may penetrate replenish and transform me wholly into thee The seventh EXAMPLE upon the seventh MAXIM The triumph of JESUS over the Enemies of Faith JULIAN the Apostate ALl those who forsake the Word of God are Recedentes a te in terra scribentur Hier. 17. wretched men blotted out of Heaven to be written on earth and whose names the earth it self being unable to preserve abandoneth to forgetfulness or contempt and very often to execration This is manifested by many sensible proofs in the examples of the Emperour Julian who betraying his Religion and dishonouring the character of Christianity made himself one of the most miserable Princes that ever was under Heaven leaving his soul as a prey for devils his enterprizes to ill success his life to a most bloudy death his person to the scorn and hatred of men and his memory to the detestation of all Ages Notwithstanding he wanted no eminent qualities Qualities of Julian which shew that without true Religion all is unprofitable which might have raised him had he not forsaken the source of height and glory Birth gave him Constantius brother of great Constantine for father Besilina a most noble Princess for mother an Emperour for uncle three for cousin-germains Constantinople for his native soil and to serve for a Theater of great actions He had a good wit strong body tongue eloquent conversation pleasing and courage masculine There was not any science in the world whereof he had not some tincture he most prosperously mingled arms with letters and appeared as couragious in the front of Armies as in learned Schools He very little esteemed his body so much was his soul divorced from his flesh worldly riches were nothing at all in his hands nor did he value them but to give them He said It was for those who had no spirit to beg praise from the body that he was ever handsom enough who was chaste and that if Painters made fair faces chastity beautifull lives His counsel was to avoid love as an enraged Master according to the saying of Sophocles to live in the command over proper passions and free enjoying of himself The Gentlemen of his chamber and all domesticks who most nearly looked into his life gave assurance never was any thing more chast He slept little fed very soberly continually afflicted his body accustomed it to travel in such manner that he was seen in the snows of Germanie and broyling ardours of Persia perpetually in the same state After indefatigable toyls of the day he betook himself by candle-light to studies of the night He almost never lay but on the bare boards and waked at an hour prefixed not needing any one to give him notice He expected so little service about his person that being at Paris which he called His well-beloved Citie in the time of a sharp winter when the Seine was frozen scarcely would he suffer a fire to be made in his chamber so discourteously he used himself He hated riot superfluities Bals and Comedies and if needs he must sometime permit them it was more to reprove than behold them He afforded good and speedy justice his heart was patient and temperate towards the people whom he freed what he could from tributes making his impositions accord with the ability of particulars and saying He would leave his treasures to be kept by his good friends which were his subjects Is it not a lamentable case that so great a man was so miserably lost with so many excellent parts For want of preserving the best which is piety It is true that almost all our Historians have written of him with much rigour dissembling what was good in him to render him the more odious but for my part I am of opinion the greatness of Christianity more appeared therein if having shewed the ornaments of nature which this Prince had we make you plainly see all that very ill succeeded with him and that we cannot find any other source of his misery but his infidelity The judicious Readers shall here observe the cause The causes of his corruption of his ruin and consider the first education of children is an impression very tender which being not well mannaged in the beginning filleth the whole life with disorders Tutours are the fathers of spirits said Tutours are fathers of spirits S. Irenaeus as having more influence over the resemblance of souls than carnal fathers over bodies Ill luck would have it that little Julian being left young in the guardianship of his uncle Constantine was recommended to Eusebius of Nicomedia to be instructed in faith Now this Eusebius was a wolf in a lambskin who counterfeiting to be very Catholick ceated not by his credit to advance Arianism so that this young Prince fashioned at first by so ill a hand could not entertain belief and reverence towards the Person of our Saviour Heresie is the key of Atheism and when a soul is disposed to contempt of its gracious Mother on earth it easily learns no longer to acknowledge a Father in heaven He being so ill grounded in the elements of faith Ecebolus an hypocrite was put under the discipline of a Rhetorician named Ecebolus who turned with all winds and admitted Religion according to the times For when he saw Christian Emperours reign he for ceremony seemed a Christian If Pagans swayed there was none more insolent than he If Empire returned again to Christians he placed himself in Church-porches beseeching every one to tread on him as a thing contemptible He above all hearkened to and honoured Libanius one of the greatest Sophisters of his time but a Pagan till death He had a spirit mild and very indifferent upon articles of Religion he equally received Christians and Pagans into his school and permitted S. Basil himself to preach to his schollars but omitted not silently to contrive the means how to re-establish the Altars and Temples of the Gods He reflected on Julian as the Palladion of Gentilism and bound him fast to his own person by the charms of his eloquence to apply him to his counsels All the little piety which Julian might have learned School of Julian from a man who had none began to wither away in a school where all was known but God Apollo there possessed the name of Jesus Diana of Mary Aristotle Plato were the Prophets Isocrates the Preacher and the names of Tritons were there better understood than of S. Peter and S. Andrew the fisher-men This new disciple took such a tast of eloquence that it made him forget devotion he would have given a whole Province
the love with which he will be loved and who hath loved us even in disfavour to transport us to favour Whereby it appeareth that this fair love is nought else but a celestiall quality infused into the soul by which we love God above all and all for God Now I imagine with my self that he is born in our hearts in such a manner as pearls grow in their shells The mother of pearl is first pierced by a celestiall influence as with an arrow fiery and sharp which sollicits and importuneth it to dispose it self to this excellent production Which is the cause that it spreads openeth and dilates it self to receive the dew distilled into it from the air and having moistned it it digesteth concocteth and transfigureth it into this little miracle of nature which is with so much curiosity sought after Behold what passeth in a soul when it bringeth forth this precious love it is prevented by a speciall grace from the Divine Goodnesse which at first gives it a distaste of all things in the world and fixeth a generous spur in the heart to excite awaken and enflame it to the quest of so great a good Then it extendeth dilates and opens all its gates to the Holy Ghost who descendeth into it as the dew of Hermon by qualities and Donec Christus formetur in vobis Gal 4. 10. effects admirable which through free-will it embraceth and ties and habituateth it self therein conceiving and forming Jesus Christ as saith S. Paul Then is the time when this divine love is conceived which is no sooner born but it causeth a rejoycing in the heart of man like unto that which happened in the house of Abraham at Isaacs nativity It is a celestiall laughter The Empire and eminencies of Divine love an extraordinary jubilation an expansion of all the faculties and functions of the spirit and will This little Monarch is no sooner born but it begins to command and sits on the heart as in its Throne All powers do it Instructi in charitate in omnes divitias plenitudinis intellectûs Col. 2. 2. Ailredus tom 13. Bibliorum in speculo charitatis Excellent conceit of charity homage all passions render it service All the virtues applaud at its coronation and confesse they hold of it and are all in it He who is once well instructed in charity aboundeth with all riches and hath the full plenitude of the spirit according to the Apostles and is a Tree grafted with siens of all perfection and which fail not to bring forth their fruits Sciences and virtues are that to us which oars to vessels what the viaticum to travellers what light to blear-eyes what arms to souldiers but charity alone is the repose of the wearied the Countrey of Pilgrims the light of the blind the Crown of the victorious Faith and the knowledge of God carry us to our countrey Hope maintaineth us the other virtues defend us but where charity is perfect as it is in glory one no longer believes any thing because it seeth all one hopes for nought because he possesseth all Temperance combateth against Concupiscence Prudence against errour Fortitude against adversity Justice against inequality But in perfect charity there is a perfect chastity which standeth not in need of the arms of temperance having no blemish of impurity A perfect knowledge which expecteth not any help from ordinary Prudence since it hath no errours a perfect Beatitude which needeth not Fortitude to conquer adversities since to it nothing is uneasie a Sovereign peace which imploreth not the aid of Justice against inequality since all therein is equall For in a word what is charity but a temperate love without lust A prudent love without errour a strong love without impatience a just love without inequality Faith is the first day of our Creation which driveth away darknesse Hope is the second which makes a firmament for us and which divideth waters from waters things transitory from eternall Temperance is the third which arraungeth the waters and storms of passions in their proper element and causeth the land of our heart to appear which sendeth up vapours to God that are its sighs Prudence is the fourth which lighteth up in us the sun of understanding and the lights of knowledge Fortitude is the fifth which sustains us in the Ocean of adversities not suffering us to corrupt as fishes in salt-waters and as birds above the Tempest Justice the sixth for it gives us to command over our passions as Adam who on the same day he was created obtained it over all living creatures But charity is the seventh day The Symbole of Glory which contracteth all delights in the circle of its Septenary And how can it but abbridge all Theology since it abbridgeth God himself S. Zeno ser de fide spe charit Tu Deum in hominem demutatum voluisti tu Deum abbreviatum paulisper à majestatis suae immensitate peregrinari fecisti tu virginali carcere nove nâ—mensibus religasti tu mortem Deum mori docendo evacusti and that we have cause to speak to him in such terms as Saint Zeno did O love what hast thou done Thou hast changed God into Man Thou hast contracted him drawing him out of the lustre of his Majesty to make him a pilgrime on earth Thou hast shut him in the prison of a virginall womb the space of nine moneths Thou hast annihilated the empire of death when thou taughtest God to dy Love thus acknowledged by all the virtues mounteth as on a chariot of Glory maketh it self conspicuous with heroick and noble qualities It is pious since it employeth all its thoughts on God It is generous and magnanimous since it is ever disposed to great designs It is liberall as that which spareth nothing It is strong not yielding to any of all those obstacles which present themselves to divert the course of its intentions Qualities of divine love by which we may know whether it inhabit a soul It is just equally distributing rewards to merit It is temperate admitting no excesses but of love It is prudent having eyes alwayes upon its deportments It is witty to find out a thousand inventions It is violent without eagernesse active without participation sage without coldnesse good without remissnesse and calm without idlenesse But I must tell you though its perfections be without number you shall chiefly know it by three qualities Three principall marks of love which will make it appear unto you plyant obliging and patient I say plyant for there is nothing but fires desires sweetnesse affections joyes admirations extasies Plyantness pleasures transportments for its well-beloved This is the State which the great Origen figureth unto us Orig. Hom. de Magdal of S. Mary Magdalen when he saith that by the strength of love she was dead to all the objects of the world She had her thoughts so employed upon her Jesus that she was almost insensible she had
love which drowneth all humane thoughts which swalloweth all earthly affections which flieth to the superiour region of man which hideth all that is eminent in sciences transcendent in virtue great in imagination and which causeth the spirit to forget it self and to look on nothing but heaven § 12. The Practise of Divine Love THe love of God is a science inspired not studied where the infusion of the Holy Ghost is more eloquent then all Tongues and more learned then all Pens That which comes to us by art oft-times begins very late and quickly endeth That which is given us by the favour of heaven comes very readily and never is dost Those who think to learn the love of God by precepts onely croak like Ravens 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Pindarus and have nothing solid such as have it by grace are Angels who are raised into the highest region and poize themselves on their wings Grave discourses and good books fail not to contribute much to this purpose as we lately may have tried by the treatise which the R. F. Stephen Binet hath published fully replenished with the holy ardours of extraordinary devotion and which seem to have been dictated by love it self and conceived in that fire which Jesus came to enkindle on earth to enflame the whole world If then you desire to profit in this love let your endeavour The means to acquire the love of God be continually to beg it of God with the most fervent prayers which the holy Ghost shall suggest to esteem it above all worldly things and to apply all your actions to this happy conquest Be ye very carefull to cut off from your heart all impediments which may give it any obstacle for if you should imagine to entertain it in a soul sullied with terrestriall affections it were to ask a most precious Quot vitia habemus tot recentes habemus Deos Hieron Balm to put it in an unclean vessel We have as many Idolls in our heart as passions opposite to the law of God Be not satisfied with taking away vices but stifle the remembrance of worldly things which may in you occasion any exorbitancy Withdraw your mind as much as you can from a thousand imaginations which fly as aiery spirits about your heart when it begins to take wings to its repose Perplex not your self likewise more then is reason with affairs both spirituall and temporall which cause a thousand cares to arise and onely serve to quench the vigour of devotion and to draw out the juice of piety Fly acerbities of heart apprehensions and servitudes accustoming your self to do all with a spirit of sweetnesse and holy liberty Consequently make a practise of the love of God The practise of the love of God undertaking it with a resolute purpose a great application of mind and employing all possible industries to profit therein as one would in affecting some great bargain some very considerable office or affair most important For it is a very unworthy thing to behold all despicable Trades full of artisans who kill themselves How we may earn to love God above the love of the world Jnhonestos amatores ostendite si quis amore foeminae lasciviens vestit se aliter quà m amatae placet Aug. ler. 19. de verbis Apost to find out inventions that may set forth the profession and that onely the occupation of the love of God should have workmen so lazy and unnaturall After all following the counsel of S. Augustine consider what the children of darknesse often do to prosper in worldly loves and amities They strive to insinuate themselves by some good office they consider on every side the person of him of whom they would be beloved they study his nature his inclinations his desires his affairs and they oblige him ere he is aware in what he desireth most Are they entred into his amity they persist in the practise of great assiduities they have entertainments and admirable correspondencies they delight they serve they mingle the recreative with the serious They apply all they see all they think upon all they invent all they hope all they possesse all they say all they write to the contentment of this creature They draw tribute out of all for it and if it be possible will give it its hearts-wish in all things They transform themselves into its humours and likings They espouse its loves enmities quarrels and revenges They publish its virtues with discretion conceal its favours they have tricks to pacifie its anger to stir up its languours to open its heart to hold their possession and if it be needfull will passe through ten purgatories of fire ice tears bloud torrents seas enflamed serpents gnawing vultures to arrive at one of its pretentions O reproch that all this is done for a frivolous worldly love which oftentimes is the Hangman of life the gulf of Reason the Hell of souls and that there is none but Jesus for whom they will not so much ss stir a finger Make a resolution to insinuate your self into his friendship by some notable Act which you know to be acceptable to him and which he already hath required of you by so many inspirations Enter into his house and into his bosome render him assiduity in your prayers your meditations your communions and in all your exercises of devotion Learn to speak to him every hour by jaculatory prayers as one would to some friend tenderly loved and vehemently affected Referre all creatures to his love and love nothing but him but in him but for him publish his greatnesse every where make a thousand instruments of his glory but conceal his favours by a profound humility Behold men your like as his images Engrave all his words all his actions all his wounds in the bottome of your heart make your selves like him as much as you may bear him on your flesh suffering for him not onely with patience but alacrity through a desire of conformity Behold the principall means by which one may come to the love of God and to the unitive way Observe there withall the three Conditions which S. Bernard prescribeth to wit to love sweetly prudently strongly sweetly without violence prudently without illusion strongly without separation But there being nothing which more forcibly moveth That we learn to love God himself and by the character of his substance which is Jesus In medio animalium splendor ignis de igne fulgur egrediens Ezekiel 1. the soul then Example I advise you often to present unto your self the love of God and Jesus Christ which should be the source of ours and to make a sacred posy to your self of all the lovers who were most vehement in Divine Love Reflect O Christian soul upon the chariot of Cherubins in Ezechiel and thou shalt learn what God would have of thee I see saith the Prophet a clear and bright fire in the midst of these living Creatures and from
nothing but God and It God who was in it with eternall contentments It which was in God with reciprocall and wholly ineffable affections This heart of Jesus resembled the Halcions nest which cannot hold one silly fly more then the bird it self So he knew not how to lodge one creature in himself to the prejudice of the Creatour but could tell how to lodge them altogether to uâ—ite them to their Head O it was properly his businesse to give us this lesson which he afterward dictated by one of his Oracles He loveth thee not August â—olil Minà s tâ— amat qui tâ—cum aliquid amat quod propter te non amat Apoc. 8. enough whosoever loveth any thing with thee which he loveth not for thee From solitude he entred into the silence which Synesius calleth Beatifick Silence and which S. John placeth in heaven in the peacefull condition of the Blessed It was properly the calm and repose which the holy soul of Jesus took with his heavenly Father in his divine Orisons which he many times continued the space of whole nights watching and weeping for us and dwelling as it were in the fire of love It is that silence which the Canticle calleth the Cantic 3. Bed of Solomon encompassed with threescore valiant ones but of that great Host of Angels From silence he passed to the suspension whereof Job speaketh Job 7. 15. Elegit suspendium anima 〈◊〉 where his soul felt it self totally pulled up by the root from earth but not as yet placed in heaven because he was corporally in this transitory life We verily find three admirable suspensions in Nature That of water in the clouds of Heaven above the clouds and of earth under the clouds and two ineffable suspensions in the Humanity of Jesus The first is that of his blessed soul which was alwaies hanging at the heart of God and the second of his body on the Crosse to purifie by his death all the regions of the world both above and beneath above by the exhalation of his spirit beneath by the effusion of his bloud After suspension he mounted to insatiability which Daâ—iâ—â— Cardi. â—â— Hymno dâ— Paradiso Avidi semper plâ—ni quod habent de â—â—â—â—rant caused him that drinking those eternall sources by long draughts in the delighrs of Contemplation which streams upon him from heaven he slaked his thirst in his own bosome not quite quenching it therein retaining the condition of those who see God of whom it is said That they are still replenished yet still greedy incessantly desiring what they possesse From insatiability he came to the degree of Indefatigability which caused him perpetually to spend himself in most glorious labours for the redemption of the world measuring and running over the earth as the sun doth Heaven and fowing virtues and benefits every where to reap nought but Ingratitude From thence he proceeded to that Inseparability which tied him for the love of his heavenly Father not onely to the punishment of the Crosse but to so many scorns and miseries as he embraced for us and he made so much account of this mortall flesh which he took of us that he associated it unto himself with an eternall band and hath transmitted it into the bosome of Immortality placing his wounds which were the characters of his love and of our inhumanity even in the sanctuary of the most blessed Trinity From this Inseparability he suffered himself to slide into languours extasies and transanimations which make up a Deified love such as was that of Jesus Languour dried him up with the zeal he had for our salvation exhausting all the strength of his body and to speak with Philo he seemed as if he would have transformed his flesh into the nature of Mark 3. 21. his spirit causing it to melt and dissolve under the ardours of ineffable affection as we see a Myrrhe-Tree which distilleth the first fruits of its liquour under the lustre of the sun-beams Extasie which bare this great soul with a vigorous violence to the heart of God made a truce in all the actions of sensitive nature and as it happeneth that the Ocean extraordinarily swelling up upon one shore forsaketh the other So the spirit of our Saviour already divinized amassing together the whole multitude of his forces to serve his love and satisfie the passion he had towards his celestiall Father overflowed in the heart of the Divinity with so immeasurable a profusion that all his inferiour Nature seemed to be forsaken and despoiled of the presence and government of his soul In the end he entred into that transanimation which Orig. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Anima ilia quasi scrâ—um in igne semper in verbo semper in sapientia semper in Deo in convertibilitatem ex verbi Dei unitate indesinenter ignita possidebat so powerfully united him to God that onely retaining the property of two natures Divine and Humane he made an incomparable commixtion of heart of love of affections and conformities which made Origen say This soul like unto Iron which is on burning Coles was alwayes in the word alwayes in wisdome ever in God and took an immutable constancy from the ardour wherewith it is enkindled in the union of God If you find this love too sublime for you behold it as it were tempered and reflected in so many saints as were S. Paul S. Augustine S. Bernard and so many other §. 13. A notable Example of worldly love changed into divine Charity I Will give you a very familiar one in a man of the world a man of the Court and one who is at this present a treasure hidden from many who was hated by the envious persecuted by the proud condemned by the Ignorant and yet a great servant of God It is the learned and pious Raymundus Lullus as it Vitae Patrum Occid l. â— Ex Carolo Bovillo appeareth by his life faithfully written in the Tome of the lives of the Western Fathers This man flourished above three hundred years ago and was born in the Island of Majorica of a notable extraction which gave him passage into worldly honours and caused him to be bread in the Court of his King by whom he afterward was made one of his prime Officers Never was there a man more inclining to love for he loved transportedly and spent all his youth in this vanity having no employment more acceptable then to write amourous verses to expresse his passion In the end he fell into the snare of a violent affection that long turmoiled him which was the love of an honourable Lady endowed with an invincible chastity Here ordinarily love which delights to pursue what it cannot arrive unto finds most admiration for the eyes and food for its flame He was so on fire in this quest that he thought he should lose his wits suffering himself to fall into unbeseeming and extraordinary actions so farre as being one day on horse-back
devotion As concerning that which we ought to pray and beg for our great Master hath abridged it for us in our Lords Prayer a true Epitom of the celestial Lords prayer wisdom as if one would comprehend all this great Universe in the round circuit of a ring From thence it is that all prayers are derived as all waters flow from the Ocean From the union of this excellent prayer with the Rosary Angelical salutation the Rosary is composed a prayer as singular as familiar to the whole world whether it be simply recited or whether one proceed therein by the way of meditation upon the mysteries as many pious and devout books do teach We have besides this the Psalter of the Kingly Psalter Prophet which operateth that in the Church which the Sun doth in Heaven It illuminateth heateth and makes fruitful all the good desires and devotions of Christianity Consequently there follow many well digested offices many Collects Litanies Prayers collected from holy Scriptures and Fathers You have a plentiful treasurie of them compiled by Henry Kispenvigius able to satisfie the most curious devotions But all is not in multitude The Breviaries Hours and Manuels of devotion say enough Those who have obligation of saying some office ought seriously Government of vocal prayer to think of the discharge of their consciences upon this point But you which have it not it is reason with the advise of your spiritual Father you task your selves upon some daily exercise seasoned with some variety that every day you may repeat it with exact diligence and moreover you have many jaculatory prayers drawn from the psalms or other books for all manner of necessities as well spiritual as temporal and a list of the persons as well living as dead for whom you are to pray When you have the matter digested it remaineth The form your self adde form thereunto a serious attention a profound reverence a fervent love You must imagine with your self that with those holy old men of the Apocalyps you stand before the throne of God with a vial or cup in the one hand which Cup and harp in prayer is your heart replenished with holy thoughts as with odoriferous balm and a harp in the other which is the collection of so many notable prayers Serve your self well with this celestial harp Do not as one Neanthus who having inherited Orpheus his Neanthus To use itwel harp thought to do wonders and played so ill that dogs affrighted with his untuneably skreaking noise tate him in pieces It is not enough you have so many holy prayers which sound like the string of Gods harp consigned to you by Jesus Christ himself and so many holy personages you must use them well lest you find your punishment even in the sacrifice of propitiation Take heed you sacrifice To sacrifice the calf without flower not as S. Gregory saith the calf without flower which is to make prayer with lips without application of heart Four things will greatly serve you to resist distractions Remedies against distractions and driness which happen in prayer The first before prayer and in the time of prayer frame to your self a lively and strong idea of the presence of God and when any distraction occurreth recal your thoughts into their center by often renewing your intentions in the beginning of every part of prayer The second not being charged with any office by obligation make a few vocal prayers and stay upon every word the space of a breathing fit in the mean time pondring both the word which you pronounce and the person to whom you speak and your baseness and unworthiness This manner is very sovereign and available to pray The third to follow the counsel of Cassiodorus to take this vocal prayer which you rehearse as if it were particularly made for you or that it originally had born the very like sprouting buds in your heart So ought you to connaturalize it and punctually espouse all the effections which the Authour of this prayer had when the Holy Ghost did dictate it unto him You must rejoyce bewail hate and love upon David's harp as by a certain divine inspiration The fourth often to ask of God the gift of prayer to offer him all your devotions in union with those of our Saviour and to chastise your neglects by some voluntary satisfaction To water and moysten your prayers and retain them in full vigour it is needful that as you speak to God in the exercise of prayer he speak to you in books and by the mouth of Preachers Wherefore make a resolution to employ daily some part of your time in the reading of some devout book as well that which containeth precepts as examples Go not as it were boot-haling with an unsteaddy curiosity which swalloweth all and ever remaineth hungry but fixe your thoughts and affections upon that which you read in such sort that you may be imbrued and coloured with a firm tincture Good books are as the cave Good books the cave of Sibylla Spiritual reading and Sermons of Sibylla Cassius Longinus saith the inhabitants of that cave had a certain rapture of prophesie and in often revolving the writings of Saints the spirit of Saints is acquired And as for Sermons take heed of that canker of worldly spirits who hear Preachers as Athenian Oratours or as one would a curious lute-player or a Comedie in the Burgundian hostery If he who preacheth to you have no other intention but to please you nor you any other purpose but to sooth your own curiosity he hath wearied his lungs and you in the mean space have had the itch in your ears the time will come when he shall have the worm in his heart to gnaw him and you the tingling in your ears for your punishment The seller and the buyer shall be paid with the coyn of reprobation Who speaketh not and who heareth not to do and become better abuseth a word signed with the bloud of Jesus Christ the loss whereof is most dangerous and the account inestimable The sixteenth SECTION Of the second combat of the spiritual man against weakness ALl that on which I have before very largely discoursed serves to dissipate the darkness of ignorance and to replenish a soul with the knowledge of God with good maxims good desires and good purposes and doubtless nothing would be found more easie and familiar than to do well Temptations remoraes of the soul were it not temptations come athwart us which are the remoraes as it were and hinderances of the soul And therefore it is necessary to frame to your self an undoubted courage high and resolute to resist with an invincible hand and to strike at an infinite number of obstacles which present themselves in all sorts of occasions and which bring upon our souls accesses of fire and yce fire of concupiscence yce of pusillanimity to form in the end an absolute inability of virtue This
ought to be freed from wars of nature which ever keep in humility your soul a little too indulgent to it self The eighteenth SECTION Remedies against passions and temptations which proceed from every vice I. TO consider that passion is a motion of the sensual appetite which proceedeth from the imagination of good or evil with some agitation of the body II. That there are eleven passions six in the appetite of concupiscence which are love hatred desire aversion joy sadness Five in the appetite of revenge which are hope despair boldness fear anger III. That there are two means to vanquish all passions whereof the first is a precaution of mind against the occasions and vain apparences of all things of the world and the second a serious entertainment of the mind in better things as prayer study labour affairs But above all you must beg of God the light and strength of his holy grace which infinitely surpasseth all humane remedies We here adde some preservatives against passions and the most ordinary vices Against carnal love I. To consider the barrenness of worldly loves which are the true gardens of Adonis wherein nothing is gathered but wretched flowers environed with many thorns II. To set a true estimate upon things and not to be deceived with apparences III. To keep watch over your senses to avoid the opportunities and occasions of sin and above all to have recourse unto God upon the first impression of your thoughts IV. To free your self by main force from the presence of objects to be delighted with serious purposes and good employments V. To present to your self very often the defect ingratitude levity inconstancy and treachery of creatures which we most servilely love Against aversions hatreds and envies I. To esteem nothing great in this life is the way to envie nothing II. To love onely the great inheritance of the land of the living which never becomes less by the many and several divisions made to those who possess it III. To consider attentively the motives which excite us to love our neighbour as the participation of the same nature same life same bloud and like profession and such other reasons which are as so many knots of amity IV. The wretched life of Cain to live in envie troubles disturbances and rage of a distempered spirit which causeth the immortality of its being to contribute to the eternity of its pains V. To behold how envy ere it is aware serveth many times to the advancement of those who are envied Against covetousness worldly hope and joy I. The disquiet of an hungry mind II. The unsatiableness of desires III. The wars and battels we must oft-times undergo to satisfie one sole desire IV. The dishonour of denial insupportable to a generous soul V. The dependence and slavery we must endure to please those from whom we expect the accomplishment of our desires VI. the frailty in offending God through too much greediness of temporal things VII The poor and short pleasure taken in things we most ardently desire VIII That God many times affordeth us the accomplishment of our desires as a punishment of our imperfections Against sadness and despair There is a holy sadness as that we entertain upon the passion of our Saviour or for our sins which is a gift of God and not a punishment There is another furious which hath no ears and which is rather cured by miracles than precepts There is one natural which proceedeth from humour and another vitious fostered by evil habits and neglects of salvation I. Against this last we must consider our desires and affections oft-times make up all our sadness and that the true means to lessen the cares which consume us is to sweeten the sharp and ardent love we bear towards worldly things II. The small account we make of God is the cause we many times are troubled at frivolous things either distantly threatning us or already happened He that would truly love this great God who deserveth all the love both of Heaven and earth should not suffer fear or sadness for any thing but the loss of the love of God which no man looseth if he be not willing to for go it III. Nought but tears of the damned is remediless He that may be in the way of Paradise should not make a kind of hell on earth and who may hope this great All should never be sad for any thing Against evil confidence I. That to be confident in evil things is to have a desperate instrument of ones own misery which entertaineth all exorbitancies of the heart to make them the more punishable II. That there is no assured confidence against the power of God which in an instant ruineth the posterity of the greatest Tyrants III. That the strongest things are wasted by the weakest Lyons have been eaten up by flies and rust though contemptible consumes the hardest mettals IV. That to be confident through presumption of strength is the high-way to become ridiculous in enterprises and unfortunate in all successes We must not go about to soar to the sun with the wings of a Reare-mouse nor sail on the Ocean in the shell of a Tortoise Against fear I. Neither to desire nor love any thing inordinately is the path-way to peace where fear never harbours II. To have a strong charity towards God and to love him fervently with perswasion of his reciprocal love This is the means to enter into a firm confidence For what evil may we fear against us when God is with us III. We many times fear evils which are the fources of great blessings some are not truly evils other much less than we make them and many will never happen Why will you abide where you are not and put your self on the rack in your imagination IV. He who resolves to suffer all that God will have him takes in hand a powerful remedy against all sorts of fears For he who is a Master over sorrow commandeth terrour since the evil present is much more troublesom than the future V. There are natural fears much tied to flesh unless they be vanquished and sweetned by frequent custom with the things which are feared and conversation with men confident and couragious Against anger I. To consider how it depriveth us of six things very precious to wit of wisdom justice civility concord truth and the splendour of the spirit of God II. How it suddenly transfigureth a man into a little monster III. How it is hurtful to the state of health which we so tenderly love IV. That it abaseth the person surprized with it and especially if he be in some eminency of life and dignity V. That the effects thereof are cruel the spoils pernicious events shameful and falls for the most part irrecoverable VI. The contentment to have kept back an evil word which had destroyed a good affair VII The abstinence from curiosities and niceness of life cutteth asunder the sinews of anger The less curious a man is the more
what game his sister meant to play having never hitherto known any such levity in her He presently hasteneth into Pulcheria's chamber And what devise saith he is this Where is my wife The poor prisoner stretched out her hand to him Pulcheria opposed it and sheweth she was hers to buy and sell and dispose of at her pleasure And as the Emperour admired much these so extraordinary proceedings in a person of his sisters humour she caused him to read the writing signed with his own hand then adding good counsel Behold saith she most Sacred Majesty the goodly order precipitation negligence bring to affairs The holy Emperour took this advertisement in good part and promiseth he never more would sign dispatches at this rate But Eudoxia was vexed at this Honours change manners sport in good earnest She was in an estate wherein she would no longer be over-awed she knew the power she held over her husbands heart having already given him pledges of her fruitfulness to wit a daughter named Eudoxia who was afterward married to the Emperour Valentinian It much troubled Athenais a poor maid preferred by Pulcheria could not brook her her that Pulcheria still retained some small predominance over her and shewed a spirit of command she resolved with herself that her person at this time required another consideration that such tricks had heretofore been well enough accepted in that estate she was in but not as now she is It is too great a game to play upon diadems These petty resentments of the point of honour easily creep even into the purest souls and who seasonably stops them not findeth his heart drencht in the gall of certain aversions which weaken charity I know not what cooling-card this goodly game cast between the two Princesses but from that time the one would no longer be commanded and the other pursued her ordinary course which was to command These hearts formerly united were now upon breach which notwithstanding never outwardly appeared so retentive they were on both sides God would exercise both and put them into the surnace of tribulation to purifie them and take away some dross which by long prosperities is easily contracted He first began with the Empress Eudoxia to whom he suffered a most sensible accident to happen the narration whereof behold which verily is pitifull But who will think it strange to see Eudoxia fallen into the sinister opinion of Theodosius seeing the same hath chanced to many Saints yea to her who hath born the standard of all sanctity the most Blessed Virgin Upon the day of Epiphany as the Emperour returned Sinister accident from Church with great pomp and magnificence a certain countrey man a stranger and unknown brake through the press accosteth Theodosius who was of most easie access and presenteth him with an apple of an extraordinary size esteemed at that time as a rare fruit The Emperour receiveth it gratefully and commandeth to give the good man presently about the value of one hundred and fiftie crowns As soon as he was returned to the Palace he goes to visit the Empress and full of joy giveth her this fair present which he had taken of the peasant for a great rarity Out alas this verily was the Apple of discord apple of discord infected with the breath of the serpent which horribly rent asunder this poor Court The good Empress having understood that Paulinus a great favourite of Theodosius was in bed sick of the gout to please and comfort him sent him the apple not mentioning from whom she had received it Paulinus was seized with so great joy seeing such a courtesie from a person so eminent used towards him that the contentment he received at that time charmed the pain of his gout He so admireth this goodly fruit that he judgeth it worthy of Imperial hands and without delaying resolved to send it to the Emperour excusing himself through indisposition of health that he was not himself the messenger Theodosius knew the apple which he had very lately put into the Empresses hand he turned it on every side and judged it to be the same thereupon a furious jealousie as if it had been breathed from hell began to lay hold on this gentle spirit all the objects of what was past returned to thicken this black vapour to frame a cloud thereof and resolve it into a storm It is true the Empress loved Paulinus with a most chaste and innocent love one must have had the heart of a Tiger not to love him He was a Lord very much affected by her husband it was he who partly had drawn her from the obscurity of Gentilism by his learned and friendly conferences he that had procured her Baptism he that had wrought her marriage he that yielded most faithfull service to their Majesties in the chiefest charge of the Empire wherein he had been most nobly employed all which made him worthy of great respects besides that he was of a very royal conversation which had great power over all those who treated with him The good Lady who ever had her pen in hand to work some piece of her invention to the glory of Altars which she affected was pleased to communicate her labours to Paulinus and discourse with him of holy things All these conferences which ever had been for the honour of an entire reputation and which before yielded nothing but honey were all turned into gall in the heart of Theodosius by this lamentable jealousie wherewith he was possessed He instantly sendeth for Eudoxia the more deeply The evil of a sleight lie to sound her heart demanding what was become of that fair apple he had given her The poor Princess was overtaken and seeing herself between the hammer and the anvile I know not what gesture appeared on the brow of her husband but she well perceived this fair soul was not in its ordinary situation She therefore declining suppliant intreaty thought to under-prop her innocency with a lie and said she had eaten the apple Virtue hath nothing to do with the veil of untruths to cover it self it is not her custom Had she freely told what she did with the apple as her intention was most sincere all the malignity of suspition would have been diverted But this sudden surprizal a little altered her judgement and all she did was to remedy the passion she saw to be enkindled in the heart of Theodosius by the eyes which are as the mirrours of our soul The Emperour urged her upon this answer She who already was involved tumbled herself further into the snare and that she might not seem a lier sware by the life and health of her husband she had eaten the apple He to convince her of this impudence drew this fatal fruit out of his Cabinet It is then flown from your stomach into my chamber without corruption behold I have found a wonder The Empress at the sight of this fruit endured the same symptoms in innocency
and that all Ladies who sometimes love vapour where it is not be loved must of necessity have love in store for them They enter into so great vanities as they cast their affections upon none but Princesses or eminent beauties esteeming the rest of the world too base for the entertainment of their affections They resemble those birds of Aegypt who will not build their nests but upon Palms nor will they love but in a high place Of this quality were Endimion and the Emperour Caligula who in the end distasting all the women in the world transferred the ambition of their loves above the sphere of fire supposing they were hardy enough to take the Moon in marriage One would not believe the frenzie of this passion if we had not by experience seen men of most base extraction with much content to entertain their thoughts upon the loves of the Queens of Antioch and Sicilie transporting themselves with joy whensoever it was told them they were entered far into their gracious favours This is it which maketh me say that we in two things know the greatness of our soul to wit that it can frame a world to its knowledge as God hath created one in nature and can lodge the thoughts in so high a place that the poorest begger of the world can entertain affection for the most emiment person of the earth The rich who do as it were forbid the use of elements cannot deny love but it is a gross infirmity to love out of the sphere of your power that which you can no more enjoy than the Moon in the Heavens If we will love aloft let us love him who hath made us When once we have passed far into his heart we shall find all the greatness of the world much lower than our feet If you my souldier entertain these fantastick loves I from this present will send you to the Strophad Islands with those who search for the hand of glory the Philosophers stone and quadratura circuli and who oft-times distil the money out of their purses with that little brain which is left them through the same limbeck I fear you rather have the love of servitude and Love of bondage make a Goddess of a piece of flesh to which it is your glory to sacrifice your liberty being so blind as to kiss the fetters of your slavery instead of breaking them Verily it is a pittifull thing to see a man burn in ice and congeal in fire having the colour wan the visage meagre the eyes hollow the cheeks sunk the spirit giddy the reason uncollected and the heart wholly feaverish for the love of a creature who flouteth him To see a man who walketh in his solitude and creepeth like a spectre not knowing whether he be of the number of the living or dead who speaketh writeth who prieth who hopeth who feareth laugheth sigheth waxeth pale blusheth desireth detesteth dieth riseth again sinketh into an abyss and then toucheth Heaven with a finger who playeth a Comedy of a dozen Personages in one hour and passeth through more metamorphoses in a day than Ovid in three years Oh what a miserable thing is it saith the golden mouth of Constantinople to seek to be rosted in ashes and so desperately love a beauty which is onely fair in the fantasie of a feaverish brain and of which in a short time the most licorous worms would scorn to make their dung-hill O my souldier let such a frenzie never enter into your heart you were better serve a Turk or an Arabian than such a love It is the punais-worm which bites while she liveth and after death maketh her infection to be felt Why go you about to idolatrize a woman Have you not slavery enough at home but you must needs seek it abroad Withdraw your self in good time from this captivity gain the haven before the storm surprize you for if you once be engaged there is neither arm nor oar can serve to bring you back again Is it not a comely thing think you to behold a souldier who hath a sword by his side able to hew monsters to seek to play the cocks-comb in quest of a wily wench that exerciseth the most infamous tyranny over him that ever was heard of It is said Omphale took the Diadem from a King named Hercules and set her slippers on his head That Dionysius the Tyrant wrote the expeditions of his Kingdom with his hand and that Mirrha cancelled or signed them at her pleasure That King Athanaricus tied the strings of Pincia's shoes That Themistocles caused himself to be purged and let bloud with his captive Mistress He that should see all the follies of the entranced lovers might observe an infinite number of matters much more strange In serving a scornfull piece who makes you die a thousand times a day you can oft-times hope for no other thing but ever to serve and if you come to the end of your pretensions brag not so much you perhaps have nothing but that which servants or persons more unworthy have obtained before you This well deserveth indeed to betray your honour and to commit such silly actions but if you open your eyes to see the end of this goodly stage-play you shall do as those who caused themselves to be shaved when they escaped a ship-wrack you would not let so much as a hair remain upon that young head which suffered it self to run at liberty after such sottish loves If you plunge your self further into this passion you Love of fury shall find fury which tieth cords which mingleth poisons which sharpeneth swords which openeth black caverns which erecteth gibbets which kindleth coals which prepareth racks which produceth all that may discover the proceedings of an engaged love and which maketh an arrow of all crimes to hit the mark it aimed at Were I in your place I would tear from my heart the sleightest cogitations which occur by this folly as cankers vermine and serpents and I would ride on post if it were possible beyond the elements with purpose to avoid such encounters All the bravest souldiers have made boast of chastity It was the trophey of Cyrus to whom God for this cause gave all the treasures of Asia It was the triumph of Alexander who in recompence had the conquest of the Persians and the Emperour Julian who made profession Julianus apud Ammianum to imitate him although he had renounced all the Sacraments would never forsake chastity which he had learned amongst Christians saying This virtue made beautifull lives as Painters fair faces But not to search any further into the ruins of antiquity look what your Bayard did upon this point behold an admirable passage which I will relate in the same words as it is expressed in his history They had caused a young maid to be conveyed into A Royal act of military chastitie his chamber which was one of the fairest creatures of the world and indeed she was endowed with
derived from frail honours of the world he had cause enough to rejoice on that day when he saw his two sons carried in Pomp through the Citie in a triumphant Chariot accompanied with the whole Senate and attended by an infinite concourse of people who ceased not to congratulate the father and the children as the of-spring of a race born for the good of the Common-wealth The same day he made in full Senate an oration of thanks-giving to Theodorick for the large liberalities extended towards his house which was delivered with such a grace that in conclusion they presented him a Crown as to the King of eloquence He likewise gave notable largesses to all the people and appeared in the great Court of the Circus siting in the middest of his two Consuls in presence of the whole Citie having his heart replenished with content and tears of joy in his eys for the affections which the people witnessed To crown all those blessings of fortune he had married a wife held one of the most accomplished Ladies under heaven For which is very rare she injoyed a great spirit a singular modesty and an excellent chastitie of whom Boetius sufficiently to praise her said in one word She was the image of her father Symmachus who had given her to him in a most chast and happie marriage Now this Symmachus called the pearl and precious ornament of the whole world was a Senatour who seemed to be composed of nothing but wisdom and virtue for which cause he then lived in much reputation and all this family of Boetius was in Ennodius in epist ad Boetitan l. 8. epist 1. Venae purpurarum Purpurae possessoris luce crescentes such sort esteemed that Ennodius writeth it was a vein of purple signifing thereby it contained therein all great dignities no otherwise than as veins inclose the bloud He notwithstanding addeth those purples increased by the lustre of Boetius who possessed them and after when Rome became the prize of those who subdued it it being no longer lawfull for Consuls to reap Palms in the fields of battels he equalled the ancient triumphs by the greatness of his judgement Gerebert an Authour who wrote of those times calleth this Boetius the father and light of his Countrie who managing the reins of the Empire in the qualitie of a Consul spared not to diffuse by the force of his abilitie in good letters all the lustre they had equalling them with the wits of Greece Tu Pater Patriae lumen Severine Boeti Gerebertur l. 2. Epigt Pithae Consulis officio rerum disponis babenas Infundis lumen studijs cedere nescis Graecorum ingenijs Boetius thou father and Countreys-light Disposest Consuls office common right Giv'st studies radiant lustre and no whit In any thing submit'st to Graecian wit Verily we may see by that which followeth in this historie the little assurance may be had either in men or favours If men be vessels who do nothing all their life time but play with the winds favours are waves of glass which fail not to shiver themselves against the rocks We would think the moon much greater than all the stars were it not that the shadow of the earth which we make use of to measure it causeth the contrarie to appear and we might have some opinion these great dignities of the world had much eminencie above all that which is here below were it not that they dayly fall into shadows and fantasms of nothing which well approve we have much illusion in our eys since these greatnesses have taken such estimation in our hearts Jealousie a bad daughter born of a good house which is that of love and honour divideth beds and Empires and hath ever eys so bleared that it cannot endure a ray of the virtue or prosperitie of another And for that cause the lustre which proceeded from the house of Boetius in such manner as day progresseth froÌ„ the gates of the East failed not at all to give suspicions to King Theodorick who seeing himself a stranger and ignorant among Romans and men of so great counsel being not able to derive any other recommendation to himself but what the sword gave him envied so many heavenly riches as were contributed to the happiness of his Empire The change which then succeeded at Constantinople greatly fortified his distrusts for it is written that Anastasius an Emperour who had done nothing in the throne but create schisms beholding the Laurels of Caesar wholly withered on his head had some distast both of life which he had passionately loved and of the scepter possessed with so much ambition It is certain that being one day in the Circus as he espied a furious sedition whispered against him he voluntarily laid down his Crown and let the people know by his Heraulds he was willing to be rid of the Empire which for some time appeased the most passionate notwithstanding being greatly hated and foreseeing he could not make much longer aboad in the world he began to reflect on his Successours desiring to transfer to the Throne one of his three Nephews whom he had bred up having no male issue to succeed him There was difficultie Zacharias Rhetor M. S. Sirmuâ—di in the choice and he having a soul very superstitious put that to lot which he could not resolve by reason for he caused three beds to be prepared in the royal chamber and made his Crown to be hanged within the Tester of one of these beds called the Realm being resolved to give it to him who by lot should place himself under it This done he sent for his Nephews and after he had magnificently entertained them commanded them to repose themselves each one chusing one of the beds prepared for them The eldest accommodated himself according to his fancie and hit upon nothing the second did the same He then expected the youngest should go directly to the crowned bed but he prayed the Emperour he might be permitted to lie with one of his brothers and by this means not any of the three took the way of the Empire which was so easie to be had that it was not above a pace distant Anastasius much amazed well saw God would transfer the Diadem from his race and it is also added that he likewise knew by revelation that it was Justine who should succeed for he having determined to kill him with Justinian heard a voice which spake in his heart and said He should take good heed to touch those two personages because they should do each one in their turn good services to God Afterward as this Justine being ever near the person of the Emperour one day by chance set his foot on the train of his robe the Emperour looking back Thou holdest me said he by the gown and shalt follow me but stay a while your time is not yet come which much amazed all there present who thought him to speak like a man distracted
the direction of the family the government of men and maid-servants the example of youth and the comfort of the family She maketh her self necessary in the best affairs there is much repose in her prudence her health is accounted important her life precious her death deplorable and her memory replenished with honour The wisest of men Solomon hath given no other marks to know a virtuous woman than the Oeconomy she holdeth in the government of her family She hath considered saith Pâ—ov 3â— he the paths of her house and hath not eaten her bread in idleness she hath taken pains in linnen and wollen She is become as a ship laden with victuals and riches She riseth before day to provide fitting food for her familie She hath made purchase of farms and entertained traffick She hath put her hand to work then opened it to the necessity of the poor All her servants are in good order her husband and children cannot sufficientlie praise her for her great wisdom She is a lamp which will never be extinguished in the darkness of night Behold somewhat near the terms which he useth to reckon up the perfections of a wife ending with wisdom and fear of God which is the first and last ornament The ninth SECTION Conjugal Love IN the end as love is a generous passion which by It is the Epithere which S. Paul giveth to virtuous women calling them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tit. 2. its good government crowneth all virtues I would advise a married Ladie for the accomplishment of her perfection to bear a most cordial charity towards her husband This is no hard matter when there is good fortune and correspondence in marriages for complacence ever maketh wings for love and it is held a happiness to love that which pleaseth our passion But it is a most pitifull thing when parents blinded with avarice and charmed with the sweetness of pretended interests renew the example of cruel Mezentius who tyed the living to the dead and endeavoured to match a poor young maid who surviving in favours blessings from heaven with a husband putrified in vices ordures and diseases of body Then is a time when much virtue is to be shown in putting on a resolution to love a monster from their most tender years to their tomb What should we do therein The law of nature gives us free permission to desire good husbands but the laws of marriage exhort us to bear theÌ„ as much as we may howsoever they prove If we love for our selves this is impossible but if for God we therein shall find duty and facility A woman cannot seek out a shorter way to the perfection of her sex than by wedding the humours of her husband so that they be not opposite to the commandments of God she who well obeyeth commandeth well and when we once have surprised the heart of a man there is not any thing resisteth our wills Union is a marvellous cement which so straightly knitteth obedience and power together that it is a very hard matter to distinguish him who obeyeth from him that commandeth We have in all ages excelled in this conjugal piety there are hereof so many rare examples to be found that pens are troubled Vives relateth this in the second book of a Christian Woman of one named Clâ—râ— to express as well as ears to believe them Tender delicate young maidens have been seeÌ„ who inconsiderately married to husbands worn out with maladies perceiving froÌ„ the first night of her nuptials unguents ulcers and evil savours and finding a counterfeit health in bodies more fit for a tomb than a marriage bed yet have not abandoned them but loved honoured and served them watching sometimes fourtie days and fourtie nights about their beds never disarraying themselves Some one man hath been found among others whose indisposition drawing along with it seven years together the stench of wounds that were incurable the horrible infirmitie of members which appeared wholly disfigured did weaken all the forces of those who were willing to assist him overthrew the patience of the most faithfull wasted the charitie of the most zealous yea even such as do all for money abhorred to come near him And then to see a young maiden of sixteen years of age weak of complexion handsoâ— of bodie and endowed with a beautie which the most flourishing husbands would have coveted to tie her self to this dead body to stir it touch it cleanse it to give it broths to blow the powder of herbs into the nostrils of it which distilled an humour insupportable to all the world to cut his beard and hair when no man would undertake this adventure is it not a miracle of our sex worthy of the admiration of men the applause of histories and love of all posteritie What shall I say of one Eponina who having espoused See Lipsius in his Politiâ—ks a husband much clogged with troublesom affairs crimes yea even of treason was 9 years shut up with him in the vault of a sepulchre and afterwards seeing him to be discovered and condemned to death by the Emperour Vespatian would needs accompany him to execution die with him saying she alreadie was prepared for a tomb and that she could better tolerate it dead than alive What should I speak of a Persian Queen named Cabadis who seeing her husband detained in prison came to visit him not suffering her self to be known and giving him her garments of a wife to put on those of a husband afforded him opportunitie to escape paying afterward with her noble bloud the errour of her pietie Are not these prowesses worthy to be written in letters of gold and azure to be exposed to the view of all Ages A thousand-fold happy they whose concord hath bound love up with chains of adamant separation never finding place in the knot of marriage which God hath been pleased to tie with his own hands Let us for this cause preserve us from jealousie which useth to grow from the most beautifull loves as those worms which are said to issue from the fairest flowers It is a most unhappy passion formed by fantasie attired by suspitions darkened by discontents sed with bad humours by curiositie entertained with impostures by slander which gnaweth asunder all that which there is of virtue in chast affections troubleth the repose of beds embroyleth the affairs of housholds reateth alliances produceth monsters soweth fury and rage and having tormented all the world devoureth it self If our husbands fall into this miserie let us pitie them as franticks and take away from them all manner of occasions which may stir up their imaginations and if the like maladie surprize us let us not resemble those women who have travelled in the dead time of night through huge forrests full of horrour that they might hasten to watch their husbands accompanied onely with their passions whereof some fell between the teeth of wild beasts which to them were more pleasing
spared to use many love-dalliances but the affection she bare to this good Queen was so great that it razed out of his heart all other love as the ray of the sun scattereth the shadows and phantasms of the night The holy Lady perceiving the spirit of her husband already moved in hers and that there was no need of power but example so composed her manners in her marriage that she made her self a perfect model of perfections requisite for this estate Royal Crowns loose their lustre on heads without brains and brows without Majesty But this Lady made it presently appear that although her birth had not made her worthy of a Crown nor her good fortune had afforded it her merit alone had been of power to make her wear the best diadem in the world She practised in the Court of a Pagan King a strong vigorous devotion which was not puffed up with outward shews and vapours but wholy replenished with wisdom For she had a fear of God so chast that she apprehended the least shadows of sin as death a love so tender that her heart was as a flaming lamp which perpetually burned before the Sanctuary of the living God Her faith had a bosom as large as that of Eternity her hope was a bow in Heaven all furnished with emeralds which never lost its force and her piety an eternal source of blessings She had made a little Oratory as Judith in the royal Palace where she attended as much as time would permit to prayers and mortifications of flesh abiding therein as in a fortunate Island which made the sweetness of her immortal perfumes to mount up to heaven Yet did she mannage all her actions with singular discretion that she might not seem too austere in the eyes of her Court for fear weak souls might be diverted from Christianity by observing in her carriage perfections transcendent above ordinary capacities But all that which most passed in a common life was done by her and her maids with much purity fervour majesty and constancy It was an Angelical spectacle to see her present at Mass and dispose her self to receive the blessed Sacrament which she very often frequented to draw grace and strength from its source She honoured Priests as Messengers descended from Heaven as well to discharge her conscience as to hold her Religion in much estimation among Pagans The zeal of the houses of God which are Churches enflamed her with so much fervour that she had no delights more precious than either to cause new to be raised or to adorn those which had been erected so far as to make them receive radiance from the works of her royal hands Her charity towards the poor was a sea which never dryed up and her heart so large that all the hearts of the miserable breathed in hers She composed and decked herself dayly before the eyes of God putting on all virtues as it were by nature and rich attire of Ladyes for necessity But the King her husband she honoured as if she had seen the Saviour of the world walking upon the earth and not staying alone on the body she penetrated even to the center of this infidel soul which she beheld with eyes of unspeakable compassion She most particularly endeavoured to observe all his humours and follow the motions of his heart as certain flowers wait on the sun All that which Clodovaeus affected took presently an honourable place in the soul of Clotilda if he delighted in arms in dogs in horses she for his sake praysed arms dogs and horses regarding even the objects of the honest pleasures of her husband as her best entertainments Her conversation was full of charms and attractives which ever carryed profit along with them Sometimes she sweetened the warlick humours of her husband with harmony of reason sometimes she comforted him upon occasion of troubles which might happen in the world sometime she withheld very soberly and with prudent modesty his spirit which took too much liberty sometime she repeated unto him certain precepts of wisdom and practices of the lives of Saints and worthy personages that he might love our Religion sometime she pleased him with an eloquent tongue and an entertainment so delicate that nothing might be said more accomplished She was magnificent and liberal towards her household servants most exactly taking notice of the faithful services they yielded to her husband and kept her house so well united within the bands of concord and charity that it seemed as it were a little Temple of peace Slander uncleaness idleness impudence were from thence eternally banished virtues industry and arts found there a mansion and the miseries of the world a safe Sanctuary For she embraced all pious affairs of the Realm and governed them with so much equality of spirit that she resembled Angels who move the Heavens not using in themselves the least agitation May we not very well say this divine woman was selected out by God to a set golden face on an entire Monarchy by the rays of her piety The fifth SECTION The prudence which the Queen used in the conversion of her husband THe holy Queen brought forth a King and a great Monarch to Jesus Christ bearing perpetually his Court and the whole Kingdom in the entrails of her charity She had her Centinels day and night before the Altars who ceased not to implore the assistance for Heaven of the salvation of her husband and she her self often in deep silence of darkness caused her weeping eye to speak to God and adressed many vows to all the elect for the conversion of this unbelieving soul She very well considered that that which oftentimes slackeneth these wavering spirits in their endeavour to find the way of eternal life is certain interests of flesh and bloud certain impediments of temporal affairs some inordinate passion which tortureth and tyrannizeth over the mind Behold the cause why she took great care to sweeten the dispositions of her husband calm his passions and through a certain moral goodness facilitate unto him the way of the mysteries of our faith This being done she took her opportunity with the more effect and found the King dayly disposed better and better for these impressions He alreadie had the arrow very deep in his heart and began to ask questions proposing conditions which shewed he would one day render himself He said to Clotilda Madam I should not be so far alienated from your Religion were it not that I saw therein matters very strange which you would have me believe by power and authotity not giving any other reason thereof You would have me believe that three are but one in your Trinity that I adore a Crucified man and that I crucifie my self in an enforced and ceremonious life wherein I was never bred My dearest had I your good inclinations all would be easie to me but you know that all my life time I have been trayned up in arms If I should to morrow receive
eternal seed of so many sundry books as were hitherto published and which will encrease to the consummation of the world And although the most able Philosophers had they been persecuted by Tyrants would not willingly have lost a tooth for defence of their Maxims yet the wisdom of our Saviour is such that having possessed the heart and hands of those who profess it causeth them to pour out all the bloud of their veins and to use so much courage for preservation thereof as it afforded them lights in its establishment 5. From thence consider it is his absolute power over His power Data est mihi â—â—nis potestas in coelo in terrd Matth. 28. 18. all things and note if you please that it is manifested principally in three Articles First the facility of prodigies and miracles which appeared in Jesus Christ For this large house of nature which we call the world had no other motion but from his will and he therein commanded so universally that he seemed to hold the Heavens and elements under hire to be instruments of his wonders He lighted new stars at his birth he eclipsed the ancient Sun at his death he walked on waters as on marble pavements he caused the earth to cast up the dead four days after We find many of Pharaoh's Magicians have done false miracles but it was saith Saint Augustine by speedily applying active natural things to passive We find Saints have done true miracles but in the quality of Ministers It onely appertaineth to Jesus Christ to do them with an original power which hath its source in his bosom with an absolute command which receiveth not any modification in all nature with a simple will which needeth no other instruments It onely belongeth to him to do them for the full mannage of the worlds government and to transmit them into the person of Saints to the consummation of Ages In the second place I say this power marvellously shineth in the great Empire of the Church which his Heavenly Father hath put into his hands to build it raise it cement it with his bloud illuminate it with his lights nourish it with his substance to make laws in it establish Sacraments eternize sacrifices create Pastours and Priests and invisibly to rule in it by a visible head a power not to be shaken even unto the gates of hell to exercise a jurisdiction over souls to bind them to unloose them pardon sins change hearts ordain their predestination according to his will Finally this great power appears in that he first of all opened Paradise his soul being exalted from the first day of his creation to the vision of Gods Essence and afterward passing through all the Heavens to place himself at the right hand of his Father and put his Elect into the possession of the Kingdom he had purchased by his bloud Have not we cause to crie out thereupon and say O happy he Beatus quem elegisti assumpsisli habitabit in atriis tuis replebitur in bonis domus tuae â—ancium est templum tuum mirabile in aequitate Psal 64. Temple of Justinian whom you have chosen to raise him to the Hypostatical union He shall dwell in the Palace of the Divinity and we shall be filled with the blessings of thy house Thy Temple which is his sacred Hamanitie is infinitely holy It is said Justinian having finished the magnificent Church of S. Sophie which he built with so much industry and charge such numbers and such a general contribution of endeavour of riches and power of the whole Empire placed therein a statue of Solomon who seemed to be astonished and to hide himself through shame and confusion to see his Temple surpassed by that of the Emperour It was a vanity of a worldly Prince But we in verity would we represent what passeth here should paint both Moses and all the Prophets absorpt in a profound reverence in the consideration of the Temple of the Church and the wonders of Jesus Christ 6. Let us for conclusion of this discourse adore that which we cannot sufficiently comprehend and endeavour to bear an incomparable love to the Person of our Saviour for the excellencies we have expressed But if you require the practise of this I say Practise of the love of Jesus reduced to 3. heads 1. To adhere Conglutinata est anima 〈◊〉 cum ed. Gen. 34. 3. it is reduced to three heads which are to adhere to serve and suffer The first note of faithfull affection appears in a strong adherence to the thing beloved so as the Scripture speaking of love says it causeth one soul to clasp unto another If you begin heartily to love Jesus Christ you will find you shall think upon him almost insensibly every moment and as saith S. Gregorie every time you fetch your breath there will come a pleasing idea of God to fill your soul with splendours and affection You will feel a distast and unsavouriness of heart against all earthly things so that it will seem to you that the most pleasing objects of the world are mingled with gall and wormwood You will seek for your Jesus in all creatures you wil languish after him all which beareth his name Numquid quem diligit anima mea vidistis Cantic and memory will be delightsome to you you will speak of him in all companies you will have an earnest desire to see him honoured esteemed acknowledged by all the world And if you perceive any contempt of his Person which is so estimable you will think the apple of your eye is touched Your solitude will Suspiret ac â—eties se a summo bono anima nostra sentiaâ— recessisse quoties se ab illo intuitu deprehenderit separatim fornicationem judicans vel momentaneum a Christi contemplatione discessum be in Jesus your discourse of Jesus Jesus will be in your watchings and in your sleep in your affairs in your recreations and you will account it a kind of infidelity to loose sight of him but an hour Love is a great secret very well understood by Abbot Moses in Cassianus Let our soul saith he sigh and think it self sequestred from the sovereign goodness so soon as it looseth never so little sight of the divine presence accounting it a spiritual fornication to be separated one sole moment from beholding Jesus For the second degree as it is not enough in Siquis diligit me sermonem meum servabit Ioan. 14. worldly amities to have affections languors and curious lip-complements but you must necessarily come to some good effects and considerable offices which are the marks and cement of true affection so you must not think the love of Jesus consisteth in slight affectations of idle devotion He must serve who will love his will must be wedded his command entertained and executed his liveries put on and we wholly transformed into him by imitation of his examples S. Augustine to confound the weakness
August serm 19. de verbis Apost Inhonestos amatores â—stendite Siquis amore foeminae lasciviens vestis se aliter quà m amatae placet illi dixerit nalo te habere tale birrhum non habebit si per hyemem illi dicet in lacinia te amo eliget tremere quà m displicere Numquid illa tamen damnatura est Numquid adhibitura tortores Nunquid in carcerem missura Hoc solum ibi timetur non te videbo faciem meam non videbis of our love towards God pertinently maketh use of the practise of prophane loves Behold saith he these foolish and dishonest Amourists of the world I demand whether any one surprized with the love of a woman attyreth himself any otherwise than to the liking of his Mistress If she say I would not have you wear such a cloke he puls it off I command you in the midst of winter to take a sommer garment he had rather shiver with cold than displease a miserable creature But yet what will she do if he obey not Will she condemn him to death Will she send him executioners Will she thrust him into a dungeon Nothing less she will onely say if you do not this I will never see you more This word alone is able to make a man tear himself in pieces in the endeavour of complacence and service O foul confusion of our life and prostitution of spirit A God who makes a Paradise of his aspects and a hell in his separation from us promiseth never to behold us with a good eye unless we keep his commandements nor can his menaces but be most effectual since he hath sovereign authority in his hands He deserves to be served above all things service done to him is not onely most pleasing but after this life gaineth recompence In the mean time we rather choose to live the slaves of creatures and dwell under the tyranny of our passions than to embrace the yoke of God Were it not fit we hereafter order the small service we do to God as well in our prayers as actions in such sort that there be neither work word nor thought from morning till night which hath not all its accommodations and is not squared within the rule God desireth of us with intentions most purified and indefatigable fervours Finally the last character of love is to suffer for 3. To suffer Satiabor cum apparuit gloria tua Psal 16. Satiabor cum affâ—ictuâ— fuero ad similitudinem tuam Jesus the father of sufferings and King of the afflicted The Kingly Prophet said I shall be satisfied when thy glory shall appear to me Another translation importeth I shall be well pleased when I shall behold my self marked with the characters of thy sufferings Jesus Christ in the great sacrifice of patience made in the beginning of Ages supplyes the person of a great Bishop putting on flesh wholly imprinted with dolours a heart drenched in acerbities a tongue steeped in gall Round about him are all the most elevated and couragious souls who all wear his livery and both constantly and gloriously dispose themselves to this great model of dolours Would we at the sight of so many brave Champions lead a life lazy languishing and corrupt Know we not all creatures of the world groan and bring forth that all elements are in travel and in a ceaseless agitation The air it self say Philosophers is perpetually strucken with the motion of heaven as with a hammer or whip that this benummed mass may not hatch any poyson Rivers are cleansed and purified by the streaming current of their waters The earth is never in repose and the nature of great things is generously to suffer evils The clock goeth on by the help of its counterpoise and Christian life never proceedeth in virtue but by counter-ballance of its crosses Our souls are engaged by Oath to this warfare Animas nostrâ—s authorati in has pugnas accessimus Tertul. ad Scap. so soon as first we enter into Christianity said the noble Tertullian Suffering is our trade our vow our profession Love which cannot suffer is not love and if it cease to love when it should bear it never was what it professed A lover said in Olympius that when he was onely Olympius Te sine vâ— misero mihi lilis nigra videntur Pallentesque rosae c. some little moment absented from the creature he most loved in the world all the best seasons were irkesome all discourses troublesome and the greatest delights turned into bitterness Flower de-luces seemed cole-black in the meadow when he beheld them in his pensive solitude roses the most vermillion grew pale gilli-flowers lost their lustre the very bay-trees which resist winters cold could not withstand the sadness caused by this absence but in a moment they all appeared quite withered to him Viands with him had no rellish wine tast nor sleep repose But so soon as this creature returned all was animated by her presence Flower-deluces became white again roses resumed their vermillion gilli-flowers their beauty lawrels their verdure wine and viands their tastfulness and sleep its contentment But if there happened any harsh and painful accidents which he must bear for her sake they seemed a Paradise All worldly loves speak the same yet are we unwilling to say or do any thing for this excellent Word of God which is endowed with a beauty incomparable exalted above all the beauties of the sons of men This Jesus who maketh a Paradise spring from his eyes This Jesus who distilleth honey from lips of roses for the comfort of his elect This Jesus who causeth Nations to tremble under the force of his word as under flaming arrows and is attired with the conquest and tropheys of souls Behold him on the bright empyreal Heaven crowned with a diadem of honour and revested with celestial purple who regardeth us who beholdeth us and never ceaseth to draw us unto him So many brave spirits have followed him amongst torrents thorns and flames which they found replenished with a sweetness that charmed their pain in the sight of their best beloved It is this sweetness turned the stones of S. Stephen into flower-de-luces and changed the burning coles of S. Lawrence into roses For it S. Bartholomew despoiled himself of his skin as freely as of a garment and S. Catharine hastened to the wheel armed with keen rasors S. Tecla to Lyons S. Agnes to the wood-pile S. Cicely to the sharp sword and S. Appollonia suffered her teeth to be torn out with as much ease as the tree suffers his leaves to fall away from him O the sweetness of Jesus who makes all the valiant and knoweth how to turn doves into eagles of fire Shall we never understand what it is to love him towards whom all generous hearts sigh and for whom all charities are crowned with immortal garlands The eighth EXAMPLE upon the eighth MAXIM Of the admirable change of worldly love Drawn from the Ecclesiastical history
the Apostles in S. Luke it not being corrected by our Saviour who was the rule of their faith Such the truth of the apparition of the soul of Moses upon Mount Thabor I insist not now upon proof Math. 17 but example contenting my self to produce one or two out of a great multitude recounted by Authours As for the first I hold the apparition of the soul Apparition of the soul of Samuel 1. Reg. 28. of Samuel is most formal in Scripture for any one who will consider the whole progress of the narration The history telleth us that King Saul after the death of Samuel was upon the point of giving battel to the Philistines and that having first addressed himself to God by ordinarie means to learn the way he should observe therein seeing he had no answer either by dream or the lively voice of Prophets he did what infidels and men desperate do who seek to get that from the devil they cannot obtain of God He commanded his servants to seek him out a forceress although himself had banished them by his Edicts out of his Kingdom The servants ever ready to observe their Masters in ill offices when their own interest concurreth found a famous Magician whom the Hebrews affirm to have been a woman of good place but out of a detestable curiosity had put her self into this profession Saul to cover his purpose and not to amaze her went thither by night in a disguized habit onely accompanied with two gentlemen where having saluted her he demanded the exercise of her profession But she being crafty and careful to keep her self from surprizes answered Sir go you about to undo me your self also Know you not the Edicts of King Saul Saul replied he knew all had passed but she might confidently proceed assuring her of his warranty and whereas she proposed punishments to her self she should meet with rewards But she still doubting and sticking on distrust usual in all mischiefs he engaged his word with great oaths protesting no ill should befal her for any thing might pass at that time between them Thereupon resolved to give him satisfaction she asked if it were not his desire to speak to the soul of a dead man as also whose it was It was very ordinary with these Negromancers to raise illusions and fantasms instead of true spirits of the dead S Apollonius made Achilles to be seen Philostr in Apoll. Zonaras Eunapius Sardianus appearing on his tomb as a giant of twelve cubits high so Santaberemus shewed to the Emperour Basilius the soul of his son Constantine so Jamblicus made to appear in certain baths of Syria two figures of little children like Cupids All this to speak properly had nothing real in it and it is no wonder if those who thought Samuel had been raised by a sorceress believed it was a specter But he who well will weigh the phrase of Scripture and consider that this spirit of Samuel suddenly appeared before the sorceress had used her ordinary spells plainly shewing he came meerly by the commandment of God and not by the charms of the Magician will easily change opinion Verily the Sorceress was much astonished seeing the dead came contrary to the manner of other and cried out aloud as one distracted Sir you have deceived me you are Saul much doubting it was to him Samuel came The miserable King who endeavoured by all means to assure her fear not saith he I will keep my promise what have you seen She answered DEOSVIDIASCENDENTES DE TERRA as who should say according to the Hebrews phrase she had seen a venerable person like an Angel or a God raised out of the earth In what shape replies the King It is an venerable old man saith she covered with the mantle of a Prophet Then Saul with much reverence prostrated on the ground and made a low obeysance to Samuel who spake to him and said QUARE ME INQUIETASTI UT SUSCITARER Why hast thou disquieted me to make me return into the world Necessitie hath constrained me answereth Saul I am plunged in a perplexity of affairs and cannot get any answer from heaven O man abandoned by God why doest thou ask of me that which I have foretold shall happen Thy army shall be defeated by the Philistins and thou with thy children shalt be to morrow with me that is to say among the dead as I am now which so fell out Now the Eccl. 46. Scripture upon this praiseth Samuel to have prophetized after his death if it were not the true Samuel but a specter who sees not it were to tell a lie and to applaud the work of the divel But to the end you may see this belief was held by Nations as by a decree of nature Josephus in the seventeenth book of his Judaical antiquities relateth the apparition of the spirit of Alexander son of the great Herod and Mariamne who was seen to his wife Glapphyra when she re-married again to the King of Mauritania to reproch her ingratitude and forgetfulness of her first husband which having amply deduced in the first Tome of the holy Court in the tenth edition upon an Instruction directed to widdows I forbear here to repeat it Philostratus in the eigth book of the life of Apollonius maketh likewise mention of a young man much troubled in mind concerning the state of souls in the other life and saith Apollonius appeared unto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 him assuring him the soul was immortal and he need not to be troubled at all since it was rather the work of the Divine providence than of it I willingly passe over many other examples to tell you that Phlegon a good Authour who flourished about an hundred years after the nativity of our Saviour and was not of our religion to favour our opinions although honourably cited by Origen Eusebius and S. Hierom writeth a strange historie witnessed by the testimonie of a whole Citie wherein he then governed He saith that at Trayls a Citie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Phrygia there was a young maid named Philenion daughter of Democrates and Chariton who as her storie well declareth was an amorous piece became court-like loved bravery delighted in too free conversation and followed the foolish pleasures of the world true gardens of Adonis which in the beginning make shew of silly flowers and in conclusion afford nought but thorns God who followeth the voluptuous by the track even into the shades of death sent her a sickness which having cropped the flower of her beauty left her almost nothing but a living carcass to deliver her over as a prey to death The miserable maid suffered the boiling fervours of the feaver through all her bodie not loosing the flames of love which she cherished in her heart She burnt with two fires not being able either to quench the one or other and having but a little breath of life left on her lips she gave to love what already was
a forraign Nation separated from the sweetness of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Synesius hymn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our dearest Country and lovely vision of the sovereign cause We are saith Synesius as little veins of water wandered from their fountains which desire nothing but to be re-united to their source should you afford them vessels of amber or chrystal to contain them they are never so well as in their origen We have a strong inclination that disposeth us to know love and admire this soveriegn Being which makes the world bring forth his great ide'as with more ease than the Sun could produce a ray Now here we must observe there are many sorts Diversity of unions of union The one of dependence which causeth the creature to depend on the Creatour as light on his star and heat on the fire which produced it The other of presence and most inward penetration by which God penetrateth all creatures by his admirable infusions by reason of his immensity and subtility The third of grace by which we are sanctified and in a sort made participant of Divine nature The fourth of glorie properly that which accomplisheth what grace had begun and setteth a seal upon the plentitude of all our felicities This being so divided it is evident that the union whereof we here speak is the glorified and ineffable union which disposeth the reasonable creature to the highest point of the commerce it may have with the divinity It is very hard to explicate how that is in our soul because of the weakness of our spirits which are now so tied to flesh Some Divines refuted by Chancellour Gerson and among others Doctour Almaricus and Henricus took this in a very high strain when they imagined that God coming to fall as a lightening-flash upon the soul of a blessed one filled it with his presence force and love and so possessed it that he wholly converted it into himself in such manner that from created Being it passed to increated Being returning to Anima perdit esse suum accipit esse divinum idea's of God and into the state it had before the worlds creation This opinion hath been rejected and condemned as a chymera for God will not beautifie us by ruining and destroying us but he will our felicitie be so wholly of him that it be notwithstanding wholly to us and there is no apparence our soul which is immortal and incorruptible should be annihilated by the approach of God from whom it must derive its being and conservation 5. We must then conceive this much otherwise Union of glorie what it is and believe the union of glorie that makes our beatitude consisteth in the vision love and joy of God which is the fruition termed by S. Thomas the ineffable kisses Imagine you see a needle which in presence of a diamond runs not to the adamant as being tied and fettered by the force of this obstacle but if you take away the diamond which captived it it goes stoutly and impetuously to its adamant which setteth it in the place of its repose by ordinarie charms I find something like in the state wherein we are Our poor spirit naturally tendeth to God as to the first cause and can take no contentment but in union with him yet is it here arrested by the poize of body by the bait of concupiscence and tie of sense but so soon as these obstacles are taken away and that it feeleth the vigorous infusions of this light of glorie which giveth it wings to raise it self to the Sovereign good above all the ways of nature it soareth as a feathered arrow unto the butt of its desires it sincks and plungeth it self into the bosom of God and there abideth contented with three acts which essentially compose its beatitude The first is vision the root of this so Sovereign happiness which causeth us to see with the eyes of a most purified understanding through the rayes of The three acts of beatitude the light of glorie the great God face to face with all the immensity of his essence the length of his eternity the height of his majesty the extent of all his excellencies and with the fecundity of his eternal emanations the productions of total nature and secrets of highest mysteries We shall see him saith Joan. 1. 3. August l. 9. de Trin. c. 10. Omnis secundum spiritum notitia similis est rei quam novit S. John as he is and thereupon S. Augustine addeth we shall necessarily derive a resemblance of God because knowledge here principally rendereth him who knoweth like to the thing known Of this vision necessarily is formed a great fire of love divinized when God like to a burning mirrour opposed to a glorified soul replenisheth it with his ardours ever by us to be adored And from this love proceedeth that excessive joy which is called the joy of God Vision causeth in us an expression of God love an inclination delicately violent to the presence of this Sovereign good joy a profound repose which seems to spread over our hearts a great river of peace benedictions and felicities Then this beatified soul not being able to be what God is by nature in some sort becometh such by favour So that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Hymn S. Gregory durst boldly say our soul makes it self a little God which eternally triumphs in the bosom of the great God It is properly then when man by an amorous consumption wholly dissolves into his beginning and not loosing what he is becometh one same spirit with him not by nature but by apprehension and affection He not onely will what God willeth but he cannot will any thing but what God will He takes part in all his interest all his greatness and all his joys being so divinely incorporated into the family bosom of this Father of essences He rejoyceth at the beatitude of all the elect as of his own he is rapt with admiration sometimes at the beauty of the place sometimes at the delicious correspondence of that great company sometimes at the unchangeable continuance of his most blessed eternity sometimes at the garments of glorie his body must put on and he every where beholdeth sources of comfort to spring which can never drie 6. From this favour besides so many other wonders Three great effects of beatitude I see three excellent effects succeed The first is impeccability The second verity of our knowledges which shall admit no errour The third tranquillity of our love which shall not know what wound or interruption is And first consider what a good it is The great happiness to be impeccable to be impeccable since we not onely shall be without sin but out of all danger of sinning All that which here afflicteth the most purified souls is not to be exposed to so many miseries and persecutions for they know good men are here on earth like flower-de-luces begotten by their
souldiers and I say to this go and he goeth and to another come and he cometh and to my servant do this and he doth it And Jesus hearing this marvelled and said to them that followed him Amen I say to you I have not found so great faith in Israel And I say to you that many shall come from the East and West and shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven but the children of the Kingdom shall be cast out into the exteriour darkness there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth And Jesus said to the Centurion Go and as thou hast believed be it done to thee And the boy was healed in the same hour Moralities 1. OUr whole Salvation consists in two principles The one is in our being sensible of God and the other in moving toward him the first proceeds from faith the other comes of charity and other virtues O what a happy thing it is to follow the examples of this good Centurion by having such elevated thoughts of the Divinity and to know nothing of God but what he is To behold our heavenly Father within this great family of the world who effects all things by his single word Creates by his power governs by his councel and orders by his goodness this great universality of all things The most insensible creatures have ears to hear him Feavers and tempests are part of that running camp which marcheth under his Standard They advance and retire themselves under the shadow of his command he onely hath power to give measures to the Heaven bounds to the Sea to joyn the East and West together in an instant and to be in all places where his pleasure is understood 2. O how goodly a thing it is to go unto him like this great Captain To go said I Nay rather to flie as he doth by the two wings of Charity and Humility His charity made him have a tender care of his poor servant and to esteem his health more dear than great men do the rarest pieces in their Cabinets He doth not trust his servants but takes the charge upon himself making himself by the power of love a servant to him who by birth was made subject to his command What can be said of so many Masters and Mistresses now adays who live always slaves to their passions having no care at all of the Salvation health or necessities of their servants as if they were nothing else but the very scum of the world They make great use of their labours and service which is just but neglect their bodies and kill their souls by the infection of their wicked examples Mark the humility of this souldier who doth not think his house worthy to be enlightened by one sole glimpse of our blessed Saviours presence By the words of Saint Augustine we may say he made himself worthy by believing and declaring himself so unworthy yea worthy that our Saviour should enter not onely into his house but into his very soul And upon the matter he could not have spoken with such faith and humility if he had not first enclosed in his heart him whom he durst not receive into his house 3. The Gentiles come near unto God and the Jews go from him to teach us that ordinarily the most obliged persons are most ungratefull and disesteem their benefactours for no other reason but because they receive benefits daily from them If you speak courteously to them they answer churlishly and in the same proportion wherein you are good you make them wicked therefore we must be carefull that we be not so toward God Many are distasted with devotion as the Israelites were with Manna All which is good doth displease them because it is ordinary And you shall find some who like naughty grounds cast up thorns where roses are planted But we have great reason to fear that nothing but hell fire is capable to punish those who despise the graces of God and esteem that which comes from him as a thing of no value Aspirations O Almighty Lord who doest govern all things in the family of this world and doest bind all insensible creatures by the bare sound of thy voice in a chain of everlasting obedience Must I onely be still rebellious against thy will Feavers and Palsies have their ears for thee and yet my unruly spirit is not obedient Alas alas this family of my heart is ill governed It hath violent passions my thoughts are wandering and my reason is ill obeyed Shall it never be like the house of this good Centurion where every thing went by measure because he measured himself by thy commandments O Lord I will come resolutely by a profound humility and an inward feeling of my self since I am so contemptible before thine eyes I will come with Charity toward these of my houshold and toward all that shall need me O God of my heart I beseech thee let nothing from henceforth move in me but onely to advance my coming toward thee who art the beginning of all motions and the onely repose of all things which move The Gospel for the first Friday in Lent S. Matth. 5. Wherein we are directed to pray for our Enemies YOu have heard that it was said thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemie But I say to you Love your enemies do good to them that hate you and pray for them that persecute and abuse you that you may be the children of your Father which is in Heaven who maketh his Sun to rise upon good and bad and raineth upon just and unjust For if you love them that love you what reward shall you have Do not also the Publicans this And if you salute your brethren onely what do you more Do not also the heathen this Be you perfect therefore as also your heavenly Father is perfect Moralities 1. A Man that loves nothing but according to his natural inclination loves onely like a beast or an infidel The best sort of love is that which is commanded by God and is derived from judgement conducted by reason and perfected by Charity Me thinks it should be harder for a good Christian to hate than love his enemy Hate makes him our equal whereas love placeth us quite above him By hating a mans enemy he breaks the laws of God he fights against the Incarnation of Christ which was acted to unite all things in the bands of love he gives the lie to the most blessed Eucharist whose nature is to make the hearts of all Christians the lame he lives like another Cain in the world always disquieted by seeking revenge and it is a very death to him to hear another mans prosperity Whereas to love an enemy doth not bind us to love the injury he hath done us for we must not consider him as a malefactour but as a man of our own nature as he is the Image of God and as he is a Christian God doth onely command perfect
God will they are always heard if not according to the wishes of their own nature yet according to the greater profits of his grace He is always happie who hath that which he would because he knows how to wish what is fitting and finds means to obtain what he desires by reason of his abstinence from coveting that which cannot be had 5. We must not offer to limit our goodness but as it comes from an infinit God we should make it as near being infinite as we can He gives the lie to virtues who will reduce them to a certain number We must never be weary of well doing but imitate the nature of celestial things which never make any end but to begin again Aspiration O God what spots are in my soul and how little do I look into my own imperfections Wilt thou never shew me to my self for some good time that I may cure my self by horrour of seeing what I am since I do so often wound my self by being too indulgent to my own naughty affections It is a great offence to break the glass which representeth me to my self by brotherly correction and to think I shall commit to more sins when no body will take liberty to reprove me I will humble my self to the very dust and mount up to thy glorie by contempt of my own baseness Alas must my soul be always so far in love with it self that it cannot suffer the remonstrance of a friend how will it then endure the tooth of an enemy what can she love being so partial to her self if she do not love most ugly darkness O my redoubted Master I fear thine eyes which see those obscurities which the foolish world takes to be brightness If I cannot be always innocent make me at least acknowledge my self faulty that I may know my self as I am to the end thou mayest know me for an object capable of thy mercy The Gospel upon Wednesday the third week in Lent S. Matthew 15. The Pharisees asked Jesus Why do thy Disciples contradict ancient Traditions THen came to him from Jerusalem Scribes and Pharisees saying Why do thy Disciples transgress the tradition of the ancients For they wash not their hands when they eat bread But be answering said to them Why do you also transgress the commandment of God for your tradition For God said Honour father and mother and he that shall curse father or mother dying let him die But you say Whosoever shall say to father or mother The gift whatsoever proceedeth from me shall profit thee and shall not honour his father or his mother and you have made frustrate the commandment of God for your own tradition Hypocrites well hath Esaiah prophesied of you saying This people honoureth me with their lips but their heart is far from me And in vain do they worship me teaching doctrines and commandments of men And having called together the multitudes unto him he said to them Hear ye and understand Not that which entereth into the mouth defileth a man but that which proceedeth out of the mouth that defileth a man Then came his Disciples and said to him Dost thou know that the Pharisees when they heard this word were scandalized But he answering said All planting which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up Let them alone blind they are guides of the blind and if the blind be guide to the blind both fall into the ditch And Peter answering said to him Expound us this parable But he said Are you also as yet without understanding Do you not understand that all that entereth into the mouth goeth into the belly and is cast forth into the privie But the things that proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart and those things defile a man For from the heart come forth evil cogitations murders adulteries fornications thefts false testimonies blasphemy These are the things that defile but to eat with unwashen hands doth not defile a man Moralities 1. THe spirit of man is wretched and makes it self business by being disquieted with petty little things and tormenting it self with formalities whiles it lives in a deep neglect of all that which is most essential to her salvation The Pharisees did place their perfections in washing themselves every hour of the day in bearing writs of the Law upon their foreheads and thorns upon their heels but made no scruple to take away the honour due to fathers and mothers from their children to make spoil of the world by a ravenous avarice which took upon it the appearance of piety and to give up innocent bloud under shew of justice The world doth now furnish it self with such like devotions Some make it a sin to look upon a fair flower with delight to eat with a good appetite to drink cool wine in hot weather to burn a paper upon which the name of Jesus is written to tread upon two straws that lie a cross But to set money to usury to remember injuries for ever to keep a poor workmans wages to oppress the weak to accuse the innocent to spoil miserable persons These are the little sins which pass for virtues in this world Assure your self that such proceedings are abominable before God and there can be no better devotion in the world than to have a true and right feeling of God and to live in honesty not sophisticated but such as is produced out of the pure lights of nature The conscience of hypocrites is a spiders web whereof no garment can ever be made Hypocrisie is a very subtil fault and a secret poison which kils other virtues with their own swords 2. Jesus is our great Master who hath abridged six hundred and thirteen Precepts of the old Testament within the Law of love Do but love saith Saint Augustine and do what you will but then your love must go to the right fountain which is the heart of God It is in him you must cherish and honour your nearest friends and for him also you are bound to love even your greatest enemies Be not afraid to shew him your heart stark naked that he may pierce it with his arrows for the wounds of such an archer are much more precious than rubies You shall gain all by loving him and death it self which comes from this love is the gate of life If you love him truly you will have the three conditions of love which are to serve him to imitate him and to suffer for him You must serve him with all fidelity in your prayers and all your actions you must imitate him what possibly you can in all the passages of his life And you must hold it for a glory to participate with a valiant patience all the fruits of his Cross Aspirations O Great God who judgest all hearts and doest penetrate the most secret retirements of our consciences drive away from me all counterfeit Pharisaical devotions which are nothing but shews and cannot subsist but by false
be a King but a King of hearts who requires nothing of us but our selves onely to make us happy and contented in him He triumphs before the victory because none but he could be sure of the future certainty of his happiness But he watered his triumphs with tears to weep for our joys which were to proceed out of his sadness It is related by an ancient Oratour that when Constantine made his entery into great Brittany where he was born the people received him with so great applause that they kissed the Sails and Oars of the vessel which brought him and were ready to pave the streets with their bodies for him to tread on If they did so for a mortal man what should we not do for an eternal God who comes to buy us with his precious bloud and demands enterance into our hearts onely to give us Paradise 2. He walks towards his Cross amongst the cries of favours and joy to teach us with what chearfulness we should conform our selves to abide our own sufferings imitating the Apostles who received their first reproches as Manna from heaven He would have us prepared and resolved always to suffer death patiently whether it be a death which raiseth up our spirit to forsake sensuality or a natural death Whethersoever it be we should embrace it as the day which must bring us to our lodging after a troublesom pilgrimage Doth it not appear plainly that those who are loth to forsake the world are like herbs put into an earthen pot among straw and dung and yet would be unwilling to come forth of it The furniture of our worldly lodging grown rotten the roof is ready to fall upon our heads the foundation shakes under our feet and we fear that day which if we our selves will shall be the morning of our eternal happiness It is not death but onely the opinion of it which is terrible and every man considers it according to the disposition of his own spirit 3. The Palm-branches which we carry in our hands require from us the renewing of a life purified and cleansed in the bloud of the holy Lamb. In the beginning of Lent we take upon our heads the ashes of Palm branches to teach us that we do then enter as it were into the Sepulcher of repentance But now we carry green bows to make us know that now we come out of the tomb of Ashes to enter again into the strength of doing good works in imitation of the trees which having been covered with snow and buried in the sharpness of winter do again begin to bud out in the Spring time 4. The garments spred under the feet of Jesus declare that all our temporal goods should be employed toward his glory and that we must forsake our affections to all things which perish that we may be partakers of his kingdom No man can stand firm that is delighted with moveable things He that is subject to worldly affections binds himself to a wheel which turns about continually Jesus accepted this triumph onely to despise it he reserved the honour of it in his own hands to drown it in the floud of his tears and in the sea of his precious bloud If you be rich and wealthy do not publish it vainly but let the poor feel it You must live amongst all the greatness and jollity of this world as a man whose onely business must be to go to God Aspirations O Sovereign King of hearts after whom all chaste loves do languish I am filled with joy to see thee walk amongst the cries of joy and the Palms and garments of thy admirers which served for carpets I am ravished with thy honours and the delights of thy glory and I applaud thy triumphs Alas that all the earth is not obedient to thy laws and that the tongues of all people do not make one voice to acknowledge thee sole Monarch of Heaven and earth Triumph at least in the hearts of thy faithfull servants O my magnificent Master make a triumphal Ark composed of hearts Put fire to it with thy adored hand Pour out one spark of that heat which thou camest to spread upon the earth Let every thing burn for thee and consume it self in thy love I do irrevocably bind my heart to the magnificence of thy triumph and I love better to be thy slave than to be saluted King of the whole world The Gospel upon Munday in holy week S. John 12. Saint Marie Magdolen anointed our Saviour feet with precious Ointment at which Judas repined JEsus therefore six days before the Pasche came to Bethania where Lazarus was that had been dead whom Jesus raised and they made him a supper there and Martha ministered but Lazarus was one of them that sate at the table with him Marie therefore took a pound of Ointment of right Spikenard precious and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair and the house was filled of the odour of the Ointment One therefore of his Disciples Judas Iscariot he that was to betray him said Why was not this Ointment sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor And he said this not because he cared for the poor but because be was a thief and having the purse carried the things that were put in it Jesus therefore said Let her alone that she may keep it for the day of my burial for the poor you have always with you but me you shall not have always A great multitude of the Jews knew that he was there and they came not for Jesus onely but that they might see Lazarus whom he raised from the dead Moralities 1. LAzarus being raised from his grave converseth familiarly with Jesus and to preserve the life which he had newly received he ties himself continually to the fountain of lives to teach us that since we have begun to make a strong conversion from sin to grace we must not be out of the sight of God we must live with him and of him with him by applying our spirit our prayers our fervours our passionate sighs toward him and live of him by often receiving the blessed Sacrament Happy they saith the Angel in the Apocalyps who are invited to the wedding-supper of the Lamb. But note that he who invites us to this feast stands upright amidst the Sun to signifie that we should be as pure as the beams of light when we come unto the most holy Sacrament Lazarus did eat bread with his Lord but to speak with S. Augustine he did not then eat the bread of our Lord and yet this great favour is reserved for you when you are admitted to that heavenly banquet where God makes himself meat to give you an Antepast of his Immortality 2. God will have us acknowledge his benefits by the faithfulness of our services S. Peter's mother in law as soon as she was healed of her Feaver presently served her Physitian And observe that Martha served the Authour of life who
in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms of me Then he opened their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures And he said to them That so it is written and so it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise again from the dead the third day and penance to be preached in his Name and remission of sins unto all Nations Moralities 1. WE think sometimes that Jesus is far from us when he is in the midst of our heart he watches over us and stretches out his divine hands for our protection Let us live always as if we were actually in his presence before his eyes and in his bosom An ancient Tradition doth observe that after our Lords Ascension the Apostles did never eat together but they left the first napkin for their good Master conceiving that according to his promise he was always with them Let us accustom our selves to this exercise of Gods presence It is a happy necessity to make us do well to believe and apprehend that our Judge is always present If respect make him formidable love will teach us that he is the Father of all sweetness There can be no greater comfort in this world than to be present in heart and body with that which we love beast 2. Jesus is taken by his Apostles for a Spirit because after the Resurrection he pierced the walls and appeared suddenly as Spirits do S. Paul also saith in the second to the Corinthians that now we do no more know Christ according to the flesh that is to say by the passions of a mortal body as S. Epiphanius doth expound it We must make little use of our bodies to converse with our Jesus who hath taken upon him the rare qualities of a Spirit We must raise our selves above our senses when we go to the Father of light and the Creatour of sense He teaches us the life of Spirits and the commerce of Angels and makes assayes of our immortality by a body now immortal Why are we so tied to our sense and glued to the earth Must we suffer our selves to enter into a kingdom of death when we are told of the resurrection of him who is the Authour of all lives 3. Admire the condescending and bounties of our Lord to his dear Disciples He that was entered into the kingdom of spirits and immortal conversation suffers his feet and hands to be touched to prove in him the reality of a true body He eats in presence of his Apostles though he was not in more estate to digest meat than the Sun is to digest vapours He did no more nourish himself with our corruptible meats than the Stars do by the vapours of the earth And yet he took them to confirm our belief and to make us familiar with him It is the act of great and generous spirits to abase themselves and condescend to their inferiours So David being anointed King and inspired as a Prophet doth not shew his person terrible in the height of his great glory but still retained the mildness of a shepheard So Jesus the true Son of David by his condescending to us hath consecrated a certain degree whereby we may ascend to Heaven Are not we ashamed that we have so little humility or respect to our inferiours but are always so full of our selves since our Lord sitting in his Throne of glory and majesty doth yet abase himself to the actions of our mortal life Let it be seen by our hands whether we be resuscitated by doing good works and giving liberal alms Let it appear by our feet that they follow the paths of the most holy persons Let it be seen by our nourishment which should be most of honey that is of that celestial sweetness which is extracted from prayer And if we seem to refuse fish let us at least remain in the element of piety as fish is in water Aspirations THy love is most tender and thy cares most generous O mild Saviour Amongst all the torrents of thy Passion thou hast not tasted the waters of forgetfulness Thou returnest to thy children as a Nightingale to her little nest Thou dost comfort them with thy visits and makest them familiar with thy glorious life Thou eatest of a honey-comb by just right having first tasted the bitter gall of that unmercifull Cross It is thus that our sorrows should be turned into sweets Thou must always be most welcome to me in my troubles for I know well that thou onely canst pacifie and give them remedy I will govern my self toward thee as to the fire too much near familiarity will burn us and the want of it will let us freeze I will eat honey with thee in the blessed Sacrament I know that many there do chew but few receive thee worthily Make me O Lord I beseech thee capable of those which here on earth shall be the true Antepasts to our future glory The Gospel upon Low-Sunday S. John the 20. THerefore when it was late that day the first of the Sabbaths and the doors were shut where the Disciples were gathered together for fear of the Jews Jesus came and stood in the midst and saith to them Peace be to you And when he had said this he shewed them his hands and side The Disciples therefore were glad when they saw our Lord. He said therefore to them again Peace be to you As my Father hath sent me I also do send you When he had said this he breathed upon them and he said to them Receive ye the Holy Ghost Whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them and whose you shall retain they are retained But Thomas one of the twelve who is called Didymus was not with them when Jesus came the other Disciples therefore said to him We have seen our Lord. But he said to them Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails and put my finger into the place of the nails and put my hand into his side I will not believe And after eight days again his Disciples were within and Thomas with them Jesus cometh the doors being shut and stood in the midst and said Peace be to you Then he saith to Thomas Put in thy finger hither and see my hands and bring hither thy hand and put it into my side and be not incredulous but faithfull Thomas answered and said to him My Lord and my God Jesus saith to him Because thou hast seen me Thomas thou hast believed Blessed are they that have not seen and have believed Moralities 1. JEsus the Father of all blessed harmonies after so many combats makes a general peace in all nature He pacifieth Limbo taking the holy Fathers out of darkness to enjoy an eternal light and sending the damned to the bottom of hell He pacifieth the earth making it from thenceforth to breathe the air of his mercies He pacifieth his Apostles by delivering them from that profound sadness which they conceived by the imaginary loss of their dear Master
and danger of passions may profit us whether they edifie us by their repentance or divert us by their disasters I conclude the HOLY COURT in this Volume which I esteem above the rest by reason of its utillty and writing of passions to cure them I wish in my self an incurable one which is to desire the progression of my Readers and to beseech God they may submit Sense to Reason Time to Eternity and the Creature to the Creatour THE FIRST TREATISE OF LOVE Sect. 1. Of the Necessity of Love Against those Philosophers who teach Indifferency saying We must not Love any thing THe Divine Providence which hath concluded our salvation All Happinesse included in love in Love very plainly shews us That the means to be quickly happy is to love Felicity and that the way we walk in to become singularly happy is to esteem as we ought the chief of Felicities We lose all our good hap for want of loving and our Love through the defect of well placing it which is the cause that we daily learning so many Arts forget what we should eternally practise if it be true we desire to be everlastingly happy I find the great Apostle of France S. Denis said well when he called God The Father of Vnions who S. Dion l. de Hierarch coelest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God the Father of unions draweth all to unity by the means of love ceaseth not to gather and rally together all the creatures into his heart which issued out of his heart He is That in the life of Intelligencies which the Sun is in the celestiall world but one immoveable Sun about which so many changes and agitations of all creatures circumvolve who groan and aim at this First beauty the true Center of Repose It concerneth us since we are made for it and that God hath given us Love which is to the soul That which wings are to Birds to carry us to it's fruition It is a riches which is onely ours and which would be infinitely profitable if we could tell how to employ it well but for want of well loving we apply the most precious thing which is Love to gain wretched Creatures as if one used a golden hook to fish for Frogs and a Sceptre to shake Hey This is it which causeth me to undertake in this discourse to speak of the well ordering of Love as the most assured way we can choose to arrive at Tranquility and to shew that we first of all most necessarily love to be happy in the world and that the most loving and tendrest hearts are ordinarily the best This age scant enough in goodnesse and fruitfull The Sect of Philosophers of Indifferency in malice hath of late brought forth a Sect of wits who term themselves the Philosophers of Indifferency and who make boast to be very insensible as well in the fear of the Divinity as in tendernesse towards the miseries of men To what purpose is it say they to addict ones self to the worship of a God whom we cannot sufficiently know And wherefore should we be solicitous for the afflictions of another which nothing concern us This is to make our selves eternally miserable and to be tormented with all manner of objects He who would live contented in the world must love nothing but himself entertein himself within himself and concerning himself and derive pleasure as a tribute out of all the creatures of the world but to take heed not to enter into the participation of their troubles and should we see all to be turned topsie turvey so it inconvenienceth not us in any thing to let time slide to catch good by the wings whilest we may and to let evil fall on the miserable These kind of people are so unnaturall that they laugh at all and mock at the miseries which others suffer If you tell them of a house burnt they say it is nothing and that it is but a fire of great wood If of an inundation of water that Fishes have a good time of it If of a warre or contagion that it is a good harvest for death and that there are too many bread-eaters If one say such a friend hath lost an eye they answer he is very happy because he shall see but half the bad times I do not think there is a vice in the whole world more btutish or contrary to nature then this obduratenesse which is the cause I would cast it under the feet of love and shew you that tendernesse towards God as a Father towards men as the lively Images of his Goodnesse is the principall foundation of all virtues Consider first that all the good order of life comes 1. Reason against the Indifferents from the knowledge of the First cause whereon all Creatures have their dependence as on the contrary the Disorder of all actions springeth from the ignorance of the submission we ow to the Increated Essence Now he who loveth none but himself and cares not but for his own Interests maketh himself as the chief end and the God of himself which sufficiently proveth it to be the most palpable folly and the greatest evil may be imagined in Nature It is a remarkable thing that among all Essences There is none but God which is for it self there is none but God alone who as he can know nothing out of himself nor love any thing but in himself so he doth nothing but for himself For in doing all for himself he doth all for us since we have no good which tendeth not to him as to its scope Monas geâ—uit monadem in se suum reflexit amorem S. Thom. 1. part q 32. a. t. 1. which subsisteth not in him as on its Basis which resteth not in him as in its Centre Thus did S. Thomas understand that notable saying of Mercury Trismegistus Vnity hath produced unity and hath reflected its love on it self It is not but for an Infinite Essence to do so but had the highest Angel in heaven the thought onely to behold himself and hence-forward to work for himself he would instantly be pulled out of heaven and would of a bright Sun become a sooty Coal What may one think then of a man who sayes in his heart I am born for my self and I have no other aim in the world but to satisfie my mind with all contentments nor shall the evils of another ever enter into my heart till Fire commix with Water and Heaven with Earth If I obtein my ends all shall go well Hearken how God speaketh in the Prophet Ezechiel to these wicked ones Behold I come to fall upon thee Ecce ego ad te draco magne qui tuba iâ— medio fluminum tuorum c. Ezec. 29. 3. oh thou great Dragon who lyest stretched out at length in the midst of thy Rivers and darest saey this stream is mine and I made my self Assure thee I will put a bridle upon thee and when I
have fastned to thy scale all the fishes of the waters wherein thou bearest sway I will drag thee from the midst of the Kingdome of waves and I will throw thee into a wildernesse thou shalt lie upon the dry land nor shall any one care to sae thy obsequies performed For I have abandoned thee to the beasts of the field ard to the birds of the air to be devoured This sentence of God was executed on the person of the Emperour Tyberius under whom our Saviour suffered that death which gave life to the world Verily he was a man who through the whole course of his Empire made himself the God of himself the slave of his passions and the hatred of mankind He lay close as an Owl in the retirement of his filthy lusts he was greedy as a Griphon in such sort that dying he had above three-score and six millions of gold in his coffers which he with the Empire left to an infamous nephew who as it is thought hastned his death tearing that sensuall soul out of the body which in the world breathed nothing but the love of it self How can a man so wretched so caitive behold himself as a Divinity seeing God in the heighth of glory riches and beauties which so happily entertains him within himself hath so affectionate bowels of mercy for man that he thinks of him from all eternity he presenteth himself unto him on all sides with hands replenished with benefits in so great a diversitie of Creatures and hath in generall so much care of all men and of every one in particular S. Tho opus de Beatit Quasi homo sâ—t Dei Deuâ— that he who were not well instructed by faith might have matter to imagine that Man were the God of God himself Let us besides produce another proof which more 2. Reason drawn from the communication of creatures evidently convinceth this obduratenesse of heart and this cruel rechlessnesse of the Philosophers who teach Indifferency which is that all creatures yea the most insensible are made by God to impart and to compassionate If the Sun hath light it is not for himself he clotheth the Air the Land and Sea with a golded net he imparteth it also as well to the little eyes of the Ant as to those of the mightiest Monarch in the world he soweth seeds of flames and vigour to warm and quicken totall nature If the Air hath Rain it keeps it not eternally within the treasurie of clouds but distilleth it as in a Limbeck to moysten the earth If the Sea have waters it so diveth them among all the Rivers as to bear men and victuall in Vessels and to make it self a knot of commerce from Land to Land from Countrey to Countrey from World Unaquaeque res cogitur dare â—eip â adeo exclusit Deus avaritiam à rebus humanis Guil. Paris l. de univers to World If the earth hath fruits it preserves them not for it self no more then the trees which bear them but plentifully opens its bosome profusely to communicate it self to all nature Every thing saith a great Bishop of Paris is bound by the Divine Providence to communicate it self so true it is that God hath banished avarice from humane things As each creature giveth it self by love so it suffers with others by conformity All the world is united and collected within it self as the parts of an Egg are tyed one within another All the members of the Universe mutually love and embrace and if they make warre it is but to establish their peace If there be want of an element as of Air the Water would mount to heaven or heaven descend to the water rather then not supply the defect of a neighbour It is a law which God hath engraven as with a toole of Adamont in the bosome of Nature It â—ath been observed that Palmes divided one from another by an arm of the Sea which had overflowed the countrey bowed their tops one towards another by a naturall inclination as witnessing their Amity and protesting against the fury of that element which had disunited them and if this sense be in plants what may we say of living creatures where we see cares troubles anxieties goings and comings combats yells neglect and losse of body repose and life with the sense they have of the detriment and dammage of their like And shall we not say then that a man who loveth nothing in the world and onely studieth the preservation of himself is a prodigie in Nature fit to be denyed the Air he breatheth the light which reflecteth on him the fire which warms him the viands which feed him and the earth which bears him I add for a third reason that pity and tendernesse 3. Reason of the tendernesse of great hearts of heart is not onely authorized by God and nature but it is established as by a common decree of nations Photius the learned Patriarch of Constantinople observeth in his Bibliotheque a wonderfull judgement A notable sentence of the Areopagites given in the City of Athens where he saith the Senate of Areopagites being assembled together upon a mountain without any roof but heaven the Senatours perceived a bird of prey which pursued a little Sparrow that came to save it self in the bosome of one of their company This man who naturally was harsh threw it from him so roughly that he killed it whereat the Court was offended and a Decree was made by which he was condemned and banished from the Senate Where the most judiciall observe That this company which was at that time one of the gravest in the world did it not for the care they had to make a law concerning Sparrows but it was to shew that clemency and mercifull inclination was a virtue so necessary in a State that a man destitute of it was not worthy to hold any Place in government he having as it were renounced Humanity We likewise see that the wisest and most courageous men in the world have been infinitely tender full of love zeal affection care anxiety and travel for the good of another David and Jonathan who were the bravest Princes over the people of God loved each other so much that the Scripture speaking of this Amity saith Their souls were tied together with an inseparable band S. Paul was so affectionate and jealous for the salvation of his Corinthians that he seemed to carry them all in his bowels and daily to bring them forth with convulsions and pains attended by joyes and delights not to be expressed Saint Ambrose bitterly bewailed the death of his brother Satyrus that to hear him speak one would think he meant to distill out his eyes and breathe out his soul on his Tombe So did S. Bernard at the decease of his brother Gerard. S. Augustine was a man all of fire before and after his conversion with onely this difference that this fire before the morn-tide of his salvation was nourished with
when it comes to extend it self in the world and to draw it to it The natâ—â—e of love Lib. 1 de civit â—8 Amor inhians labere quâ—â— amatuâ— cupiditâ— est idem â—mor habens cóque fruenâ— letitia est fugiens quod adversatur el timor est quod si acciderit eitristitia est proinde mala sunt ista si malus est amor bona si bonus self it is called love But if you consider it in the condition wherein it gathereth together all Creatures to the first cause and makes its works re-ascend to God they say it then takes the name of Pleasure which is a most happy satisfaction of to all Nature in its Authour So love is a circle which turns from good to good by an everlasting revolution Now if you desire I should in few words explicate the nature thereof its origen progresse causes qualities and effects you must observe a notable doctrine of S. Augustine who saith That Love whilest it is in the search of what it loveth is called Desire and when it enjoyeth the thing beloved it is changed into joy But if it avoid that thing which is contrary to it either in effect or opinion it is Fear and if the Fear hath its effect by the arrivall of the evil it apprehendeth it turns into Sadnesse This love takes sundry countenances according to divers Circumstances I agree all this is said with good reason yet notwithstanding we must affirm with divines that this Oracle of Doctours hath in this difinition rather comprised the cause the effects and progresses of love then its essence and nature For to speak properly love is neither Desire Fear Joy nor Sadnesse but A Complacence of the Appetite or will in an object conveniont 5. Definition of love either according to verity or apparence But if we will speak more generally we say it is nothing but an inclination Richard de Medvill dist 27. l. 3. Art 1. q. 1. propending and moving to a good which is conform to it For by the definition we include all the kinds of love which are divided principallly into three branches to wit Naturall Animall and Reasonable It s division love Naturall love consisteth in things inanimate which have their sympathies and Antipathies As Palmes male and female Amber and straw Iron and the Adamant Animall love is that Beginning which giveth motion to the sensitive appetite of beasts to seek for that which is fit for them and to be pleased in the enjoying what they fought for Reasonable love is an Act which pursueth and accepteth the good represented by the understanding wherein we may also comprehend Angelicall and Divine love which S. Denis addeth to these three kinds whereof we speak Reasonable love is also divided into love of Amity and love of Concupiscence Love of Amity which wisheth good to the thing beloved for it self without enquiry into its own proper interesse As when it desired to one Health knowledge grace virtues wealth honours without pretence of any benefit to it self This Gabriel d. 27. q. 1. l. 3. is to affect with a love of amity which is very rare now a daies so mercenary are affections and when this love is not onely Affective as Divines speak contenting it self with bare desires but Effective by plentifully opening hauds to liberality it mounteth to a huge degree of Complacence Love of Concupiscence is an interessed love which causeth one to love a thing not for it self but for the pleasure and commodity derived from it or to be hoped in time to be dersved from it So the Horseman desireth beauty strength and courage in his horse and dog not for their sakes but his own contentment Such love is worldly love commonly defiled with base and animall consideration nor is ever purified but when it for God loveth that which cannot in it self be lovely Behold the nature and Essence of Love in its whole latitude Now to speak of the proceedings of the soul in its loves The first step it makes when it beginneth to love is the degree of the conformity of the will with The steps and progressions of â—ove the good is proposed The senses imagination understanding give it notice of some Beauty Goodnesse or Commoditie which it conceiveth to be fit for it Thereupon it beginneth to take fire and to have sparks of desires 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which make it to wish the good proposed unto it Thence it passeth to the second Degree which is that of Sharp-sweet Complacence which pleasingly each moment holds it fixed upon the thoughts of its object Sometimes between hope to possesse it another while between fear to lose it and many other passions which accompany this as yet suffering Complacence From this degree it goes to the third which is inqui +sitioâ— and motion where love putteth on wings to fly speedily into the bosome of its repose employing all possible means for its contentment and if it be favoured in its pursuit it advanceth to the fourth degree which is union esteemed the principall scope of Amities From this union ariseth another Complacence which is not painfull and dolorous but satisfied and pleased in the fruition of its object which is the heighth of love By the sides of love are lodged Beauty and Goodnesse for that as S. Denis saith they are the objects Its causes and motive of love which are so allied together that the Grecians call them by one self same name The Sages have ever sought for the true causes which dispose the wils of men to love and there are many different opinions upon this point Some hold it is a quality which God imprinteth on nature others imagine it comes from the aspect of starres and from divers constellations Others make it to proceed from Parents and education others from a certain Harmony and consonancy of hearts which meeting in accord upon the same Tone have a naturall correspondence Lastly the Maxime of Divines and Philosophers much swayeth which saith that Fair and Good make all loves I hold that to accord these opinions a notable distinction must be made of three loves which we have proposed in the beginning to wit Naturall Animall and Reasonable Forasmuch as concerneth Naturall or Animall love besides the order of nature it is God which giveth to each creature necessary inclinations to arrive at their end Well there may be influency of starres which bear sway over humours and bodies and with the starres bands of bloud temperature of Humours education and secret qualities which tie creatures with the knot of a certain love the cause whereof is not well known For how many are there who love things which are neither lovely nor good I not onely say in effect but in their own opinion and judgement yet are they thereunto fastned by some Tie nor can they free themselves from it but by the absolute power of Reason Do we not daily find by experience that a Man who is
and who knoweth himself to be deformed and wicked yet faileth not by Nature to be in love with himself So through a love of Concupiscence he may love things which have neither Beauty nor Goodnesse although he daily have a blind feeling of some thing suitable to sensuallity and an unperceivable attractive As for love of reason which is properly Humane love one may be assured it alwayes looks directly upon good and fair not simply but good fair acknowledged agreeable to its contentment This is the root of all reasonable amities and hitherto those great sources Means to make ones self to be beloved worthily of love reduced which are Honesty utilitie Delectation Resemblance reciprocall love obliging and pleasing conversation Within these six heads in my opinion the fifteen means to make one to be beloved are comprised which are touched by Aristotle in the second book of his Rhetorick To wit to love that which a friend loveth to entertain his apprehensions his joyes and his discomforts his hatred and Amities to keep him in a laudable opinion of our sufficiency by good parts of wit courage virtue industrie and reciprocally to hold him in good esteem to love him to oblige him to praise him unto others to bear with him in his humours to trust him with your secrets readily to serve him without forgetfulnesse or negligence to be inviolably faithfull to him which we will more amply deduce in the subsequent section But if you regard its effects I find three great empires Notable effects of love in the 3. worlds it exerciseth in the world naturall civil and supernaturall In the naturall it causeth all simpathies antipathies accords ties generations productions In the civill world it builds two cities as saith S. Augustine very different If it be good it raiseth a Citie of peace wherein chaste Amities sway and with them Truth Faith Honour Virtues contentments delights If it be bad It makes a Babylon full of confusion where cares fears griefs warre enmities impurities adulteries incests sacriledges bloud murther and poison inhabit and all that which commonly ariseth from this fatall plague In the supernaturall world it causeth nine effects which are very well figured by the celestiall throne of love composed of nine diaphanous globes whose effects are Solitude Silence Suspension Indefatigability Languishment Extasie and Transanimation which we more at length will consider in the sequele of this Treatise §. 2. Of Amity AMITY is the medecine of health and Immortality Eccl. 6. Medicamentùm vitae Amity the tree of life of life and in a manner doth that in Civill life which the tree of life in terrestriall Paradise promises in naturall life with an infinite number of sweetnesses and pleasures it immortaliseth us after death in the remembrance of that which is most dear unto us in the world It is that which giveth light to dark affairs certainty It Includeth all blessings to doubtfull support to tottering goodnesse to evil grace to good order to irregular ornament to simple and activenesse to dead By it the banished find a countrey the poor a patrimony great ones find offices the rich services the Ignorant knowledge the feeble support the sick health and the afflicted comfort Should a man live on Nectar and Ambrosia among starres and Intelligencies he would not be happy if he had not friends to be witnesses of his good fortune and we may truly say that Amity continually makes up the greater part of our Felicities It is not here my purpose to extend my self with full sail upon the praise thereof since so many excellent wits have already handled this subject but to shew how good Amities are to be chosen and how to be cultivated There are some who make profession to be friends What amity is Affectus est spontanea suavis animi ad aliquem inflectio Cassiod de amicit and know not so much as what friendship is but Aristotle plainly proves there is difference between affection Good-will Love Amity and Concord Affection is a spark of love not yet throughly formed in which understanding hath some slight passion Good-will A simple Good-will and consent born towards some one although many times there be no great knowledge of the party as it happeneth to such who of two Combatants favour rather the one then the other not knowing either of them Love is an affection already formed and inclined with fervour to the good of Conformity Amity is a love of mutuall well-wishing grounded upon communication Whence may be inferred that all those who love are not friends but all such as are true friends necessarily love The meanest people may love the most eminent but there can be no Amity since they therein find not correspondence There are entranced lovers in the world who are enamoured Miserable lovers of all beauties none returning them love again which deserves either laughter or compassion seeing they may directly go to the first of Beauties where they shall find reciprocall contentment After love followeth concord which is the fruit of it in the union of judgement and will Now well to understand how to choose good Amities the Species or kind of them must be known wherein I find that one Hippodamus a great Platonick Philosopher hit right when he established three sorts of Three sorts of amity Amities whereof one belongs to beasts the other to men and the third to Demi-gods Animall-Amities are those which subsist onely in Animal-amity Nature and which are common to us with beasts Thus saith S. Augustine a mother which loveth Pro mugno laudarurus sum in homine quod videam in Tigride August 410. homil 38. her children for flesh and blouds sake not otherwise raising her thoughts towards God doth but as a Hen a Dove a Tigresse a Serpent and so many other living creatures which have so great affection towards their little ones It is not that these Amities are not very necessary since Nature inspires them and powreth them into the veins with the soul by admirable infusions which preserve the estate of the world entire It is good much to affect ones own but we must build upon the first elements of Nature and by Grace and Reason raise the edifice of true charity Parents ought to love their children as a part of their own bodies which Nature hath separated from themselves But Amity should never divide their hearts Children are bound to love their parents as fishes their water Brothers cannot too much esteem the love and Concord which they mutually maintain together A husband and a wife are bound to a most strict commerce of Amity since as God produced a word in heaven and with the word the holy Ghost So he hath been pleased to create Adam on earth as his own Image and out of this Image he hath drawn Eve to be unto a man a spirit of peace and a love of a perpetuall lasting There is no doubt but that to fail in
of the Hypocondry the disturbances of the waking the stupidities of the Lethargie the fits of the falling sickness the faintness of the Phthisick the heavings of the passion of the heart the pangs of the collick the infections of the leprosie the venome of ulcers the malignity of the plague the putrefaction of the gangrene and all which is horrible in nature After all this it is made a God to whom Elogies Hymns Songs and victimes are offered Empire over the heart is given to it a soul not created but for him who hath saved it is subjected fetters are honoured and its Tyranny adored There are many millions of men in the world Disasters of evil love who would be most fortunate and flourishing if they knew how to avoid the mischievous power of this passion but having not used any consideration or endeavour they have abandoned their bodies to dishonour their reputation to infamy their estates to pillage and their lives to an infinity of disturbances and torments Hence it is that virgins of noble bloud are stolen away that families are desolated that parents are precipitated into their Tombs by ungratefull children that so many young widows are dishonoured in the world that so many miserable creatures after they have served for talk to a City die in an Hospitall that so many little innocents are made away by a death which preventeth their birth that so many Infants are thrown into life as froth of the sea exposed to poverty and vice by that condition which brought them forth Hence is it that chaste wedlocks are disturbed that poysons are mingled that Halters are noozed that swords are sharpned that Tragedies are begun under the Coverture of night and are ended in a full day-light upon a scaffold O God how happy might a soul be which would well consider all this and take what I am about to speak as a letter sent from heaven for the remedy of infinite many evils which in this passion environ our miserable life I invite hither every age each sex all conditions I entreat my Readers to peruse these lines with the same spirit wherewith I addresse them and although it befell me to treat of this subject in my other works notwithstanding never have I yet undertaken it with so much method vigour or force as at this present I will shew you the Essence the Causes the Symptomes and the effects of love as religiously as Vereenndiā periclitari malo quà m probationē l. 1. de anima c. 17. I can possibly supposing my self not bound to follow Tertullians opinion who though very chaste spared not to speak of this subject a little grosly saying for excuse that he had rather put himself upon the hazard of losing shame then a good argument I made you see in the beginning of this treatise that love considered in generall was properly an inclination to the good of Conformity which putteth on divers faces according to the sundry objects and wayes it pursues to arrive thither If it go directly towards God and reflect on a neighbour as his Image loving the one for himself and the other for his Authour this is charity If it diffuse it self upon divers creatures sensible and insensible which it pursueth for its pleasure and commodity it is an appetite and a simple affection as that which is towards hunting birds books pictures pearls and Tulips If it be applyed to humane creatures loving them withall integrity by a reciprocall well-wishing it is Amity If it regard the body for pleasures sake it is a love of venereall concupiscence which being immoderate even Tertull. in exhortatione ad castitatem Nec per aliud fit marita nisi per quod adultera in the intention of marriage fails not to be vitious which made Tertullian say that the same thing an Adulterer would do the married likewise did If it be chaste and guided within the Limits which the Law of God prescribeth it is conjugall love If it overflow to sensuall pleasures It is Luxury S. Denis saith It is not love but an idoll and a fall from true love And Plato Plato in convivio in his Banquet addeth that sober love is contentment of heart eyes and ears but when it will content it self by the other senses namely that of touching it is not love but a spirit of insolency a passion of a servile soul a rage of a triviall lust which maketh shew to love beauty but through its exorbitancy descended to the worst of deformities I know there are learned pens which here distinguish Division of Lone all love into two parts and say there is one of consideration and another of inclination They call it love of consideration when one is therein embarked with a full knowledge and a setled judgement love of inclination when one loveth not able to give any reason But I find this division is not exact enough insomuch as it confoundeth the Genus and Speeies and doth not clearly distinguish the members of this body since all love is nothing else but an inclination and since that which is made by consideration inclineth the loving to the thing loved Whence it appeareth that to mention a love of inclination is to say love is love without any further explication I had rather say there are two loves the one of Election which resulteth from Consideration and is formed when after one hath acknowledged a thing to be fair profitable and pleasing he out of reason affects it The other of humour when without consulting with reason one is suddenly surprized by some secret attractive in the thing loved without giving himself leasure to judge what it is and this properly is to love by humour and fantasie which is now adays the most ordinary love but not the best It is a kind Love of humour of love which quickly beginneth and which never ends slowly so full it is of inconstancy It seems to it self all its bands are silken although they be rough chains it will not take pains to consider them It thinks not it cherisheth the wound nor looks it back on the hand which gave it It is heedlessely engaged and signeth transactions without reading them that it may not be ashamed to abrogate what it made or to entertain that which kills it There are many miserable ones who daily marry upon the first sight and whose amities arise but from a glance which passeth away more swiftly then a shadow and then there must be a thousand repentances to redeem the pleasure of one moment It is ever better to preferre Election for though in the beginning it had not so much sweetnesse in the search it hath lesse sorrow in the possession But to enter farther into the knowledge of Carnall love it is good to penetrate the causes and effects thereof which will the more perspicuously enlighten us in the choice of remedies We see many people in the world who being tormented by this evil euen unto folly seek
robes of cloth of gold this ugly Hat into a Diadem this Spade into a Sceptre This Cottage into a Palace this servitude into an Empire For whom shall treasures officers services arms greatnesse pleasures joyes and feasts be but for you who art the heir of the Assyrian throne Do not we think that upon the recitall of these words this young man felt a flame which spread it self over his heart that he was touched to the quick with his extraction and ravished with love towards a Father by whom he was born so great And have we not the like apprehensions when faith dictateth unto us Thou art not created to live perpetually among mire and dirt and to be tyed to a wretched frail and perishable body to walk upon thorns and to embroil thy self in the tolls and cares of a mortall life there are above palaces of stars of Intelligencies of incomprehensible lights of ineffable beauties which expect thee of crowns prepared for thee of sceptres made to fill thy hands All times are for thee and all which Nature endeavoureth here below is but to contribute to thy contentment Thou art the son of a noble Father who makes men happy at his pleasure He loves thee as his heart and would have thee near him to accomplish thee with all his dearest delights and the highth of his glories And what can a soul do which learns all this from faith but raise it self above all concupiscences of flesh but love but dilate it self but readily mix with this most pure spirit which inviteth it in all creatures Have we yet the heart to say we have not familiarity enough with God and that he is of too high a The conversation of God with man by the mystery of the incarnation in the consummation of love Leo serm 3. de Passione Venit in hunc mundum dives atque misericors negotiator coeli commutatione mirabili inivit commercium salutare nostra accipiens sua tribuens strain to love him when we think upon Jesus who for us descended from the highest part of heaven to the slime of Adam who made himself our brother who sucked the dugs of our Mother who spake our tongue who took upon him our semblance who charged himself with our burdens who on himself laid our miseries to turn them into felicities He is that Merchant who is come out of a happy and rich countrey full of treasures glory and greatnesse which were to him more naturall then rayes to the Sun and yet being lodged as it were with us in a silly Cottage hath dispoiled himself for us wholly inebriated with the extasies of love hath made himself poor to make us rich weak to strengthen us contemptible to render us glorious full of sufferings to beautifie us and a man that we might be Gods This is the man who hath been able to contract all Gods extent under a little clay who went not a step which was not worthy to produce a star who carried the Divinity upon the ends of his fingers whose life was a flash of lightning his word a thunder his virtues lessons and actions prodigies Hath he not loved the ungratefull when he heaped on his own body the paines and sufferings of all ages making himself of a King of glory a man of dolours to purchase pleasures for us with as many wounds as he had members as many crosses as we have sins After all this he gives himself to us in the Sacrament The Eucharict the last degree of love which he hath instituted as an abridgement of his miracles wherein he is incorporated within our heart inour soul as one piece of wax melted within another I readily here remember what an antient lover said that love made a Butt of his heart where so soon as it had shot all its arrows it threw it self as an enflamed dart into the bottome of his breast to set him all on Anacre on 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ita applicat Johannes Eusebius l. 4. arte voluntatis fire What arrows and what shafts flying on every side in Nature in Grace what benefits what favours what Amities what forward affections for which man still continued obdurate till Jesus wholly gaining him did descend into his entrails fully replenished with love and flames and heavenly ardours Is it not time to pronounce Anathema with S. Paul against him who loveth him not after his coming in this manner to captivate us by his bounty To speak sincerely he must needs be amiable since according to the Canticles he is wholly composed of Love of Saints towards Jesus desires and satisfactions and that all the just sigh after him We have heard talk through so many Ages of the most accomplished beauties of certain ereatures who have drawn many Amorists after them but never have we seen one sole woman to gain the affection of an entire City Province or Kingdome From whence cometh it that there is not any beauty but that of Jesus Christ which enchaineth Cities Empires and Monarchies From whence cometh it that so many Kings and Queens have followed him through Forrests Thorns and among Rocks even to the abandoning of themselves From whence cometh it that so many millions of souls the wisest most purified and most courageous on the earth have loved him even to the suffering of flames and wheels in the dislocation of bones and the dismembring of their whole bodies From whence cometh it that all which is most pure and most eminent in the world daily dissolveth for him and that so many hearts melt for his service in honourable flames which purifie them without consuming them Verily we may say there is nothing which equalleth the excellency of celestiall Amities and that well to place your love you must fix it in the heart of God § 11. Of the Nature of Divine Love Of its Essence Qualities Effects and Degrees THe great Anachoret Raymond went very high Blanquerna in l. de amico amato when he said The love of God was an influence of Eternity For it is true that we coming from an eternall God have an infinite desire to make our Being perpetuall And for this purpose we tie our selves by love to so many things to live again in them and by them but they being transitory and frail we there find no support untill God hath poured his holy love into our heart which is the true influence of Eternity that alone can purifie our life and eternize our souls We then must not feign to our selves that the love of God proceeds meerly from our own strength but we must hearken to the decision of the Councell of Concilium Arausicanum Donum Dâ— est diliâ—â—re Denm ipse ut diligeretur dededit qui non diligentes diligit displicentes amati sumus ut esset in nobis unde placeremus The growth of love like unto pearls Orange which saith that to love God is a gift from God It is he who inspireth
this fire I see lightning flashes to issue forth This is the fire of the love of God and these lightnings are the eruptions he made by communicating himself to man Consider O soul redeemed with the bloud of the sonne of God that thou canst not live without love on what side soever thou turnest thou necessarily must love and God foreseeing this necessity would that thou lovest like him that thou take the object of his love for the object of thine own his manner of loving for thine his scope and contentment for thine And where thinkest thou hath God the heavenly Father placed his love from all eternity but in himself Because he alone is worthy to be originally beloved as the source and fountain-head of all beauties and bounties which are the two baits of affections excessively as he who hath neither end nor beginning He loves himself by his holy Spirit which is his own substance and he loves himself necessarily because love is his Essence O soul if thou couldest a little lift up thine eyes surcharged with so many terrestriall humours and behold in the bosome of the heavenly Father the eternall Fire-brand which he gives for a rule of thy love what secrets and what mysteries of love wouldst thou learn there mightest thou observe the four conditions which constitute all the excellency of love to wit Purity Simplicity Fervour and Communication First thou must learn to purifie thy love this love being most pure and excellent for it is God himself produced in the bosome of God it is the first of Sanctities holy by origin by object by example and by form It is the holy Ghost burning in the heart of the eternall Father S. Thomas teacheth us a very singular piece of Theology in the Treatise he wrote of charity S. Thom. opusc 61. De Dilectione omne receptum est in recipiente per modum recipientis where he saith every thing placed in another is measured and adapted to that which receiveth it as water which is round in a round vessell and square in a square vessell For if the thing received be lesser then that which received it it by this reception gets a state of excellency and a Title of worth above its Nature so saith he the visible species are ennobled in our eyes and the Intelligible in our understanding This admitted I say that if we onely consider the love of God in that manner as we do in men as drawn from exteriour objects yet would it be a matter of a marvellous value to be received into the heart of God and to be conform to the Diviniâ—y but when Divinity telleth us that this love produced of God is the substance of God received in God hinself and inseparable from his essence what greatnesse and what purity must we conceive in this love of God and if he will that this same love which is all his should be not onely the object but the efficient cause of ours by the infusions Charitas Dei dâ—ffusa est in cordibus nostris per spiritum sanâ—tum Rom. 5. 8. he worketh in our hearts O how much shame ought we to have so to defile our love with contaminations and impurities of the earth Secondly you must know this love is most simple and totally as well in this unity as in the Essence of God and although he love creatures as the tokens and footsteps of his bounty which are in kinds so manifold in multitude so innumerable yet is he not devided nor severed because he gathers all those creatures together in his bosome where their beginning and end is and therein uniteth them as rayes of his benignity contracted and drawn together into one Centre in a burning-glasse Monas genuis monadem in se suum reflexit amorem it a explicat S. Thom 1. part 9. 23. Fornacem custodiens in operibus ardoris Eccl. 43. 3. Thereupon thou shouldst be sorry to see thy heart torn and divided by so many objects which divert thy affections and hinder thee from simply giving them to God for whom they are made Thirdly thou must understand this love is most ardent since the bosome of the eternall father is as a great Fornace which with its flames enkindleth all the chaste loves that burn whether they be in heaven in the heart of Angels or whether on earth in the souls of the elect Ah! how much oughtst thou to blush and to be ashamed considering how in stead of enkindling thy love with the sacred fires of this eternall fornace thou hast sought to beg a profane fire from the eyes of a wretched woman which hath burnt thee to the bones thou hast gone door after door to all sorts of creatures opening thy heart to forraign flames whereby thou hast gone about to burn even the sacrifice of the living God Ah? Thou insensible creature knowest thou not that Nadab and Abihu for putting ordinary Levit 10. fire into their Incensories when they came to the Altar of the synagogue were devoured as unfortunate victimes with the proper coles of their own sacrifices and dost thou think it will be lawfull for thee to approach the Altar of the eternall Testament with this forraign love which thou lodgest in thy heart Art not thou afraid to hear those thundring words This Sacrifice shall be a punishment to thee since thou hast Crysol serm 26. sums de sacrificio pâ—nam quia feciâ—â— de propitistione peccatum made a sinne of thy propitiation Lastly faithfull soul thou shouldst know the love of God is most communicative for it is streamed forth in his eternall productions by two emanations of understanding and will as by two Conduit-pipes of Glories and beauties And not content with this this eternall communication being involved in a profound obscurity unknown to all creatures he hath cleft the cloud in five places and is come to communicate himself to the world by five admirable wayes of his magnificence which are Creation Conservation the Incarnation of the word Justification and Exaltation of the soul to beatitude O! how thou shouldest be confounded hereupon to see thy heart so narrow and streightned in the exercise of good works Look back again upon thy second modell and attentively The love of Jesus towards his heavenly Father consider how Jesus the pattern of all chaste amities loved his eternall Father and on earth rendered him that honourable tribute of love which could not well have been payed to a God so justly loved but by a loving God and who did with so much perfection love Jesus alone passed with an incomparable eminency those nine degrees whereof we spake before which are as nine spheres of love This most blessed foul which had an exact knowledge of all the excellencies of increated beauty loved him according to its science equalling his fervours to its lights It first of all entred into the solitude of love which made a little fortunate Island of the heart wherein there was
marcheth environed with lightnings of arms who sendeth thunders and tempests and calm air in the midst of storms cannot endure a Companion in this dignitie The least suspicions cause wounds in the mind which are many times waited on by anger poyson furie and massacres Bloud and asfinitie is not therein acknowledged is not assured virtue hath no credit parents will have no children how perfect so ever yea even those who are worn with old age borrow vermilion to paint their faces and still think themselves young enough to command Diadems and Sceptres run the like hazard and they have but one desire in the midst of Authoritie which is to reserve the appeals of death to themselves and never to leave the places void which they have once replenished This poyson creepeth into Ecclesiasticks Learned men subject to Jealousie into Priests Religious Graduates into the Learned into Doctours and Preachers who are willing to bear sway in Letters in Eloquence and chairs and to have none to argue their supeâ—-eminencie and when some one out-strips the Course of his years by the lustre of his wit and in the beginning stands in high esteem the old Gamesters cannot digest it Masters spare not to lessen the credit of their scholars Fountain-heads envie rivolets and the Sun his proper rayes especially when some barbarous applause of people of slender judgement and little wit giveth excessive praise to a young man who discovereth more wind and ostent in brave undertakings then capacitie This frenzy endeavours to insinuate it self into Altars into Tribunals of Penance where without touching so many deserving Jealousie goath to Altars men who worthily acquit themselves therein there are some who are more jealous of their spiritual daughters then the most passionate husbands of their wives It seems to some that now adayes to have a notable penitent is to possesse a piece of land that yields a good revenue or a fat Abbacy and that they must have a perpetual title to it It is cunning deceit to blind their eyes to taptive them to tie them to a Confession-seat with an indissoluble chain not to permit them conference nor commerce with any which may let them see their bondage to be offended if they change Confessour to throw out complaints and to make it to be accounted as if it were a sin of Adulterie God forbid such a folly ever enter into a generous mind and unworthily profane the Sanctuary It is very certain that all good directours imitate the sea which receiveth rivers into its bosome without asking from whence they come or what countrey they passed through and when they came from thence nay so farre is it from being displeased that it hath not any feeling of it this being not able to cause any diminution of its greatnesse so a good spirituall Father leaveth all the souls he directeth not in exorbitant libertie but in a discreet permission to go to come to absent themselves to return according as it shall be most fit for their commoditie and spirituall advancement He neither feels them almost to come near him or retire from him so little is his mind busied in the distinguishment of persons One may here adde the Jealousie of unfortunate Jealousie in Marriage Marriages although to say truly it is an effect of the Passion of Love I am not ignorant that great personages and learned Writers have thought that Jealousie The Jealousie of marriages which may hold the first place among the envious proceeded not at all from Love because Love is obsequious and readily taketh the tincture of the affections of the thing beloved which the Passion of Jealousie doth not thwarting the most innocent inclinations of a creature and framing suspicions upon actions But it is easie to answer to this objection and to say that never hath any of understanding had the opinion That Jealousie might proceed from a generous and well rectified Love and neverthelesse it followeth not that it doth not proceed from a Love of concupiscence bad and inordinate For it is very reasonable the definition of S. Thomas stand good as being the Definition of Jealousie according to S. Thomas most judicious who said That Jealousie is nothing else but Love impatient of a Corrivall And it is to no purpose to say That there are many jealous Husbands to be found who notwithstanding love not their Wives For if their passion be without Love it is not properly Jealousie but Malignitie and Envie because they envie them the sweetness of conversation the good and honour they might derive from the honest conversation of persons of merit and do resemble the Dog who eats no hay nor suffereth the Ox to come near it The envious man cannot endure it out of the hatred he hath of anothers contentment and the Jealous cannot suffer it through the over much love he beareth to himself perpetually fearing lest communication of love may not tend to the diminution of the good he possesseth or pretends to have right to possesse This passion ordinarily is framed out of a dull Out of what Jealousie is framed feaver of indiscreet love and taketh its originall in minds too greatly in love with themselves greedy weak and interessed upon one side they have a most strong imagination of the excellencie of the thing beloved which they excessively affect on the other a certain distrust of their own small capacitie and of the uncertaintie of love which makes them perpetually to apprehend the losse of that which they love A lover in Plato seeing the creature he most loved did use to Plato in Anthol Graec. behold the starres wished he were heaven to look on her with as many eyes as there were stars These eyes in my opinion would be very proper for good love but Jealousie is a monster with a hundred eyes which are enkindled with certain flames like to those of hell dark and mischievous And besides it hath very many ears continually hearkning and receiving all which any one will pour into them Its loves are rages benefits snares thoughts crimes words outrages designes Description of Jealousie follies and events tragedies So soon as it observeth in the things beloved the least inclination to another suspicions are framed distrusts and giddy fantasies in a man who would willingly number his wives hairs on her head for fear lest she should have laid apart some of them to give them to a lover And if these suspicions be fortified by some ill accident or some reports of a venemous tongue then do we see anger anxiety fury and despair to come forward which many times run to fire and bloud to precipices and halters What is more ugly or monstrous then this passion Think you not you see the pit of the Abysse whereof S. John speaketh in his Apocalyps when he saith That the pit of the Abysse is open and the smoke comes out of it as from a great furnace wherewith the Sun is darkned and in
King he is sufficiently faulty because he is too virtuous They say that Love and Tears are learned without Envy is easily learned at the Court. any master and I may say that there is no great need of studying at the Court to learn Envy and Revenge It is a strange thing that Saul of a simple countrey-fellow should become so malicious and subtil a Courtier as to practise the most refined dissimulations of the Court He had resolved to destroy David and yet conceived that this duel with Goliah had set him in too high an esteem in the opinion of the people and that if he should openly attempt against his life he should bring his own into danger He thought best to bestow on him a chief place in the Army under pretence of honour which might be most subject to the violence of the Philistims believing that his courage would carry him into dangers and that the Philistims being incensed by the death of their countrey-man would no wayes spare him and that by this means his death would be imputed to his Destiny and not to the Envy of Saul But after that he saw that he returned from the manifest dangers with a crowned head with the applause of the people and that he behaved himself within the Kingdom with very great wisdome he began to suspect him more then before he took heed of bestowing great riches on him and married his eldest daughter which he had promised to him to another using him by this means injuriously Nevertheless for that his honour was engaged therein and that one might justly complain of his faithlessnesse he took advice to marry him to his younger which was Michol with very harsh and dangerous conditions making him to buy a thing that was due to him by the death of 200. Philistims conceiving that by so great a number of men and so many fights re-iterated he might be entangled in some mischance or if he should escape that the best that could hap was onely to gain a woman of a costy humour which would be to him but for a reproach and much discontent Behold how mans reasoning doth propound but Humane wisdome overthrown by the power of heaven God which catches the subtil in their devices and overthrows the designs of the malicious to establish his own counsels upon their ruines caused the victories and the marriage of David to succeed to his good content together with the good will and admiration of all the Court Jonathan the eldest son of Saul was so astonished The love of David and Jonathan with his valiant exploits his rare virtues and his incomparable brave carriage that he loved him as his own heart and bereft himself of the most precious things that he had to adorn him withall David likewise swears unto him reciprocally an immortal friendship These two souls to speak according to the phrase of the Scripture were united together with an indissoluble affection Their hearts were two fornaces which continually breathed forth flames of sacred love and might sooner be found without any thoughts then to be without thinking one of the other Their separations were as so many dyings and their meetings again did prevent their paradise The longest dayes were but as a small moment while they lovingly conversed together then they never perceived that the time ran away and they were departed from each other but with promise to visit again as soon as may be Each of them in their absence seemed to it self a wandring soul without habitation and without a body their spirits made wonderful transpirations for to joyn themselves together and talk to each other as in an Idea when Saul hindred their visits Poor Jonathan which was of an incomparable mildnesse The good offices of Jonathan declared to his father as much as he could the Innocency of David and the great services that he had done for the Crown and when he saw his spirit moved against him he was almost ready to die therefore he ceased not to represent to him with horrour of mind the monstrous impiety that it would be to sacrifice such a personage as he which had so often devoted himself for the safety of his Countrey the out-cry of the people and the vengeance of God At other times he dealt with him with sweet and persvvasive language causing him as it were to touch with his fingers the brave carriage and excellencies of David and assuring him that there was not a man in his whole Kingdome which was of a more harmlesse and pleasing a conversation and that it was the joy of his heart and his onely safety to have him alwayes at his side Saul suffered himself to be overcome with these his discourses whether it were indeed that he was perswaded Saul cleared for a while again returns to his evil spirit or whether he feigned himself to be appeased and suffered David whom he had driven farre of to return again near his person But this mad-man upon a day when he played on the Harp in his presence took his launce and endeavoured to strike him through therewith which he dad done if David by his nimblenesse had not avoided that evil blovv and lest that any should charge him vvith this perfidiousnesse he excused it by the distemper of his spirit Jonathan endeavoured yet another time this reconciliation but having been repelled by Saul by pricking words and vvith threatnings to kill him if he did not give over this his frienship with David he saw clearly that there was no more safety for his friend and gave him the counsel which was for himself the sharpest of all causing him to retire David goes from the Court and makes a sad departure from his friend for to avoid the unmercifull fury of his father These two dear souls on the day of this sad departure were pierced with a thousand darts of grief and were a thousand times upon their eyes and lips for to fly from thence and to mingle themselves one with the other The time past caused them to remember that which they had lost the present that which they were to lose and that to come was unto them a bottomlesse pit of terrour and affrightment They apprehended the one for the other as many dangers as there are upon the earth and sea and they could not promise themselves any thing but dayes without comforts and nights full of terrible dreams and torments They poured out so many tears and fetched so many sighs having no other eloquence but that of their hearts mutually wounded in their lodging that it was a thing vvorthy of compassion even of Saul himself This mad-man seeing that he vvas escaped out of David is pursued and escapes his bloudy hands vvould have caused him to be taken and sent forth souldiers for to bring him back But his vvife Michol having descryed the evil intent of her father advertised her husband of it and made him depart suddenly in the deep silence of
the assistance of God upon their Arms. He also shewed himself very sensible of the favours of Heaven and desired that God should first of all triumph in all the good successes that accompanied his Standards which he expressed visibly when having defeated the Generals of King Antiochus in manifold assaults and gotten a little rest to his dear countrey he took a pressing care to cause the Temple to be repaired and cleansed that had been horribly profaned by the Infidels It was an incomparable joy to all the people when after so many desolations that had preceded he celebrated a Triumphant Dedication by which he caused the hopes of his Nation to reflourish His cares extended even beyond the World wherein we live and one may well affirm that he was the first of the Antient Fathers of the Old Testament that expressed more openly the charitable offices that ought to be rendred to the souls of the Deceased This manifestly appears in an encounter which he had with Gorgias Generall of the Army of the Enemy in which he lost some Souldiers and when he came to visit the field of battell to view the Dead and to cause them to be carried to the Sepulchre of their Fathers he found that some amongst them had in their clothes certain pieces of the offerings presented to the Idols thinking perhaps that it was lawfull for them to accommodate themselves with it for their use though in effect the Law forbad it This gave a shock at first unto his conscience that was very delicate and he deplored the unhappinesse of those forsaken people that had loaded themselves with profane Booties yet when he thought that that befell them more for want of consideration and by the hope of some little gain then by any consent that they had given to Idolatry he sent twelve thousand Drachmes into Jerusalem to cause Sacrifices to be offered for the rest of their Souls This made him to be honoured with very particular favours of heaven for he hath been sometimes seen in a combat environed with celestiall virtues that watched for his protection and filled his enemies with terror His very dreams were not without a mystery witnesse that which shewed him the Prophet Jeremy and the high Priest Onias who prayed before the face of God for the safety of the People the former of which two put into his hand a guilded sword telling him that it was that wherewith he should bring down to the earth the enemies of his Religion The great love that he had for God reflected it self continually towards his neighbour on whom he contemplated the image of the first beauty He bore in his heart all that were afflicted and burned with a most ardent love for the good of his dear countrey The zeal of Justice possessed his soul and he had no greater delights in the world then to succour widows orphans and all necessitous persons They ran to him as to their true Father they ranged themselves under the shadow of his virtue and found there a refreshment in their most parching heats His conversation was sweet his speech affable his manners without avarice He never sold his Protection nor made any Traffick of his Valour He knew not what it was to buy his neighbours lands to build palaces to plant orchards to make gardens and to heap up treasures He was rich for the poor and poor for himself living as a man untyed from all things else and fastned to virtue alone by an indissoluble knot of duty His Temperance passed even to admiration so greatly did he contemne those pleasures and delights that others regard as their chief felicity He never dreamed of causing the beautifull women-prisoners to be preserved for himself because he was skilfull in the trade of defending Ladies honours rather then assaulting them He never had any Mistresse being perpetually Master of himself and one shall have work enough to find out his wives name it is not read that he had any other children but Virtues and Victories He lived as an Essean estranged from all the pleasures of the flesh and tasted no other contentment in the world then to do great actions He never enterprised the warre against King Antiochus to make himself great and to reign but for the pure love of his Religion and dear countrey Traytours and corrupted spirits blame him for having taken up arms saying That it behoved them rather to suffer the Destinies then to make them That it behoved them to obey the Powers that God had set over their heads That it was a great rashnesse to think to resist the forces of all Asia with a little handfull of souldiers that it could not chuse but provoke the conquerours and draw upon the vanquished a deluge of calamities The world hath been full in all times of certain condescending Philosophers who accommodate themselves to every thing that they may not disaccommodate themselves for virtue They care not what visage is given to Piety so that they find therein their own advantages By how much the more mens spirits are refined to search out reasons to colour the toleration of vices by so much the more their courages are weakned and neglect to maintain themselves in duty There are some that had rather lie still in the dirt then take the pains to arise out of it Judas considered that King Antiochus was not contented with having brought the Jews to a common servitude but would overthrow all their Laws and abolish entirely their Religion He did not believe that it was lawfull for him to abandon cowardly the interests of God He thought that there are times wherein one ought rather destroy ones self with courage then preserve ones self with sluggishnesse He looked not so much upon his strength as upon his duty He perswaded himself that a good Cause cannot be forsaken of God and that we ought to essay to serve him applying our wills to his orders and leaving all the successe of our works to his disposall This great zeal that he had of Justice was accompanied with a well tempered prudence As he never let loose himself in that which was absolutely of the Law so did he never use to rack himself by unprofitable scruples that are ordinary enough to those that are zealous through indiscretion Some of his Nation shewed themselves so superstitious that being assaulted by their enemies on the Satturday they let their throats be cut as sheep without the least resistance for fear of violating the Sabbath if they should put themselves upon a defence Judas following the example of his father Matathias took away that errour which tended to the generall desolation of his countrey and shewed by lively reasons that God who hath obliged us to the preservation of our selves by the Law of Nature had never such an intention as to give us for a prey to our enemies by an indiscreet superstition That it was a good work to defend the Altars and ones countrey against the Infidels and
whether in reverence to the man or for fear to precipitate the death of such a Minister of the State by too hasty an execution demanded counsel of Fannius his Captain what in this case he ought to do who did advise him to execute the command of the Emperour and this was done by a sloth fatall to all of the Conspiracy some Ladies onely excepted who shewed themselves more courageous then the Senatours and the Cavalliers Howsoever he having not the heart to carry these heavy tidings did deliver his Commission to a Centurion who informed him with the last of all necessities Seneca without troubling himself desired so much liberty as to make his Will which was refused him On which he turned to his friends and said That since it was not permitted to him to acknowledge their merit that he would leave unto them the very best of all he had which was the Image of his Life in which if they would please to call to mind how he had passed it in so many commendable Exercises they should enjoy for their recompence the reputation of a faithfull and a constant friendship And this he spake not out of arrogance but as it were by the authotity of a Father when he bids his last Farewell unto his Children recommending to them to imitate him in what he had done well and so said S. Paul to his Disciples Be you imitatours of me as I am of Jesus Christ This made their hearts to melt and they began all to weep but he did endeavour to wipe away their tears mingling sweetnesse with reproaches What do you mean he said where are the Precepts of Philosophy where is that Reason so long prepared against all the chances of humane Life who is he that can be ignorant of the cruelty of Nero and who did not see that after the death of his mother and his brother there nothing remained but to adde unto it the murder of his Master and Governour After this Discourse which served for them all he embraced his wife gave her his last farewell and having fortified her against the terrours of the present dangers he did intreat and conjure her to moderate her grief and to sweeten the sorrows of her dear husband by the consideration of his life which was without reproach He loved most tenderly that virtuous Lady and did not cherish his own life but for her sake saying sometimes That he would spare himself a little the more becausâ— in an old man there lived a young woman who deserved that he should take care for her and being not able to obtain from his dear Paulina that she should love him more fervently her love being in the highest degree of perfection she should obtain from him that he should use himself for her sake with the more indulgence This fair Lady observing all that had passed said That there was no longer life for her after the death of him whom she loved above all things in the world and that she would keep him company in the other world On that word he stood a little in a pause and would not contradict her as well for the glory of the action as for the love which he did bear her and for the fear he had to leave so dear a person to the affronts of an enemy be therefore said unto her My dear Love I have shewed you the sweetnesse and the allurements of life but I see you preferre unto it the honour of a generous death I will not envy the example of your Virtue and although the constancy in our death shall be equall in us both yet yours shall be alwayes more glorious then mine for you contribute unto it a courage which is above your sex Having said this they caused their veins to be opened by one hand in the presence one of the other and because the body of her husband was attenuated by great abstinence and the bloud did issue but slowly from him he gave order that there should be a new incision made in the veins of his legs and of his feet The poor old man did endeavour to put himself all into bloud and indured cruel dolours but more in the body of his dear wife then in his own which was the reason that he caused her to be conveighed into another chamber to mitigate a little the sorrows which one had for the other in beholding themselves to die with so much violence It is a wonderfull thing that this great man had so untroubled and so ready a spirit in so fatall an act He called his Secretary to whom he did dictate his last Thoughts which were full of a generous constancy In the mean time Nero having no particular hatred against Paulina and considering that the death of so innocent a Lady would but render himself and his cruelty more abhorred did command that her veins should be stopped and the bloud stanched which it appeared that she suffered to her greater grief both by the short time that she out-lived her husband and by the inviolable faith which she did bear unto his ashes and she looked ever after as she were some prodigy such abundance of bloud and so much spirits she had lost Seneca was yet remaining in the tedious pangs of death when upon advice he demanded poyson of his Physicians which had no operation at all his members being already cold and his body shut up against all the forces of the poyson He caused himself therefore to be carried to a Bath and taking some of the warm water he sprinkled his servants with it that stood about him saying according to Cornelius Tacitus That he offered that water to Jove the deliverer after which words he entred into the stove and was stifled with the vapour that did arise from it Many grave Personages have conceived that he died a Christian and though it is no easie matter to perswade those to this opinion who are possessed with another and who speak but with little consideration on this subject yet there are not wanting grounds to prove the truth thereof Flavius Dexter a most antient Historian who hath composed a small Chronicle from the Nativity of our Saviour unto the fourth Age affirmeth in expresse terms that in the sixty fourth year Seneca entertained good thoughts of Christianity and that he died a Christian although not a declared one S. Hierome in the Book of Ecclesiasticall Authours doth put him in the number of Saints that is to say of those who acknowledge and confesse Jesus Christ Tertullian a most grave Authour saith that he was one although not openly S. Augustine in the City of God alledgeth many excellent passages of a Book which Seneca undoubtedly did write against the Superstition of the Pagans in which he overthrows all the Heathenish Religion of Rome although he doth not vigorously perswade them to change it for fear of troubling the Estate This Book was afterwards condemned and burned by the Enemies of our Religion The holy Doctor doth
with the excess thereof for fear that good Offices be turned into misprisions and Charity render it self too importunate But so it is that we must confess that Pieces well wrought are never seen in so great a number as to bring any fastidiousness to them who do know their merit Here do I stop my pen and if there appears any worth in this Volume I look upon it as on the Mirrour planted on the wall of a Temple in Arcadia where those that beheld it in stead of their own face saw the representation of the Divinity which they adored Even so in all this which may bring any profit to the Reader I see nothing of my own but I acknowledge the Father of lights who is the Beginning and the End of all which we do make praise-worthy And I beseech him if there be found any thing attractive in these Discourses that He will like the Load-stone draw up the Readers and carry them to the love of their Creatour to whom is due the tribute of all honour as to him who is the Beginning of all Perfection It is indeed the onely consolation which we can receive from our labours For not to dissemble the Truth he that cares more to write than to live flattering his pen and neglecting his conscience shall have work enough to defend himself from the Scurf the Rat and from Oblivion And when in a passionate life he shall carry with him the applauses of the world it shall be as a small sacrifice unto him of smoke abroad to lodge a fire and tempest in his own house It is reported that the Stars contribute their beams to enlighten the Infernals and I can affirm that all the lights of Understanding and Reputation shall serve onely to inflame the torments of a reprobate soul who shall shut his eyes against God to open them onely to let in Vanity In the end after many Editions of the HOLY COURT as I desired here to put the last hand to it I am now retired into the solitary place of Quinpercorentin for the love of the truth where the honesty of the Inhabitants have made me to find it as my Countrey which other men have taken for a place of banishment There on the banks of the Ocean at the feet of a Saint who is the Tutelar of the Village perceiving that God had sweetened to me all the bitterness both of men and of the times by the infusion of his Paternal Consolation I have composed more Treatises both of Doctrine and Piety to render in some sort my silence profitable to the publick of which one day I will give a good account unto my Readers if God shall grant me life Amongst other things I have digested into good order this Work of the HOLY COURT and I have enriched it with a remarkable Augmentation of the Lives and Elogies of the Illustrious Personages at Court as well in the Old as the New Testament Now I do produce it to the light after that by the singular favour of Heaven the obstacles are removed and Truth acknowledged on the Throne of Lights with which God hath round environed it THE TABLE OF THE Chief CONTENTS of the First Tome of the HOLY COURT FIRST BOOK Motives to stir up Persons of quality to Christian Perfection MOTIVE Page THat the Court and Devotion are not incompatible 1 I. Name of Christian. 2 II. Nobilitie 4 III. Eminent Dignitie 5 IV. Riches 8 V. Corporal endowments 9 VI. Endowments of the mind 11 VII Courage 13 VIII Education 15 IX Court a life of penance 17 X. Gratitude 19 XI Example 21 XII Punishment 22 XIII Reward 24 SECOND BOOK Hinderances that worldly ones have in the path of salvation OBSTACLE Page I. WEak faith 26 II. Errour in faith in Religion 30 III. To live according to opinion 37 IV. Inconstancie of manners 39 V. Masked life 41 VI. Ill mannage of time 43 VII Libertie of tongue 45 VIII Curiosity in bearing affronts 47 IX Carnal love 49 X. Superfluous Attire 51 XI Envie 54 XII Ambition and Avarice 56 Conclusion A bad Courtiers life is a perpetual Obstacle to virtue 58 THIRD BOOK Practice of VIRTUES SECTION Page I. DEvotion for Great-ones 60 II. Wherein consisteth all Devotion and Spiritual life 61 Character of the spiritual man ibid. Character of the carnal man ibid. III. First combat of a spiritual man against ignorance 62 IV. Practice of faith ibid. V. Four other lights to disperse ignorance 64 VI. Twelve Maxims of salvation ibid. VII Twelve Maxims of wisdom 66 VIII Practice of Devotion and Prayer 68 IX Necessitie of confession ibid. X. Practice of confession 69 XI Practice of examen of conscience 71 XII Practice of receiving 72 XIII Practice of hearing Mass 74 XIV Practice of meditation 75 XV. Practice of vocal prayer and spiritual reading and frequenting Sermons 77 XVI Second combat of the spiritual man against pusillanimitie 78 XVII Twelve Maxims to vanquish temptations 79 XVIII Remedies against the passions and temptations growing from every vice 81 XIX Shame in well doing 82 XX. Affection towards creatures ibid. XXI Indiscreet affliction of mind and sadness 83 XXII Third combat of the Spiritual man against impurity 85 XXIII Practise of chastity 85 XXIV Practise of temperance 86 XXV Practise of modesty 87 XXVI Practise of prudence and government in conversation ibid. XXVII Against another impurity to wit desire of having and first of poverty of the rich 89 XXVIII Practise of justice ibid. XXIX Practise of thankfulness 90 XXX Practise of charity 91 XXXI The practise of humility and magnanimity 92 XXXII Practise of patience 93 XXXIII Practise of daily actions 94 Instructions for Married XXXIV Misery of marriages ill managed 96 XXXV Evils of marriage grow from disorders therein committed 99 XXXVI Selected instructions for the married 101 XXXVII Instructions for Widdows 102 To Maids XXXVIII Praises of virginity and of the modesty they ought to observe in their carriage 104 To Fathers and Mothers XXXIX Concerning bringing up and instructing children 107 To Children XL. Of piety towards parents 110 The fourth Book treateth of Impiety of Courts and Unhappy Policie page 114 The fifth Book setteth forth Fortunate Pietie page 137 A TABLE OF THE TITLES and SECTIONS contained in the Second Tome of the HOLY COURT THE PRELATE SECT Page I. THat it is convenient the Nobilitie should govern the Church 165 II. That the Nobilitie should not aspire to Ecclesiastical offices but by lawfull ways 167 III. Of the Vocation or calling of a Prelate 168 IV. Virtues requisite in the carriage of a Prelate 169 V. The second virtue of a Prelate which is Fortitude of spirit against Avarice and Riot 170 VI. The third Qualitie of a good Prelate which is purity of life 171 VII The fourth perfection of a Prelate which is observed in Zeal and Charity 172 VIII The fifth excellency of a Prelate which is science and prudence ibid. IX The Motives which noble Prelates have to the duty of their
profession 173 X. The Examples of great Prelates are very lively spurs to Virtue ibid. S. AMBROSE I. HIs Calling 175 II. A short Elogie of the life and manners of S. Ambrose 179 III. His Government ibid. IV. His Combats and first against Gentilism 182 Oration of Symmachus to Theodosius and Valentinian the Younger for the Altar of Victory Exercise of Pagan Religion and Revenue of Vestals ibid. V. Oration of S. Ambrose against Symmachus 184 VI. The triumph of S. Ambrose in the conversion of S. Augustine 188 VII Dispositions to the conversion of S. Augustine 191 VIII Agitations of Spirit in S. Augustine upon his conversion 194 IX Accidents which furthered this conversion 195 X. The Admirable change of S. Augustine 196 XI The Affairs of S. Ambrose with the Emperours Valentinian the Father and Gratian the son 199 XII The death of the Emperour Gratian and afflictions of S. Ambrose 202 XIII The Embassage of S. Ambrose 204 XIV The persecution of S. Ambrose raised by the Emperess Justina 206 XV. Maximus passeth into Italie 208 XVI Affliction of S. Ambrose upon the death of Valentinian 210 XVII The tyranny of Eugenius and not able liberty of S. Ambrose 211 XVIII The differences of S. Ambrose with the Emperour Theodosius his death 213 THE SOULDIER I. THe excellency of warlike virtue 217 II. He Enterance into the palace of Valour and the illusions of the Salmoneans and Rodomonts 218 III. The Temple of Valour and sage Precepts given by the Christian Souâ—dier to refute the manners of the times And first That Piety helpeth Valour 220 IV. Manifest proofs which declare that Piety and Valour are not things incompatible 222 V. Against Duels 224 VI. Against the ill mannage of arms 225 VII Against sensual Love Impurity 228 VIII Against the perfidiousnes of interests 230 IX Short and notable Instructions 231 CONSTANTINE I. THe providence of God over Constantine 233 II. The Nobility of Constantine 235 III. His Education and Qualities 237 IV. His entery into the Empire 238 V. His prowess against Maxentius 242 VI. The death of Diocletian and feats of Arms performed by Constantine against Lycinius 243 VII The vices and passions of Constantine before his Baptism with the death of Crispus and Fausta 245 VIII The calling of Constantine to christianity The progress of his conversion and Baptism 247 IX The acts of Constantine after his Baptism 248 X. The endeavour of good works with the virtues and laws of Constantine 249 XI The Zeal of Constantine in the proceedings in the Councel of Nice 251 XII The government of Constantine 254 XIII The death of Constantine 255 THE STATES-MAN I. THe excellency of politick virtue 263 II. He Table of Babylon drawn from sundry conceptions of the most singular wits of Antiquity 264 III. The destruction of Babylon and the government of the Divine Providence over the Estates of the world 266 IV. The Table of the Citie of God otherwise called The Citie of honest men drawn out of many excellent conceits of ancient Authours and things practised in some former Common-wealths 268 V. Sage Precepts drawn out of the Monuments of the divine Agathopolis 271 BOETIUS I. HIs great Nobility 276 II. The eminent Wisdom and Learning of Boetius 278 III. His enterance into government of state 280 IV. The enterance of Theodorick into Rome and his happy Government by the counsel of Boetius 282 V. The Honours of Boetius and alteration of Theodorick 287 VI. The imprisonment of Boetius 291 VII The death of Boetius 293 THE LADIE I. THat the HOLY COURT cannot subsist without the virtue of Ladies and of their piety in the advancement of christianity 297 II. That Women are capable of good Lights and solid Instructions 298 III. The ten Orders of women and the vicious qualities which Ladies ought especially to avoid 299 IV. The tenth Order of Women full of Wisdom and Virtue 302 V. A brief Table of the excellent Qualities of a Lady And first of true Devotion 302 VI. Modestie 303 VII Chastitie 304 VIII Discretion in the manage of affairs 305 IX Conjugal Love 306 X. The care of children 307 XI The conclusion of the Discourse ibid. CLOTILDA I. HEr Birth and Education 307 II. Clodovaeus requireth Clotilda in marriage 308 III. Embassage to the King of Burgundie for the marriage of Clotilda 310 IV. The arrival of Clotilda in France the life she led in the time of her Wedlock 312 V. The prudence which the Queen used in the conversion of her Husband 313 VI. The conversion of Clodovaeus 315 VII What Clodovaeus did by the perswasion of Clotilda after his Baptism 316 VIII The good success which God gave to Clodovaeus after he became a christian 317 IX The life of Clotilda in her widowhood Her afflictions and glorious death 319 INDEGONDIS X. ISsued from the bloud and house of Clotilda she transporteth the Catholick Faith into Spain 323 XI The persecutions of Indegondis 324 XII The Retreat of Hermingildus and his conversion 325 XIII The Reciprocal letters of the father and the son upon their separation 326 XIV The Treatie of peace between Levigildus and his son by the mediation of Indegondis 327 XV. Hermingildus is wickedly betrayed 328 XVI The letter of Hermingildus to Indegondis and his generous resolution 330 XVII The death of Hermingildus 331 A TABLE OF THE MAXIMS AND EXAMPLES Contained in the third Tome of the HOLY COURT The First Part of the Third Tome touching the Divinitie I. Maxim OF Religion page 339 I. Example OF the esteem we ought to make of faith and Religion 342 II. Maxim Of the Essence of God 343 II. Example The power of God over faithless souls 346 III. Maxim Of the excellency of God 348 The greatness of God compared to the abjectness of man 349 III. Example Of the weakness of man and inconstancy of humane things 352 IV. Maxim Of the providence of God 354 The foundation of truths of the providence of God 356 IV. Example Divers observations upon providence 358 V. Maxim Of Accidents 359 V. Example Of the providence of God over the estates and riches of the world 363 VI. Maxim Of praedestination 365 VI. Example Of the secret power of praedestination 368 VII Maxim Of the Divinity of Jesus 370 Of the revelation of the Word Incarnate and how all creatures bear witness of his divinity ibid. VII Example The triumph of Jesus over the enemies of Faith 373 VIII Maxim Of perfections of Jesus which make him to be beloved 375 Excellencies in the person of our Saviour 376 VIII Example Of the admirable change of worldly love into the love of Jesus Christ 379. The Second Part touching the Order of this present Life IX Maxim OF Devotion 381 IX Maxim OF dark Devotion 382 IX Maxim Affected Devotion 383 IX Maxim Transcendent Devotion 384 IX Maxim Solid Devotion 386 IX Example Of solid Devotion 387 X. Maxim Of interest 389 X. Example Of liberality and the unhappiness of such as seek
learning of Jesus who was never taught 502 Upon S. John the 9. Of the blind man cured by clay and spittle 503 Upon S. Luke the 7. Of the widows son raised from death to life at Naim by our Saviour 504 Upon S. John the 11. Of the raising up Lazarus from death 505 Upon S. John the 8. Of our Saviours words I am the Light of the world ibid. Upon S. John the 8. Of these words Who can accuse me of sin 506 Upon S. John the 7. Jesus said to the Pharisees You shall seek and not find me and he that is thirsty let him come to me 507 Upon S. John the 7. Jesus went not into Jury because the Jews had a purpose to take away his life  Upon S. John the 10. The Jews said If thou be the Messias tell us plainly ibid. Upon S. John the 7. Of S. Mary Magdalen's washing our Saviours feet in the Pharisees house 509 Upon S. Mary Magdalen's great repentance 510 Upon S. John the 11. The Jews said What shall we do for this man doth many miracles ibid. Upon S. John the 12. The Chief Priests thought to kill Lazarus because the miracle upon him made many follow Jesus 511 Upon S. Matthew the 21. Our Saviour came in triumph to Jerusalem a little before his passion 512 Upon S. John the 12. Mary Magdalen anointed our Saviours feet with precious ointment at which Judas repined 513 Upon S. John the 13. Of our Saviours washing the feet of his Apostles ibid. Moralities upon the garden of Mount Olivet 514 Moralities of the apprehension of Jesus 515 Aspiration upon S. Peter's passionate tears ibid. Moralities upon the Pretorian or Judgement-Hall 516 Moralities for Good Friday upon the death of Jesus Christ ibid. The Gospel for Easter day S. Mark the 16. 518 The Gospel for Easter Munday S. Luke 24. 519 The Gospel on Tuesday S. Luke 24. 520 The Gospel on Low-Sunday John 20. 521 A TABLE Of the Treatises and Sections contained in this fourth Tome OF THE HOLY COURT The First TREATISE Of the necessity of Love SECTION Page 1 AGainst the Philosophers who teach Indifferency saying We must not Love any thing 1 2 Of Love in generall 3 3 Of Amity 5 4 Of Amity between persons of different sexes 7 5 Of the entertainment of Amities 11 6 Of Sensuall Love its Essence and Source 14 7 The effects of Sensuall Love 17 8 Remedies of evil Love by precaution 18 9 Other Remedies which nearer hand oppose this Passion 19 10 Of Celestiall Amities 22 11 Of the Nature of Divine Love Its Essence Qualities Effects and Degrees 25 12 The practise of Divine Love 27 13 A notable Example of Worldly Love changed into Divine Charity 29 The Second TREATISE Of Hatred 1 ITs Essence Degrees and Differencies 32 2 That the consideration of the goodnesse of the heart of God should dry up the root of the Hatred of a neighbour 33 3 That Jesus grounded all the greatest Mysteries of our Religion upon union to cure Hatred 34 4 Of three notable sources of Hatred and of politick remedies proper for its cure 35 5 Naturall and Morall Remedies against this passion 37 6 Of the profit may be drawn from Hatred and the course we must hold to be freed from the danger of being Hated ibid. The Third TREATISE Of Desire 1 WHether we should desire any thing in the world the Nature the Diversitie and Description of Desire 39 2 The Disorders which spring from inordinate Desires and namely from Curiosity and Inconstancy 40 3 The foure sources out of which are ill rectified Desires 42 4 That the tranquility of Divine Essence for which we are created ought to rule the unquietnesse of our Desires ibid. 5 That we should desire by the imitation of Jesus Christ 43 6 The Condemnation of the evil Desires of the World and the means how to divert them 44 THE FOURTH TREATISE Of Aversion SECTION Page 1 THe Nature and Qualities thereof 44 2 The Sweetnesses and Harmonies of the heart of God shew us the way how to cure our Aversions ibid. 3 The consideration of the indulgent favours of Jesus Christ towards humane nature is a powerfull remedy against the humour of disdain 47 4 The Conclusion against disdain ibid. THE FIFTH TREATISE Of Delectation 1 THat Delectation is the scope of Nature It s Essence Objects and differences 48 2 The basenesse and giddinesse of Sensuall voluptuousnesse 49 3 The Sublimity Beauty and Sweetnesse of heavenly delights ibid. 4 The Paradise and Joyes of our Lord when he was on earth 50 5 Against the stupidity and cruelty of worldly pleasures 51 6 The Art of Joy and the means how to live contented in this world ibid. THE SIXTH TREATISE Of Sadnesse 1 ITs Description Qualities and the diversity of those who are turmoiled with this Passion 54 2 Humane Remedies of Sadnesse and how that is to be cured which proceedeth from Melancholy and Pusillanimitie 55 3 The remedie of Sadnesses which proceeds from divers accidents of humane life 56 4 That the Contemplation of the Divine patience and tranquility serve for remedie for our temptations 58 5 That the great temper of our Saviours soul in most horrible sufferings is a powerfull lenitive against our dolours 59 6 Advise to impatient soules 60 THE SEVENTH TREATISE Of Hope 1 THe Description Essence and appurtenances thereof 61 2 That one cannot live in the world without Hope and what course is to be held for the well ordering of it ibid 3 That God not being capable of Hope serveth as an Eternall Basis to all good Hopes 63 THE EIGHTH TREATISE Of Despair 1 ITs Nature Composition and effects 65 2 The causes of Despair and the condition of those who are most subject to this Passion 66 3 Humane Remedies of Despair 67 4 Divine Remedies 68 5 The Examples which Jesus Christ gave us in the abysse of his sufferings are most efficacious against pusillanimity 69 6 Encouragement to good Hopes ibid. THE NINTH TREATISE Of Fear 1 THe Definition the Description the Causes and effects thereof 70 2 Of the vexations of Fear Its differences and Remedies 71 3 Against the Fear of the accidents of humane life 72 4 That the Contemplation of the power and the Bounty of God ought to take away all our Fears 73 5 That the Example of a God-man ought to instruct and assure us against affrightments of this life 74 THE TENTH TREATISE Of Boldnesse SECTION Page 2 THe Picture and Essence of it 76 2 The diversitie of Boldnesse ibid 3 Of laudable Boldnesse 77 4 That true Boldnesse is inspired by God and that we must wholly depend on him to become Bold 78 5 That Jesus hath given us many pledges of a sublime confidence to strengthen our Courage 79 THE ELEVENTH TREATISE Of Shamefactnesse 1 THe decencie of Shamefac'tnesse It s nature and definition 81 2 Divers kinds of Shamefac'tnesse ibid. 3 The Excellency of Shamefac'tnesse and the uglinesse of Impudency 83 4 Of Reverence
to the same port It is that which maketh Kings to reign 1. Reg. 25. 29. and giveth them officers as members of their state and by this means frameth the Court of Great-ones But if after it hath so made and composed them as of the flower and choise of men it should abandon them in the tempest without pole-star without rudder without Pilot were not this with notable deformitie to fail in one of the prime pieces of its work-manship Judge your self For the second reason it is most evident that to further this impossibilitie of devotion in the course of Courtiers lives is to cast them through despair of all virtues which cannot subsist without piety into the libertie of all vices which they will hold not as extravagant fallies of frailtie but as the form of a necessary portion of their profession And as the rank they hold maketh them transcend other men who willingly tie themselves to the manners and affections of those on whom they see their fortunes depend that would be as it were by a necessary law to precipitate mankind into the gulf of corruption To conclude for the third reason this proposition is manifestly contradicted by an infinit number of examples of so many Kings and Princes of so many worthy Lords and Ladies who living in the Ocean of the world as the mother pearls by the dew of heaven have preserved and do yet still preserve themselves for ever in admirable puritie and in such heroick virtues that they cannot gain so much wonder on earth but they shall find in heaven much more recompence This is it which I intend to produce in this Treatise of the Holy Court after I have informed the mind with good and lively reasons which as I hope by the grace of the holy Spirit of God shall make all persons of quality to behold they do infinit wrong to take the splendour of their condition for a veil of their impieties and imperfections Virtue is a marvellous work woman who can make Mercury of any wood yea should the difficultie be great the victorie would be more glorious but all the easieness thereof is in their own hands and the obligations they have to tend to perfection are no less important than those of Hermits as I intend shall appear in the process of this discourse The first MOTIVE Of the obligation which secular men and especially persons of qualitie have to perfection grounded upon the name of Christian. A Great abuse is crept into the minds of secular persons who hold vice in predominance and virtue under controle It is in that they esteem Christian perfection as a bird out of their reach and a qualitie dis-proportionable to their estate As for my self saith one of these I have made provision of virtue according to my quality I pretend not to be a S. Francis nor to be rapt as a S. Paul to the third heaven I find there is no life but with the living and to hold time by the fore-lock while I can Let our pleasures take that scope which nature presenteth to them were we as wicked as Judas if we have the faith of S. Peter the mercy of God pardoneth all An impertinent discourse as I will hereafter declare On the other side there are women who chatter and say I will not be a S. Teresa it is not my intention to be canonized I love better to see my diamonds in my life glitter on my fingers than to carrie themafter my death on my statues I better love a little perfume whilst I yet breath air than all the Arabian odours after my death I will have no extasies nor raptures It is enough for me to wallow in the world I may as well go to Paradise by land as by water Such words are very impure in the mouth of a Christian nay so prejudicial to eternal salvation that through the liberty of speaking too much they take away all hope of doing well For pursuing the tender effeminacy of that spirit they take the measure of virtue very short and disproportionable their intentions being infirm the works are likewise the more feeble not squarely answering the model of knowledge from whence proceedeth a general corruption I affirm not all Christians ought to embrace the perfection of S. Francis and of S. Teresa No. There are some whom the Divine providence will direct by other aims But I say that every Christian is obliged to level at perfection and if he hath any other intention he is in danger to loose himself eternally A bold saying but it is the sentence of S. Austine You should always be displeased with your Aug. Serm. 11 of the Apostle Semper tibi displiceat quod es si viâ— pervenire ad id quod non es Si dixeris sufficit periisti A notable speech of S. Augustine self for that which you are if you desire to attain to that which you are not and if you chance to say it is enough you are undone And who are you that dare limit the gifts of God And who are you that say I will have but such or such degree of graces I satisfie my self with such a sanctity I have proceeded far enough in a spiritual life let us set up our staff here What wickedness is this Is not this to imitate that barbarous and senseless King who cast chains into the sea to tie the Ocean in fetters God hath given us a Xerxes heart of a larger latitude than the heavens which he will replenish with himself and you will straiten it like a snail to lodge him in narrow bounds whom the whole world cannot comprehend Judge if this proceeding be not very unreasonable and if you yet doubt weight two or three reasons which you shall find very forcible and by them you will conclude with me you have no less obligation to be perfect than the most retired Hermit that ever lived in the most horrid wilderness of Egypt The first reason I propose to underprop this assertion is drawn from the nature and essence of perfection At what mark think you should one aim to arrive to this scope If I should say will you be perfect bury your self alive in a sack put a halter about your neck go roast your self in the scorching beams of the Sun go roal your self in snow and thorns this would make you admire your hair stand an end and bloud congeal in your veins But if one tell you God Perfection engrafted upon love hath as it were engrafted perfection with his own hands upon the sweetest stock in the world what cause have you of refusal Now so it is as I say There is nothing so easie as to love the whole nature of the world is powred and dissolved into love there is nothing so worthy to be beloved as an object which incloseth in the extent thereof all beauties and bounties imaginable which are the strongest attractives of amity yea it forceth our affections with a sweet
violence to love is natural not to love is monstrous Then here admire the charms of Divinity which hath placed all the perfection of man in the love of his Creatour and Saviour to love an infinite good which one cannot hate and not become a devil Chrys serm 94. Tenerae militiae delicati conflictus est amore solo de cunctis criminibus reportare victoriam The warfare of Christians delicate S. Peter Chrysologus crieth out A more delicate warfare never was seen than to conquer all by love Ask I pray of all Divines if charity be not the quintessence of perfection Ask of all Religious men where they pretend to place it in sack-cloth or hair-shirts They will answer you No. In the vows of poverty chastity obedience No. These are most undoubted wayes to perfection but they are not properly perfection In what then In the love of God which Cap. 63. Iren. lib. 4. Eminentissimum charismatum S. Irenaeus expresseth by a most elate epithete Eminentissimum charismatum the most eminent of all the gifts of God The Master of the Sentences and some other Divines The excellency of charity have placed charity so high in which we establish perfection that they have presumed to say it was the substance of the Holy Ghost united and as it were incorporated to mans soul adding that as light is called radical light in the Sun light infused in bodies transparent colour in bodies which we call coloured in like manner this charity as it is say they originally and radically in God is the holy Ghost as it is united to the substance of our soul it is grace as it maketh sallies out upon our neighbour it is charity This Doctrine is very subtile and really giveth a very high idea of the merit of Charity but if we Notable opinion of some Divines would wholly examine it according to the strict rigour of Schools and weigh it in S. Thomas his equal ballance we shall find Charity is not to speak properly the Holy Ghost but as it were the first ray of Divinity which bringeth with it self all perfections This beam if you will is as it were in your power God every day presenteth it unto you as freely as the Sun doth his light it onely behoveth to will it behoveth seriously once to resolve to love an object so amiable and then behold your selves perfect Notwithstanding if you lay your hand on the bottom of your conscience you shall ever find it in its proper interests in humane respects in intentions and affections nothing sincere in the love of creatures This is to coyn false money in matter of love this is to put God under the Altar and the love of himself above that it may have the better part of incense What think you of this indignitie See you not the obligation of being perfect still remaineth but the effect is ever pretermitted For the second reason I say the perfection of man Imitation of Jesus Christ abridgement of wisdom Matth. 5. Estote perfecti sicut Pater vester caelestis perfectus est Greg. Nyssen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the book of the life of Moses Humanity of Jesus An excellent conceit of Origen Origen 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Indeclinabiliter eosdeÌ„ motus suscipieâ—at consisteth in the imitation of God Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect and very well S. Gregory Nyssen assureth us that this imitation is an abridgement of all wisdom Now who is able to mount by force of wing and flie into the bosom of the eternal Father thence to draw a pourtraict of his holinesses Certainly no creature can aspire thereto And what I pray hath God all goodness all wisdom done He hath imprinted all his perfections upon our Saviour the true figure of his substance as if one should impress a golden seal upon virgin-wax which made Origen say his most sacred humanity was as the foot-step and shadow of the Divinity and agreed with it as equal well-made dyals with the Sun whereupon the spirit of God calleth all Christians and saith to them Imitate couragiously behold your Prototype behold the model of your actions He saith not I have two Images of my substance I have two Sons I send them both upon the earth one shall be for men of eminencie the other for the multitude Behold one delicately One same Jesus for the Nobles and plebeyans curious crowned with roses for the nobility behold another crowned with thorns for the vulgar It is meer dotage to imagine it And see you not it is like sottishness since all Christians bear the same name the same livery participate of the same God the same Sacraments and pretend to the same Paradise to think perfection is not appointed but for a silly handful of men separated from secular life and that others are excluded Miserable creatures who to sooth their own remisness plant their own condemnation upon their foreheads Briefly to conclude the title and dignity of a Christian draweth with it great and just obligations which you cannot countervail but with an exact endeavour of perfection Do you think one requireth too much of you who have been nourished and trained up in the Church of God if you be demanded at the least to shew resolution and courage to resist a sin as some Heathens have done in their infidelity And to produce in gross three examples upon the three most ordinary temptations behold with S. Austine Polemon who telleth you I was an insidel a S. Augustine Epist 130. saith of this Non humano operi tribuerim sed divino Polimon praised by S. Augustine young man deprived of the knowledge of the true God resigned over to all sort of intemperance wine love play rashness were the Chariot which drew my youth to downfal I was no sooner entered into the school of a Heathen Philosopher as my self but behold I was wholly changed And thou O Christian dost thou think it will be lawful for thee amongst so many important and forcible instructions so many enlightenings so many inspirations to play the smiths old dog and lie sleeping under the anvile This man here upon the onely word of a man layeth down his flowery crowns which he bare on his head his drunkenness his unthrifty riots and where is there a worldly woman at this day who at the end of a Sermon enkindled with zeal dissolveth one piece of her gaudy dressings Behold on the other side Spurina who saith in Spurina S. Ambrose I was a Gentile bred in the corruption of an age where virtue was in declination and vice on the top of the wheel I was endowed with an exquisit beauty which by right of natural force gave me the key of hearts and I seeing it was too much affected and courted by wanton eyes and served for a stumbling-block to chastity I purposely made scars S. Ambrose in the exhortation to virginitie Deformitatem sanctitatis
which God so puissantly and highly hath exalted that he therein hath confined his whole power and greatness not being able to create any thing greater than Man-God Judge what a sacriledge it is to do a personal affront to the most immaculate and most virginal flesh of Jesus sitting on the right hand of his Father Eternal August de verbis Apost Serm. 18. Parâ—â— in te Christo cognosce in te Christum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the habiliments of glory and yet carnal impurity would if it might carry thither the effects of its malice Before the incarnation of the Son of God the sins of the flesh were simply sins but after this ineffable union of the Divine nature with the humane they became monsters And you see likewise that the holy Fathers call some by this name and by other tearms full of execration The second reason which much augmenteth the Ancir Concil can 17. Fury of lust Tertul. de pudic enormity of this sacriledge is that not onely it debaseth a nature which God hath exalted even to God but also engulfeth it in an action sordid blockish bruitish reputed so unworthy that the Scripture disdaineth to name it S. Epiphanius searching out the Epiphan beres 55. 67. cause why the Holy Text maketh no mention of the Genealogie of Melchisedeth bringeth a reason from the Hebrews which affirms this eminent man to be born of unchaste parents as a rose from thorns and that the Scripture useth not to name such men in detestation of their sin And verily you see the practice hereof In Genesis Noe abstained from naming Cenes 9. Mâ—ledictus Chanaan of Cham though it were to curse him it seemeth this name of a son marked out by these deportments of filthy sin would defile the malediction it self if it had been pronounced For the same reason the Tribe of Simâ—on is not numbered when question is made of blessing the Patriarchs in Deuteronomie because from this Line issued that wicked Deut. 33. Prince who sinned with the Midianitess In the new Testament in the Genealogie of the Son of God Num. 25. 6. Bathsheba is not called by her own name but by her Eaque fuit Utiae husbands Magdalen in the time of her sin had no Matth. other name but of a sinner It seemeth Isaiah hath Isaiah 14. 20. truly prophesied of such voluptuous people The race of the wicked shall be buried in perpetual oblivion Non vocabitur in aeternum nomen pessâ—morunt Luxury the sin of the heel Some other Interpreters subtilizing this passage of the 48. Psalm Iniquitas calcanei circundabit me say luxury was called the sin of the heel which was not improper yet not for that reason which some in my opinion have without ground invented affirming there is a vein which answereth to the heel that serveth as a fiery match and an incentive to lust but because this sin is low and debased amongst other vices as the heel under other parts of the body and in respect it is tied to the heels which is to say that leaving high and elevated objects onely worthy of the love of men as are virtues and graces it applieth it self to baseness and beggary to a dung-hill covered with snow to a beauty passing away like a dream and which hath no other character of its merit but the judgement of a mad man So the pantables of Judith bewitched the eyes of Judith 16. Holofernes This Ladie was beautiful as a star and adorned as a Temple yet notwithstanding this blind lover suffered himself to be inconsiderately surprized with the heels of a woman to shew that lust is base in all its objects and pretences Behold why some sage Hebrews have written that certain Sandalia râ—puerunt ocules ejus infernal spirits remembring themselves of their ancient nobilitie abhor to tempt men with the sin of luxury as a thing unworthy their thoughts and industrie giving this commission to some other more gross devils and more terrestrial Alas what shall we say if we go about to plant upon the forehead of a nature honoured with the hypostatical union of the Word a sin which maketh even the devils themselves to be ashamed May we not well say if there be a mark in the world which plainly discovereth a reprobate soul it is this seeing it is so impudently opposed to the venerable mysterie of mans redemption The third reason which maketh us believe this Hell of love dishonest sin hath great alliance with hell is that it carrieth already the marks thereof in this world What are they Darkness fire stench the worm disorder Behold the principal liveries of hell all which are to be found in the sin of luxury Darkness because it maketh the soul dark gross clouded with black vapours of folly which extinguish all the radiance of judgement and very aptly it is said of those infamous fire-brands who sollicited the chaste Susanna that they turned away their eyes that they Daniel 13. Declinaverunt oculos suos nè viderent solem Hier. l. 1. adversus Jovinian The fire of it might not see the Sun Saint Hierom hath very well relished this passage of Seneca (a) (a) (a) Amor insaniae proximus foedum minime conveniens animo sospiti vitium turbat consitia omnibus inutilem ipsi novissimum amori facit Si digito aâ—â—gero incendam syloam simul omnem Noysomness Love and folly go hand in hand it is a passion which never lodgeth at the sign of health it turneth the spirit up-side down it maketh man bruitish unprofitable to all and in the end to love it self Fire All those unfortunate lovers speak of nothing else but of their flames they are always in fire like the Salamander they perpetually have the mount Aetna upon their shoulders one of them saith he will do nothing but touch a forrest with his finger thereby to burn and wholly waste it And verily it is a hell-fire which hath gluttony for fewel pride for flame unclean words for sparkles infamy for smoke ordure for ashes hell for center as saith S. Hierom. Noysomness and dishonesty are inseparable companions of the sin of the flesh The voluptuous cannot endure their like and when passion hath cast its fire they are troublesom and insupportable to themselves Which well is witnessed by the many nasty and shameful diseases which never had been known in the world if they had not entered by the gate of this infamous sensuality The worm This sin is no sooner committed but it It s worm hath its executioner attending thereon it hath the worm of damnation which diveth and pepetrateth even into the bottom of the heart of him that committeth it and then especially when he findeth as yet some reliques of a good conscience remaining in his soul remorse to have lost the incomparable treasure of purity perplexeth it perpetually Concupiscence of Appetitus fornicationis anxietas est
you deign to know me who am but a poor forraigner What ought you to say IV. That it is as the humble Esther before Ahasuerus Esther 7. 3. Quae est petitio tua Esther ut â—etur tibi Et quid vis fieri Etiamsi dimidiam partem regni mei petieris impetrabis and that it kisseth the golden rod and moreover that it understandeth these words What is thy demand Esther Tell me to the end it may be granted Whae wouldst thou have me do If thou askest me the moity of my Kingdom thou shalt have it Answer you would have nothing but the King and that he alone sufficeth you V. That it is as Mephibosheth the son of Jonathan Mephibosheth 2 Reg. 9. Et tu comedes panem in mensâ meâ semper Quis ego sum servus tuus quoniam respexisti super me canem mortuum 1 Reg. 1. Jonathan to whom David spake these words My meaning is you shall eat at my table all the days of your life What answered this little son of the King thereupon Alas Sir who am I your poor servant that you please to cast your eye upon me a dead dog such as I am VI. That it is as Jonathan who extreamly tired dipped the end of a wand which he carried in his hand into an honey-comb and lifting it to his lips at that instant behold his eyes before heavy and oppressed became clear again and his body reassumed new and fresh vigour There needeth but a little consideration to a well composed spirit both to cast it presently down by humility into the center of nothing and to raise it by love even above the emperial Heaven One may likewise every time he receiveth Other considerations prepare divers meditations to entertain himself more at large either before or after the mysterie I. As meditation upon the history considering 1. The eating of the lamb 2. The washing of feet 3. The institution of the Blessed Sacrament II. The names as Eucharist Communion Sacrifice Bread Viaticum and other such like practising your self to search out the reason of every one with application of spirit to derive from thence things agreeable to the name which one meditateth As upon the name of Communion the resolution of peace concord and charity III. The figures as the bread and wine of Melchisedech the Paschal Lamb Manna the bread of Elias meditating upon the histories and conformities which they have with this Divine mysterie and the fruits we ought to draw from thence IV. The causes of the institution 1. As to serve us for a memory of the Passion 2. An incitement of love and charity 3. For spiritual nourishment 4. For Sacrifice 5 For a pledge of beatitude considering whether we answer to the intention of the Son of God in this action After receiving you must rest upon the two last leaves of the lilly which are thanksgiving Fifth and sixth leaf of the lilly What you are to do after Communion and renovation of spirit You then must adore this great guest whom you have in your heart with all the powers of Heaven and creatures of the earth to play your part as if you were a little string of the great harp of the world To offer to God the whole world as a votive-table hanged on his altar collected in the perfections of his onely Son who is wholly yours being so freely given to you so solemnly so irrevocably as he whose Divinity soul life flesh and bloud you have in this incomprehensible Sacrament To give him thanks for the infinite riches he hath placed in this sacred humanity which you enjoy and for that he hath given you his Son for father brother Master Leader Redeemer for the good he communicateth to all faithful people by the means of this inexhaustible fountain of grace for the special favours he hath done to you and yours for the natural talents with which he hath adorned you and likewise for the various change of comforrs and discomforts with which he hath enterlaced your life Briefly for the present visit which he hath made in the house of your heart so ill prepared After adoration and thanksgiving followeth petition for the faithful and unfaithful whose conversion we desire For the Church and all the Prelats which govern it namely him whom he hath appointed to be our Pastour For the person of the King and all the Realm For his kinred friends benefactours living and dead To ask for your self seven gifts which a holy Virgin by the relation of S. Bonaventure daily begged of God 1. Effectual grace Bonavent 1. 6. med c. 3. to accomplish the law of love 2. To love all that God loveth 3. To hate all he hateth 4. Humility chastity obedience contempt of the world garnishment of all virtues 5. That God would make his true Temple of our soul and body 6. That he would give us his vision in beatitude 7. That he may be divinely served in this place where you receive the Blessed Sacrament and in all the other parts of Christendom To conclude to make in the end a renewing of the oath of fidelity which we have sworn to our great Master and to employ our time in his service with more diligence than ever and since we are upon the palm-tree let us gather the Fruits of Communion fruits which are spiritual food strength against temptations heavenly alacrity light of understanding flames of charity union with God augmentation of virtues hope of glory renovation in all our faculties and functions and namely let us often stay upon some particular object of virtue which we would ask of our guest in favour of this celestial visitation The thirteenth SECTION * * * Parcè haec in transcursis tantian delibet Lector ut Canis è Nilo The practice to hear Mass TO hear Mass is verily one of the most serious actions of all spiritual life Had one all the understanding and reverence of Angels to be present thereat it would never be enough Saint Dyonys the Areopagite saith that exactly to discharge Dyonis de Eccle. Hierarch c. 6. Vspue ad extramas imagines An excellent saying of S. Bonaventure Cum fueris tous alteratus t divinus effectum ita ut nihil videas nisi Deum tunc accede this duty we must purifie our heart Usque ad extremas imagines so dispoiling it that it may be free from all imaginations and humane representations and that is it which Saint Bonaventure hath more clearly expressed principally speaking of Priests who celebrate That the time when they ought to approach is when they feel themselves wholly changed and become divine in such sort that they behold not any thing but God Philo the Bishop addeth that the Sacrificers are as the ivory neck of the spouse which must serve as a chanel for the Holy Ghost to make his graces distil upon the rest of the members that are present at this Sacrifice The
our ingratitude or disability II. To be thankfull not onely in the presence of the benefactour by some little vain ostentation of acknowledgement but to publish it to others in time and place and to retain it as it were engraven in a respective memorie III. To recompence him according to power not onely in proportion but superabundantly which that it may be the better effected to consider what is given to us from whom when and how A benefit is ever best accepted from a friendly frank and free hand and many times from whom it is least expected in a pressing necessitie A benefit from a harsh man given as it were frowardly is a stonie loaf of bread which necessitie enforceth us to take not free-will It is no gift when that is given which can no longer be withheld as Emanuel the Emperour who Sordid liberalitie of Emanuel Conunus seeing his full coffers in the hands of the Persians said to his soldiers Go take them I give them to you It is a negligent and remiss giving when the extream want of a poor man is expected As the fountain of Narni which never distilled its streams Leander in umbrià but on the eve of a famin A small courtesie seasonably done deserveth much and that was the cause why King Agrippa made a poor servitour named Joseph lib. 18. antiq Thou mastus the second man in a kingdom for having given a glass of water Thaumastus the second person of his kingdom for that he had given him a glass of fair water in his great necessitie when under Tyberius he was tied to a tree before the Palace of the Emperour and endured a most ardent thirst IV. As it is not good to suffer a benefit to wax old so it is not always expedient to recompence it so readily as if we bear our obligation with impatience and that we had an opinion this benefit came to us from a hand besmeared with bird-lime with intention to grasp another The best way is to let your observances creep into credit in time and place with so much the more precaution as they ought to have the less of ostentation The thirtieth SECTION Practice of Charitie SAaint Ireneus as we have said calleth charitie a Eminentissimum charismatum S. Iren. l. 4. c. 63 S. Maximus Occonem cent 1. 38. Reg. 4. c. 2. Plenitudo legis Charita Aug. tract in epist Joan. Derothem 5. Bibliothec. PP Doct. 6. most excellent present from heaven the top and zenith of all virtues gifts and favours of God Saint Maximus saith it is the gate of the Sanctuarie which leadeth us aright to the vision of the holy Trinitie It is the double spirit which Elizeus required wherewith to love God and our neighbour Behold the whole law behold all perfection You are not much to afflict your self saith S. Augustine to become perfect Love God and then do what you will For if you desire to know whether your love towards God be real and not counterfeit mark how you love your neighbour By how much the lines draw nearer one to another so much the more they approch to the center By how much the nearer you approch to your neighbour in love by so much the nearer you are to God The Actions of this Royal virtue are Acts of Charitie I. To have an affectionate delight in God for that he is God all-wise all-good all-powerfull all-amiable all-just all mercifull the original fountain of all wisdom goodness power beautie justice mercie Most heartily to rejoyce that he sitteth in the throne of glorie as in an abyss of splendour adored without intermission by all the celestial powers by all the Saints by all the exalted Spirits To desire that all the creatures in the world might adore and serve him that all understandings were replenished with the knowledge of him all memories with his benefits all wills with his love Such was the affection of that good Fryer Giles companion to Saint Francis who was much moved in beholding the beauties of God and afterwards wept bitterly because as he said love was not beloved enough Amor non amatur II. To be sensibly sorrowfull for the impieties heresies infidelities errours sins dissolutions which have covered the face of the earth To resent the injuries done to God as one would the rebukes of a good father of a loving brother or of some person most tenderly affectionate as the apple of your eye It is an admirable thing to see in Scripture a poor Mervelous zeal of a Lady Princess daughter in law of Heli falling in travail upon the news brought her of the taking of the Ark of covenant and death of her husband and neighbours for her neither to think of father brother husband no nor the pains of her child-bearing nor to complain of any thing but of the surprisal of the Ark and to have dying these words on her lips Farewel the glory of Israel since the Ark of God is taken 2. Reg. 4. Translata est gloria de Israel quia capta est Arca Dei away what zeal is this in a woman And now adays one cannot loose a greyhound a curtal jade a bird but all the house is filled with noice and outcries whilest for injuries done to God the hearts of men are very insensible III. To love all mortal men as creatures made to the image of God but above all the faithfull in the qualitie of persons destined to the sovereign beatitude to wish them true blessings as justification grace virtues spiritual progression glory Moreover to desire they may be fortunate in riches honour credit good success in their affairs if such comforts may conduce to procure them beatitude IV. Never to despise never to judge rashly never to interpret other mens actions in an ill sense but to compassionate their infirmities bear their burdens excuse their weaknesses make up and consolidate the breaches of charitie happened by their fault to hate imperfections and ever to love men yea even your enemies Therein the touch-stone of true charitie is known The means to preserve one from his enemies is to pardon enemies said S. Augustine One Disce diligere inimicum si vis cavâ—re inimicum Aug. in Ps 99 of the goodlyest spectacles able to attract Angels to to the gates of heaven to behold it is neither Theaters Amphitheaters Pyramids nor Obelisks but a man who knoweth how to do well and hear ill and to vindicate himself from ill by doing well Cardinal Petrus Damianus relateth how he being a student at Faenza one told him of an Act of charitie happened as I believe in his time at the same place of which he made more account than of all the wonders of the world It was a man whose An excellent passage of charitie eyes another most trayterously had pulled out and this accident had confined him in a Monasterie where he lived a pure and unspotted life yielding all offices of charitie according
devotion you raise fortunes like a Colossus of glass which will shiver in pieces over your head After you have resigned this your conscience to God you owe to your self the government of your senses and use of reason and as it appears you are O men strictly bound in marriage the more to render your selves men since God placeth you therein to afford men to the Christian Common-wealth It is necessary you draw from the fountain of wisdom more wit and more light since you are to make use of it to enlighten a wife and children who depend on your direction As for the duty of both I find if marriage be a Lilly it must have six leaves which are Respect Love Loyalty Support Direction and Help It is fit love begin by a certain Regard which man and woman should bear one to another all the time of their life For the functions of this society permitting a great familiarity if it be not counterpoyzed with a chaste reverence soon degenerateth into contempt The wives Respect ought to pass even to obedience which the Apostle S. Paul so punctually recommendeth to Christians and the husbands should be mixed with a Mulier collateralis virâ— Gloss in Gen. tenderness and moderation to let him know God drew woman out of his side to make her his companion and not his slave It is good for the entertainment of this respect that both of them accustom to conceive a good opinion of each others abilities For where there is dis-esteem honour will hardly be found because it is tyed to worth as the shadow to the body For this purpose they must endeavour to cover the defects they may have by nature by other virtues in their power and to persevere in a belief of sufficiency in each ones condition To this respect the Love is added which should be rendred according to the precept of S. Paul in the matter of conjugal duty For it is an intollerable thing and wherein God may be grievously offended when a woman imagineth that to be married is nothing else but to have a Coach to her self to buy stuffs according to her own fantasie to become brave and have no regard to obligations essential amongst the married But we may truly affirm all love of sense is very low if it tend not to those eternal sources of amities which distil from the Paradise of God and learn to love by grace and reason that which is to be loved God to cement this love together drew woman out of man saith Tertullian as some part of Tertul. de resur carnis a liquor from the vessel which contained it He made two of one to put them both afterward into one It is to tear each others flesh and gnaw their bones to waste one another by discord the most capital plague of marriage Holy love is always accompanied with mutual loyalty in any thing which concerneth conjugal chastity as being the knot of affections and foundation of all the happiness of the married O wife a ring is given you of a circular form to teach your loves are limited within the nuptial bed The ring which heretofore bare the seal of promise to signifie your heart ought to be sealed with charity and closed up from all other pretensions Believe not those make-bates who tell you good is of its own nature communicable and that a fair wife is not for one alone that chastity is a note of deformity and that a husband and a friend are not things in compatible These are not words but hisses of the serpent Fear the least blemishes of honour and do not so much as cast an eye upon the smoke of this cole which now adays burneth so many unhappy souls Love not to be wooed and courted by so many eyes and lips nor to behold such worldly pleasures to become pliant to others or to attempt to afford love and receive none back again Out alas these sleight entertainments breed many acerbities They are enchanted apples which poison all who tast them Men likewise remember the best lessons of loyalty which your wife can learn she must derive from your example Think not because you are a man all things are permitted you and that your sex is a sanctuary for your crime If you be the head saith S. Augustine Caput ducat corpus sequatur August Serm. 49. move it that way whither you would have the body follow You are the more bound to conjugal chastity because you ought to be the most wise strong because you have the most employments to divert your temptations in the affairs of civil life and lastly because you have most liberty and may make your evil most general by disturbing many wedlocks as it happeneth to reprobate and inordinate souls in this kind I adde to loyalty mutual bearing with defects and imperfections which is a singular virtue in marriage For we being in this world as in a territory where good and evil easily mix together there is no plant which hath not its worm nor beauty which suffereth not diminution There are not any married couple so accomplished who have not vices defects and imperfections which who practice not to digest through Christian patience shall become not unlike a sea-calf said to be always moody against his fellow The husband and the wife are upon the river called Life in marriage as in a boat If there happen a leak and it receive water they must seek to stop it presently and if you have nothing to put into it rather set a foot upon it than pierce round about it to make the leak wider A word or indiscreet action hath escaped to what purpose is it to reproach or pick quarrels with a man or woman upon it on all occasions Rather use the speediest remedies you may and if none be at hand bury it in silence Finally know you enter into marriage for direction and assistance and though direction be principally proper to man notwithstanding it is a poor business to see a woman have neither care nor government in her family imagining she from morning till night should have no other employment but to dress her self and many times to be attired when divers think of unclothing to go to bed It is a shameful thing to prattle all the day long and make a whole city trot upon her tongue and yet be ignorant of what is done in her own house A virtuous wife should not onely govern her family but with wisdom and discretion temper her husbands passions and if such things escape him redress them rather by love than power If God heretofore caused a she-ass to speak to instruct a false Prophet why should he not at a need draw a good word from the mouth of a discreet woman to set man into a fair way Know we not that the last unhappiness of Pilate was not to have believed his wife much more enlightened by God than himself As for help it is so necessary that next after
the comfort of posterity marriage is constituted for that end It is not enough to assist a mortal body in its infirmities but so much as one may mutually to manure a soul immortal you must between you share all your prosperities and adversities I say prosperities to moderate them and adversities to honour them you must mutually strive to lend a shoulder and if your burdens be weighty by the yoke of necessity sanctifie them by your patience You must think it is a blessing even from God to be chosen out to preserve a husband or a sick wife since this infirm creature is the Image of God and your proper flesh to whom you render duties which perhaps at this time seem thorns unto you but shall one day be crowns if you know how to make virtues of your necessities Be not discouraged through pusillanimity but do like the Dolphin who raiseth himself with much alacrity against the sea-waves during the tempest Understand you not the Holocaust must burn from evening till morning Burn in this fire of love and tribulation expecting to see glory in the day-break to crown your perseverance Though God allot you no issue yet no whit the less love your comfort God oftentimes suffereth barrenness of body to afford fruitfulness of virtues The thirty seventh SECTION Instructions for Widdows PErfect widdows are in the Church as the horizon of Marriage and Religion they participate of both conditions when they be in the world for the example of the world for the government of their children and family but they also have a share in the life of the Religious when they wholly dispose their hearts to God We sometimes see a bank of earth which keepeth two seas from intermixing but being taken away those two waters will pass along together and engulf themselves one within another O how often said you during the knot of marriage that if God once took away your husband you would wholly be for him Conjugal obligation and affairs of the world was your bank and your obstacle but now God hath taken it away dissolve your heart into his This is the passage where you are expected Here it is where proof shall be made of your constancy When you have deplored the death of your husband as a wife you must learn to bear it like a Saint It is a wretched virtue not to know what else to do than bewail the dead and be desirous to derive glory from the peevishness of your sorrow If we could draw aside the curtain of Heaven to see the state of souls already passed out of mortal bodies to the promised recompence of the faithful how much we should be ashamed and confounded at the weakness of our tears we should see this great Eternity seated in a chair of diamond all sparkling with stars and brightness holding a flaming mirrour in its hand at which time it would let us behold a goodly harmony of all the beatitudes these glorious souls now enjoy separated from the contagion of our mortality then wiping away the tears from our eyes it would say to us with a voice replenished with sweetness and majesty Why bewail you these kinred and friends who live better than ever in my bosom absorpt in a torrent of eternal felicities An hundred and an hundred-fold happy are the dead who depart in the favour of God! Behold them for the time to come discharged from labours Behold them freed of a thousand and a thousand cares fears pains passions maladies wants ignominies and all those evils which divide our miserable life Behold them folded within the arms of the Sovereign where they reap the good works they sowed on earth You are much troubled O widdow that this your spouse is at this present of the houshold of God an inhabitant of his mansion and a possessour of his glory Have you so many tears to lament miseries that you waste them in felicities as if it were a great unhappiness to pass from the servitude of the slave of the world to the liberty and joy of the children of God This is admirably well expressed in the 21. Chapter of Exodus where God at the going forth of Aegypt shewed himself to Moses Aaron Nabal Abiud and all the most eminent of this Nation having saphires for his foot-stool which are stones of a celestial colour whereupon a learned Commentary drawn from the Hebrew Interpreters most divinely answereth that God would say unto them You have laboured in Aegypt with much patience about morter and tyles and behold all your tyles turned into saphires into heavenly stones to build of them the foot-stool of your glory This is it which the most Blessed Eternity saith to us concerning the dead whom we deplore It is not fit any longer to take pains with tyles and morter businesses cares troublesom affairs of the present life are past there is not any thing but repose peace glory and felicitie Behold that which comforteth all solid and generous souls with lively fruitful and eternal consolations Will you have a singular resignation in the death of your kinred which may daily happen and fall out of necessity Behold Saint Lewis when news was brought him of the death of his mother Queen Blauncb he soon perceived by the countenance of the messengers who were the Archbishop of Tyre and his Confessour they were ready to tell him somewhat able to afflict the heart of man before they could open their mouthes Let us go saith he into my Oratory for it was the magazin where this great King took up arms to combate against worldly disasters and when they came thither speak now what have you to say Sir God who had a long time lent you your mother for the good of your person and Kingdom hath taken her out of the world for her own repose At these words S. Lewis fell upon his knees before the Altar and lifting up his hands to heaven said O my God I give thee thanks thou â—â—st afforded me my dear mother whilest it was thy will and that now according to thy good pleasure thou hast taken her to thee It is true I loved her above all the creatures of the world and she well deserved it but since thou hast bereaved me of her thy Name be for ever blessed Conclude your tears as he did but never the resolution of your widdow-hood It were to be wished a good vow might fix it with a nail of adamant but that should be done with discretion for all in woman being frail her tears can have no constancy You may have read in the history of the unhappy Politician the sorrow of Glaphyra the wife of Alexander son of Herod whom his father most cruelly put to death to satisfie his chimaeraes and suspitions Never woman more passionately resented the death of her husband her lamentations were yellings her tears torrents her words furies her countenance despair and life a little hell There was no light to be seen after the eclipse of
sought her adding Behold what you love He seized with horrour hastened to hide himself in a Monastery where he remained the rest of his days to expiate his loves O incomparable patience I would go further but she stays me For what can I speak more having said this Is it not enough to shew chastity can do little of it self but that it dissolveth as incense on the burning coals of charity To give away the light of the day the sweetest of all creatures to give up her bloud drop after drop to give her torn eyes so to avoid a sin which faithless souls account but a sport Infinite many pusillanimous people justly chastised for their sins cannot endure the least sting but with complaint and murmur against God they burn but it is as lawrels crackling in the flames but this virgin in the sharpest rigours of a most sensible torment burnt sweetly couragiously silently O what a perfume of the living God is virginity If the smoke of the bodies of the damned and despairing Babylon perpetually mount to Heaven in a sacrifice of vengeance may we not affirm this delicious perfume of virginity will on the other side ascend as a sacrifice of honour whilest there is Religion and Altars men and Angels O women prodigal of a good irrecoverable Ah wretched maids Ah young witless women that give for a momentary delight a treasure for which the Church hath shed so much bloud Ah inexcusable treachery to give to a bold libertine what is taken from Jesus Christ Ah pusillanimity to yield at the first shock by delivering up a gift of God for which so many virgins have persisted under the teeth and paws of Lions under the sharp irons of tyrannical wheels in cauldrons of scalding hot oyl in the tearing out their eye-strings in dislocation of their bones and massacring their bodies yea even to the last breath of life Unhappy victim made a prey to dishonour what wilt thou answer to an Agnes a Tecla a Katharine a Lucie when they shall shew thee their palms their bloud and wounds more bright and radiant than the stars in the skie And what will they say behold what we have suffered for a virtue which thou hast so sleightly valued as to trample it under foot and through a strange prostitution hast thrown into their eyes who required it not O mothers breed your daughters piously and preserve them as pledges charily recommended unto you by Almighty God What a shame what an ignominie nay what a fury to behold maids now adays ill taught bold amongst men as souldiers wanton as leaping kids and impudent as Syrens who hath ever sequestred shamefac'dness from the soul that did not separate modesty from the bodie How can you account a gadding house-wife a dancing reveller an idle wanton to be modest since the strongest chastities have now adays much adoe to defend themselves from calumnie Snares are laid on every side as well upon the mountain as the valley There is not a stone whereon some scorpion sleepeth not Never was the lust of impudent men so enflamed and yet you dally without fear or danger Hearken to the advise of S. Hierom concerning the instruction of maids with which I will conclude this discourse Let a maid who ought to be the Temple of God be so Hierom. ad Laetam instructed that she neither hear nor speak any thing which tendeth not to the fear of God Let not impure speeches approch her ears Let her be ignorant of worldly pleasures Let her tongue in her tender years be seasoned with the praises of Jesus Christ Let her banish young men from her company who have any loose fashion in their behaviour and let the maids themselves who come amongst them be alienated from worldly commerce least having been ill disciples of sensuality they thereby become the worse Mistresses If she also learn to read let her letters be made of box or ivory and be all called by their names that so they may be a recreation for her eyes to serve as instruments for her instruction Let her in good time practice to write and let her tender hand be guided on the paper to trace the letters which are shewed her Let her have some reward for doing well for in this her minority these sleight ornaments prove to be an allurement to virtue Let her have companions for emulation and entertain a generous envie against their praise Let her not be chidden if she be of a heavie spirit but encouraged by the help of commendation Let her take delight to overcome and be as loth to be vanquished Heed must be taken she hate not studie and travel lest the bitterness she may conceive in her infancy spread beyond her most innocent years Let the first letters she begins to call compose some holy names to prepare her memory to piety Let her have a governess grave and modest Let her entertain her companions with serenity of countenance Let her become affable and amiable to all the world Accustom her not to wear pendants in her ears to paint to load her neck and head with pearls Change not the colour of her hair by art nor frizle or crisp her with fire and irons lest it prove a prediction of infernal flames Take heed she be not touched with the hammer which now adays strikes all the world to wit Vanity Let her not drink in the cup of Babylon which is Impurity beware she go not forth with Dinah to see how the maids of the countrey are attired Let her not be a dancer nor gawdy in apparel Poyson is not given but by rubbing the goblet with honey nor doth vice deceive us but under colour and pretext of virtue Above all let her see nothing either in father or mother the imitation whereof may make her guilty Let her be disposed to the reading of good books and never appear in publick without the advise of her mother Let her not entertain some spruce young Amourist to cast wanton glances nor let her bear particular affection towards any of her servants who may whisper in her ear but cause them to speak aloud that all the rest may hear Let her orderly every day offer her devotion to God be very sober in her deportement and delighted with works worthy of her condition Let her be most obedient nor ever so hardy as to see any or undertake ought without their leave who govern her Doing this she shall save her soul and edifie all the world To Fathers and Mothers The thirty ninth SECTION Concerning the education and instruction of their children O What a goodly chain of gold is Charitie which with its many lincks enchaineth the world The more closely it shutteth the more strength it affordeth The more it tieth our hearts the more it fasteneth our felicities The first liberty of a reasonable creature is the thraldom of an honest love wherein fathers and mothers have a great part for their union floweth from the bowels of
nature and none can falsifie it who violate not the first laws of the world The father loves the son as a portion cut from himself naturally the son loves the father and so often as he wandereth from this love he is like a fish out of the water This was the conceit which S. Ambrose had upon the passage of Genesis Let the Producant aquae reptile Genes 1. Quam bona mater sis aquae hinc considera ô homo docuisti altercationes parentum in filios separationes odia offen sam disce ergò ab aquâ quae sit parentum filiorum necessitudo Genes 9. Maledictus Chanaan servus servorum erit waters bring forth fish Let the good mother be the water and good children the fish saith he God once commanded the water to bring forth forth fish and instantly it obeyed and ever since for almost these six thousand years that the world wheels about the water feedeth its fishes without murmur and the fish never go out of the water but by constraint O man who hast taught divisions between father and son mother and daughter thou shouldst be ashamed Entreat the water to teach thee and the fish to shew thee thy lesson It is a strange thing the Patriarch Noe justly provoked against an unnatural son who had revealed the nakedness of his father shooteth the arrow of malediction not against the head of the guilty son but his children He cursed not Cham but Canaan and if you ask why Theodoret upon Genesis answereth Noe would not curse him whom God once had blessed For this had been to take off the seal of the Sovereign Master and raze his edicts but S. Ambrose says very pertinently that Noe the more to punish his evil son cursed him in his race as if the wounds which fathers receive in the affliction of their children were more sensible to them than their proper and personal hurts Take away the beam from the Sun and he shines not the stream from the fountain it drieth up the member from the body it putrifies the son from the father and he no longer is a son This admitted and resolved we draw a necessary consequence from the reciprocal love between two and since we must hereafter speak of the duty of sons towards their parents let us now pursue the course begun and mention the duty of parents towards their children One would not at first perhaps believe what I say but it is most undoubted Parents are in some sort more obliged to their children than children to parents For who is more bound than he who by justice both divine and humane oweth most Now what owe children to their parents The life they received which they cannot render again and therefore are not bound to it Well may they owe the honour which falls upon themselves well the helps and services in case of necessity But the father so soon as the infant hath set foot into being is very straightly obliged to provide him two things nourishment and instruction according to capacity These are the two heads of this discourse wherein I purpose to shew O fathers and mothers that you commit a great sin when you abandon your children to become a prey of misery ignorance and iniquity The reasons are evident For first you sin against the grand Law of nature written by God with a stile of fire not onely on the hearts of all living creatures but even on plants which is to cherish what they have produced Grapes hang on the vine fruits on the tree and take with time their just encrease from the juice and substance of the wood which brings them forth The lamb knows his damme among a thousand to suck her and asks the tribute of nature Eagles bear their young on their backs Serpents throw themselves many times into boyling cauldrons to save their egs The Pelican as the report is lets her self bloud to make a bath of it for her brood And you in this vessel of the vast world wherein all creatures row alike in this point according to the course of nature would you be an unprofitable burden Deserve not you to be banished from all the parts of the earth and not to enjoy any thing but fire or nothing to settle on since the one is barren and the other devoureth all Secondly see you not that neglecting your children you do like an adulterer not a father For what seeks the adulterer posterity No To afford a child to the world servant to God a Citizen to the Common-wealth No To have a creature who may serve for the exercise of his charity to be an object of his providence and an encouragement for his diligence No what pretends he then loathsom and lewd lust And what do you else when after consummation of marriage and the birth of a son you carelesly leave him without providing for his necessities Besides if as saith Tertullian it is to be a homicide anti-dated Homiâ—idii festinatio est prâ—hibere nasâ—i Tertul. in Apol. to hinder the generation of a man what will it then be when he is already born and registred amongst mortals through remisness and sloth to suffer him to die with hunger cold thirst and misery When wrinkles and grisly hairs shall seize on your forehead when old age shall bow your back and necessity cast you into calamity with what face dare you crave help from that son or daughter whom you all the time of their life have neglected Were it not well all creatures made complaint over your ashes This man will perhaps answer As for my part Gods name be praised I have had a care of my children They want nothing necessary for sustentation of life Is it enough to give them necessaries But how do you give them without love and void of charity as a stony loaf given and taken by constraint Fathers and mothers it is a strange thing to Partiality of parents see your odde proceedings One loves the male another the female One the girles another the boyes One this because he is nosed like himself the other that because she hath her eyes gate and speech The father takes his Idol to his side the mother hers and in one and the same house set up Altar against Altar If you strike my little Deity I wil not spare yours If you bring not incense to mine I will overthrow yours Childish and ridiculous people to cast affection on children through sensuality passion and fury perpetually to fall out about children to let them suck discord with their milk from the example of those who begot them what is it else but early to put a sword into the hand of these little creatures but to tear one another and to cherish factions and partialities before their eyes be open to understand them Let them look to it who govern in such manner saith the other as for my self I take no other care than to breed my children well and regard them all alike What
both in the water of tears and in the boiling furnace of afflictions O the providence of God! That is true which the Scripture saith Your ways are now in the abyss and your pathes on the waters Who could discover such tracks whilest this most chaste and innocent Queen amidst the dark obscurity of a prison daily drowneth one part of her life in tears Herod who was now embarqued all bloudy with Arrival of Herod at Rhodes massacre committed on the person of Hircanus found the sea winds men and all his affairs successfull This Proteus who made his wit comply with all accidents seeing he could not conceal the service which he had done for Mark Anthony ever playing the dog sleeping under the feet of his fortune resolved to colour and cloak them with the mantle of virtue He knew Augustus was a Prince born to goodness generous just and that he endeavoured to make faithfull servants in this change of affairs which he began to undertake he deceives him under the shadow of virtue with the colour of constancy and pretext of fidelity Behold he presenteth himself to the Emperour and speaks in these terms O Great Augustus behold here my person and crown His speech to Augustus at your feet It is good reason that all depend upon your Greatness since God is pleased to put the Empire of this Universe into your hands For mine own part I cannot deny what I have been no more than I will dissemble what I ought to be and what I will be I have hitherto been a great friend of Mark Anthony It is true and had he believed me as he hath done Cleopatra his Mistress you Caesar had felt bow far I was your enemy and he how much I was his friend But this miserable Prince cozened by this creature took money of me and counsel of her to destroy in so doing his fortune and raise yours upon his own ruins I have followed him even to the brink of the grave and not fallen therein since my death could nothing advance his service He is in that state and condition wherein I am able to render him nought but tears To you O Caesar are due the services which I tender with much heartiness if you shall please to accept them on this condition that you enforce me not either to hear or speak evil of my old master whom being no longer able to serve I notwithstanding ought after death to love Augustus took pleasure in this liberty and thought this man was made of the wood whereof good servitours are composed not seeing the subtility of the fox who measured all according to his own interests He then taketh the crown which Herod had laid at his feet and set it on his head saying I desire you may live peaceably in your Territory onely be faithfull to me as you have been to Mark Anthony Herod after this so favourable access ceased not to put himself forward into the grace of Augustus by seeking out all occasions to procure it and namely in the voyage the Emperour made into Aegypt wherein he perpetually attended him and performed many singular offices This business so prosperously dispatched he triumphantly returneth into the Citie of Jerusalem to the amazement of the whole world Here it is that the virtuous Mariamne endeth her Accusation and pitifull death of Mariamne career to serve as a sacrifice in the lamentable triumphs of her husband Let us behold how this bright flame is extinguished we shall from thence expect no evil odour the good vapours of her life will wait upon her even to death So soon as Herod was arrived in his capital Citie he hasteneth to salute the Queen his wife whom he had already caused to be set liberty being secure of his affairs and was the first brought her the news of his happy success in this voyage He was so puffed up Sottish love with his prosperities that he could not contain himself and the love of so amiable an object which he then beheld in his presence after so many dangers did so unloosen his tongue in excess of vaunts and and superfluity of words thinking he made himself very acceptable with such impertinencies Mariamne much perplexed to hear him and being free and generous in all her actions shewed not to take much pleasure in these his idle boastings which passion likewise made to appear somewhat childish He thinking at the first this was nothing but a trifling humour of melancholy which would quickly vanish into smoke flattered her the more with words playing the wanton beyond his custom Upon these dalliances the poor Ladie sighed often remembring herself of the secret commandment very lately given to Sohemus He well saw by this her countenance she was not content and beginneth to enter into suspition that Sohemus had used the like intemperance of tongue as Joseph He at that time knew not what face to set upon it so much was he turmoyled love anger jealousie suspition drew him with four horses He could not be angry as he would nor knew how to love what he affected This proud spirit unacquainted how to bow under any one but to deceive him was ashamed to behold himself dis-armed and to become a counterfeit in amorous courtships not so usual to his nature He then seeing this mommery succeeded not was the more afflicted and thought it was time to brandish his sword But love proved of more force than anger and withheld the stroke He retired shaking his head and muttering I know not what between his teeth as cursing love which made him mercifull in despite of his own disposition Out alas Can one find out a more spitefull hatred than in women against women when jealousie hath laid hold of their brain Cypre an Arabian by nation mother of Herod and Salome his sister seeing him so passionate ceased not to blow the cole with their tongues and enkindle him with many calumnies which the Tyrant partly believed yet could not suddenly resolve to give the blow He was long time debating with himself without power to conclude any thing In the end an unhappy day comes in which about noon being retired into his chamber he sendeth for Mariamne who instantly came thither but conjugal rites being required of her she stuck in the refusal saying The law of nature forbad her to company with a man who had murdered her father and brother speaking of her father Alexander who by the pursuit of Herod had been oppressed by the Romans and of her brother Aristobulus so cruelly smothered Here Josephus the Historian after he had highly praised Mariamne as a most chaste Queen and truly endowed with an admirable faith for such are his words taxeth her with a little disdain which was as he said engrafted in her nature for that she rejected the dalliances of her husband But he that will well consider how Herod had used her nearest of kin most unworthily massacring them and how holding the scepter from her
her innocency and at that time the flames of his chaste love began to burn more forcible than ever He loved her with a love mingled with respect of her merit and compassion of persecuted innocency He was pleased to have her spoken of in private and hear the life described she led in this new world Chrysaphius perceiving him to take fire in good earnest followed his opportunity according to promise and one day seeing the Emperour well disposed adventured to say SACRED MAjESTY How long will you deprive us of this Saint Must needs the deserts of Palestine so long time possess her to our prejudice It is a wonder your Palace hath not been able to endure a Virtue which maketh it self to be seen heard and adored in the savage wildernesses The poor Ladie hath well paid for a little sudden surprizal of speech Know besides she never hath failed in fidelity to your bed and hereon I would swear upon the holy Evangelists and expose my hand to the fire But God hath already sufficiently declared it by the sequel of her deportments What is done is done we cannot restore life to the dead but we ought to yield honour to the living which hath unjustly been taken from them It is an obligation of conscience Who hindereth we cannot suddenly see her by your sides Theodosius answereth It would be my desire but thou seest the impediment I fear my sister will not like it Chrysaphius replieth Truly my Ladie your Sister ought to be satisfied with the absolute command your Majesty giveth her in all the affairs of your Kingdom without attempting on the contentments of your marriage or the honour of this good Princess whose faults she should rather cover with her royal purple if any such had escaped her but of necessity she ought to honour her merits Let me alone and I will give her satisfaction Theodosius giveth him absolute Commission and thereupon as it is most probable he adviseth the Empress to return to Constantinople with small noise and much haste and so plotteth that the Emperour under colour of going a hunting saw her spake to her treateth with her of her return which presently was published and all the Citie which passionately affected her ushered her in Behold her arrived as if she had flown in the air and received with much honour and magnificence into the Palace Pulcheria amazed at this accident setteth a good face upon it entertaineth her with strict embraces congratulateth her pilgrimage speaketh to her of nothing but of Monasteries Crosses Reliques In the mean time very closely sheweth she did not well like him who had contrived this Chrysaphius imagining Chrysaphius an heretical Eunuch projecteth to ruin Theodosius his Couâ—â— he had to do with an Imperious Maid seasoned from her youth in government who never would forgive him this fault resolveth to play at fast and loose thinking he had credit enough to do this by the means of Eudoxia For the love which Theodosius bare to her upon her return was a torrent which after it hath a long time been restrained breaketh the forced dammes and with vigorous impetuousness drowneth the fields He was so ardent and passionate that he seemed unable to deny her any thing This was the cause why Chrysaphius whose name is as much as to say a seamster of gold having already made a seam of his trade stitched another together more strong than the former He boardeth the Emperour under the wings of Eudoxia in the heat of his affections most ardent Both joyning to make the battery more forcible declare to him That MADAME his Sister daily desired to gain repose as she had often said and that it was a thing lawfully due for the long services she had yielded to the Crown That it was a wonder how she having dedicated herself to the Church by the vow of virginitie could persevere so long in Court That hereafter Theodosius had one who held with him the first place in all favours on whom be might repose himself and was thereunto obliged by reason which was his wife That the spirit of Pulcheria was not suitable to the humour of Eudoxia when one star riseth the opposite must fall Theodosius apprehended this business as the most slippery path he had ever trod but what cannot love and the soft inticements of a woman do Wearied out with ceaseless importunities he yieldeth he sendeth for Flavian the Patriarch and intreateth him to put his sister Pulcheria in the rank of virgins who are dedicated to the service of the Church were she willing or unwilling Flavian much amazed at this manner of proceeding telleth him he should take good heed of this resolution that he undertook one of the greatest passages of State he had ever done in his life and that the danger thereof was much to be feared The Emperour replieth he hath well pondered it that such was his will and he must speedily see it executed The Patriarch Pulcheria being exceedingly affected by all the Clergy adviseth her to withdraw without further resistance otherwise he should be forced to do that which would much trouble him The good Ladie understood well Virtue of Pulcheria what he would say she had already smelt the plot and was unwilling to do any thing unworthy of her virtue for seeing her fortune altered by the change of the Emperour her brothers will she freely dispoyled herself of the manage of affairs as from a shirt which one hath long worn and retiring from the Palace went to lodge in a house somewhat distant from Constantinople where she lived in marvellous sanctity Virtue is as the Geometrical Cube on what side soever it be cast it always findeth its basis Behold then a new face of government which beginneth Chrysaphius entangleth the Emperour and his wife in the heresie of Eutyches under Chrysaphius and Eudoxia But the mischief was an old dotard called Eutyches came into the field to sow an heresie holding the body of our Lord after the union with the Word was no more of the same nature that ours are but that the humanity was wholly dissolved into the Divinity The hypocrite so covered his opinion that he shewed not to teach this doctrine but for the reverence he bare to the Son of God This became a stumbling-block to many good souls As he advanced this proposition the Bishops opposed to suppress it and he for a shelter cast himself into the arms of Chrysaphius who not contented to embrace this business with all fervour embarketh likewise therein the Emperour Theodosius and Eudoxia his wife first through great simplicity afterward by a strange unhappiness which almost brought them to destruction if the Divine goodness had not otherwise disposed Theodosius the holy and pious Emperour persecuted the Religious and Saints He wrote to Pope Leo in favour of Eutyches he caused false Councels to be held and covered the seditious under the protection of his arms even to the authorizing the attempt committed on
to declare him Successour in his Empire Pulcheria married him onely under the title of wedlock with mutual consent of both parties to keep virginity This woman was made to govern men and Empires She was already fifty years old and had mannaged the State about thirty seven Behold she beginneth a new reign with the best man of the world who onely had the name of a husband and in effect served and respected her with as much regard and humility as if he had been her own son She could not in the world have made a better choice This great man was naturally enclined to piety justice compassion towards the necessities of mankind He was very valiant for he Marvellous accident of Martianâ—s had all his life time been bred among arms and during his Empire no barbarous Nation durst stir so much was he feared It was a wonder by what byass God led him directly to the height of worldly honours He was of base extraction a Thracian born of a good wit and a body very robustious which made him find a sweetness in war He going to Philippolis to be enrolled in the list of souldiers by chance it happened he found a dead body upon the way newly massacred This good man who was very compassionate had pitie thereon and approched to give it burial but this charity was like to have cost him his life for being busily employed to enterre this body one laid hold on his throat as if he had been the murderer and that he made this grave for no other intention but to bury his own guilt The poor man defendeth himself in his innocency as well as he could but conjectures prevail beyond his defence He was now under the sword of the executioner when by good hap the homicide was produced who had done the deed convicted by his own confession This man thrust his head into the place of the innocent and Martianus brought his away to behold it one day glitter under the rubies and diamonds of the Imperial Crown This was not without long trials of his ability which transferred him from degree to degree through all the hazards of a long and painfull warfare He was then mature in years in account one of the greatest Captains of the Empire Behold why Pulcheria could not be deceived in her choice This good husband who held his wife as a Saint was wholly directed by her counsels and she daily purified his soul in religion and policie He became in short time so brave and perfect in this school that he was accounted one of the most accomplished Emperours who had born the scepter since Constantine God well shewed his Good success of Martianus love and faithfull protection towards Martianus when in the second year of his Empire he diverted the furious Attila from the East who even now roared over the Citie of Constantinople as a thunder-stroke before it brake in shivers This Attila was a Scythian a great Captain who promised to himself the Empire of the world and for that cause had taken the field with an Army of 700000. men composed of strange and hydeous Nations who had gone out of their countrey like a scum of the earth ranging themselves under the conduct of Attila for the great experience he had in the mannage of arms He notwithstanding was a little man harsh violent his breast large his head great the eye of a Pismeer his nose flat his beard close shaved beginning already to wax grisled He walked with so much state as if he thought the earth had been unworthy to bear him and â—â—ough meerly barbarous the desire of honour so possessed him that being one day at Milan and seeing pictures where the Roman Emperours were represented who had Scythians his Countrey-men cast at their feet was so enraged that instantly he sent for a painter and caused himself to be drawn in a very eminent golden throne and clothed in royal robes and the Emperours of Rome and Constantinople bearing bags on their shoulders filled with crowns then made them to be poured at his feet alluding hereby to the vast sums of money he in good earnest extorted from the Empire and which Theodosius gave him afterwards to divert the course of his arms thinking that speedily to dispatch such an enemy out of his territories it was onely fit to make for him a bridge of silver This man seemed created to shake the pillars of the earth and for that cause made himself to be called The scourge of God There was no infant so little in the arms of the nurse who hearing Attilas named did not think he saw a wolf He considering that Martianus a most valiant man at that time swayed the Eastern Empire durst not come near but hastened to fall upon the West where Valentinian the Younger reigned son of Honorius cousin of Theodosius and Pulcheria a wanton and dissolute Prince as you shall understand in the course of this history loosing his life and Empire by his sensuality So it was that Attila attempting first upon the Gaules found work enough for the Romanes French and Gothes not unlike dogs who after they have worried one another rally themselves together to resist the wolf by a common consent heartened each other under the conduct of Aetius Moroneus and Thyerry against this Barbarian and having given him battel defeated one part of his army in the Catalonian plains but he failed not to pack a way creeping along like a great serpent which loaden with redoubled blows given by peasants hath received a maim in his body and notwithstanding saved his head God who derideth the proud and in his Amphitheater is pleased to make not Lions to fight with bulls but the weakness of the earth against the most insolent greatness reserved the conquest of this monster to Religious persons and women It is a wonder he coming to Rome as to the period and butt of his ambitions all enflamed with great desires in this clattering of harness and loud noise of Armies all the world trembling under the scourge the brave Pope S. Leo went out to seek him and preached so well unto him that being come thither as a lion he returned as a lamb for Attila entertained him with marvellous respect So had he done before to S. Lupus Bishop of Troyes granting him whatsoever he could desire All his Captains were much amazed for among other titles this Hun had the name of being inexorable to suppliants and it then being curiously asked of him who made him at that time loose his furie he confessed he saw a venerable person by Leo's side it was the great Saint Peter who threatned him with death if he condescended not to what the good Pope desired of him Attila then leaveth Italie and passeth into Sclavonia without being wished for again but by one sole woman Alas who would believe it Honoria sister of the Emperour cousin germane to Pulcheria fell in love with this monster I know not what
would he not die for fear the part of his friend which yet lived in himself might perish All this well declared he had great dispositions to love and that to what side soever his affections tended they never would be with mediocrity It seemed now all things conspired against him to kindle a coal in his veins which the revolution of many years could not extinguish First as nothing is more dangerous to foment this passion than ill example he lived in a place as contagious for chastity as the North wind for plants Saluianus a great Writer speaking Salvian l. 7. de gubernat Tam novum est impudicum non esse Afrum quâ—m Afrum non esse Afrum of Africk which bred S. Augustine saith It was the Country of loves and that it was as strange a man should be an African without being an African as to be an African and not lascivious Secondly these dangers so frequent which seemed to require much retention found liberty enongh in the house for the tears of the blessed S. Monica were not as yet sufficient to stay the course of insolent youth since the father little cared for that he having one day beheld his son in the baths spake some free words which served rather as a spur for sensuality than a motive to continency In the third place as the eye must be open to direct occasions so he therein used so little study that having a soul as it were of sulphure so much was it disposed to take fire he hastened to throw himself into the midst of flames He haunted the company of Libertines who are the most dangerous enemies to chastity and being of a humour very gentile and pleasing gave love and reciprocally received and although he had none needs must he counterfeit When he came to Carthage about the sixteenth year of his age there was not a street where love spread not his nets He as yet knew not well what it was to love and yet desired to be beloved and grew weary of living in innocency He hated his liberty and sought a hand which captived him He went to Theaters there to behold loves represented where he servently was enamoured of the passions of imaginary lovers yea his very eyes hunted in the Church after objects of concupiscence by glances too too dissolute for which he confessed to have been very particularly chastised by the hand of God since he mingled the sanctity of the place with the enterainment of the profane actions This ulcered soul threw it-self out of its compass and took wind and fire on every side It seemed to him he must excel in vice as well as in science He made himself more vicious than he was to appear more gentile in the eyes of evil men and there remained for him nothing more as it were in this point but one shame not to have been sufficiently impudent In the end he fell into the snares he desired and was involved in admirable labyrinths where ever the end of one love was the beginning of another This life so carnal was a perpetual hinderance to the visitations of God For as Platonists say stars cannot exercise their virtue on the sphere of fire So all the light of good counsel had no force in the flames of such a passion His spirit was depraved by sensuality allured by the bait of worldly beauties and darkned with the obscurity of his blindness in such sort that the light of the spirit of God in him found no place If there be a vice in the world which tyeth the soul to flesh and makes it stupid to the feeling of God it is this foul sin and although it be not wholly incompatible with science yet never accorded in the wisdom of heaven which is more conversant in the tast of heavenly things than in knowledge The seventh SECTION Dispositions towards the conversion of Saint Augustine BEhold the principal impediments of the conversion of S. Augustine but God who insensibly wove this work and draws good even from the evil of his elect caused him to use the remedy of the scorpion that stung him For as he pursuing his ordinary curiosity plunged more and more into solid sciences he began by little and little to distast the doctrine of the Manichees finding it very strange that a man should make all kind of dreams and sottishness to pass for verities under the false seal of the holy Ghost Those of his faction who saw him waver oft lent their helping hands too weak to support him and knowing their own inability promised quickly to cause the prime man of their Sect to come from Carthage who should disengage his mind from so many doubts and afford him ample satisfaction They failed not in their promise for in few Faustus and his qualities Pretiosorum poculorum decentissimus ministrator Conf. 5. 6. days the false Bishop Faustus arrived who was as the sword and buckler of the Manichees He was a man of a fair presence had charms in his tongue and many attractives in his conversation able to ensnare the most subtile wits He instantly set himself to frame some studied discourses upon the maxims of his superstition which were heard with great applause by the whole faction For indeed he was an Eagle among Parrets These men supposing that Augustine was fully setled in all their apprehensions and approbations asked him what he thought of the Bishop Faustus and whether he were not an incomparable man He very coldly answered he was eloquent and throughly able to tickle an ear but his malady daily encreasing could not be cured by a man who perpetually speaketh and shuffles up the matter and threfore besides his goodly sermons there was need of a particular conference where he might fully discharge his mind Faustus endowed with a natural curtesie thinking he had to do with a young spirit whom he with words would amuse accepts the disputation where instead of finding a crane he encountred an eagle who handled him roughly from the beginning of the battel This man made him presently appear to be of base gold and that this tallent was no other than that he was an indifferent Grammarian had read some orations of Tully the memory whereof were very fresh in him some epistles also of Seneca with a mixture of poesy but in the books of his own Sect he had very little knowledge All that which made him esteemed in publick consisted in a grace of language which proceeding from a fair body was exposed with the more exteriour pomp Behold that which now throughout the world authorizeth an infinite number of men who are in the opinion of ignorant or the indifferently knowing as flying fires in the air When Augustine put him upon the solstices equinoctials eclypses the course and motion of stars wherewith the books of Manes are replenished this man then found himself in a new world but yet was wily for he was not as the sottish Manichees who promising evidence upon this
when he had drunk gave the cup to his Deacon as esteeming him the most worthy person of the feast next himself Maximus who infinitely seemed to be pleased therewith although he inwardly felt himself gauled with this liberty did so outwardly dissemble it that he caused S. Martin to be applauded through all his Court protesting that none but â—e was worthy the title of a Bishop and that he had done at the table of an Emperour what the other Bishops would never have acted in the house of a mean Judge On the other side the wife of Maximus who already possessed the title of Empress made her self a Magdalen at the feet of Saint Martin and although never woman touched this chaste creature he suffered her to exercise all sort of ceremonies towards him undergoing a thousand troubles to rid himself of her importunities This seemed not strange in the age of threescore and ten and in the reputation of sanctity wherewith he had filled the world that a woman should kiss his feet but it was a thing very unusual to behold a Princess humbled in the dust of the earth to perform this office She regarded neither purple diadem quality nor Empire she had no eyes but for S. Martin being blind to the rest of the world After this first banquet Maximus and the Ladie went to the Saint and besought him again to take a bad dinner which the Empress would in private prepare for him with her own hands and although he in the beginning refused it was impossible for him to escape from these Saint-like invitations For these are snares which catch eagles as well as sparrows Needs would the Queen do all offices in this second feast She played the cook dressed the dining-room laid the cloth gave to the holy man water for his hands was his cup-bearer and waited on him all the time of his meal standing bolt upright as a servant with her mind intentive on her office Dinner being ended she did eat the scraps and remainder of the table which she preferred before all the Imperial delicacies Verily we may say women are violent in their affections and when once they go the right way their virtues have no mean I will not seek to penetrate the Ladies intentions which I suppose were very good but considering the proceedings of Maximus there is great cause to think he endeavoured by his infinite courtship to charm the nature of Saint Martin which to him seemed somewhat harsh Yet the great man endowed with the spirit of prophesie freely told all which should befal him Behold some part of the disposition of Maximus which I was willing to present on paper that it might appear of what condition they ordinarily are who bear arms against the obedience due to Kings who are the lively images of God The Tyrant began a revolt in England and from that time determined to establish the Citie of Trier in Germanie as the seat of his Empire and thence to raise a pair of wings to flie above the clouds which were Italie and Spain He chose for his Constable a man very consonant to his humour and of great resolution who caused himself to be called the Good man the better to colour the wickedness of his Master With this bad Councellour he endeavoured to stir up the souldiers and on every side drew the warlick troups to his party The good Emperour Gratian speedily armeth to stiffle tyranny in the birth thereof and in person goeth to encounter his adversary He had then very freshly drawn good souldiers from the Kingdom of Hungarie to his assistance of whom he made much account Others seeing that he much esteemed of them were stung with jealousie and grew cold in their Masters behalf The poor Prince being on the point to wage battel found himself carelesly and traiterously abandoned by his legions who daily stole away to increase the Army and strength of Maximus This black and hydeous treason much amazed the Emperour who complained as the Eagle in the Emblem that his own feathers gave him the storke of death seeing his souldiers who should have born him on their wings delivered him to his enemy through a neglect which shall make the Roman history to blush eternally So that seeing there was no safety for his person he sought to regain Italie as soon as possible accompanied onely with a full troup of horse consisting of about three hundred men Maximus well discovered that he would at any price whatsoever have the bloudy spoil of his Master For he charged this Good man to pursue him with all violence and not to desist till the prey were in his clutches which he did taking horses with him who ran like a tempest and could well endure any tedious travel In the end he met with the Emperour at Lyons and fearing he might escape bethought himself of a mischievous stratagem For he secretly caused the Emperour to be enformed the Empress his wife was in danger of her person if he stayed not some while to expect her because she was resolved to follow him thinking no place capable of safety or consolation where her husband was not This false report much softened the heart of Gratian who was as good a husband as an Emperour he therefore resolved to hasten to the Empress though not without evident danger of his life There is an unspeakable power in the love of neighbours which is the cause that birds and fishes are oft-times voluntarily caught with twigs and nets not fearing to put their life in danger where they see some part of themselves to be This Prince who in the extreamest disasters of his fortune was full of courage and flew every where like a flash of lightening to give order to his affairs at the news that the Empress was on her way to follow him was much terrified nor was Pitifull death of the Emperour Gratian. there an object of peril which he framed not in his thoughts Moments seemed days unto him and days as Ages A thousand santasies of affrightment summoned his heart in his solitude There was no living for him if he beheld not his dearest love in his arms She was a Princess of much merit daughter of the Emperour Constantius born after the death of her father whom Gratian faithfully loved though he as yet had no issue by her The Tyrant understanding his game succeeded to Socrat. lib. 5. cap. 11. Zozom lib. 7. cap. 13. his wish made a litter to pass along much like to that of the Empress and disposed his ambushes round about in the way The Emperour perceiving it afar off and supposing his wife Constantia was in it spurs his horse and flyeth with those wings which love and joy gave him being at that time followed by few of his people The murderers assailed and massacred him but he still shewing the courage of a Lion bare himself bravely amongst swords and halbards leaving the mark of his hand all bloudy on a wall as S. Hierom
it were a prime virtue of your profession Believe me it is the worm which gnaweth all great actions the moth which eateth all the vigour of spirit the stain which defileth al the fairest ornaments of life the labyrinth which hindereth all generous designs the rock which wracketh all vessels the gulf which devoureth bodies and souls The wise Secretaries of nature have observed that Divers kinds of love all creatures which have the breath of fire have the tayl of a Dragon Nor likewise do we ever see carnal love vehemently enflamed but that it produceth some serpentine hydeous and disasterous issue I affirm fire penetrateth into the marrow of the total nature of the Universe but hath effects very different according to the subjects wherein it resideth It otherwise scorcheth in Heaven otherwise in hell otherwise in the bodies of beasts otherwise in sulphur and gun-powder and such like bodies able to receive its action It filleth the stars in Heaven with a flame full of lustre and honour It tormenteth the damned in hell it entertaineth the life of creatures it wasteth all bodies drie or oily to reduce them either into ashes or smoak Take my comparison and say with me there are lovers who burn as Heaven others as hell others as bodies well composed others as oyl and wood The first lovers have the ardours of Heaven who entertain chaste and spiritual love for things Divine These are pleasures which the jealous eye cannot espie the slanderous tongue cannot bite bad report is not accustomed to defame which equals have no cause to envie nor can Tyrants armed with horrour of so many torments find the means how to take it from Martyrs When we love God we find him every where we speak to him every where we serve him every where and every where we feel the services done to him have their recompence We talk to him as well in the whales belly as in the flaming furnace witness Jonas and the three children who found Chappels wholly built in the entrails of fishes and flames because the love of God the wisest architect of the world had framed such for them The second lovers burn as hell who live perpetually in stinking wicked and infamous concupiscences in dark extraordinary and desperate passions who are in sensuality as in an abyss fettered with a long chain of servitude never having any part of the air or light of the children of God The third are as bodies mixed who entertain conjugal honest and moderate amities such as are found in good marriages which are used according to God in all honour and sanctity Those of the fourth order enkindle one another as so many little bodies that daily minister fuel to the fire wasting spirit flesh and means in certain frivolous and giddly loves which after much use make men of vapour ashes and smoak You now adays shal find that affections purely conjugal are very rare and celestial loves much more but every where there are many men who burn like hell or pitch There are four sorts of love which have been great Four sorts of love enemies and still are to the reputation of a good souldier the one is the love of sensuality the other of fantasie the third of servitude and the fourth of fury On what side soever you turn your face assure your self Sir you shall find nothing beautifull in this ugly beast Love of sensuality which subsisteth onely in voluptousness Love of sensuality of body is a bruitish base and wandering love which is ever employed to spie out and trade for flesh having no other design but to satiate an unworthy concupiscence more unsatisfied than fire the abyss and hell If nature had created you some Mustapha to grow fat in a Seraglio that you had never heard speech of good or honour it were tollerable but to see a brave souldier well born and bred up to pass his life in laying snares for chastity to search out of both sexes such as make traffick of the sins of others to train up a wicked servant to be the messenger of your passions to promise swear forswear to seduce poor forsaken maids to cast them from necessity into disgrace and from disgrace into despair how can it be but abominable Think you the earth is made to be replenished with your sins and charities to be instituted to support your crimes It is idleness that serves as a store-house for your passions and it is your remisness which doth not so much as vouchsafe to seek out a remedy If you be resolved to lead such a life give up your sword for you dishonour it It is no reason that it alone should retain the virginity which all your other members have lost You cannot well serve two mistresses Venus and Bellona since they are so different And go not about to propose to your self that Sampson David and Caesar made them well accord together believe me when they came to be lascivious they ceased to be valiant It was neither with the looking-glass nor comb of Dalila that Sampson slew a thousand Philistines but with the jaw-bone of an Ass Whilest he preserved himself from women he was a sun and a thunder-blot a sun to enlighten his Nation a thunder-bolt to destroy the Philistines So soon as a woman had shaved him he of a sun became a coal of a thunder-bolt a vapour and of a man a lame jade who from the field of battel was sent to mill no longer having eyes but to deplore the disaster of his loves with tears of bloud When David in the list overthrew the Giant he had not then received the wound from Bath-sheba's eye But after he had seen her at the fountain his eyes ceased not to cast forth flouds and love dried up all his Laurels that they had very much ado to wax green again in the water of so many tears Hold it also for undoubted that Caesar being in the snows of the Gauls thought not of committing adulteries at Rome the business or war took from him all the taste of love and never did he submit to the imaginations of a beast till he retained no more designs worthy of a man Voluptuousness never acteth any thing great but hath destroyed all that is great And when God is pleased to overthrow Empires he chooseth souldiers who have chaste hands to chastise the effeminate So Arbaces vanquisheth Sardanapalus So Alexander who would not look upon Queens his prisoners but with an eye of chastity defeated the Persians bond-slaves to luxury So the Gothes gained the Empire of Rome as saith Salvianus God being willing to purge the earth which the Romans had defiled by the arms of a Nation more chaste than themselves it being reasonable that those should enjoy their goods who would have no share in their vices The love of fantasie is more sottish than malicious Love of fantasie or sordid There be Cavaliers who perswade themselves they are the bravest men of their Age
to these Embassadours of Diocletian who were much amazed thereat But the brave Prince after their departure restored all had been presented unto him saving he loved better to see riches in the coffers of his subjects and to retain their loves for himself than to have all the treasures of the Indies in his house without friendship It was verily a fair and generous lesson which he taught the Great-ones of the earth who through excess of avarice heap together all that which they must forsake and in great abundance of wealth have a main want of two things which ought to be eternall to wit Love and Truth Constantius did all this by ways of moral virtues for although he had very good inclinations to Christianitie he was no Christian by profession being as yet straitly associated to the great persecutours thereof yet because the accidents of time and place might permit it he freely made use of Christian Officers judging those would be most loyal in his service who were most constant in piety And to this purpose Eusebius addeth that he being one day desirous to make trial of the faith of Christians which were of his train commanded them to sacrifice to Idols which the most faithful constantly refused resolving rather to forsake Court and life than to be traitours to the character of their Religion Others yielding to the stream of the times and hope of worldly favours shewed themselves somewhat To be faithful to the King one must be loyal to God more pliant to his will which he having perceived dismissed them all supposing they might well be perfidious to their Prince since they had been disloyal to their God And as for the rest having highly commended them he afforded them extraordinary preferment One would wonder from whence such sincere affections Helena should arise in so ill education as he found among Persecutours of the faith But for my part I think we ought to impute this change next after God to the holy and couragious Helena whom he espoused in his first marriage and who was mother of our admirable Constantine This incomparable Lady that sought the Cross with more industy than others do Empires hath engraven her praises with an adamantine pen in the memory of all Ages It is strange why certain modern Graecians as Nicephorus and others have been so desirous to attribute to Greece this creature so that striving to make her a Grecian they have made her an out-cast I have not so much leisure in this treatise as to amuse my self in recounting and refuting their fabulous narrations being naturally an enemy of men affectedly eloquent who have no other profession but to lye in good terms I speak that which is the more probable agreeing It is the opinion of Polidorus lib. 10. Of Radulâ—h in his Poly. chron l. 4. cap. 29. Of Hunter lib. 1. Of Oâ—â—â— in the Treatise of Roman Emperours Of Harpsselaius in his histor Eccles of England Lipsius is of another opinion with what is written by Cardinal Baronius whose opinions are ordinarily most sincere Helena was an English woman by Nation daughter of one of the best qualified men of this great Iland who lodged in his house the Lieutenant of the Roman Empire Zosimus the historian who could neither love Constantine nor his mother morally hating Christianity reproacheth her that she was no Lady and speaketh as of a woman of base extraction but we may well say that his history when he speaketh of faithful Princes hath mingled much gall with his ink Certain it is that Helena being a stranger could not be in the Roman Empire of reputation equal to so many Princesses of the Court from whom Constantius might at that time expect alliance yet was very honourable in her own Country not so much by Nobility of bloud as that of faith wherein in my opinion she already was instructed there being many Christians in England under the Empire of Diocletian For I hold with S. Paulinus that she was the first Mistress of her Son in the faith and that we should not have had a Constantine if God had not given us an Helena Princeps Principibus Christianis esse meruit non tam suâ quà m Helenae matris fide saith this great Bishop Constantius at that time Governour in great Britain Beauty and grace of S. Helena for the Roman Emperour being lodged in the house of her father did cast his eye upon Helena who was endowed with an absolute beauty by reason whereof as we may conjecture she was afterward called Helena in the Empire this name being not otherwise familiar with the English With this eminent comlines of body she had modesty and a singular grace which was a ray imprinted by God upon her forehead as he did heretofore to the virtuous Hester to make her amiable to all the world It is true which Eustatius a Greek Bishop said that beauty which hath no grace is a bait floating on the water without a hook to be taken and to catch nothing but when these two things do meet they exercise much power over hearts And at that time Constantius felt the eyes of Helena had made more impression upon his soul than could the sword upon his body and being a Prince of a singular continency so highly praised by the Pagans themselves he would not require the daughter of his host by any other means than those of a lawful marriage which Zosimus hath not wholly denied in this point more respective than some Graecians of Christianity The father seeing the honour His marriage done him by his host made no difficulty to resolve upon it and the prudent Helena with as much ease condescended to the will of those to whom she owed her being She entred into marriage for the universal good of the Church to which she should bring forth a Constantine Her first care was to soften the warlick humour of her husband by the temper of sweetness and goodness which she gave him in such sort that in so great a rage of shedding of Christian bloud which than reigned he kept his hands the rest of his days most innocent This marriage was as the sacrifice of Juno where the gall of the offering was never presented There was so much love on both sides that the spirit of Constantius lived onely in that of Helena and Helena as the flower of the sun perpetually followed the motions of this bright star together with all the good dispositions of her husband The young Constantine born in the same Britain seemed also more firmly to knit the knot of these chast loves when behold an obstacle which interposeth Constantius is sent to succeed in the Empire and is Inconstancy of men declared Caesar by the Emperour Maximianus on this condition that he should forsake Helena his wife and marry Theodora the daughter-in-law of the same Emperour An Empire is a mervellous flash of lightning in the eyes it dazleth and shuts them up from
some beggers whose misery she assisted Her whole heart went towards God her feet to the Church her hands to alms her eys to reading books of devotion her arms to exercises and works of her sex all her body to sacrifices and victims of her soul Observe you young maids who read these pages of what wood God useth to frame Saints and that never any happeneth to produce the miracles which Clotilda did in the conversion of a Kingdom not acting wonders of virtue in the interiour of the soul The King her uncle was so ravished with these pretious parts that the excess of his admiration turned into a furious jealousy for beholding this spirit more masculine than he could have wished and fearing least she might be possessed by some other besides himself he had no purpose to marry her but kept her so straightly that one would have said to have seen him he was the dragon in fables that ever stood centinel near the golden apple But oh silly humane prudence which still rowing against the current of the providence of God findest as many precipices in passion as thou openest snares for innoceny This man notwithstanding all his endeavours which went the contrary way bred up in his house a maid whom God had already destined to chastise his cruelty and make he unwitting thereof his Scepter tributary to a valorous husband who was to marry Clotilda and joyn the Kingdom of virtues to the force of his arms The second SECTION Clodovaeus requireth Clotilda in marriage CLodovaeus King of France a man born to make it appear what valour may produce when it is supported by piety dayly advanced his conquests among the Gauls yet still in so many victories remained a slave to Idolatry God was willing to win him to himself by the ways of chast love and by the means of a wife which should sanctifie his person and house The fame of the beauty and virtues of Clotilda which spread through neighbour Kingdoms with so sweet an odour failed not to approach him at that time when he was upon terms to take a wife in lawful marriage Love which many times surprizeth as well by the ear as the eye so enkindled him at the report made by his Embassadours of the perfections of this divine maid that he no longer retained either heart or thought but for her He affected what he never saw with a love mixed with reverence felt a more noble flame than he was wont which scorched him with a generous passion and excited him to require this Princess as the type of his felicities The difficulties proposed upon the effecting of this marriage augmented desire in him For he was of a vigorous spirit who measured all by the greatness of his own courage and resolved to break through obstacles to crown his purposes He addressed himself to his great favourite Arelianus and having opened unto him the project of this marriage would needs instantly dispatch him upon a solemn Embassage to confer with the maid and treat with the King her uncle This man who understood the suspicions and apprehensions of Gombaut made it appear unto him that the conquest of the golden fleece and the marriage of Clotilda were almost one and the same thing and that no access could be had to this maid without first speaking to this bull who threw flames and fire through his throat Clodovaeus conjureth him to use all possible industries to satisfie his passion assuring him he could not oblige him in any matter whereof he would be more sensible Aurelianus obeyeth and taking a ring from the Kings finger with certain other Jewels to present the Lady hastened towards Burgundy I cannot here conceal that which Baronius the Father of Ecclesiastical History was unwilling to omit seeing it is witnessed by good Authours and hath nothing incredible therein but onely with such who think it is a note of wisdom to seem very incredulous We know by what hath been spoken before that Clotilda seldom appeared in publick if it were not at Church and cast her eyes on very few but the poor God made use of this disposition for her good for Aurelianus having learned this Lady dayly conversed willingly with needy persons and that it was necessary to seem of this quality to speak unto her without suspicion took the habit of a beggar and as the servant of Abraham sent by the first Father of believers treated the loves of Isaac in requiring water of Rebecca who was to be his future spouse so this man managing the commssion of marriage for the prime King of the faithful resolved to beg alms of Clotilda to find means of access to her and for this cause he stood at the gate of a Church among a great rabble of beggers expecting till Mass were done that he might see the Princess come forth She failed not to perform acts of charity to all the poor according to her custom and perceiving this man who seemed of a generous aspect in these miserable rags felt her heart seized with extraordinary piety beholding one of so good carriage reduced to such misery and without any further enquiry she gave him a piece of gold Aurelianus seeing this royal hand so charitably stretched out to succour a counterfeit want whether he were transported with joy or whether he were desirous to make himself observed by some act he lifted up the sleeves of the Princess which according to the fashion of robes than usually worn covered all even to her hands and having bared her right hand kissed it with much reverence Clotilda blushed heartily thereat yet passed on further not shewing any resentment nor blaming the begger as some Authours adde Well saith she in secret to an old Lady who was her confident friend Have you observed what this begger did The other replied It was a very easie matter to note it since this act had painted her forehead with a most lively scarlet But yet said Clotilda to her what think you of it The Lady answered smiling What can I els think but that your rare perfections joyned to your liberality have transported him For my part I suppose said the Princess he hath some other design and if you think good we will cause him to come to the Palace to beg alms and thereupon take occasion to be informed of his person Aurelianus failed not to entertain this commandement which was the scope of his desire and accordingly to pass to the place assigned him where Clotilda beholding him soundly chid him for his boldness in lifting up the sleeve of her garment and kissing her hand He who was a most queint Courtier found out his evasion and said The custom of his countrey permitted to kiss the lips of Ladies at salutation but the happiness of his condition having abased him so low he could not aspire to the face Behold the cause why he contented himself with the hand it being a thing very reasonable to kiss a hand which is the source of
so many charities since the doors of Churches from whence we expect good are kissed Clotilda was much pleased with this reply and well saw this man belyed his habit by his discourse and garb She therefore importuned to tell who he was and from whence it proceeded that he was reduced to such misery as to beg his bread Madam saith Aurelianus since your Greatness presseth me thus far you shall know I am born of a good place and that it which hath brought me to this state is nothing els but the love of a Lady whom I court not for my self but for one of the greatest Princes under Heaven The maid was very curious to know who this Prince was as also the Lady sought unto with so much pains Aurelianus seeing it was now time to speak to the purpose said The Lady is three steps from me for indeed it is your self At which she began to blush again and to shew some disturbance of mind but quoth he Madam trouble not your self since I am in a place where I with confidence may speak unto you your Excellency shall know I am sent by Clodovaeus King of France my Master who is the best Prince and the most valiant Monarch in the whole world The fame of your most precious and eminent qualities coming to his ear he desireth to marry you and hath dispatched me to give you notice thereof and require your consent I could have entered into the Court with some very solemn Embassage but the difficulties the King your uncle enforceth upon you made me resolve to take this attyre to speak to you with the more freedom You may well assure your self this marriage shall make you the prime Queen of the West and the most happy in the world and to approve the authority of my commission behold the ring of the King my Master which I present unto you There is not any woman so holy who is not capable of much delight upon praises afforded her and who doth not willingly open her eyes to greatness Clotilda was not so insensible as not to be touched to the quick with such an Embassage howsoever she shewed in this surprisal she had within her a heart very faithful to God for most freely refusing the ring and interrupting the Embassadour Speak no more Syr said she I know your Prince is a Pagan and I a Christian God forbid that I ever marry an Infidel were he the Monarch of the world Madam replieth the Gentleman frame to your self no difficulties upon the difference of Religions my Prince is not so tied to his Sect as not to forsake it for your love But what means will there be said Clotilda to gain my uncle I do not think he hath any purpose to marry me The Embassadour answereth If you give me your consent we will find opportunity to bear you from hence Not so replyed the prudent maid it is a course I will never admit Ah why Madam saith Aurelianus should you do it who would condemn your discretion Is it a sin in your Religion to flie from the den of a furious wretch to resign your self into the hands of a King We know how he used your father and mother and how he also treateth you at this time At this word the Lady poured forth some tears and said Do by Embassadours all that possibly you can and assure the King your Master that I hold my self much honoured by the choise he maketh of me and that he cannot be so soon for God as I for him at least in heart and body when the King my uncle shall give me leave Upon these conditions I take your ring which I very charily will keep All this passed very happily in a Court of the Palace where she ordinarily spake to the poor interrogating them of their necessities and none perceived there was any other business but the care of the poor her confident friend onely excepted who had a share in the secrets of Clotilda The third SECTION The Embassage to the King of Burgundy for the marriage of Clotilda AUrelianus touched Heaven with his finger that he had so successefully thrived in his commission and forgot not parcel-meal to relate to the King his Master all the particulars of his voyage entertaining him above all with a curious discourse made upon the admirable beauty and singular prudence of Clotilda Clodovaeus burnt with impatience and would presently have taken the King of Burgundy by the beard to make him let go his hold but wisdom adviseth him he must observe therein requisite formalities and that it was fit to send his Embassadours to Gombaut to require of him his neece in marriage which he speedily did appointing thereunto his faithful Aurelianus to whom he allotted a flourishing company of Nobility which caused such apprehensions to arise in the mind of the Burgundian that he slept not upon it either night or day From whence proceedeth it said he to himself that Clodovaeus knoweth my neece since I have hitherto kept her so close that she hath seen nothing but the wals of the Church and my Palace Is there some eel under a rock Would he have my estate This French man is too harsh I would neither have him for a son in law nor a neighbour Besides this maid who hath seemed hitherto as a lamb in my house being at my dispose when she behold her self Queen of France and have swords at her command who can tell whether she will not shew me her teeth and revenge on me the bloud of her father and mother I must rather keep her immured within ten iron gates that she may not escape my power Behold a great act of State which I must cunningly play This man environed with such thoughts receaved the Embassadours of France very sleightly and having promised with all speed to give them answer he was wary enough not to discover all the thoughts he had thereupon but taking the most pleasing pretext answered that he honoured the King Clodovaeus as one of the most valiant Princes of that Age and should ever account the service done him as one of the greatest favours he could receive from Heaven but as for this alliance which he sought it was a matter he could not thinke on First because his neece had never raised her ambition so high as to pretend marriage with so great a King having nothing in her person so eminent as might deserve such a husband and although there were some equality on this side yet was there on the other part an assential impediment which was diversity of Religions it being a thing unheard of for a Christian maid to marry a Pagan nor could he permit it without betraying the salvation of his nlece and disgracing himself through the whole world Aurelianus who well knew where it itched with him replyed in few words That for the qualities of his neece he should not trouble himself that the woman best beloved was ever best conditioned that it was
being in the agonies of that fatal hour which took from us this great Queen she embraced my brother and me beseeching you by your chast loves and inviolable faith of marriage to be unto us both father and mother We were then of an age wherein we could not as yet either feel or bemoan our losses Notwithstanding seeing you bowed over the bodie which yielded up the ghost with weeping eyes we gave our infant-tears to her memorie as a just tribute of Nature but you taking your little orphans into your bosom forbade them to mourn which you could hardly do and wiping away their tears promised you hereafter would become to us a father for protection and a mother for indulgence I then grew up under your eyes spinning out the course of my innocent years and am come to an age capable to bear some share in your hopes Had you any thing at that time in the world more dear unto you than your Hermingildus Dignities were for him for him Empires wars were made by him and peace concluded in his name Hermingildus was the object of your thoughts the entertainment of your discourse the contentment of your heart Your Majestie then resolved to marrie me although very young you found out for me a wife daughter of a King sister of a King neece of a King but such an one as by her virtues surpassed all titles of Kingdoms Ah poor maid who would have said then that thou wast reserved to be the subject of so lamentable a Tragedie I was reputed the most happie man of the world since for me were born so many singular virtues and perfections admired by all men I must confess I loved this Princess not so much by the ways of an ordinarie love as a certain admiration of her virtues For I have received the faith by her pietie her example and her doctrine holding in her soul the rank of a husband a disciple and as it were of her own son Thereupon Goizintha began to possess your heart and to gain superemtnence in your affairs so changing your will by her ordinarie practises that she hath turned all your ancient favours into disdain your confidence into suspition your resolution into disturbance and your mud temper into command This woman hath so persecuted me that in your Court I neither enjoyed watchings rest recreation nor affairs without danger But I have willingly passed under silence all that which touched mine own person until she fell upon an action so barbarous which were sufficient to justifie the Scythians and Tartars I have no words to speak it having so much sorrow to feel it Enough is said when there hath been seen a daughter of so many Kings trampled under the foot of a woman whose birth I will not reproch because indeed I well know it not a Princess most innocent beaten even to bloud by a mother-in-law a Ladie replenished with honour disarayed of her garments by unworthie servants and plunged by little and little into a pool in a cold season to consummate a Martyrdom such as the ancient Tyrants never invented more cruel for women contenting themselves to impose oftentimes onely nakedness for a punishment Had I revenged my self of such inhumanitie with sword and fire no man could have thought my proceeding unjust nor my thoughts unreasonable notwithstanding I have still endeavoured to cure my self by the remedie most ordinarie with me which was patience I in silence retired unto a Citie which your Majestie gave me for lively-hood resolved there peaceably to pass my days with my wife whilest we beheld the face of this Court so adverse to our hopes But your Goizintha as if we had committed a great sin in not enduring her to thrust a sword through our throats hath sounded an alarm in your Palace and afterward in all the Province declaring me an enemie to the countrey an usurper of the Crown of my father a Parricide a creature excommunicate and adding thereunto words much more injurious against me and my wife For my part Sir I wish you had rather hearkened to our innocencie than served her passion all then had succeeded better But after strange Levies were made you came thundering upon Sevil to besiege me with a huge Armie so that you seemed to stir all the elements against me I confess it I then followed the instinct which God giveth creatures even the most bruitish to defend their own family and fortune I took arms not to offend you but to safeguard my self and my wife against the furies of a step-mother who makes use of all arrows for our rain Yet seeing my armies reduced to that point that I had no means to escape without giving battel which must necessarily be fatal to both parts I renounced for your sake the laws of nature and am come to render my self up to your discretion I call to witness the Altars holy fire and the Angel-guardians which have seen me prostrated before them of the sinceritie of my intentions and of the tears I have shed for you having not leisure then to bemoan my self Afterward your Majestie sent my brother unto me to give me assurance of your love you called me forth I am come I have suppliantly intreated you have received me I prostrated my self at your feet you have raised me with so many favours and so many tokens of good will that I could require no more for my safetie I ask who hath changed your affection who hath tarnished our joys and withered the olives of peace but she who being not able to ruin me with weapon in hand seeks to have my bloud by form of justice Behold my accusation and crime behold all that which hath made me to be clothed with sackcloth and chained with fetters ordained for Galley-salves The father who was of an ardent spirit interrupteth him hereupon and demandeth where his wife was whether he had not sent her into Africk to pass from thence to Constandinople The Prince answered He had onely projected this in his mind not for any other purpose but to advise upon the safetie of her person not knowing as then how matters would stand and that accidents had taught him he was wise enough in his counsels but less happie than he imagined The King insisteth and interrogateth whether he had not treated alliance with the Emperour Tiberius He thereunto replied that he had never practised any other correspondence but to draw from him some Troups for the defence of his life and that so soon as he saw some overture of peace he had dismissed them resolving to make no further use of them He then was pressed upon divers questions to which he made most pertinent answers shewing very evidently to the miserable father the colours and pretexts which they made use of to ruin him unless passion should cast a film over his eyes In the end seeing he could not convince his son to have practised any thing since the accord was made between them both he made a
away by the hand of a hang-man the life which he gave him Had his condition been capable of tears even Tygers themselves would have deplored him seeing so much piety such faith so much goodness such worth eclipsed in a bloud so precious in an Age so flourishing in a fortune so replenished with hope The news of his death hastened to find out Indegondis who was yet in Africa where she also received the last Letter which her husband wrote to her out of prison The servants that were about her person began to make hydeous lamentations as if they themselves had been condemned to death But the couragious Indegondis kissing the letter of her dear husband then opening it with singular reverence and reading the last words which he as it were had steeped in his bloud she cried out Alas Generous and faithfull heart you have done all that which a good man might you have manfully fought you are happily arrived at the Crown Nothing can be desired in you but the imitation of your constancy Servants Why do you weep This is the very day wherein I am a Queen and when I esteem my self the most triumphant woman in the world having my husband a Martyr in Heaven Give me roses and flower-de-luces that I may crown his Image and honour at the least with these testimonies a soul which hath left unto us such sweet odours of virtue She had with her her little Hermingildus almost dead with the wearisomness of travel on the way which indeed had been somewhat easie for the tenderness of his age The mother beholding him Go my son saith she follow your good father God hath given you a favour in your cradle that he doth not to all children which is to be banished for the faith and to take part in the Martyrdom of him who begot you Go little innocent and rejoyce with others before the Altar of the Lamb your mother shall not long stay behind you The child died shortly after and the good Princess Others say he was sent prisoner to the Emperour Mauritius but without ground having for a long time combatted in a brave manner against the apprehensions of nature poured forth on a sudden thick sobs and a main tyde of tears which distilled from her eyes against her will whereupon she mildly said Alas my tears what fitness can you find to bemoan a Martyr My God it is done the father and the son are alreadie at rest there remaineth nothing but to take the mother Behold two parts of the world Europe and Africk which I have filled with my miseries If you will that I yet pass into Asia your will be done But if I no longer be ought but an unprofitable burden to the earth what do I here I have spun out all the web which you gave me I have ended all the hopes of the world why stay you O my God to receive my soul which I bear on my lips She was heard For in few days being all wasted with love travel and desires after an exemplar death she found her tomb in Africk What shall I say here and what shall I do to shut up this discourse We have all certain natural softnesses in the bottom of our souls and some humane apprehensions which alter the force of our judgement My pen cannot almost pass over this history and not commix the waters of mine eyes with mine ink and perhaps also you my Reader cannot peruse it without compassion It seemeth unto you these chaste loves of Hermingildus and Indegondis are too unhappy that such virtues are cruelly handled that such noble courages have met with a fortune sinister hydeous and persecutive even to the tomb You would gladly see these brave spirits after so many tempests such thunder-claps and whirle-winds arrive at a Port of some large temporal felicity You would behold them with Crowns on their heads with Scepters in their hands with Provinces flourishing in revenues with prosperities perpetually smiling in their house with loves free from disturbance desires void oâ— denials affairs without trouble greatness without change pleasures without acerbities and a long posterity fully laden with honours It grieves you that this poor Prince hath passed away as a pearl parched up with lightening in its growth or as an eagle strangled in the shell You bewail this Princess that being born in France she died in Africk separated by the sword from a husband who loved her so tenderly deprived of a son who gave so many good hopes abandoned by all her allies but some poor waiting-women that buried her with sorrow so full of pitie that it was of power to move the monsters of Africk to commiseration Ah ignorant that we are of the works of God perpetually fixed to the earth and deprived of those sparkles of fire and light which burn under the most generous breasts Let us a little draw aside the curtain and see through so many clouds one sole ray of the Sanctuary What injury hath the Divine Providence done to Prince Hermingildus if for a Crown which is the weather-cock of winds if for a Scepter which is the reed of the times if for a life which is the harbinger of death it afford him virtues delights and glories which out-strip the flight of our thoughts which drie up our mouthes which out-run our desires which surmount all our imaginations What injury if it make a Saint of him whose name is couched in Martyrologes whose memory liveth in writing whose praise flourisheth in mouthes whose words are nought but honour and works but blessings whilest his step-mother Goizintha dies like a dog and is buried in the opprobrie of her name What injury if it have so handled the matter that his father touched with a lively repentance hath justified him as an innocent deplored him as a son invoked as a Martyr If it hath sanctified his setters consecrated the tower of his prison raised up his ashes above all the Crowns of the Kings of Spain If it hath given him Altars on earth and a Diadem of beatitudes in Heaven Is it to have despised his virtue neglected his sufferings disobliged his constancy and frustrated his travels What would you have God to have made the virtuous Indegondis A Queen delicate ambitious covetuous haughty which had not spit but in gold walked but on roses flown over the heads of men and putrified in delights How many such like are there who have defiled their names with reproach wearied the earth with their importunities astonished posterity with their deportments and peopled hell with their crimes But this Ladie having been purified with the burning coals of tribulation issued from the hands of God as a vessel of glory to make her lustre resplendent in the sight of all Ages Ah Ladies who read this piece and who many times flatter your selves with the title of virtue in some petty tracks of devotion which have nothing but outward semblance what example of piety see you here What
inexplicable excellencies Yet say we all we can of him we affirm he never is so well esteemed as when we account him wholy incomprehensible He not onely environeth the world with his presence but beareth it within his arms and bosom He formeth it in his Idae's he accommodateth it in his dispose he penetrateth it by his virtue maintaineth it by his wisdom and establisheth it by his power He is without yet not excluded from it he is within yet not contained he is under yet not drenched he is above yet not advanced He confirmeth scepters and crowns he raiseth Cities Provinces and Monarchies he erecteth States he circumscribeth laws he directeth virtues he enlighteneth stars in heaven he engraveth the beauty of flowers in the meadows and travelleth throughout all nature without taking pains ever present yet always unseen ever in action yet always in repose ever searching yet not needing any thing ever loving yet never burning ever amassing yet never penurious ever giving yet never losing any thing drawning to himself yet hath nothing without himself Good God what say we when we say GOD. Yet thou ô sinner thou yet wilt lift an armed haÌ„d against thy Lord against a God Omnipotent who notwithstanding will not appear potent towards thee but to do thee good Blind and insensible fugitive from the sovereign Essence in the region of nothing and whither wilt thou go not to find the reproches of thy crimes A caytife pleasure a wreched gain a satisfaction of vengeance dissolute company take God out of thy heart to resign thee as a prey to thy passions Thou wilt adore the favours of men that are like the rain-bow in heaven and which having made ostent of so many splendours and varied paintings leave us nothing but water and morter Thou wilt build fortunes upon a foundation of quick-silver upon a frail reed upon a man who beareth all the figures of vanity Thou wilt seek for Paradise in the Capitol as said Tertullian Thou wouldst find sovereign Coelum in Capitolio quaeriin aversi ab ipso Deo coelo Apol. c. 4. Isaiah 30. 3. Decalvare tondere super filios deliciarum tuarum Mich. 1. beatitude in the Courts of great men and perpetually estranged from heaven the living God thou graspest nothing but Chimaeraes of honour and feeble images of content The strength of Pharao saith the Prophet Isaiah shall be thy confusion and the confidence thou hast in the shadow of Aegypt shall be the reproach of thy countenance Shouldst thou not now forsake all thy superfluities Oughst not thou to wear sack-cloth and carry ashes of penance having buried the children of thy delights loves and vanities which so far transported thee into the forgetfulness of eternal blessings If God be the Essence of essences why dost thou please thy self with making so many nothings by committing sins without number infidelities without consideration and ingratitudes void of shame If God be a Spirit why holdest thou thy self perpetually fixed to carnal pleasures which flatter to strangle thee Look on worldly ambitions and thou shalt see them bordered with precipices Reflect on delights and thou shalt find them strewed all-over with thoms View the ways of sin and thou there shalt observe nothing but remorse Ought not we at this time to resolve upon consideration of the greatness and goodness of God to bear a reverence and an eternal love towards him a reverence by faithfully keeping all his laws and commandments and holding his will more dear than the apple of our eyes a love by dayly offering our selves if it were possible a hundred times for him in as many Sacrifices as our soul hath thoughts and body members My God make me from henceforth to enter into the bottom of my soul and to silence all these troublesom creatures all these inordinate passions which so often bereave me of the honour of thy sight Appease their storms and surges that I may silently speak to thee and enter with thee into the great abyss of delights which thou reservest for souls the most purified that there I may be rapt in contemplation of thy bounties may be absorpt in consideration of thy beauties and may wholly dive into thy heart by sacred ardours of thy love The third EXAMPLE upon the third Drawn from Josephus 18. book of his antiquities and S. Luke Act. 11. MAXIM Of the weakness of man and inconstancy of humane things AGRIPPA WHo saith Man says all vanity He is a wretched Arist creature affirms that Ancient whom fortune tosseth as a tennis-ball whom misery and envy poize in a ballance whom time despoyleth death takes away and of whom inconstancy makes Bernard l. 2. de consider c. 9. Fragili corpore mente sterili cui infirmites corporis fatuitus cordis cumulatur traduce sortis a continual metamorphosis He entereth into the world by the gate of sin with a body as frail as his spirit is barren weakness of mortal members and stupidity of heart are given him as a portion of his birth and a necessity of his condition If you as yet be not perswaded of this verity and more esteem to confide in the world and to frame to your self an arm of straw than to seek support from him who sustaineth with three fingers of his power the whole globe of the earth King Agrippa of whom S. Luke maketh mention in the Acts of Apostles and Josephus in the eighteenth book of his Antiquities is able to give you a fair lesson of it You have heard in the History of Herod how this Agrippa grand-child of Herod unnatural Prince put his two sons to death lawful children by the chast Mariamne This Agrippa of whom I speak son of the youngest named Aristobulus came into the world with great priviledges of nature dexterous courteous amiable pleasing born to court and entertain the favour of the world Judaea was a Theater too streight for his great Spirit he burnt with impatience to be seen in the Court of Tyberius Caesar where his mother was already become gracious with one of the greatest Princesses of the Empire Antonia mother of the great Germanicus and the Emperour Claudius It was no hard matter for him to satisfie his desire For behold him presently at the Court of Rome where he closely adhered to the person of Drusus the Emperour Tyberius his son honoured by all the world as successour of the Empire Agrippa â—o well knew how to gain this great Amities of great men barren Prince by the sweet charms of his conversation that he could not live without him but as Tyberius was a frugal man suffering his son not to fall into any excess so Drusus was full of free affection towards his favourite the effects whereof were yet very slender In such sort that Agrippa entertaining correspondence with the son of so great an Emperor more pleasing than profitable for him dayly consumed as the butter-flys in the flames of this greatness so profuse was his
her for love which she cannot have by nature It is a shadow of the goodness of God who ceaseth not to provide for our necessities to love us as his children Hosea 11. Et ego quasi nutritius Ephraim portabam eos in brachiis meis nescierunt quod curarem eos In funiculis Adam traham eos in vinculi◠charitatis Exod. 2. to defend us as the apple of his eye I was said he by his Prophet as the foster-father of my people I bare them all between my arms they never vouchsafing to open their eyes to my protection Yet will I draw them to me by the hands of Adam which are the chains of my charity Behold in Exodus the little Moses who floateth on Nilus in a cradle of reeds the mother for fear of the rigour of men abandoneth him to death the sister followeth him with her eyes to see what will become of him but her weakness could do nothing to warrant him from danger God in the mean space becomes the Pilot of this little bark he conducteth it without sails without rudder without oars he bears it upon the waves he makes it arrive at a good haven He draweth out this infant who was as a victim exposed to make of him a God of Pharaoh one day to drown in the red sea the posterity of those who would have drenched him in Nilus 8 Adde to this immenss goodness justice an inseparable His Justice virtue of the Divinity which seems to oblige God to preserve and direct what he created But it is to judge most abjectly of this divine understanding to say as did Averroes he abused his magnificence and soyled his dignity if he busied himself in the mannage of so many trifles S. Ambrose judged better when he said If God wrong himself in the government Amb. l. 1. offic c. 13. Si injuria est regere multò major injuria fecisse cum aliquid non fecisse nulla sit injustitia non curare quod feceris summa inclementia of the world did he not himself a greater injury in creating it For to do or not to do what one is not obliged unto hath no injustice in it but to abandon a creature after it is produced is a stain of inhumanity And if we regard the justice which appertaineth to the government of men what malignity and prostitution of mind were it to think souls the most caitive having some spark of justice yet God who must be sovereign perfection would suffer the world to be exposed to fortune or delivered over to tyrāny as a prey and a booty without any care of it or inquiry into injustices There is not any Age which could not furnish out a million of proofs against these mischievous beliefs if we would open our eyes to consider them but our distrusts and pusillanimities blind us and alienate us from knowledge of those truths which God reserveth for the most purified souls 9 To conclude the last colume which should settle His Power our faith in the verity of divine government is the magistral power God exerciseth over all the world which he ruleth tempereth and directeth with one sole thought much otherwise than did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist l. de mundo heretofore those practick wits who vanted to animate statues because they by certain engines gave them motion Wretched and blind that we are ever bowed down to the earth perpetualy divested of those great lights of Saints We measure God by the ell of men we cloth him after our fashion and we hold impossible to the Divinity what our understanding cannot comprehend Shall we never say with the Prophet Jeremiah O most strong O onely great and Hier. 32 19. Fortissime magne potens Domine excercituum nomen tibi magnus consilio incomprehensibilis cogitatu cujus oculi aperti sunt super omnes vias filiorum Adam onely potent The God of bosts is thy name Thou art great in thy counsels incomprehensible in thy cogitations and thy eyes are upon all the waies of the children of Adam We daily see upon men who are but worms of the earth so many tokens of Gods power A King speaketh and a hundred thousand swords hasten out of scabbards at the sound of one syllable A master of a family builds and at one silly beck behold so many artificers so many mules and horses some draw materials out of the bottom of quarries others carry them in waggons some make morter and cement others hew stones some raise them aloft others lay them some play the carpenters and others polish marbles There are some who work in iron and others in brass all is done to the liking of one man who is possessed of a little money Do you never consider God as a great King in an army as a great father of a family in a house who by his sovereign power governs all he created not with a toilsome care but an incomparable facility He gave in the begining of the creation an instinct to all Guil. Par. de vnivers 1. p. par 3. c. 14. Nascitur aranea cum lege libro lucern◠living creatures and there is not any so little a spider which comming into the world bringeth not its rules its book its light it is presently instructed in all it should do God speaketh interiourly to all creatures in a double language with a powerfull impression a secret commandement he gives a signal into the world and every one doth his office every one laboureth regularly as in a ship and all things Deus ipse universa sinu perfectae magnitudinis potestatis includit intentus sempe operi suo vadens per omnia movens cuncta vivificans universa Tertul. l. de Trin. c. 2. agree to this great harmony of heaven The little Nightingal in the forrests makes an Organ of her throat sometimes breaking her notes into warbles sometime stretching them out at length The Swallow is busie in her masonrie the Bee toileth all the day in her innocent thefts the Spider furnisheth out the long train of her webs and makes more curious works with her feet than the most skilfull women can weave with their hands Fishes play their parts under the water beasts of service labour in their duty small grains of seed though dead and rotten give life to great trees which advance to the clouds There is nothing idle in all nature nothing disobedient but men and divels who employ their liberty to resist him whose power is as just as it is eternal 10 Let us then concluding this discourse adore the divine Providence which holdeth the helm of the universe Let us behold it as a watch-tower furnished with a thousand fires that abundantly enlighten this Ocean whereon we sail Let us behold it as a burning pillar in the wilderness of this life Let us behold it as our pole-star and never loose sight of it It is our support our sweetness our
humane and politick without Heavens direction For so doing you will build upon quick-silver phantasms of greatness which will afford you illusions in this life to drench you in the other into eternal confusions When you have done all which justice and conscience Nec consilio prudenti nec remedio sagaci divinâ— providentiae fatalis dispositio subverti vel reformari potest Apul. Metamor 9. Heâ— fatis superi certasse minores Sil. Ital. l. 5. dictate leave successes to God and know there are strokes from Heaven that cannot be vanquished either by prudence of counsels or any humane remedies We are to be answerable unto God with our good desires not powers the petty gods of the earth can do nothing against the Decrees of Heaven Take these words of S. Paul not as ordinary but as Oracles of an immutable Veritie (a) (a) (a) Rom. 8. Prudentia carnis mors est prudentia autem spiritus vita pax Prudence of flesh is death but prudence of spirit is peace and life If you have good success in ought you do thank God and look on him saith (b) (b) (b) Bernard de consider l. 5. Tob. 6. 3. S. Bernard as an Omnipotent Will a virtue full of affection an eternal light a sovereign beatitude which replenisheth all here below with the abundance of his ever-honoured bounty But if in doing all you can you find main oppositions and irksom afflictions in the world say as the chast Sara did seeing her self injured by her servant O God I turn my face to the Ad. te Deus faciem mâ—am converto ad te oculos meos dirigo Peto Domine ut de vinculo improperii hujus absolvos me aut certe desuper terram cripias me c. place whence I expect my consolation I fix mine eyes on thee because thou settlest all my hopes I beseech thee deliver me from the fetters of this disgrace or deliver me out of this world Thy counsels are impenetrable to the weakness of my understanding but I am wel assured of one thing that he who faithfully serves thee shall never be deceived If his life be assaulted with afflictions it shall reap Crowns If it be exposed to the ardour of tribulations thou wilt stretch out an assisting hand If thou exercisest it under thy chastisements it shall be to make it find out the path of thy mercies The fifth EXAMPLE upon the fifth MAXIM Of the Providence of GOD over states and riches of the world EULOGIUS THe Divine Providence is a marvellous workman Drawn from the observation of Paul a Greek Authour which ruleth here below over the heads of mortals it laboureth in this great mass of mankind it takes men of earth to make them of gold and of those men of gold makes men of earth It commixeth slaves and Kings and causeth the one not thinking of it to spring from the other in the revolution of times as Plato said But we who know not all its secrets sometimes blame the works of it which should rather stir up our admiration than be subject to our censure One complaineth the wealth of the world is not well divided and that the wicked have ever the greatest share Men who oftentimes know not how to part with a finger breadth of land but by dis-joyning most intimate charities would make themselves distributers of the worlds fortunes as if they looked more narrowly into the world than he that made it I will here set down a memorable history drawn out of a rare Grecian Authour named Paulus who Paul Syllegus l. 3. c. 48. compiled many Narrations learned from the best of his Age. He recounteth how in the time of the Emperour Justin the elder about the year 528. after the birth of Christ there was in Thebais one named Eulogius a stone-cutter by his trade of poor means but very rich in virtue Which maketh us say Poverty resembles the Island of Ithaca as said Archesilas which Poverty the Isle of Ithaca 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Stob. serm 93. though rough and bushie failed not to breed the bravest men of Greece whom she made use of as a school for all the exercises of virtues This man who at that time had no other wealth on earth but his hands spared not to store up treasures of good works as pledges in Heaven He feared Virtues of a good poor man God was devout chaste sober abstinent courteous peacefull charitable and embraced eminent virtues in a mean fortune It is a strange thing that notwithstanding his labour which was hard enough he fasted most part of his time even to Sun-set and with the little money he got by the sweat of his brows relieved the poor He walked like Abraham before pilgrims he washed their feet and received them into his little house with all possible charity Then seeking out needy persons of his own Parish to give them some refection according to his abilitie he extended his compassion even to beasts not suffering any thing to escape his bounty One would have said seeing all this poor trades-man did he had been some rich Lord such abundance appeared in so low a poverty It happened that a holy Hermit called Daniel who Daniel the Hermit made a rash demand lived in great reputation for the excellent endowments of his soul passing along that way so journed in the poor cottage of Eulogius who received him like an Angel descended from Heaven He who was a most spiritual man looking very far into the Mason's life found therein such eminent perfection that he well perceived devotion many times lodged with little noise in a secular life and that God who is a great Master had servants every where This so enflamed him to the love of those virtues he observed in his hoste that returning to the Monastery he exercised great devotion as fasting three whole weeks together with intention to obtain an ample estate from God for Eulogius Fervour so transported this good man that he considered not that God who preserveth us to health loveth us not to curiosity and that the banquets he made for his greatest servants as Elias and S. Paul the Hermit when he for them opened the treasures of Heaven were onely bread and clear water of fountains Notwithstanding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he without intermission importuned Heaven by his prayers complaining God who was most just gave riches in excess to so many sinners to puff up their pride and foment riot when the poor Mason who deserved rivers should stream nothing but gold for him was invaded by harsh poverty which tied up his hands from virtue But he persisting day and night to beg the fruit of his request heard a voice from Heaven which commanded him to lay aside so indiscreet a request saying If his Eulogius left his poverty he would forsake his conscience But he pertinaciously persevering in the pursuit of his desire through a goodness wholly blind answered He well knew
honour conferred protesting to be nothing the less pliant to his commands and that the period of his obedience should be the end of his life Constantius fell into such a fury upon this news that he deigned not so much as to see his Embassadour but sent him presently a letter of disclaim which he desired might be read to the Army commanding forthwith to lay down the title of Augustus unless he would leave his life Julian who already had passed the Rubicon hazardeth the business and advanced towards Italie with his troups wherewith the Emperour infinitely irritated made an Oration in the midst of his Army shewing to the souldiers the treason and wickedness of Julian in terms very pressing and saying He went to require a speedy satisfaction well knowing God condemneth the ungrateful Numen perenni suffragio damnat ingratos Death of Constantius with an everlasting judgement Hereupon every one cried out he must needs march on to fight with the traitour and rebel and verily the Emperour hastened thither by great journeys at which time he felt himself seized by a feaver so ardent that he burnt like an oven and was besides so troubled all night with dreams and horrible visions which told him his good Angel had forsaken him and that it was time to leave life and Empire which he did being chastised by God for his cruelty towards Catholicks and by his death left Julian in full possession of all He instantly pulled off the mask and caused the Temples of the gods to be opened persecuting Christians not so much by the bruitishness of Diocletian as with subtile wiles of a wise Politician But behold the invincible force of our Religion Punishment◠of Julian remarkable and how unhappiness is necessarily tied to all their designs who forsake the true God He was resolved to shut up the name of Christian within a narrow nook of the earth calling us by the name of Galileans But God limiting the enterprizes of this impious man and not confining his own name hath covered with the beams of his own glory and knowledge all the parts of the habitable world and contrariwise the name of this deplorable Prince is ignominious For although Emperours the most bloudy against our religion are named without addition never almost is Julian pronounced but that for a note of eternal infamy the Apostate is added He set out an Edict by which he deprived Christians of the knowledge of letters Yet God hath permitted millions of Writers to spring up in Christianity whilest other superstitions as Judaism Gentilism and Mahometism being now fallen into extream ignorance there is none but Christianism the mother of sciences and mistress of mankind He resolved to re-edifie the temple of Jerusalem and having given the commission thereof to Alipius bals of fire were seen to issue from the foundations as fast as they laid them which made the design as frivolous as the place was inaccessible He extreamly affected honour yet change of religion made him so contemptible that the most abject people mocked at him saying he must shave his beard to make halters and that he spent so much in sacrifices that he would unfurnish the world of sheep and oxen He sought to give himself authority yet were his laws spiders webs continually broken by his subjects In the end to imitate Alexander he would undertake a war against the Persians but after infinite many toils he was there strucken by a blow from Heaven which quickly concluded his life and shut up his mouth by the blasphemy we have heard when filling his hand with bloud which distilled from his body he threw it against heaven and said Thou O Galilean hast vanquished This miserable Prince who thought by the help of his false Gods to command the waves of the sea and to walk upon Stars being pulled from the Empire at the age of thirty and one year and the first of his reign was carried on a beer as a sad spectacle for all those who adored his fortune His death was waited on by the bone fires of Persians and joy of Christians whose chains this day were dissolved his memory was buried in execrations and horrours nor were there any yea of pens the most sacred who had not gall for him so true it proves that a man who hath defiled his sanctification and sets Jesus aside findeth hell every where as in all things he sought to oppose the Divinity VIII MAXIM Of the Perfections of JESUS which make him amiable THE PROPHANE COURT THE HOLY COURT That we should love things visible not troubling our selves with invisible That all love is due to Jesus Christ by reason of his incomparable excellencies ALl the greatest evils in the world do ordinarily proceed from the ill manage of love which exceeding the limits prescribed by God causeth every where a deluge to occasion afterward disasters Sensual men perswade themselves one cannot love but by the eyes And verily they are those who according to the saying of Clemens Alexandrinus begin the skirmish in all the battels of worldly love And if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Alex. Nutibus oculorum ibant Isaiah 3. 16. Baseness of worldly loves Astomorum Gens vestita frondium lanugine halitu tantum vivens we follow the opinion of the Prophet Isaiah we shall term them The feet of the heart since by them it goeth to objects of bodies to which it inclines But O good God how wretched are these loves of things visible since they idolatrize a little skin and resemble the people called Astomes who are clothed with leaves and live on smoke The carnal man who daily crucifieth himself upon so many crosses as he entertaineth thoughts for the creature he loveth is taken by the eye with a little exteriour skin called by the Physitians Epidermis Pull that a way from this body which gives him so many martyrdoms he would think that a monster he now adoreth for a Goddess Is not this a strange weakness of judgement and must we not confess the eyes so enflamed in their pursuits are very scanty in their fruition reserving to themselves no other object than thin colours which put upon them so many illusions to occasion so many flames I hold every judicious man will be enforced Love of invisible things most penetrating through the sole consideration of nature to affirm the most noble loves yea the greatest are employed on things invisible For behold a woman who with a most lively and fervent affection loved her husband be he taken away and carried to a tomb in the flower of his age and greatest splendour of his fortune she presently becomes passionate at it more through necessity than election It is not to speak truly the body she loveth for should that be left to her discretion it would in a short time become insupportable What is it then she esteemed most in this person The spirit which imprinted the character of its beauty and vigour upon this
mortal flesh yet that notwithstanding she seeth not at all nor ever did which maketh us believe her love was of a thing invisible We love excellent men though separated from us by so many lands and seas yea by death it self because we have seen some ray of their wits upon paper We love virtues which have neither bodies nor colours yea the Amorists of the world confess they often feel vehement passions not for the nobility riches or beauty of such women as they court well imagining there are other of them much more accomplished in all kind of perfections who notwithstanding make no impression upon their minds What is it then they love That which they cannot see speak unto nor think on so true is it that the most penetrating arrow of love proceedeth from things invisible But if that be acknowledged in natural objects how much more by just titles should it be in things divine which have attractives so much the more noble and entire as they have qualities more solid and eminent I will here shew God hath set a Jesus composed both of visible and invisible upon the frontis-piece of the Temple of Eternity as a lively Image of his greatness to draw to himself the love of Angels and men Excellencies in the Person of our SAVIOUR 1. GReat-ones naturally delight to do works Works of Great men 2 Reg. 18. 18. Vocavitque titulum nomine suo appellatur manus Absolom 3 Reg. 10. 18. Non est factum tale opus in universis regnis Baron Annal. Just 31. Cedr l. 4. c. 30 wherein they heap together the most visible marks of their power So Absolom made a proud monument to preserve his memory which he called The hand of Absolom So Solomon made a magnificent throne all of ivory covered with plates of gold environed with statues of Lions very gracefully set out and the Scripture assureth us there never was such a piece of work through all the Kingdoms of the world So Justinian the Emperour made the Altar of Saint Sophie of gold silver and precious stones out of all the rarities in the world which he caused to be melted and incorporated into one mass a wonder never till then known nor used So we have many times heard talk of the seven wonders of the world which are at this time but seven silly Fables upon a piece of paper I now demand of you if mortals who can do nothing Singular work of God A God Incarnate immortal do notwithstanding endeavour to leave contracted works to posterity for witness of their greatness what should the Father of glory and sovereign Monarch of the whole world do Were it not a thing very reasonable and befitting his Majesty that having distended the rich pavillion of the Heavens over our heads which is notwithstanding no other than the works of his own hands as the Scripture speaketh he made a monument wherein he might employ the strength of his arm and assemble together all the most delicious attractives of his beauty and the most conspicuous characters of his power And this verily is it he did in the mystery of the Incarnation affording to the earth a Man-God of whom we cannot discourse but must say what S. Hilarie did My understanding feareth to touch the Hilar. 2. de Trinit Filium mens veretur attingere trepidat omnis sermo se prodere discourse of this great Word and I have not a word which trembleth not to be uttered before such a divine light Let us imitate those sacred creatures of the Prophet Ezechiel which clasp their wings when they hear the voice of God in the firmament Let us hearken and say with reverence what Saints did of the excellencies of the Person of Jesus Christ 2. If we seek his name in the Prophet Isaiah he Excellent qualities of Jesus Christ Isaiah 9. Candor lucis aeternae teacheth us he is called ADMIRABLE If we look for his beauty in the writings of the Wiseman he instructeth us it is THE BRIGHTNESS OF ETERNAL LIGHT If we consider the band of two natures in the Person of the Redeemer and so much riches and treasure arranged in good order we shall find the Prophet Zacharie compareth them to a Pomegranate Zach. 12. Adrademmon malogranatum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 70. Isaiah 64. If we reflect on his Divinity it is THE ANGEL OF THE FIRST FACE according to the Evangelical Prophet If we weigh his continuance HE IS THE ELDER OF THE DAYS AND FATHER OF AGES If science HE IS THE INTERPRETER Revelator secretorum Genes 41. Aegyptiis AND ORACLE OF DIVINE MYSTERIES If the harmony of his wisdom HE IS THE HARP OF THE LIVING GOD in the thirty sixth Psalm If his office HE IS THE ETERNAL BISHOP OF SOULS in S. Peter If his effects HE IS THE RESTORE◠1 Pet. 2. OF AGES All lips are opened with singular prerogatives in honour of the Saviour and are all dried up in the abundance of his praises It seems Constantinus Manasses said well in his Ecclesiastical Annals when he named the Word Incarnate Jesus a concurrence of all perfections 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the universalitie of perfection For it is there where God hath engraven as on gold the last draughts of his love power wisdom consummation of his designs and counsels over men And it is that which according to my opinion moved the grave Pacies ultim◠pulchritudinis Guil. Paris 1. p. de univer p. 1. c. 26. Authour William of Paris to say it was the Face of the last beautie Now know that to understand this title it is necessary to consider an axiom of Saint Thomas which saith The great diversitie of creatures Divina assimilatio est causa diversitatis in rebus S. Thom. opus 2. c. 102. in all the orders of the world hath no other aim but to represent the Divinitie by some image whatsoever And in so much as the Sovereign Essence is infinite it was expedient to produce many things that the one might supply the others defects and all conspire to express some character of Divine perfections So that God beholdeth himself figured in such varietie of beauties as appear from earth to Heaven But all these beauties being unable to pourtraict him to the life he painted himself in the mysterie of the Incarnation which is his true table his design his work wherein he included his Essence and all his Excellencies and in which he bounded and limited himself it being impossible to make any thing more worthy or greater than a God humanized and a man deified He is the visible Image of a God invisible the first-born Colos 1. 15. Imago Dei invisiblis primogenitus omnis creaturae quoniam in ipso condita sunt universa in ipso complacuit omnem plenitudinem inhabitare Per cum in eo se cognose◠vult Deus celi Tertul. Appolog c. 2. Invention of Valentinians of all creatures because
into the love of Jesus Christ St. BONIFACE IT is a thing very rare to see worldly love suddenly transported from the visible to the invisible from the temporal to eternal from errour to truth and from wretched passion to perfect charity Notwithstanding Histories furnish us with some examples and we often observe those who were very sensible in worldly affections when they found a good object were more fervent and couragious in the love of God Such were the heart of Saint Augustine Worldly lovers being cōverted are the most fervent in the love of God such likewise of generous Magdalene For both of them knew so well to make use of their losses that they seemed to have served their apprentiship unto creatures to learn how the Creatour ought to be beloved Architects when they build vaults and arches A goodly comparison make certain counterfeits of wood which they call Centries to serve as preparatives for their designs but so soon as they thereon have raised true and solid works they destroy fiction to admit veritie Much so it happeneth to souls as yet sensual they are taken with sleight affections which many times are not dishonest but ever light and far distant from perfection Yet therein is to be learned what we should do for a God immortal since we undertake so much for a mortal man But Jesus insensibly building his architecture in these loving hearts ruineth all these feignings of amity there to establish his love This which I say is evidently to be seen in the person Aglae a noble dame of Aglae and S. Boniface whose acts I will here produce to give instruction how to sanctifie worldly love by the love of Jesus Christ This Aglae was a Roman Dame of prime quality having a delicate wit in a beautifull body and powerfull passions in a great fortune She had been married but becoming a widow in an age as yet furnished with verdant freshness grace and beauty she had not buried all her affections in the tomb of her husband After she had a little wiped away the first tears which nature exacteth as tribute in such like accidents she quickly plaid so much the Courtier in her slight sorrow that she seemed greatly to desire as soon as might be to finish what she had never well begun She failed not to be sought unto by many gentlemen She is a worldly widow who saw her to be accomplished with all parts desired in an eminent marriage and although she denied not to like their services yet making no resolution to marry she was all for her self and for none else so much she feared to take a master in stead of a husband It is nothing commendable in a Christian widow Superfluities of widows to make a shew no longer to have a heart for the world so to draw all the world into her heart to change a moaning life into perpetual chatter turn her widow-hood into a petty Empire Aglae was not yet entered into vice but pleased her self so much to afford the love of her person and receive none that ere aware she was surprized and having disdained masters saw her self become the slave of a servant She had a Steward in her house named Boniface a Boniface Aglaes Steward witty man and of a good presence who mannaging the affairs of his Mistress discreetly forgat not his own He so well knew how to please her to His sweet behaviour conform to her humours to feed her with glorie whereof she was very ambitious to free her from cares and fill her heart with joy that he already possessed no ordinary place in her favours besides that he was handsom he had a singular grace in jesting without offence to any to utter good conceits and entertain his Mistress with all the delightfull occurrents of the Citie Love entereth in very far by this gate It is not always beauty which surprizeth for if it be not joyned with promptness of wit and discourse it is a bait which floats on the water without a hook Familiar conversation with an Officer so pleasing Dispositions to love should be avoided was no slight snare in the house of a young widow who lived easily and loved pleasure It is not without cause Saint Hierom would not endure to see about widows servants so frizled and quaint fearing lest love might render them Masters over their proper Mistresses Aglae began with pretty love-tricks which are the little idols of affection not observing that all these gentle daliances in a carriage too free still thought to be constant in innocency are not without danger But by success of time she felt her passion so much enkindled towards this Steward that she neither thought spake nor lived but for him not daring to discover her fancies so much is vice ashamed of its own conscience Boniface who had an intelligent and ready wit Aglae in love well enough imagined from whence these extraordinary favours proceeded which he received from his Mistress but the more he saw her grow passionate for him the more he persisted in his duty whether that he in the beginning would divert this affection which he perhaps thought not firm enough or whether he was willing to kindle the fire by a slight resistance His Mistress beholding him more serious in this matter than she wished let him plainly enough understand that having had the stewardship of her estate he should have the like of her heart and entertained him with more courtesie than was fit for a man of his employment and condition She in the beginning mannaged her affections with some discretion following the advise of Boniface who knew how to hide the matter his fortune not making him loose the rememberance of what he had been nor passion providence in what he might be Notwithstanding it being a thing very difficult long Disorder of love to restrain fury all composed of fire and violence the favours of Aglae so plainly appeared that they no longer could be hidden from the world which is a hundred-ey'd Argus She occasioned speech of her even to infamy with so much noise and scandal in the Citie that it much abashed all such as had relation to her But being of a haughty humour which rather useth to irritate passion by censure than amendeth manners she neglected what was said of her since she stood free from controul For love which had bereaved her of innocency and gravity despoiled her likewise of the care of reputation one of the greatest miseries may happen to a wretched soul She well saw her kinred neither had the will or power to hinder her pleasure which made her change close affection into manifest whoredom Love sometimes is weakened by over-much easiness Love is weakned by too much easiness of entertaining of it It is like the Polypus which finding nothing to oppose nor devour eateth it self by gnawing its feet and fins So this passion finding no more resistance with which
abundance unless we will say such as have been the most persecuted were the most eminent Where it seems it is an act of the Divine Providence to have many times given to vicious and faithless husbands the best wives Good wives of bad husbands in the world as Mariamne to Herod Serena to Diocletian Constantia to Licinius Helena to Julian the Apostate Irene to Constantinus Copronymus Theodora to the Emperour Theophilus Theodelinda to Uthar Thira to Gormondus King of Denmark Charlotte de Albret to Caesar Borgia Catherine to Henrie of England Katherine of England Flor. Remond This Ladie was infinitely pious yea beyond limit It is good to be devout in marriage and not to forget she is a married wife much way must be given to the humours of a husband much to the care of children and family and sometimes to loose God at the Altar to find him in houshold cares But this Queen onely attended the affairs of Heaven and had already so little in her of earth that she shewed in all her deportments to bemade for another manner of Crown than that of Great Brittain She for the most part shut her self up in the Monasteries of Virgins and rose at mid-night to be present at Mattins She was clothed from five of the clock not decked like a Queen but contented with a simple habit saying The best time should be allowed to the soul since it is the better part of our selves When she had the poor habit of Saint Francis under her garments which she commonly ware she reputed her self brave enough The Fridays and Saturdays were ever dedicated by her to abstinence but the Eves of our Ladies feasts she fasted with bread and water she failed not to confess on wednesdays and fridays and in a time when Communions were very seldom she had recourse thereunto every sunday In the fore-noon she continued six hours in prayer after dinner she read two whole hours the lives of Saints and speedily returned to Church from whence she departed not till night drave her thence This was to eat honey and Manna in abundance in a condition which had too strong ties for the earth to be so timely an inhabitant of Heaven Whilest she led this Angelical life her husband young and boyling overflowed in all sorts of riot and in the end came to this extremity as to trample all laws both divine and humane under foot to repudiate his lawfull wife who brought him children to serve as pledges of marriage and wed Anne of Bollen Since this love which made as it were but one tomb of two parts of the world never have we seen any more dreadfull The poor Princess who was looked on by all Christendom as a perfect model of all virtue was driven out of her Palace and bed amidst the tears and lamentations of all honest men and went to Kimbolton a place in commodious and unhealthy whilest another took possession both of the heart and scepter of the King So that here we may behold virtue afflicted and a devotion so constant that the ruins of fortune which made all the world tremble were unable to shake it She remained in her solitude with three waiting-women and four or five servants a thousand times more content than had she lived in the highest glory of worldly honour and having no tears to bewail her self she lamented the miseries she left behind her There is yet a letter left which she wrote to her husband a little before her death plainly shewing the mild temper of her heart and the force of devotion which makes the most enflamed injuries to be forgotten to procure conformity to the King of the afflicted who is the mirrour of patience as he is the reward of all sufferers My King and dearest spouse Insomuch as already the hour of my death approcheth the love and affection I bear you causeth me to conjure you to have a care of the eternal salvation of your soul which you ought to prefer before mortal things or all worldly blessings It is for this immortal spirit you must neglect the care of your bodie for the love of which you have thrown me head-long into many calamities and your own self into infinite disturbances But I forgive you with all my heart humbly beseeching Almightie God he will in Heaven confirm the pardon I on earth give you I recommend unto you our most dear Mary your daughter and mine praying you to be a better Father to her than you have been a husband to me Remember also the three poor maids companions of my retirement as likewise all the rest of my servants giving them a whole years wages besides what is due that so they may be a little recompenced for the good service they have done me protesting unto you in the conclusion of this my letter and life that my eyes love you and desire to see you more than any thing mortal Henrie the eight notwithstanding his violence read this letter with tears in his eyes and having dispatched a Gentleman to visit her he found death had already delivered her from captivity X. MAXIM Of PROPER INTEREST THE PROPHANE COURT THE HOLY COURT Every understanding man should do all for himself as if he were his own God and esteem no Gospel more sacred than his Proper Interest That proper Interest is a tyranny framed against the Divinitie and that a man who is the God of himself is a devil to the rest of the world THis Maxim of the Prophane Court is the source of all evils the very plague of humane life and one may say it is the Trojan horse which beareth fire and sword saccage and rapine in its entrails From thence proceed ambition rebellion sacriledge rapine Disloyalties that spring from this marim concussion ingratitude treacherie and in a word all that which is horrid in nature self-Self-love which should be contained within the limits of an honest preservation of ones self flieth out as a river from his channel and with a furious inundation covereth all the land it overthrows all duty and deep drencheth all respect of honesty Men who have renounced piety if they peradventure see themselves to be strong and supported with worldly enablements acknowledge no other Gods but themselves They imagine the Jupiter of Poets was made as they they create little Sultans and there is not any thing from whence they derive not tribute to make their imaginary greatness encrease When this blindness happeneth in persons very eminent it is most pernicious for then is the time when not being awed by the fear of a God Omnipotent they turn the world upside down to satisfie miserable ambition And such Princes there have been who have rather profusely lost the lives of thirty thousand subjects than suffered so much land to be usurped upon them as were needfull for their tomb Others whom birth hath not made Caesars extend Practise of worldly men Ingratitude their petty power what they may They observemen sound
father which was done he remaining unknown in the Citie of Sydon But that he was now returned as from the gates of death to demand his right as being the indubitate and lawfull heir of the Kingdom This Impostour had gained a subtile fellow a servant of Herod's houshold who taught him all the particulars of the Court the better to colour his counterfeiting He led the Bear through all the Citie with good success and great applause of the people who embraced this false Alexander as a man returned back from the other world For besides that the Jews were credulous enough in any thing which flattered them they were ever much inclined to the race of poor Mariamne whose son this man counterfeited to be under this pretext he was very welcome into all the Cities where there were any Jews and the poor Nation freely impoverished themselves to afford some reasonable support to this imaginary King When he saw himself strong in credit and coyn he was so confident as to go to Rome to question the Crown against Heroa's other sons there wanted not those whereof some countenancing him by credulity others through the desire they had of alteration bare him to the throne He failed not to present himself before Augustus Caesar the God of fortune and distributour of Crowns shewing he had been condemned to death by his own father through false rumours but was delivered by the goodness of the God he adored and the mercifull hands of the ministers of execution who durst not attempt on his person beseeching him to pitie a fortune so wretched and a poor King who threw himself at his feet as before the sanctuary of justice and mercy Every one seemed already to favour him But Augustus a Monarch very penetrating perceived this man tasted not of a Prince for taking him by the hand he found his skin rough as having heretofore exercised servile labours Hereupon the Emperour drew him aside saying Content thy self to have hitherto abused all the world but know thou art now before Augustus to whom thou must no more tell a lie than unto God I will pardon thee on condition thou discover the truth of this matter but if thou liest in any one point thou art utterly lost This man was so amazed with the lustre of such majesty that prostrating himself at his feet he began to confess all the imposture Augustus perceived by the narration he was none of the most daring in impostures and said Friend I give thee thy life on condition thou ransom it in my Galleys thou hast a strong body and canst well labour the Scepter would have been too full of trouble I will have thee take an Oar in hand and live hereafter an honest man without deceiving any As for the Doctour who had been Tutour to this counterfeit Alexander the Emperour observing him to be of a spirit more crafty and accustomed to evil practises caused him speedily to be put to death One might make a huge Volume of such Impostours as have been entrapped in their tricks but satisfie your self with experience of Ages and if you dare believe me take in all your affairs a manner of proceeding noble free sincere and true throughly perswading your self what the Wise-man said That he who goes forward with simplicity walketh most confidently XII MAXIM Of REVENGE THE PROPHANE COURT THE HOLY COURT That it is good to reign over men like a Lion and take revenge not permitting fresh favours to abolish the memorie of old grievances That mildness and pardon is the best revenge THis maxim of the prophane Court more properly proceeds from the throat of Tygres and Lions than the lips of men but being harsh in execution it is ever direfull in it's effects The experience How this maxim opposeth common sense of Tiberiuses Caligulaes Neroes Domitians Herodes and so many other who have pursued this with events so tragical and lives so monstrous are fit lessons to convince a heart which yet retaineth some humanity All power imployed onely to hurt is ever pernicious Notable verities and having made havock it resembleth the ruins of buildings which overwhelm not any but such as they oppress by falling on them Man is a creature more tender than any other and must be handled with much respect Nor is there any bloud so base which ought not to be spared as much as justice and reason may permit The most part of men in these miseries and weaknesses of nature seldom hit upon innocencie but by passing through many errours He who cannot tolerate some one banisheth all virtue He must necessarily excuse many things within himself who pardons nothing in another If he think himself a God his nature ought to be mercie and if a man the experience of his own faults should render him more favourable to the like in another It is a strange folly to think greatly to prosper by rigour For all done through fear being forced cannot be of long lasting unless the course of humanity fail The savage beast is then much to be dreaded when he sees the knife on one side and rails on the other There is no strength so feeble which becomes not fierce upon the defensive within the limits of necessity A man who menaceth every one with blows of a cudgel sword or fire should remember he is not a Briareus with an hundred hands and hath but one life Now becoming cruel and inexorable he makes himself an enemy of all mankind which hath so many hands and so many lives Such an one thinks he is well accompanied in revenge who shall find himself all alone in peril Then let us here say there is nothing so Sovereign The scope of the discourse for the government of men as the love of a neighbour clemency and pardon and that the character of an excellent nature is to forgive all other so much as reason may permit and to pardon nothing in himself Love is the first law of nature and last accomplishment Excellencie of love of our felicity Love from all eternity burneth in the bosom of the living God and if he breath with his Word as he doth with a respiration substantial he breaths nought but love He respiteth this love by necessity within himself he inspireth it by grace out of himself and lastly draws all to himself by love The worthy S. Dyonisius in the book of Divine attributes Division of love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Dyoni distinguisheth three sorts of love one is called circular the other love in a right line and the third oblike Circular love properly is that which carrieth the soul with full flight into the bosom of God and there holds it as in a sweet circle of ravishing contemplations which transport it from perfection to perfection never finding end or beginning in the Divinity Love in a right line is that which tends directly to creatures by wayes not onely lawful and lawdable loving them for God of God and in
God but wayes likewise easie and yielding to natural inclinations Oblike love is that which holdeth of both the other and which imitating the Angels of Jacobs ladder climbs to God by creatures and descends to creatures by the love of God But behold a love of enemies commanded by God which seemeth not comprized in this division so much it seeketh out wayes alienated and inaccessible to nature yet I intend to shew it may be found in the third part of this list and that it is a love which by the love of God descendeth unto the love of man to love him according to God A love which I maintain to be possible Three proofs of this discourse glorious and necessarie in three proofs that shall make three heads of this discourse 2. To deny the possibility of the love of enemies is First reason possibility of the love of enemies Diligite inimicos vestros to bely the Gospel and reason the Gospel which commandeth it reason which fortifieth the justice of the commandment The words spoken by our Saviour Love your enemies is not a counsel but a commandment so explicateth the Councel of Carthage the fourth chap. 93. the Councel of Agde Can. 22. and all holy Fathers who lent the light of their stile to the first light in the Gospel Now to say God commandeth a thing impossible is to make a tyranny of the Divinity and to make a God like to the cruel duke of Muscovia named Basilides who commanded from his subjects a tribute of sweat and of nightingales in the midst of winter Reason dictateth to us this commandment is not Right of nature onely of Divine right but of nature so far is it from being contrarie to nature that to speak naturally we judge that should be done to our neighbour we would have done to our selves and we desire to be beloved by all the world yea by those whom we have offended we then necessarily conclude we are bound to love those who have done us some injury Besides we well see that to seek revenge by proper authority is to destroy the right of nature and to make of a civil life the life of a Cyclop which were to have no other reason than strength nor limit but the sword Some will say it were good could love as easily be Answer to an objection put on as a shirt but if we have much ado to love things indifferent how can we affect bad and offensive Love ever pursueth good as the shadow the body and God who made both love and nature will not that it settle it self unless there be some attractive or appearance of good which inviteth it to love Now what is lovely in an enemy in whose person all is odious yea the very name Behold how carnal Philosophy with strong passions and weak reasons strikes at the eternal Word as if in the worst man in the world there could not ever be found something which may be an object of reasonable love We are not commanded to affect him with a love of tenderness but of reason It is not said you must love him as vicious you must endear Omne animal diligit simile sibi sic omnis homo proximum sibi Eccl. 13. 19. him as injurious or wicked for that were to force nature but we are commanded to love him as a man to love him as a Christian to love him as the work of God and as a creature capable of life eternal All things in the world said an Ancient have two handles and two faces Take a good hold-fast look on the good countenance and you shall find that easie which you thought impossible Let us also pass with Divinity to a reason more eminent and say it is not a thing against nature to love above nature by the commandment of him who made nature It is asked whether a creature can naturally love God more than it self since all that nature loveth it loves as a thing united to it it self according to the Amicabilia ad alterum sumumtur ex amicabiltus ad se Arist Ehick l. 4. c. 8. D. Tho. 2. 2. q. 26. saying of Philosophers all well considered the most learned Divines answer that the soul of man remaining within the lists of natural reason should love the Creatour more than its own life because naturally the will well rectified hath a strong inclination to its end which is the Sovereign Good and the understanding necessarily judgeth the subsistence of essence increate and independent which ought rather to be preserved than that of essence create And if that be done by ways of nature how may one say it is against nature to love an enemy when there is the commandment and honour of God in it Nay it is so much otherwise that I will adde a reason which perhaps may seem strange but it is undoubted true I say it is much more hard to love ones self well than an enemy For I beseech you why was A remarkable consideration it that the Son of God so much spake laboured wept and bled if not to teach how we should aptly love our selves And wherefore were so many Saints fifty yea threescore years at school in desarts but to learn this hard lesson And who hath ever thought Self-love very hard to be repressed any thing more difficult to be repressed than self-self-love which powerful in fury and impotent within it self forgetful of God still mindful of its own interests ever gluttonous and still hungry swalloweth like a gulph sweepeth along like a torrēt beateth down like thunder and in the end is buried in the ruins it made If well to love ones self this monster be necessarily be to tamed who sees not there is much difficulty therein and that on the other side there is nothing to be done but to love the gift of God in man which cannot be ill but in your imagination Why create we so many impediments in the love of an enemy and find none in the love of our selves Were it not natural Effects of the love of enemies in the Law of nature Senec. l. 3. de irâ c. 38. why in the Law of nature did Cato smilingly wipe away tough phlegme which an enemy spit on his face when he pleaded a cause Why was Socrates content having received a blow on the cheek from an insolent man to set over his head the scroul used on ancient tables Lycus faciebat Why did Augustus in an absolute sovereign power of revenge tolerate with so much courtesy a certain writer named Timagenes who perpetually barked against him Traytours that we are to nature so to cover our neglect and weakness with the pretext of nature 3. Let us yet adde more force to truth and more Second point of proofs drawn from the glory of pardon scope to our pen. Let us enter into the second point of this discourse which teacheth us the greatness and glory of a man who
river Miser qui porcum esurit defecit in saginam Chrysol serm de prodigo Plato 9. de Rep. such an one there is who hath sold himself for the life of a hog who will never have his fill of hogs draft as S. Peter Chrysologus said of the prodigal child Men covetous of bodily riches would willingly make themselves horns and claws of iron to speak with the wise Plato of purpose to take and defend the one his wealth the other his loathsome pleasures Many times iron gates must be broken to purchase a fruition Inorditate love of health which draweth along with it a thousand disturbances Behold how a man who is excessively enamoured of his own health becomes suppliant and servile to his bodie He fears his proper dyet all kind of airs are dreadful to him nor can he take but with distrust those very comforts which afford him life He makes of his stomach a soyl of drugs he perpetually consulteth with his Physicians he tells his infirmities to all the world he seeks out extraordinarie cures as he often hath imaginarie diseases he lives in an afflicting equality would many times rather transgress Gods ten commandments than fail in one of Hypocrates aphorisms I leave you to think what death were not much sweeter than health so religiously preserved See now on the other side a worldly woman who Slavery of women Cultus magna cura magna virtulis iâ—ria Cato Censorius feeleth her beautie that short tyrannie already in the wain and yet would cherish it in the opinion of men who heretofore adored it or of such likewise who may be taken in the same snare What doth not this silly creature to make her self to be esteemed fair What time wasteth she not to seem slender to wash paint to divide the white well to mingle the red to powder her hair to make her self ey-browes to preserve the whiteness of her teeth to set a vermillion tincture on her lips little patches like flies on her cheeks choose stuffs and think of new fashions What torture inflicteth she not on her bodie with those iron stayes and whale-bones How many turns maketh she dayly before a looking-glass What perplexities of mind what apprehensions least her defects may appear And what discontent when after such torments so miserably ended she sees her self despised by men before she becomes the food of worms What Captain of a Galley was ever so cruel to fettered slaves as vanity and love of the body are to the soul Pursue the track of all other pleasures and you shall find them painful and dolorous and in the end you will be enforced to say there is no worse bondage than that which is afforded to wretched flesh The Prophet Scribe ei super huxum Isai 30. 8. Observation upon Esay Flower of box Esay speaking of punishments due to sinners worldlings saith they are written on box whereupon we may say with S. Hierom it is to shew the lasting of it since characters graven on such kind of wood cannot so easily be taken off But I here consider a secret which teacheth me box bears no fruit onely satisfied to produce a flower which otherwise making a goodly shew killeth bees that suck it The Prophet in this figure presented to us a lively image of pleasure which surprizeth the eyes by a vain illusion whilest it conveieth poison into the heart Rest then assured you shal never meet with solid contentment of mind but by the wayes the Saviour of the world shewed us on earth to transfer us to Heaven The just are here below as Life of the Just little halcyons on the trembling of waters or nightingales on thorns They find their joys amongst holy tears and their delights in austerities of life There is nothing so Sovereign as early to accustom to depend little on your body and quickly to forsake a thousand things by election which you shall be enforced to abandon of necessitie When a manner of virtuous life is chosen and which hath some austerity in it custom makes it sweet grace fortifieth it perseverance nourisheth it and glorie crowns it How many worldlings dayly putrifie in a miserable condition who have from their tender age yielded all submission to their flesh and how many delicate bodies in monasteries have we seen which the whole world condemned to the beer from their entering into religion to go out of hair-cloth ashes fasts as a Phoenix from her tomb A life without crosses is a dead sea which breedeth nought but stench and sterility but austerity is like the Aegyptian thorn which had an excellent grace in crowns We are called to Christianity to bear a God crucified Glorificate portate Deum in corpote vestro on our flesh and as it were impressed with the Characters of Divine love Let us carefully preserve our selves from prostituting members to sensuality made to be the Temple of the living God and the ornament of Paradise Holy Job was in state so lamentable that those who beheld him could scarcely tell whether it were a man reduced into a dunghil or a dunghil into the shape of a man Notwithstanding in the midst of these smarting dolours which over-ran all his body and the afflictions which assailed his mind he received so unspeakable comforts from God that himself confesseth to have nothing so strange in his own person as his proper torments Behold the reason why he exalted Mirabiliter me crucias Job 10. himself on his dunghil as upon a throne of virtue he adorned himself with his wounds as with a royal purple he took the Scepter in hand over all effeminacies of body and pronounced Oracles unto us which to all Ages shew that there is neither evil nor affliction wherein God maketh not his miracles of our pains and his glorie of our rewards The thirteenth EXAMPLE upon the thirteenth MAXIM The Miserable event of Lust AMMON the Son of DAVID IT is not one of the least miseries of the greatest of all evils I mean sin that the ill example which often accompanieth it doth likewise survive it It is to say truly a most bitter fruit of this direful tree or rather a scien which it in growing produceth and which being fed from it's sap stands upright after the fall of it Nor is it strange that when once the mercy of God onely able for this great work hath stifled the monster sin in the soul of parents yet fails it not though wholly dead to infect their families and poison their posteritie with the stench of it's ordure David that great Prince that King according to Gods heart had lost the affections and sweet indulgencies of it by an adultery and an homicide He afterward weepeth he humbly prayeth he lowdly cries and God who is willing to be moved turneth his eyes from his crimes and that he may no more hereafter see them applies the sponge to cleanse them yet behold long after Ammon one
summons you shall have from the will of God It is not perfection not to care for life through impatience nor to have an ear not deaf to death through faintness of courage This resignation was most excellent and very admirable in our Ladie for two reasons First the great knowledge she had of beatitude Secondly the ineffable love she bare to her Son For I leave you to think if our desires follow the first rays of our knowledges and if we be so much the more earnest after a good as we are the better informed of its merit what impatience Patience of our Lady to endure life must our Ladie needs have of life since she received a science of beatitude strong powerful and resplendent above all other creatures God giving her leave to see in Calvarie the abyss of his glories in the depth of his dolours It is no wonder we so very easily affect life seeing we are as the little children of a King bred in the house of a shepheard as the gloss upon Daniel reporteth touching the education of Nebuchadnezzar We know not what a scepter Kingdom or crown is in this great meaness of a life base and terrestrial But had we talked onely one quarter of an hour with a blessed soul and discoursed of the state of the other life our hearts would wholly dissolve into desires Which makes me say It was an act of a most heroical resolution in the blessed Virgin in those great knowledges she had of Paradise to have continued so many years in this life and if you consider the most ardent love she bare her Son who was the adamant of all loves you shall find the holy Virgin who had born all the glory of Paradise in her womb more merited in this resignation she made to see her self separated the space of thirty years both from Paradise and her Son than all the Martyrs did in resigning themselves to deaths strange bloudy and hydeous There is nothing comparable to the martyrdom of Martyrdom of love love It is an exhalation in a cloud It is a fire in a myne a torrent shut up in ditches a night of separation lasteth Ages and all waxeth old for it but its desires Now this holy Mother to be thirty years upon the cross of love without repining without complaint or disturbance peaceably expecting the stroke of her hour what virtue and how far are we from it So now adays throughout the world you see nothing Worldly irresolutions of death Boet. Carm. 1. Eheu cur dura miseros averteris aure Et stentes oculos claudere saeva negos but mourners who are loth to live or faint-hearted that would never die Some crie out Come to me O sluggish death thou hast forgotten me what do I here I am but a living death and an unprofitable burden to the earth Ah death hast thou ears of brass and diamond for me alone Canst thou not shut up mine eyes which I daily drown in my tears Much otherwise when we see one die young fresh flourishing in honour wealth health prosperity we crie out upon death as if it were cruel and malicious To take saith one this young betrothed this poor maid this husband intended this excellent man who so well played the Rhodomont to lay hold of one so necessarie for the publick in the flower of his age Why took it not away this cripple this beggar who hath not wherewith to live Why took it not away this other who daily dies yet cannot die once O our manners O dainty conceits O fit language Were it not some little humane respect we would take Gods Providence by the throat Whom do we contend withal The indifferency we daily see in the death of men where as soon the young is taken as the old the happie as the miserable the Emperour as the porter is one of the greatest signs of Gods Providence to be admired Why then complain we that God maketh us to leave life when he pleaseth It is not a punishment but a wholesom doctrine by which we learn the power of the Divine Wisdom First when we entered into life our advise was not required whether we would be born in such or such an Age such a day such a year such an hour so when we must be gone from hence there is no reason to ask our counsel Let us onely yield up this last loan and not murmure against the father of the family Let us not say this man should go before and this after Who knows them better than God You complain this miserable creature lives so long how know you whether he accomplish the years of his purgatory How know you whether God suffers him to become a spectacle unto you of his patience Why gnash you your teeth for anger that this man rich that man fortunate and that other so qualified is taken hence in his flourishing youth How know you the misadventures and shipwracks which attended him had he still continued in the world You say he was necessary why God will shew there is not any thing necessary in the world but himself Vnâ— aâ—ulso non deficit alter aureus Poor eyes of a bat which see nothing but darkness you would give eyes to Argus and light to the Sun If you desire to take part in the prudence of the just handle the matter so that for the first sign of a good death you be ever indifferent to live or die accordding to our Ladies example Daily expect death stand perpetually on your guard Do as the brave bird the Grecians call Onocratalus which is so well practised Instinct of the Onocratalus Constancy of faith to expect the Hawk to grapple with her that even when sleep shuts up her eyes she sleepeth with her beak exalted as if she would contend with her adversary Know we are continually among rocks and dangers that there needs but one hour to get all or loose all that the day of Judgement comes with the pace of a thief and that we must be ready to receive it and resolute to combat with death to gain immortalitie Hold this concluding sentence of Tertul. Idol c. 2. Hos inter scopulos velisicata spiritu Dei fides navigat tuta si cauta secura si attonita Caeterúm ineluctabile excussis profundum inexplicabile impactis naufragium irrespirabile â— devoratis hypocriphium Second quality of good death Philo l. 3. de vita Mosis in fine Notable speech of Philo of Moses his state 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tertullian as an Oracle Amongst the rocks and shelves of this sea called life Christian faith passeth on breaking the waves filling the sails with Gods spirit ever assured yet ever distrustful and perpetually fearless yet still carefull of the future As for the rest it sees under its feet an abyss not to be passed by swimming and inexplicable ship wrack for those who are drenched a gulf which suffocates all such as it once swalloweth The second
own tears and that in the same manner they are produced to beatitude by Plin. 21. 5. Lilium lachrymâ suâ seritur their proper afflictions but it is to see themselves in a state of power to loose the grace of God and to be able to be separated from the first of lives by an action of death That is it which made Job being on the dunghil like to the dunghil it self as on the throne of patience to deplore his condition and say Why hast Quare me posuisti contrarium tibi sum mihimetipsi gravis thou made me seeing I am contrary to thy divine Majesty That is it which renders me in supportable to my self Now there shall be in beatitude an impotencie of sin because in full sight of Sovereign good it will be impossible to propend to the least evil or least disorder without which there can be no sin Moreover as our knowledges are here wretched Excellency of beatifick science and starven there is not a man so knowing in the world who for one drop of knowledge hath not a tun of ignorance and who in the little he knoweth hath not ever many errours which stick to science as the worm to the tree or the moath to the cloath Now there above the ray of increated light which shall appear in full lustre will dissipate all the weakness of understanding all inconsiderations all faults and shall fill us with a most resplendent verity So that our In lumine tuo videbimus lumen soul shall be like to that Aegyptian pyramid which perpendicularly reflected on by the Sun cast no shadow Lastly we see our love is ill guided in this way-faring Beauty of beatifick love compared to the weakness of wordly love life it sticks upon so many frivolous objects which are foolish fires that often lead it into precipices It is taken by the eys with blessings which have nothing more certain in them than their loss blessings which we ever shall leave by death if they forsake not us by misfortune Being surprized it tumbleth therein and perpetually bendeth to all which feedeth its dolours and drives away content All it least can do is that thing it most desires all it seeks is many times the good it escheweth It looseth labour to run after a flitting phantasm and if it stay it is not but through despair not to overtake all which kils it But if it come to possess what it loves it is instantly turmoiled with its happiness and not having need to labour any more in desires it grows mouldly in proper fruition It is willing to be resisted to enkindle its flame and resistance thrusts it into rage as possession into distast That is it which maketh me say the earth being made for us we are not made for the earth and that we should seek the place where love suffers neither offence nor interruption I say offence for it hath an object which contents all the world and offendeth none I say interruption for if we cease to love in Paradise it must proceed from God or from our selves If it be by the commandment of God we cease to love we shall cease in loving and in ceasing we shall incessantly love since we shall cease through love This cessation cannot come from us for we shall love without obstacle and of necessitie that Sovereign good which for its infinities will not be beloved but in infinitum O what pleasure to have but one pleasure and what joy to derive all joys from their source Why say we not with S. Augustine O fountain of life O vein of living waters when shall I come to thy delights and eternal sweetness I here on earth sigh after thy beauties O holy Hierusalem in a land scorched with fervours of sensuality O when will it be that I shall come before the face of my God! Think you I shall see that fortunate day that day of comfort and triumphs that day which God hath made and which takes its eastern rise from his eys O bright day which hath no evening nor knows what the setting Sun is When do you think I shall hear that word Enter into the joys of thy Master enter into a joy inaccessible to sorrow wherein is all good with an eternal banishment of all evil There it is where youth waxed not old where life hath no limits where beauty decays not where love knoweth not what it is to be cold nor health to impair O dear Citie With weeping eyes we behold thee afar off we thy poor exiles but yet thy children redeemed with his bloud who makes thee happie by his aspects Stretch out thy arms unto us O mild Saviour cast an eye on us from the haven in these storms of life and give us leave to walk in so undoubted paths that we may come to the place where thou livest and reignest for ever The nineteenth EXAMPLE upon the nineteenth MAXIM Of the Pleasures of beatitude THe joys of Paradise are without example and as they are here above our experience so they pass beyond our imagination Yet well may we conceive raised bodies shall have some manner of contentment in the perfect use of their senses and beauty of objects which shall satiate them with everlasting delights When after a long winter which covered us in darkness and buried us in snow we behold a new world arise under the benign favour of the spring and consequently the golden days of summer we feel our heart dilate seasonably taking in some antipast of the repose of the blessed What sweetness is it to enjoy delights in a body sound and a spirit well purified What contentment to behold those goodly Palaces where is seen an admirable consort of art and nature so many Hals so well furnished within such rich hangings such most exquisite pictures such marbles such gildings and without mountains which make a natural theater tapistred without art to surpass all workmanship forrests which seem born with the world hedges and knots curiously cut alleys and mazes where both eyes and feet are lost rivers which creep along with silver purlings about gardens enameled with most fragant flowers cavernes replenished with a sacred horrour grots and fountains which gently gliding contend with the warble of birds and so many other spectacles which at first sight astonish spirits and never satiate All this is but a little atome I do not say of the essential pleasure of the blessed which is ineffable but of the sole content of the senses of a glorious bodie which may in some sort be expressed S. John to accommodate himself to the weakness Apoc. 21. and 22. of our understanding hath made a description of it in the Apocalyps where he depainteth this goodly Cittie of the blessed with singular curiosity It is a pretty thing to consider how Lucian an excellent wit though a bad man intruding into our mysteries hath set out in his idea's to the imitation of it the life of
in grace and enjoy in the other thy eternal joys in the bosom of Glorie So be it The fourteenth SECTION Of the time proper for spiritual reading BElieve me you shall do well at this time of the morning when your mind is freest from earthly thoughts to use some spiritual reading sometimes of the precepts sometimes of the lives of the Apostles and Saints calling to mind that saying of Isidore in his Book of Sentences He that will live in the exercise of God's presence must pray and read frequently When you pray you speak to God and when you read God speaks to you Good sermons and good books are the sinews of virtue Observe you not how colours as Philosophie teacheth have a certain light which in the night time is obscured and buried as it were in matter But as soon as the Sun riseth and diâ—playeth his beams on so many beauties that languished in darkness he awakes them and makes them appear in their true lustre So may we truly say that we have all some seeds of knowledge which would be quite choaked as it were with the vapours arising â—rom our passions did not the wisdom of God which speaketh in the holy Scripture and in good spiritual books stir them up and give them light and vigour to enflame the course of our actions to virtue Always before you take a book in hand invoke the Father of light to direct your reading Read little if you have but little leisure but with attention and make a pause at some sentence which all that day may come into your memory You will find that good books teach nothing but truth command nothing but virtue and promise nothing but happiness The fifteenth SECTION An Abstract of the doctrine of Jesus Christ to be used at the Communion JOhn 14. 6. I am the way the truth and the life no man cometh to the Father but by me Mark 1. 15. The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand Repent ye and believe the Gospel Matth. 11. 28. Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest 29. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls 30. For my yoke is easie and my burden is light Matth. 7. 12. All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them for this is the Law and the Prophets John 15. 12. This is my commandment that ye love one another as I have loved you 13. Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friend 14. Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you Matth. 5. 44. Love your enemies bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you 45. That you may be the children of your Father which is in Heaven For he maketh his Sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust Luke 5. 35. Be ye mercifull as your Father also is mercifull 23. Judge not and ye shall not be judged condemn not and ye shall not be condemned forgive and it shall be forgiven 30. Give and it shall be given unto you Luke 12. 15. Take heed and beware of covetousness for a mans life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth Matth. 7. 13. Enter ye in at the strait-gate for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be which go in thereat 14. Because strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find it Matth. 10. 38. He that taketh not his Cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me John 16. 33. In the world ye shall have tribulation but be of good cheer I have overcome the world Matth. 28. 20. Lo I am with you alway even unto the end of the world Matth. 26. 41. Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation the spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak Luke 12. 36. Let your loyns be girded about and your lights burning 37. And ye your selves like unto men that wait for the Lord when he will return from the wedding that when he cometh and knocketh they may open unto him immediately Luke 21. 34. Take heed to your selves lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfetting and drunkenness and cares of this life John 5. 28. The hour is coming in the which all that are in the grave shall hear his voice 29. And shall come forth they that have done good unto the resurrection of life and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation The sixteenth SECTION What is to be done at the Celebration of the Sacrament AT the Celebration of the Sacrament you shall endeavour to stir up in your self a great reverence of this incomparable Majestie who cometh to fill the Sacrifice with his presence and say O God dispose me to offer unto Thee the merits of the life and passion of thy well-beloved Son At this present I offer up to thee in the union thereof my understanding my will my memorie my thoughts my words my works my sufferings and consolations my good my life all that I have and all that I can ever pretend unto Afterwards at the Preface when the Priest inviteth all to lift up their hearts to God or when the Angelical Hymn called by the Ancients Trisagion is pronounced may be said as followeth being taken out of the Liturgies of S. James and S. Chrysostom TO thee the Creatour of all things visible and invisible To thee the Treasure of eternal blessings To thee the Fountain of life and immortalitie To thee the absolute Lord of the whole world be given as is due all praise honour and worship Let the Sun Moon and Quires of Stars the Air Earth Sea and all that is in the Celestial Elementarie world bless thee Let thy Jerusalem thy Church from the first-born thereof alreadie enrolled in Heaven glorifie thee Let the elect souls of Apostles Martyrs and Prophets Let Angels Arch-Angels Thrones Dominations Principalities Powers and Virutes Let the dreadfull Cherubims and Seraphins perpetually sing the Hymn of thy triumphs Holy holy holy Lord God of hosts Heaven and Earth are full of thy glorie Save us O thou that dwellest in Heaven the palace of thy Majestie O Lord Jesus thou art the everlasting Son of the Father When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man thou clothedst thy self with flesh in the Virgins womb When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death thou didst open unto us the Kingdom of Heaven Thou sittest at the right hand of God in the glory of the Father and shalt judge both the quick and the dead O Lord help thy servants whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious bloud
pleasures Fortitude Fortitude is a virtue which confirms us against the pusillanimity that may hinder good actions It hath two arms one to undertake the other to suffer Aristotle assigneth it four parts that is confidence patience love of labour and valour Patience Patience is an honest suffering of evils incident to nature The points thereof are To bear the loss of goods sickness sorrows injuries and other accidents with courage neither to complain nor to groan but discreetly to conceal your grief to be afflicted in innocency for justice sake and sometimes even by those that are good to covet and embrace persecutions out of a generous desire to be conformable to the patience of the Saviour of the world Justice Justice is a virtue which giveth to every one that which is his due and all the acts of it are included in this sentence You must measure others by the same measure wherewith you desire to be measured your self Magnanimitie Magnanimitie according to Thomas Aquinas is a virtue which aimeth at great things by the direct means of reason The acts thereof are To frame your self to an honest confidence by purity of heart and manners to expose your self reasonably to difficult and dreadfull exploits for Gods honour neither to be bewitched with prosperitie nor dejected at adversitie not to yield to opposition not to make a stay at mean virtues to despise complacence and threats for love of virtue to have regard onely to God and for his sake to disesteem all frail and perishable things to keep your self from presumption which often ruins high spirits under colour of Magnanimitie Gratitude Gratitude is the acknowledgement and recompence as far as lies in our power of benefits received The acts thereof are To preserve the benefit in our memory to profess and publish it to return the like without any hope of requital Amitie Amitie is a mutual good will grounded upon virtue and communitie of goods The acts thereof are To choose friends by reason for virtues sake communicating of secrets bearing with imperfections consent of wills a life serviceable and officious protection in adversities observance of honesty in every thing care of spiritual profit accompanied with necessary advice in all love and respect Simplicitie Simplicitie is nothing but union of the outward man with inward The acts thereof are To be free from all false colour never to lie never to dissemble or counterfeit never to presume to shun equivocation and double speech to interpret all things to the best to perform business sincerely to forgo multiplicity of employments and enterprizes Perseverance Perseverance is a constancy in good works to the end through an affection to pursue goodness and virtue The acts thereof are firmness in good quietness in services offices and ordinary employments constancy in good undertakings flight from innovations to walk with God to fix your thoughts and desires upon him neither to give way to bitterness nor to sweetness that may divert us from our good purposes Charitie toward God and our neighbour Charitie the true Queen of virtues consisteth in love of God and our Neighbour the love of God appeareth much in the zeal we have of his Glory the acts thereof are to embrace mean and painfull things so they conduce to our Neighbours benefit To offer the cares of your mind and the prayers of your heart unto God for him To make no exceptions against any in exercise of your charge to make your virtues a pattern for others To give you what you have and what you are for the good of souls and the glory of God to bear incommodities and disturbances which happen in the execution of your dutie with patience Not to be discouraged in successless labours To pray fervently for the salvation of souls to assist them to your power both in spiritual and temporal things to root out vice and to plant virtue and good manners in all who have dependence on you Charitie in Conversation Charitie in the ordinary course of life consisteth in taking the opinions words and actions of our equals in good part To speak ill of no man to despise none to honour every one according to his degree to be affable to all to be helpfull to compassionate the afflicted to share in the good success of the prosperous to bear the hearts of others in your own breast to glory in good deeds rather than specious complements to addict your self diligently to works of mercy Degrees of Virtues Bonaventure deciphers unto us certain degrees of Virtue very considerable for practise his words are these It is a high degree in the virtue of Religion continually to extirpate some imperfection a higher than that to encrease always in Faith and highest of all to be insatiable for matter of good works and to think you have never done any thing In the virtue of Truth it is a high degree to be true in all your words a higher to defend Truth stoutly and highest to defend it to the prejudice of those things which are dearest to you in the world In the virtue of Prudence it is a high degree to know God by his creatures a higher to know him by the Scriptures but highest of all to behold him with the eye of Faith It is a high degree to know your self well a higher to govern your self well and to be able to make good choice in all enterprizes and the highest to order readily the salvation of your soul In the virtue of Humilitie it is a high degree to acknowledge your faults freely a higher to bow with the weight like a tree laden with fruit the highest to seek out couragiously humiliations and abasements thereby to conform your self to our Saviours life It is a high degree according to the old Aâ—iom to despise the world a higher to despise no man yet a higher to despise our selves but highest of all to despise despisal In these four words you have the full extent of Humility In Povertie it is a high degree to forsake temporal goods a higher to forsake sensual amities and highest to be divorced from your self In Chastitie restraint of the tongue is a high degree guard of all the senses a higher undefiledness of body a higher than that puritie of heart yet a higher and banishment of pride and anger which have some affinity with uncleanness the highest In Obedience it is a high degree to obey the Law of God a higher to subject your self to the commands of a man for the honour you bear your Sovereign Lord yet a higher to submit your self with an entire resignation of your opinion judgement affection will but highest of all to obey in difficult matters gladly couragiously and constantly even to death In Patience it is a high degree to suffer willingly in your goods in your friends in your good name in your person a higher to bear being innocent the exasperations of an enemy or an ungratefull man a higher yet to suffer much and repine at nothing but
Fear and Anger 3. That there are two ways to overcome all passions the first is a precaution of mind against the occasions and vain appearances of all worldly things The second a serious diversion to better things as prayer study labour and business But above all you must pray to God for the light and strength of his holy grace which infinitely transcends all humane remedies Against Gluttony 1. REpresent unto your self the miserable state of a soul polluted and plunged in the flesh 2. The hardness of heart 3. The dulness of understanding 4. The infirmities of body 5. The loss of goods 6. The disparagement of Reputation 7. The horrour of the members of Jesus Christ to make members of an unclean creature 8. The indignity to worship and serve the belly as a bruitish and vile God 9. The great inundation of sins flowing from this spring 10. The punishments of God upon the voluptuous Against sloth 1. The ceaseless travell of all creatures in the world naturall and civil 2. The easiness of good works after grace given by Jesus Christ 3. The anxiety of a wavering and uncertain mind 4. The shame and contempt 5. The confusion at the day of judgement 6. The irreparable loss of time Against Covetousness 1. The disquiet of a greedy mind 2. The insatiability of desire 3. The many wars and battels which we must run through to satisfie one single desire 4. The dishonour of denial insupportable to a generous soul 5. The dependance and servitude we must undergo to comply with those from whom we expect the accomplishment of our wishes 6. The easiness of offending God through excessive greediness of temporall things 7. The transitory and fleeting pleasure of those things which we most ardently desire 8. That God many times allows us the fulfilling of our desires as a punishment for our faults Against carnall love 1. To consider the barrenness of worldly loves which are true gardens of Adonis where 〈◊〉 can gather nothing but triviall flowers surrounded with many bryars 2. To set a value on things and not to be deceived with shows 3. To guard your senses to shun accidents and occasions of sinning and above all to have a particular recourse to God upon the first impression of thoughts 4. To pull your self away by main force from presented objects and to direct your self by serious designs and good employments 5. To set often before you the imperfection the ingratitude the levity the inconstancy the perfidiousness of those creatures we most servilely affect Against Sadness THere is a holy sadness as when we are moved at our Saviours Passion or for our own sins which is the gift of God not a punishment There is one furious which hath no ears and is rather cured by miracle than precept There is another natural arising from our disposition and another vicious which is nourished by ill habits and neglect of our own salvation 1. Against this last we must consider That our desires and love cause for the most part our sadness and that the true way to diminish the cares that consume us is to sweeten the sharp and ardent Affection we bear to worldly things 2. The little esteem we have of God is the cause that we are often troubled at frivolous things whether they threaten or happen He that would truly love this great God which deserveth to possess all love of heaven and earth should not entertain fear or sadness for any thing but for the loss of God no man can loose him but he that purposely forsakes him 3. There is nothing beyond remedy but the tears of the damned A man who may persist in the way to paradise should not place himself in the condition of a little hell and he who can hope for that great All ought not to be sad for any thing Against Envy 1. THe way not to envy any thing is to account nothing in this life great 2. To covet onely the inheritance of the land of the living which is never lessened by the multitude or shares of the possessours 3. To consider seriously the motives which induce us to love our neighbour as participation of the same nature THE THIRD PART OF THE CHRISTIAN DIARY The first SECTION BUSINESSE Of what importance THe third employment of the day is business whether Publick or Private the government of your Family or discharge of some Office Good devotion is a good employment and nothing is more to be avoided than idleness which is the very source of sin He that labours said the old Hermite is tempted but by one devil he that is idle is assaulted by all No man is too Noble to have an occupation If iron had reason it would choose rather to be used in labour than to grow rusty in a corner The second SECTION Two Heads to which all Business is reduced IN Business we must consider the Substance and the Form The Substance for it is great wisdom to make good choice herein to take in hand good employments and to leave the bad the dangerous and burthensom which do nothing but stop up the mind and choke all feeling of devotion especially when there is no obligation to undertake them They are truly sick even in health who interpose out of curiosity to know to do and solicite the business of others It is sufficient said the Emperour Antonius that every one in this life do that well which belongs to his calling The Sun doth not the office of the rain nor the rain that of the Sun Is it not absolute madness of some in the world whose onely employment is to attempt all things but perform none As for the Form in the exercise of charge offices and business there is required knowledge conscience industry and diligence Knowledge 1. In learning that which is requisite to be known for the discharge of your duty 2. In informing your self of that which of your self you cannot apprehend 3. In hearkening very willingly to advise examining and weighing it with prudence and governing your self altogether by counsel Conscience in performing every thing with good intention and great integrity according to the Divine and Humane laws Industry in doing all discreetly and peaceably with more fruit than noise so that we express no anxiety in business like that Prince of whom it was said That he seemed always vacant in his most serious employments Diligence in spying out occasions and doing every thing in due time and place without disorder confusion passion haste irresolution precipitation For these are the faults which commonly destroy good government He that hath never so little wit good inclination shall ever find wherein to busie himself especially in works of mercy amongst so many objects of the miseries of his neighbour The third SECTION Of the government of a Family THat man hath no little business who hath a Family to govern a good Father who breedeth his Children well that they may one day serve the Common-wealth is employed
fear glorious without change And it is there onely where we find all our satisfactions perfectly accomplished For to speak truth contentment consisteth in four principal things which are to have a contenting object to have a heart capable to apprehend it to feel a strong inclination to it and to enter into an absolute full possession of it Now God hath provided for all this by his infinite bounty He will not have us affect any other object of pleasure but his own He is God and therefore can have nothing but God for his satisfaction and intends graciously that we shall have the same He will have us thirst after him and quench our thirst within himself and to this our soul is singularly disposed for as God is a Spirit so is our soul onely spiritual We have so strong an inclination to love God that even our vices themselves without thinking what they do love somewhat of God For if pride affect greatness there can be nothing so great as the Monarch of it If luxury love pleasure God containeth all pure delights in his bosom and this which I say may be verified of all sins whatsoever If the presence of a right object and the enjoying be wanting we have nothing so present as God S. Paul saith We are all within him within him we live and within him we have the fountain of all our motions we see him through all his creatures until he take off the vail and so let us see him and taste of his Glory 3. A true and perfect way to make us thirst after God is to forsake the burning thirst which we have after bodily and worldly goods Our soul and flesh go in the several scales of a ballance the rising of one pulls down the other It is a having two wives for us to think we can place all our delights in God and withal enjoy all worldly contentments A man must have a conscience free from earthly matters to receive the infusion of grace we must pass by Calvary before we come to Tabor and first taste gall with Jesus before we can taste that honey-comb which he took after his resurrection Aspirations O God true God of my salvation My heart which feeleth it self moved with an affection-are zeal thinks always upon thee and in thinking finds an earnest thirst after thy beauties which heats my veins My soul is all consumed I find that my flesh it self insensibly followeth the violence of my spirit I am here as within the desarts of Affrica in a barren world the drought whereof makes it a direct habitation for dragons O my God I am tormented with this flame and yet I cherish it more than my self Will there be no good Lazarus found to dip the end of his finger within the fountain of the highest Heaven a little to allay the burning of my thirst Do not tell me O my dear Spouse that there is a great Chaos between thee and me Thou hast already passed it in coming to me by thy bounty and wilt not thou lift me up then by thy mercy The Gospel upon Tuesday the fifth week in Lent S. John 7. Jesus went not into Jewry because the Jews had a purpose to take away his life AFter these things Jesus walked into Galilee for he would not walk into Jewry because the Jews sought to kill him And the festival day of the Jews Scenopegia was at hand And his brethren said to him Pass from hence and go into Jewry that thy Disciples also may see thy works which thou dost For no man doth any thing in secret and seeketh himself to be in publick if thou do these things manifest thy self to the world for neither did his brethren believe in him Jesus therefore saith to them My time is not yet come but your time is always ready The world cannot bate you but me it hateth because I give testimony of it that the works thereof are evil Go you up to this festival day I go not up to this festival day because my time is not yet accomplished When he had said these things himself tarried in Galilee But after his brethren were gone up then he also went up to the festival day not openly but as it were in secret The Jews therefore sought him in the festival day and said Where is be And there was much murmuring in the multitude of him For certain said that he is good And others said No but he seduceth the multitudes yet no man spake openly of him for fear of the Jews Moralities 1. JEsus hides himself in this Gospel as the Sun within a cloud to shew himself at his own time to teach us that all the serets of our life consisteth in well concealing and well discovering our selves He did conceal the life which he took from nature when he might have been born a perfect man as well as Adam and yet did he hide himself in the hay of a base stable He concealeth his life of grace dissembling under silence so many great and divine virtues as if he had lockt up the stars under lock and key as holy Job saith He keeps secret his life of Glory retaining for thirty three years the light of his soul which should without intermission have glorified and cast a divine brightness upon his body But when he concealed himself the stars discovered him at his birth the Sun at his death all the Elements did then confess him and all creatures gave testimony of his Divinity 2. We should be well known of God if we did not so curiously enquire into the knowledge of the world Vanity at this day opens all her gates to manifest divers men to the world who should otherwise be buried in obscurity and darkness It maketh some appear by the luxurious excess of their apparrel as so many sale creatures whose heads being high and costly drest up go to the market of idle love Others by the riches and pomps of the world others by honours and dignities others by the spirit of industry and others by the deeds of arms and policy Every one sets out himself to be seen and esteemed in the world It seemeth that life is made for nothing but to be shewed and that we should always live for that which makes us die We are a kind of walking spirits which return late to our lodgings But yet nevertheless giving our selves so continually to the world me thinks we should at least stay with our selves every day one short hour It is said that the Pellican hides her egs and that they must be stollen from her to make them disclose But vanity is an egge which all the world hatcheth under her wings and none are willing to forsake it 3. If it be needfull to shew your self to the world be then known by your virtues which are characters of the Divinity Let men know you by your good examples which are the seeds of eternity and of all fair actions You must be known by your
had redeemed her brother from the power of death The faithfull Mary who had shed tears gave what she had most precious and observes no measure in the worth because Jesus cannot be valued Cleopatra's pearl estimated to be worth two hundred thousand crowns which she made her friend swallow at a Banquet this holy woman thought too base She melts her heart in a sacred Limbeck of love and distils it out by her eyes And Jesus makes so great account of her waters and perfumes that he would suffer no body to wash his feet when he instituted the blessed Sacrament as not being willing to deface the sacred characters of his sacred Lover 3. Judas murmures and covers his villanous passion of Avarice under the colour of Charity and Mercy toward the poor And just so do many cover their vices with a specious shew of virtue The proud man would be thought Magnanimous the prodigal would pass for liberal the covetous for a good husband the brain-sick rash man would be reputed couragious the glutton a hospitable good fellow Sloth puts on the face of quietness timorousness of wisdom impudence of boldness insolence of liberty and over-confident or sawcy prating would be taken for eloquence Many men for their own particular interests borrow some colours of the publick good and very many actions both unjust and unreasonable take upon them a semblance of piety S. Irenaeus saith that many give water coloured with sleckt whitelime or plaster in stead of milk * * * A Farse is a French Jig wherein the faces of all the actours aâ—e whited over with meal And all their life is but a Farse where Blackamores are whited over with meal Poor truth suffers much more amongst these cozenages But you must take notice that in the end wicked and dissembling Judas did burst and shew his damned soul stark naked Yet some think fairly to cover foul intentions who must needs know well that hypocrisie hath no vail to cozen death Aspirations I See no Altars in all the world more amiable than the feet of our Saviour I will go by his steps to find his feet and by the excellencies of the best of men I will go find out the God of gods Those feet are admirable and S. John hath well described them to be made of mettal burning in a furnace they are feet of mettal by their constancy and feet of fire by the enflamed affections of their Master Let Judas murmure at it what he will but if I had a sea of sweet odours and odoriferous perfumes I would empty them all upon an object so worthy of love Give O mine eyes Give at least tears to this precious Holocaust which goes to sacrifice it self for satisfaction of your libidinous concupiscences Wash it with your waters before it wash you with its bloud O my soul seek not after excrements of thy head to drie it Thy hairs are thy thoughts which must onely think of him who thought so kindly and passionately of thee on the day of his Eternity The Gospel upon Maunday Thursday S. John the 13. Of our Saviours washing the feet of his Apostles ANd before the festival day of the Pasche Jesus knowing that his hour was come that he should pass out of this world to his Father whereas he had loved his that were in the world unto the end he loved them And when supper was done whereas the devil now had put into the heart of Judas Iscariot the son of Simon to betray him knowing that the Father gave him all things into his hands and that he came from God and goeth to God be riseth from supper and layeth aside his garments and having taken a towel girded himself After that he put water into a bason and began to wash the feet of the Disciples and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded He cometh therefore to Simon Peter and Peter saith to him Lord dost thou wash my feet Jesus answered and said to him That which I do thou knowest not now hereafter thou shalt know Peter saith to him Thou shalt not wash my feet for ever Jesus answered him if I wash thee not thou shalt not have part with me Simon Peter saith to him Lord not onely my feet but also hands and head Jesus saith to him He that is washed needeth not but to wash his feet but is clean wholly and you are clean but not all for he knew who he was that would betray him therefore he said You are not clean all Therefore after he had washed their feet and taken his garments being set down again he said to them Know you what I have done to you You call me Master and Lord and you say well for I am so If then I have washed your feet Lord and Master you also ought to wash one anothers feet For I have given you an example that as I have done to you so do you also Moralities 1. JEsus loves his servants for an end and till the full accomplishment of that end The world loves his creatures with a love which tends to concupiscence but that is not the end for which they were made or should be loved There is a very great difference between them for the love of worldly men plays the tyrant in the world snatching and turning all things from the true scope and intention for which they were made by God diverting them to profane uses by turbulent and forcible ways The world pleaseth it self to set up Idols every where to make it self adored in them as chief Sovereign It makes use of the Sun to light his crimes of the fatness of the earth to fatten his pleasures of apparrel for his luxury of all mettals to kindle Avarice and of the purest beauties to serve sensuality And if by chance it love any creature with a well-wishing love and as it ought to be loved that is not permanent The wind is not more inconstant nor a calm at Sea more unfaithfull than worldly friendship For sometimes it begins with Fire and ends in Ice It is made as between a pot and a glass and is broken sooner than a glass The ancient Almans tried their children in the Rbine but true friendship is tried in a sea of Tribulation It is onely Jesus the preserver and restorer of all things who loves us from Eternity to Eternity We must follow the sacred steps of his examples to reduce our selves to our first beginning and to bring our selves to the final point of our happiness 2. The water at first was a mild element which served the Majesty of God as a floting chariot since as the Scripture saith his Spirit was carried upon the waters from whence he drew the seeds which produced all the world But after man had sinned like a Supream Judge he made use of the gentlest things to be the instruments of our punishments The water which carried the Divine Mercies was chosen at the deluge to drown all mankind Now at this
time Jesus sanctified it by his sacred touch He took the Bason which being in his hands became greater and more full of Majesty than all the Ocean Our spots which eternity could not wash clean are taken away at Baptism by one onely drop of water sanctified by his blessing He prevents the bath of his bloud by the bath of an element which he doth expresly before his institution of the blessed Sacrament to teach us what purity of life of heart of faith of intentions and affections we must bring to the holy Eucharist It is necessary to chase away all strange gods which are sins and passions before we receive the God of Israel we must wash our selves in the waters of repentance and change our attire by a new conversation Is it too much for us to give flesh for flesh the body of a miserable man for that of Jesus Christ The consideration of our sins should bring up the bloud of blushing into our cheeks since they were the onely cause why he shed his most precious bloud upon the Cross for us Alas the Heavens are not pure before his most pure Spirit which purifies all nature Then how can we go to him with so many voluntary stains and deformities Is it not to cast flowers upon a dung-hill and to drive Swine to a clear fountain when we will go to Jesus the Authour of innocency carrying with us the steps and spots of our hanious sins 3. Jesus would not onely take upon himself the form of man but also of a base servant as S. Paul saith It was the office of slaves to carry water to wash bodies which made David say That Moah should be the Bason of his hope expressing thereby that he would humble the Moabites so low that they should serve onely to bring water to wash unclean houses Alas who would have said that the Messias was come amongst us to execute the office of a Moabite What force hath conquered him what arms have brought him under but onely love How can we then become proud and burn incense to that Idol called Point of honour when we see how our God humbled himself in this action Observe with what preparation the Evangelist said that his Heavenly Father had put all into his hands that he came from God and went to God yet in stead of taking the worlds Scepter he takes a Bason and humbles himself to the most servile offices And if the waters of this Bason cannot burst in us the foul impostume of vanity we must expect no other remedy but the eternal flames of hell fire Aspirations OKing of Lovers and Master of all holy Loves Thou lovest for an end and till the accomplishment of that end It appertains onely to thee to teach the Art of loving well since thou hast practised it so admirably Thou art none of those delicate friends who onely make love to beauties to gold and silk thou lovest our very poverty and our miseries because they serve for objects of thy charity Let proud Michol laugh while she list to see my dear David made as a water-bearer I honour him as much in that posture as I would sitting upon the throne of all the world I look upon him holding this Bason as upon him that holds the vast seas in his hands O my merciful Jesus I beseech thee wash wash again and make clean my most sinfull soul Be it as black as hell being in thy hands it may become more white than that Dove with silver wings of which the Prophet speaks I go I run to the fountain I burn with love amongst thy purifying waters I desire affectionately to humble my self but I know not where to find so low a place as thine when thou thus wast humbled before Judas to wash his traiterours feet Upon the Garden of Mount Olivet Moralities 1. JEsus enters into a Garden to expiate the sin committed in a Garden by the first man The first Adam stole the fruit and the second is ordained to make satisfaction It is a strange thing that he chose the places of our delights for suffering his pains and never lookt upon our most dainty sweets but to draw out of them most bitter sorrows Gardens are made for recreations but our Saviour finds there onely desolation The Olives which are tokens of peace denounce war unto him The plants there do groan the flowers are but flowers of death and those fountains are but fountains of sweat and bloud He that shall study well this Garden must needs be ashamed of all his pleasant Gardens and will forsake those refined curiosities of Tulips to make his heart become another manner of Garden where Jesus should be planted as the onely Tree of Life which brings forth the most perfect fruits of justice 2. It was there that the greatest Champion of the world undertook so great Combats which began with sweat and bloud but ended with the loss of his life There were three marvellous Agonies of God and Death of Joy and Sorrow of the Soul and Flesh of Jesus God and Death were two incomparable things since God is the first and the most universal of all lives who banisheth from him all the operations of death and yet his love finds means to unite them together for our redemption The joy of beatitude was a fruition of all celestial delights whereunto nothing which displeased could have access and yet Jesus suffered sorrow to give him a mortal blow even in the Sanctuary of his Divinity He afflicted himself for us because we knew not what it was to afflict our selves for him and he descended by our steps to the very anguishes of death to make us rise by his death to the greatest joyes of life To be short there was a great duel between the affectionate love and the virginal flesh of Jesus His soul did naturally love a body which was so obedient and his body followed wholly the inclinations of his soul There was so perfect an agreement between these two parties that their separation must needs be most dolorous Yet Jesus would have it so and signed the decree by sweating bloud And as if it had been too little to weep for our sins with two eyes he suffered as many eyes as he had veins to be made in his body to shed for us tears of his own bloud 3. Observe here how this soul of Jesus amongst those great anguishes continued always constant like the Needle of a Sea-compass in a storm He prays he exhorts he orders he reproves and he encourages he is like the Heavens which amongst so many motions and agitations lose no part of their measure or proportion Nature and obedience make great convulsions in his heart but he remains constantly obedient to the will of his Heavenly Father he tears himself from himself to make himself a voluntary sacrifice for death amongst all his inclinations to life to teach us that principal lesson of Christianity which is to desire onely what God will
fearfull maladie 135 His notorious cruelty even in his extreamest sickness ibid. His miserable death ibid. Hermingildus his retreat and conversion 325 His father's letter to him and his to his father 326 He is wickedly betrayed by Goizintha 328 His letter to his wife and his undaunted resolution 330 His death 331 His young son Hermingildus died not long after 332 A notable Observation upon the habit of a High-Priest 93 Hilarion of Costa a reverend Father 388 Hippocrates his desire how to cure the itch of ambition 56 House of the Moth. 25 House of Swallows ibid. A notable Doctrine of Hugo 61 Humility defined 468 Humiliation of Death 350 State of Humilitie 18 All the world teacheth us the lesson of Humilitie 56 The kingdom of Hypocrisie 11 Reasons against Hypocrisie ibid. Baseness of Hypocrisie ibid. Hypocrisie confuted in the great School of the world 42 Hypocrisie condemned by the Law of Heaven ibid. Deformity of Hypocrisie ibid. I JAcques de Vitry his pretty Observation 39 Idleness the business of some Great men 44 Abuse of an Idolatrous spirit 13 Jesus one and the same for Nobles and Plebeians 3 Excellent qualities of Jesus Christ 376 He is the Concurrence of all perfections ibid. Three Excellencies of Jesus in which all other are included ibid. His Sanctity Wisdom and Power 377 Practice of the love of Jesus reduced to three heads ibid. Miracles of the person of Jesus 442 Jesus entereth into his glory by his merit ibid. Suspension of actual glory in the body of our Saviour Jesus ibid. Imitation of Jesus Christ the abridgement of Wisdom 3 Images of Emperours how much reverenced 13 Impietie hath its misery 36 Impietie condemned in the Tribunal of Nature 420 Impietie chastised 451 Against Toleration of Impietie 452 Impuritie of life ariseth from three sources 85 Reasons against Inconstancie 40 Inconstancie of men 236 Indegondis transporteth the Catholick Faith into Spain 323 The persecutions of Indegondis 324 By her mediation there is a Treaty of peace between Levigildus and his son 327 The glory and greatness of that man who knows how to suffer Injuries 40 Observation of Isaiah 30. 8 406 Belief of Judgement most general 430 Judea in what condition before Herod came to the Crown 89 The causes of the corruption of Julian 373 The School of Julian ibid. How he became depraved 374 He is a Christian for policie and an Infidel in soul ibid. Prowess of Julian among the Gauls ibid. His subtility to invade the Empire ibid. His Embassage ibid. His remarkable punishment ibid. He had ill success with the qualities that Machiavel furnished him with 260 Jupiter painting goats in the Clouds what it meaneth 14 Justina an Arian requireth a Church in Milan 206 Justice and Mercy the two Arms of God 22 Necessity of Justice with its acts 89 Justice without favour very remarkable ibid. Justice of Belizarius and Aurelianus 226 Justice defined 468 K KNowledge of good and evil doth make the sin more foul 23 Knowledge of ones self very hard 69 No certain Knowledge of four things 440 L LAcedaemonians practice 381 LAdies excellent in pietie 388 Sordid Liberalitie of Emmanuel Comenus 91 Ignorance and bruitishness of Libertines 449 Arrogancy of Libertinism 450 The Table of Philo of the manners of Libertines ibid. Punishment of God upon Libertines ibid. Evil of a sleight Lie 145 Lying the key of vice 469 A Life led by opinion is ridiculous 8 Condition of this Life well described 65 Man must lead a Pilgrims Life in this world 72 Our Life is a Musick-book 84 Four sorts of Life 137 Opinion of the other Life 403 Life and Death the two poles of the World ibid. Divers kinds of Life ibid. Life was given to Cain for a punishment 414 Disturbances of Life 435 Divers wayes of humane Life according to Saint Gregorie ibid. The choice of conditions of Life is hazardous ibid. Miseries of this present Life 436 Of the Lilie with six leaves 72 Divers kinds of Love 228 229 Love turned into rage 244 The baseness of Love 375 Love of invisible things most penetrating ibid. Worldly Lovers being converted are the most servent in the Love of God illustrated by a comparison 379 Excellency of Love 399 Division of Love ibid. There is a possibility in man to love his enemies ibid. Effects of the Love of enemies in the Law of Nature 400 Loyalty of a wife to her husband 352 Lust ruineth Empires 154 Lust is a fire that burneth the garment of the soul 182 Luxurie the sin of the heel 195 Lycinius his condition 242 His end 242 Lycurgus his greatness 3 M MAgnanimitie 468 MAn a Stage-player upon the Theatre of the world 12 Three sorts of Man in every man 61 Character of the carnal and spiritual Man ibid. Of the nature and dignity of man what he hath been what he is and what he shall be 64 Man hath more non-essence than essence 350 Mans ingratitude towards God 346 Mutability of men ibid. Miseries of an indebted man 352 It is dangerous to disoblige pious and learned Men. 379 Diversitie of Men. 413 Monument of the Empress Marie 418 Five notable things in the mystery of the Mass 74 Mass a sacrifice ibid. Instructions for the Married 96 Mariamne's accusation and pitifull death 124 Martianus of whom a marvellous accident 150 His good success ibid. A great Massacre at Thessalonica 214 Maxims very dangerous used by Hereticks 183 Maxentius acteth a strange Tragedie 240 He is defeated by Constantine 241 Maximian the Baloon of Fortune 239 A remarkable speech of Maximus 79 Maximus overthrown and put to death 209 210 Meditation its definition 75 Necessity and easiness of Meditation ibid. What you must understand to Meditate well ibid. Practice and Form of Meditation consisteth in six-things 76 Seven ways to dilate ones self in Meditating in abundance upon sundry thoughts ibid. Modestie important 87 Modestie of a son of S. Lewis 418 Modestie defined 468 The actions of Modestie ibid. Marvellous contempt of money 227 Monica the mother of S. Augustine her qualities 193 Her death 198 A singular saying of Sir Thomas Moor. 90 Mother of Macchabees persecuted 348 N NAtures evils 355 NAtures voice 370 Nature delighteth in contrarieties 412 Nature the price of time 43 Nebucadnezzar nursed by a Goat 16 Nero his folly 12 Notable action of Noah 414 Nobility the first gift of God 4 Nobility not tied to bloud ibid. Against such as betray their Nobility 5 Nobility of Noah wherein ibid. Nobility of Eleazar and his excellent speech ibid. Priviledges of Nobility 8 Noble-men why ill educated 16 Nobility very much corrupted 17 Noble-mens particular obligation 20 Noble-men examples of great importance in the world 21 Noble-men appeal from the sentence of Labour 51 Disorders in corrupt Nobility 218 219 Novelty in Religion dangerous 31 Novelty ever suspected by the Wise 32 O OAths of Magistrates 90 OBedience defined 468 The qualities of an Officer 272 Onocratalus his instinct 417 Souls in the torrent of Opinion 37
corruptible matter of Earth but after he became a Christian he lived upon the most pure influences of heaven S. Gregory Nazianzen saith he more breathed S. Basile then the aire it self and that all his absences were to him so many deaths S. Chrysostome in banishment was perpetually in spirit with those he most esteemed S. Jerome better loved to entertain his spirituall amities in little Bethelem then to be a Courtier in Rome where he might be chosen Pope And if we reflect on those who have lived in the light of nature Plato was nothing but love Aristotle had never spoken so excellently of friendship had he not been a good friend Seneca spent himself in this virtue being suspected by Nero for the affection he bare to Piso Alexander was so good that he carried between his arms a poor souldier frozen with cold up to his throne to warm him and to give him somewhat to eat from his royall hands Trajan brake his proper Diadem to bind up the wound of one of his servants Titus wept over the ruines of rebellious Jerusalem A man may as soon tell the starres in the heavens as make an enumeration of the brave spirits which have been sacrificed to amity Wherefore great hearts are the most loving If we seek out the causes we shall find it ordinarily proceedeth from a good temperature which hath fire and vigour and that comes from good humours and a perfect harmony of spirit little Courages are cold straightned and wholly tied to proper interests and the preservation of their own person They lock themselves up in their proprieties as certain fishes in their shell and still fear least elements should fail them But magnanimous hearts who more conform themselves to the perfections of God have sources of Bounty which seem not to be made but to stream and overflow such as come near them This likewise many times proceedeth from education for those who fall upon a breeding base wretched and extremely penurious having hands very hard to be ungrasped have likewise a heart shut up against amities still fearing lest acquaintance may oblige them to be more liberall then they would contrariwise such as have the good hap to be nobly bred hold it an honour to oblige and to purchase friends every where Add also that there is ever some gentilenesse of spirit among these loving souls who desiring to produce themselves in a sociable life and who understanding it is not given them to enlighten sands and serpents will have spectatours and subjects of its magnificence Which happens otherwise to low and sordid spirits for they voluntarily banish themselves from the conversation of men that they may not have so many eyes for witnesses of their faults So that we must conclude against the Philosophers of Indifferency that Grace Beauty strength and power of nature are on their side who naturally have love and affection §. 2. Of Love in generall LOve when it is well ordered is the soul of the universe Love the soul of the universe which penetrateth which animateth which tieth and maintaineth all things and so many millions of creatures as aspire and respire this love would be but a burden to Nature were they not quickned by the innocent flame which gives them lustre as to the burning Bush not doing them any hurt Fornacem custodiens in operibus ardoris Eccl. 43. at all I may say that of honest love which the wise man did of the Sunne That it is the superintendent of the great fornaces of the world which make all the most Love the superintendent of the great Fornace of the world Faber ferrarius sedens juxta in eodem considerans opus ferri vapor iguis uret carnes ejus in calore fornacis concertatur c. Eccl. 29 38. Pieces of work in Nature Have you ever beheld the Forge-master described by the same wise-man You see a man in his shirt all covered over with sweat greace and smoke who sporteth among the sparks of fire and seemeth to be grown familiar with the flames He burns gold and silver in the fornace then he battereth it on the Anvil with huge blows of the hammer he fashioneth it he polisheth it he beautifies it and of a rude and indigested substance makes a fair piece of plate to shine on the Cup-boards of the most noble houses So doth love in the world it taketh hearts which are as yet but of earth and morter it enkindleth them with a divine flame It beats them under the hammer of tribulations and sufferings to try them It filleth them by the assiduity of prayer It polisheth them by the exercise of virtues lastly it makes vessels of them worthy to be placed above the Empyreall heaven Thus did it with S. Paul and made him so perfect Act. 9. that the First verity saith of him that he is his vessel of election to carry his name among nations and the Kings of the Earth and that he will shew him how much he must suffer for his sake The whole nature of Pigri mortui oetestandi eritis si nihil ametis Amare sed quid ameris videte August in Psal 31. Hoc amet nec ametur ab ullo Juvenal Seven excellent things the world tendeth to true love every thing loves some of necessity other by inclination and other out of reason He who will love nothing saith S. Augustine is the most miserable and wretched man on earth nor is it without cause that in imprecations pronounced over the wicked it is said Let him not love nor be beloved by any The ancient Sages have observed in the light of Nature that there are seven excellent things to be esteemed as gifts from heaven which are clearnesse of senses vivacity of understanding grace to expresse ones thoughts ability to govern well Courage in great and difficult undertakings fruitfulnesse in the productions of the mind and the strength of love and forasmuch as concerneth the last Orpheus and Hesiodus have thought it so necessary that they make it the first thing that came out of the Chaos before the Creation of the world The Platonists revolving upon this conceit have built us three worlds which are the Angelicall nature Vide Marsilium Ficinum in convivium Platonis An exâ—ellent conceit of the Platonists the soul and the Frame of the universe All three as they say have their Chaos The Angel before the ray of God had his in the privation of lights Man in the darknesse of Ignorance and Sinne The materiall world in the confusion of all its parts But these three Chaoses were dissipated by love which was the cause that God gave to Angelicall spirits the knowledge of the most sublime verities to Man Reason and to the world Order All we see is a perpetuall circle of God to the world and of the world to God This circle beginning in God by inestimable perfections full of charms and attractives is properly called Beauty and
ignorant what answer to give unto the Emperour Ah Sir said she I see you are much hindered in a brave way if it onely rest in your wife that you be not great and happy I freely deprive my self of all yea of your company which is more precious to me then all the Empires of the world rather then prejudice your fortune For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 know I love you better then my self And saying this she cut off her hair and voluntarily entred into a Monastery which the other was willing enough to suffer preferring ambition before love a matter very ordinary among great ones Out of all this it may be inferred that women are to be found very virtuous and most constant in their affections But the question I proposed in the second place if in case it so fall out whether amities may be fixed out of marriage between sex and sex is a passage very dangerous and worldlings must not think it strange if I look into it with much precantion It is Rodomanto of Pelagius Jerem in Pelagium a pleasant thing to hear how Pelagius the Arch-heretick talks in S. Jerome For he makes a Rhodomantade suteable to a spirit swoln up with pride and blinded within the opinion of his own worth There are saith he who shut themselves within cells and never see the face of any one woman yet suffer themselves to be enslamed with love and tormented with desires which may very well happen for they are miserable creatures who well deserve to be so handled As for me I freely professe I am daily environed with an host of women and feel not the least spark of concupiscence S. Basil S. Basil de Virginitaâ—e Inclination of sex to sex was of another opinion when he sheweth that a man who perpetually converseth with women and saith he feeleth not any touch thereof participateth not at all of humane nature but rather is some extraordinary prodigie For as he learnedly disputeth in the Book he composed of Virginity the body of a woman is as it were a section and a fragment of that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dangerous autractives in the conversation with women the first man which is the cause he naturally desireth her as a part taken from himself The palm hath not more inclination to the palm nor the iron to the adamant then one sex hath towards another When God created the mother of the living it is written he built as if the Scripture would say That woman is a house Aedificavit dominus costam quà m tulerat de Adam in mulierem Gen. 2. 22. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Basil ibid. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Alex. paedag l. 3. wherein the heart of man lodgeth but too often Sole glances saith this great man are spirituall hands which cause wonderfull effects From thence the first battery of Concupiscence beginneth as saith Clemens Alexandrinus Adde that after the corruption of sinne we have in us an evil source of carnall desire which floweth from the bottome of our soul by our five senses as by so many conduit-pipes Nature is extremely subtil and busie and when one hath a hundred times together by strong hand chased it away a hundred times it returneth It insinuates it self it presseth forward with sweet violences with charming sweetnesses it insensibly spinneth the web and doth what it list Moreover it is seconded with a certain curiosity to know all that which is most pernicious to it It kicketh against the laws of honesty and modesty and thinks the forbiddance of an evil is the greatest of all torments It will know too much to be chaste and makes a snare to it self of proper science O God of purity how many do we now adayes see who to give entrance to a wicked curiosity through too free conversation receive as many wounds as they give glances and as many deaths as beauty shoots arrows against them Solomon who well knew the effect of this passion said Thy eyes shall see forreign women and thy heart shall Prov. 23. Oculi tui videbunt extraneas cor tuum loquetur perversa c. entertain a very evil discourse within thee Thou shalt be as one fast asleep in the midst of the waves of the sea or as a lazy plot who oppressed with drowsinesse hath forsaken the helm Thou wilt say It is true they struck me but I feel no pain of it They have drawn me this way and that way but I am not sensible of it when shall I be awakened to be again drunk with love and to return to my accustomed pleasures See how a senslesse soul talketh which having not well guarded its senses in the first assault delivereth the heart over as a prey and sinks into the bottome of Abysse But to rest within the limits of honest Modest amities with women should alwayes be handled with much precaution amities it is undoubted one cannot use too much precaution so subtil and penetrative are the stings thereof especially when it is sharpned by Beauty Bounty and Benefits Yea misery therein doth sometimes bear so sensible a part that a beautifull and virtuous woman being in her innocency afflicted shooteth Magnus amor est qui de misericordia venit 8. Cant. 6. arrows of victorious love into the heart of man And very well the Philosopher Seneca hath observed that love is great when it grows out of commiseration It is true which Cassidorus said in the book of Cassiod de amicitia Amity that one affection degenerateth insensibly into another Love in the beginning is wholly divine then it becometh humane being yet within the limits of reason From humane it passeth to naturall wherein Degeneration-amity it quickly feels the sting of nature and the first fervour of Concupiscence From naturall it becometh officious entertaining it self with discourses complements complacence offices and services From officious it most times becometh carnall and from carnall absolutely unchaste Iamblichus a Philosopher very curious saith that Observation of Iamblichus applied to the amities of women those who professed to consult with spirits by this divine operation as is pretended saw in the beginning obscurities spectres and night but persisting in their search they perceived the air by little and little waxed bright with a pleasing serenity and the apparitions became more lightsome It falleth out quite otherwise in the matter of Amities indiscreetly tied with women For at first those shevvs are fair and specious but the issues of them if one be not heedfull are black and hideous A soul vuhich feareth God might sometimes be very confident among such as make profession to be none of the honestest because it is prevented by some aversion which hindereth its perdition but virtue consorted by sweet disposition hath another manner of power for it insinuateth it self into the soul with admirations and satisfactions which attract the inclination before the consideration can be permitted to frame
displeaseth All which hath contented them discontenteth one knows not into what posture to put himself to give satisfaction Good words vex them services distast them submissions torment them contradictions make them mad It seemeth Sauls devil possesseth them and that they 1 Reg. 18. 10. know not themselves they hate by humour as if they had loved without consideration of merit But we must say that of all the plagues of Amity there is none so fatall to it as the discovery of a secret by Treason and Infidelity That is it which Petrus 8. Infidelity Petrus Blesenfis l. de amie c. 6. Plutarch in Julio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Blesensis called the blow without noise under the shadow of Amity It is that which Brutus gave to great Cesar and which was the cause that the valorous Emperour long tumbled to and fro among his murderers and defending himself from every blow they gave him covered his eyes with his garment not enduring the treachery of a man whom he had loved and obliged above all other But saying Ah son art thou then one of these He suffered himself as a victime to be butchered ashamed to behold the day light which made him see so black a mischief And what is there more to be deplored then to behold a generous heart which dilates it self in the presence of a pretended friend and powreth out unto him all he hath in his soul whilst the wretch shooting back envenomed shafts against all the raies of Amity maketh a prey of his goodnesse and a trophey of his sincerity abandoning him to the discretion of such as persecute him There are some who suffer themselves to fall into these Infidelities by the surprizall of some wicked spirits who wholly govern them and who draw out of them all they have in their hearts either by craft or power which rendreth them lesse culpable but not innocent Others run to it with the malignity of a Devill and joyfully triumph Sient novatulla acut◠fecisti dolum propterea Deus destructte when they have prospered in an Act so base and barbarous Do not these kind of people deserve to be accounted the horrour of nature the scorn of Ages the execration of mankind And shall we not believe that if Pythagoras Metempsychosis were in being their souls would put on no other bodies but of Hyena's Rats or Owls to fly in an eternall night and never to be illustrated with one sole ray of the bright day of Amity Now if you desire to know the things which are Psal 51. 4. Six perfections which preserve Amity of power perpetually to uphold Amity I must tell you it subsisteth in honesty good disposition communication Bounty Patience and Fidelity Assure your self you will not long be a good friend if you study not to be ever virtuous The heart of a wicked man saith the Prophet is a Cor impurum quasi mare servens Isa 57. turmoyled sea which never rests it hath as many changes as the waves in the Ocean as many agitations as Tempests which with Amity is incompatible of its own nature peacefull and which enterteins the mind in a constant situation What is the cause the blessed are never weary of loving but that they perpetually find in God new beauties and perfections The body is finite and quickly thrusts forth all its qualities which with time rather fade then flourish but our spirit is profound as an abysse and our soul tendeth in some sort Dum unusquisque se sub umbra alterius obscurare volebat tan quam res percussa claritas utrumque radiabat S. Hilar. In Honorat to Infinity Hence it comes that two friends seriously disposing themselves to perfection daily receive some new lustre which rendreth them lovely so that increasing in goodnesse by degrees they insensibly love some better thing Saint Hilary of Arles said of two good friends that they sought to hide themselves in the shadow of one another but that thence their humility was reflected as from a solid bottome which made its lights the more resplendent Yet would I not that your virtue should be austere Humour and unmanaged but seasoned with a good disposition and a certain cordiality which is the best temper of Amity There are some who love so coldly that their love is as a day in winter when the Sun is involved in grosse vapours and shews nothing but sadnesse which is extreamly troublesome for it is better to receive a manifest Correction then to endure a hidden Amity to speak with the Wiseman Melior est manifesta correptio quam amor absconditus Prov. 27. and you shall find many women who better love harsh men then such as are neither one nor other He is no good friend who rejoyceth not at the presence of his friend who is not sorry for his absence yet not opposing the conformity we should have with Vid. Chrys ep p. 715 716. 1 Thes 2. 3. the divine Providence S. Chrysostome in the letters he wrote to his dear Olympias observed these sensible affections in S. Paul for he was much troubled at the absence of his best friends and desired to see their faces as he saith where this great Prelate insisteth upon Tertul. de velandis c. 12. Quis audebit oculis suis premere faciem clausam faciem non sentientē faciem ut ita dixerim tristem on the word face and sayes it is good right that we desire the face of our friend because it is the place where the soul sheweth it self in all its senses There is not any man saith Tertullian unlesse he hath little to do delighteth to hold long discourse before a face shut up a visage sensible of nothing and which to say truly cannot but be melancholy in this posture This hindreth not but that the use of veils is very laudable in time and place among religious women who make profession of penance and the fore-alledged Authour who ardently urgeth virgins to this observance gives them an example of Arabian women who were so veiled that they had but one eye free to guide them and to Contente sunt dimidiatâ fruiluce quà m totam faciem prostituere Idem de velandis Virg. cap. 14. receive a half light which caused a Roman Queen to say that they were miserable women who went so because they might take in love but not give it out again But contrariwise they were most happy to be delivered from a thousand importunities of wanton eyes which do nothing but court beauties Howsoever true amity is necessarily accompanied with some tendernesse and sensibility which causeth one to be perpetually anxious for such as he loveth Love in the heart is an exhalation in a cloud it cannot continue idle there It daily formeth a thousand imaginations and brings forth a thousand cares It findeth out an infinity of inventions to advance the good of the beloved It openeth it self in his prosperities it shuts it self up in
his flock and kill his brethren by your ill example Carnall love in what person soever is still ill situate said Epictetus In a maid it is a shame in a woman it is a fury in a man a lewdnesse in youth it is a rage in mans estate a blemish in old-age a disgrace worthy of scorn You will say all these considerations are very effectuall but that they cure not passion already enflamed and almost desperate of remedy Remedies for affections which come against our will To that I answer we must proceed with more efficacy and addresse among such as are surprised with vehement affection of which they would be free but they find all possible repugnancies I approve not the course of certain directours who think all maladies are healed by words as if they had ears To what purpose is it to hold long discourses and to appoint many meditations to a sharp feaver which is full of ravings and furious symptomes All the maladies of Love are not cured in one and Diversity of the maladies of love and their cures the same manner There are some who are engaged in the sense of the passion but not in the consent to the sinne which is expresly sent by God to persons very innocent but not entirely perfect to punish some negligencies or some slight liberties of conversation whereinto they have suffered themselves to slide by surprisall that they may feel the danger of sinne by the torment they suffer and may correct themselvs by the scent of the smoke before they be involved in the flame And this many times lasteth long being ordained as under a sentence of the divine Providence as a punishment to become afterward a bridle to negligence and a precaution against peril Some also are permitted by heaven and imposed upon certain souls who had a little too much rigour towards such as were tempted to the end they might learn by their experience more mildly to handle suffering hearts and not exasperate their wounds by the sharpnesse of the remedy Witnesse that old man of whom Cassian speaketh who having roughly entertained a young religious man that discovered his passion Cas Col. 2. de discret Intellige te vel ignotarum hactenus a dia bolo vel despectum to him was tempted so violently that he thereby became frantick and understood from the venerable Abbat Apollon this had befaln him by reason of his great harshnesse and that although he hitherto had not felt any rebellion against chastity it was because the devill either knew him not or contemned him There are some which like tertian and quartan agues have their accesses and recesses measured and what diligence soever be used therein well the pain may be mitigated but the root is not taken away till it arrive to a certain period of time wherein the sick man is insensibly cured There are some driven away by hunger and others overthrown by a reasonable usage as it happeneth to melancholy Lovers whose bodies are dry and brains hollow if you appoint them fasts and austerities ill ordered you kill them Some advise them recreation wine bathes honest and pleasing company necessary care of the body Some sweet and active entertainment which gives not leasure to the wild fancies of the mind but this must be taken with much moderation There are some who expect a good sicknesse and many bloud-lettings which may evacuate all the bloud imprinted with Images of the thing beloved to make a new body others are cured by a suit a quarrell ambition an ill businesse great successe a new state of life a voyage a marriage an office a wife There are now very few fools of Love to be found who neglect worth and honour to serve their passion There are nice and suspicious Loves which have more of vanity then concupiscence when one troubleth and hinders them from honestly seeing that which they love they are distempered and if one resist them not they vanish away as if they had not had so much intention to love as to vanish It were almost necessary for many if it may be done without sinne or scandall to converse continually for being somewhat of their own nature coy they still observe some defect in the thing beloved which weakneth their passion and find that the presence is much inferiour to their Idea which is the cause they easily desist from their enterprise having more shame to have begun it then purpose to continue it Some are enflamed by deniall others become totally cool by contempt as proud and predominate loves who have not learn'd to suffer the imperious carriage of a woman a disdain of their mistresse a cunning trick a coldnesse a frown makes them quickly break their chains One would not believe how many humane industries there are to cure the pain of Love but ever it is better to owe ones health to the fear of God to Penance to Deuotion then to all other inventions For which cause you must consider the glorious battails which so many heroick souls have waged to crush Solid remedies this serpent and to walk with noble steps in the liberty of the children of God Some have fought with it on thorns as S. Bennet others on flowers as the Martyr Nicetas who being Admirable examples of the combats of Saints against Love bound on a bed of roses with silken cords to resign himself to the love of a courtesan spit out his tongue in her face Others have thrust sharp pointed reeds under their nails as S. John the Good others have quenched it in snows as S. Francis others in flames as S. Martinian who being by an unchaste woman sollicited to sinne burnt his face and hands to over-throw the strongest passion by the most violent pain There are many of them in the new Christianity of Japonia who pursue the same wayes and run to their chimney-hearths to vanquish the temptations of the flesh thinking there is not a better remedy against this fire then fire it self Others have overcome this bruitishnesse by a savage life as S. Theoclista who being taken by Arabians stole from them and was thirty years hidden in the forrests living on grasse and clothing her self with leaves To say truly there is not any virtue hath cost mankind so much as invincible Chastity But since these manners of conquests are more admirable then imitable at least mortifie your body by some ordinary devotion Make use of the memory of death make use of assiduity of prayer of labour of care over the eyes ears heart and all the senses Humble your spirit and submit to obedience that your flesh may obey you Be not transported with extravagancies Ubi furoris insederit virus libidâ—niâ— quoque incendium nâ—cesse est peneâ— Casde spiritu fornic c. 23. animosity and revenge since Anger and Love according to the Ancients work upon one subject and that the same fervours of bloud which make men revengefull will make them unchaste fail not to heal
the Divinity Our soul which is the blast of his mouth the image of his bounty the representation of his power as it beareth so lively characters of his Majesty hath as it were also not heeding it a generous passion towards him unlesse it be infected by the breath of the serpent and obstructed by vapours of sensualty it seeks for him it speaks to him in all creatures It beholdeth him through so many veils which nature hath spread before it in so divers objects But it often falleth out that charmed with present pleasures it is so much delighted with beautifull workmanships that it forgetteth the work-man It embraceth momentary beauties for eternall verities It takes the shadow for the body It creates to it self an Empire in banishment and a haven in shipwrack This carnall piece which is ravished with the contemplation of this goodly face will not stay upon flesh It feeleth there is some invisible hand which shoots arrows at it amidst the vermilion of roses and the whitenesse of lillies it well knoweth not what transports it what entranceth it what worketh these transanimations in it It is not the body which must rot but it is the shadow of the first-fair upholds it self in the frailty of dying things and incessantly causeth returns to the first origen in souls which know how to profit by theri wounds O how attractive is the Beautie O should it on a sudden take away the veil from all mortall eyes who court it the world in an instant would dissolve under its much to be adored rayes souls would fly out of bodies and totall nature would impetuously affect its delights It is so naturally imprinted on the heart of man that Hell it self cannot forget it since the evil rich man laid on the coals of so unfortunate a lodging did for his first act lift up his eyes to heaven as desirous to look for the lovely face which he had eternally lost Secondly I will deliver an excellent reason which I Aug. l. 2. conf c 6. An excellent reason of S. Augustine to shew the inclination we have to love God draw out of S. Augustine to convince us that there is some very forcible inclination which insensibly moveth us to the love of God which is the cause that even our vices and exorbitancies not reflecting thereon love some perfection of the Divinity although not regulated nor limited in the bounds wherewith it ought to be beloved Pride contends for heighth and what is higher then God who sits upon Thrones predominateth over Dominations who governeth Principalities and makes Heaven bow even to the Abysse under the shadow of his Majesty Ambition passionately seeketh after honours and who hath more honour then God who seeth glory to be hatched in his own bosome for whome so many Altars smoke for whom so many sacrifices burn under whom so many Diadems bow to whow so many Sceptres obey before whom so many States Kingdomes and Empires are but a drop of dew Power will make it self great and who is more formidable then this great Judge for whom Thunders roar Lightnings fly Thunder-stones shiver lofty rocks for whom elements fight and nature dresseth up its scaffolds to prosecute offenders even in hell there being neither Place Time Heighth or Power which hath ability to deliver it self out of his hands Flattery and Complacence will make it self to be beloved and what is more lovely then the sweetnesse of the charity of this good Father which distilleth like unto a celestiall Manna upon all the creatures of the Universe Curiosity affecteth the study of wisdome And what is wiser then God who seeth all within himself who hath Abysses of knowledges in his heart riches of eternall sapience in his bosome for whom Time hath no prescription nature no veil Heighth no heighth and abysses no depth Who is the Father of Sciences Creatour of thoughts Treasure of Eloquence who dazeleth all humane Ability who taketh his Sages from among Ideots and out of the dumb raiseth his Oratours Lazynesse seeks out a life soft and peacefull continually fixed upon its repose and the contentments of the flesh and spirit and where shall we find the repose out of God since it is he who is perpetually ingulphed in the delights of a pure tranquillity Luxury ardently desireth pleasures and will satisfie all the desires of its heart And God is he not the plenitude of joy an abundance which never fails a sweetnesse incorruptible a feast which consumeth not a perpetuall Theatre of comsorts a Flood of most pure contentments which floweth overall Paradise Avarice will possesse much it stretcheth out the hands of a Harpy over the goods of another It garboileth the world it disquieteth the earth It would willingly delve into hell it pleadeth it wrangleth it assails it defendeth to satiate its covetousnesse yet still is hungry For what is he that possesseth all but the prime of the rich who is the beauty of fields the lustre of flowers the fecundity of fruits the wealth of minerals and the fertility of totall nature Envie is troubled about supereminency and will have the highest place accounting him an enemy who precedeth And is it not the eternall Father who is King of Glory who seeth all to be much lower then himself and seeth nothing beyond what he is Choler will revenge for it it striketh at heaven it troubleth the earth it causeth lightning and tempests which raise so many Tragedies in the world And who better knowes how to avenge sins then the soveraign Monarch of the Universe for whom exterminating Angels carry the sword of Justice for whom hell reserveth treasures of flames eternall Now I demand of you if it be true that even our Tantus est ille ut qui non amant eum injustâ— quidem non nisi quoddam ejus amare possint S. Eucherius Objection about the invisibâ—lity of God Mercur. Trism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That God renders himself infinitely amiable in totall nature Synesius Hymn 4. Naturam universam lyram aeâ—erni Patris vocat diversis fidibus intentam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ubi alludit ad chordas cytharae hypatem mesen neten The sun the image of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orpheo Boni conspicuus filius conspicuum in templo mundi Dei simula chrumâ— Platonicis Proclus thronum justitiae in medio sole collocat vices are in love with some perfections which are in God how can our virtues but bear a singular affection towards him why should they not be enamoured of his beauties why not sigh after his attractives since they are his reall daughters Some one will say it were but reasonable if God to make himself beloved would become visible to men but he is a secret so hidden that our poor spirit seeking for him finds more confusion then light Verily I like Mercury Trismegistus for he stopping his mouth who complained of the invisibility of God Hold thy peace thou profane fellow saith he and if thou hast
eyes and saw not ears and heard not senses and felt not she was not where she was for she was wholly where her Master was although she knew not where he was She knew no other art but that of love she had unlearnt to fear to hope to rejoyce to be sad all in her turned to love by reason of him whom she loved above all The Angels who descended from heaven to comfort her were to her troublesome nor could she endure them she stood upright near the sepulchre where in the place of death she found her heaven Now as in efficacious plyantnesses are flowers of Liberality love which never bring forth any fruit so it takes a second quality which is to be liberall and much obliging For this cause the hands of the bridegroome according to the Canticles are all of gold and round to shew there is not any thing crooked or rough to stay Cant. 5. 14 Manus ejus tornatiles aureae plenae Hyacinthis alia versio Globi aurei pleni mari his gifts besides they are all filled with pretious stones to figure his benefits unto us Jacinths and Diamonds which he scattereth and bestoweth as liberally as the sand of the sea The Hebrew saith that the same hands are vessels of gold replenished with the sea because love is an Ocean of liberalities which is never exhausted There remains nothing but to be patient which it Patience Pennas habet non pondus Ailredus doth with so much grace that one may say its yoke hath wings not weight The heart of it oft-times is invironed with thorns and it sweareth they are roses It swims in a sea of worm-wood and faith it is sweet water It is covered all over with wounds and protesteth they are Pearls and Rubies It is overwhelmed with affairs and maintains they are recreations It is surcharged with maladies and they are sports with calumnies and they are blessings with death and that is life These three qualities cause twelve very notable effects Twelve effects of love in love which are To love God above all and in comparison of him to despise all To account ones self unhappy if but a very moment diverted from his sweet Ideas To do all that may be and to endure all things impossible to come near him To embellish and adorn our soul to please him To be alwayes corporally present with him as in the Sacrament or spiritually as in prayer To love all which is for him and to hate all which is not for him To desire that he may be declared confessed praised and adored by all the world To entertein all the most sublime thoughts that is possible of his dear person To passe over with sweetnesse all the acerbities suffered in his service To accommodate ones self to all his motions and to receive both sad and joyfull things with his countenance To languish perpetually with the desires to behold him face to face and lastly To serve him without anxiety or expectation of reward These things being so sublime we must not presume to arrive thither at the first dash It is very fit to file and continually to polish our soul by long services and goodly actions to arrive in the end at the happy accomplishment of love For this cause there are reckoned certain degrees by which the soul is led to the pallace of this triumphant Monarch There is a love as yet but young which doth onely begin and hath five degrees within the compasse whereof it dilates it self to passe to a much greater perfection It beginneth first by the taste of the word of God and the sweetnesse it feels by the reading of good books which is a sign that a soul already hath an arrow of true love in the heart This taste maketh a man take good resolutions for the amendment of his manners and order of his life this resolution is followed by a happy penance which bewaileth all the imperfections of the life past with a bitter distaste and a fit satisfaction By this way we proceed to the love of a neighbour and a beginning is made by a tender compassion of his afflictions and a rejoycing at his prosperities Lastly or addicts himself much to many very laudable good works and to the holy exercises of mercy Behold here a most sincere condition and to be wished in many men of honour who may therein persist with great constancy The second order comprehendeth those which are Three orders of true lovers of the World yet more strong and it conteineth five other degrees First they are very assiduous in prayer wherein they are much enlightned with the knowledge of verities and celestiall maximes Secondly they obtain an excellent purity of conscience which they cleanse and polish by an enquiry into their interiour holily curious and perfectly disposed Thirdly they feel the exteriour man much weakned by a generous mortification wherewith concupiscence is quailed Fourthly followeth the vigour of the inward man who finds him self happily enabled to all the functions of the spirit with a certain facility which becometh as it were naturall to him Fifthly appeareth a great observance of the law of God which maketh him apprehend the least atomes of sin through a notable fidelity with which he desires to serve his master In this rank are many good religious who lead a life most accomplished in devotion and in the continuall mortification of senses Lastly in the third order of perfect lovers are the great effects of perfect charity as is not to have any humane and naturall considerations in all ones actions but to tread under foot all respect of flesh and bloud to defend truth Not to stick to earth by any root but to account all things worse then a dunghill to gain Jesus Christ to run before the Crosse and to bear the greatest adversities with a generous patience to love ones enemies to do good to persecutours and in conclusion freely to expose ones life for the salvation of a neighbour To say truly they had need to be persons most heroick to go so far and there is no doubt but this is the full accomplishment of love Notwithstanding nine degrees also are added of Seraphick love which concern Contemplatives which are Nine degrees of Seraphicall love for the contemplative The solitude of a heart throughly purified from all the forms of Creatures Silence in a sublime tranquillity of passions Suspension which is a mean degree between Angell and man Inseparability which adhereth to its welbeloved for an eternity not admitting the least disunion Insatiability which never is satiated with love Indefatigability which endureth all labours without wearinesse Languour which causeth the soul to dissolve and melt on the heart of its beloved Extasie which causeth a destitution of the vegetative and sensitive soul totally to actuate the intellectuall Deiformity which is a degree approching near to beatifick love Then is there made in the soul a deluge of mysterious and adorable
he fell into an extasie of holy comfort to have found a man so conform to his humour and both of them wept so much out of love over this fountain that they seemed to go about to raise those streams by their tears If he wrote a letter he imagined love gave him the pen and that he dipped it in his tears and that the paper was all over filled with instruments of the passion and that he sent his thoughts and sighs as Courtiers to seek out the well-beloved of his heart When he saw an Epistle or a letter wherein the name of Jesus was not premised it sensibly tormented him saying Sarazins had more devotion for Mahomet a man of sin setting his name in the front of all their letters then Christians had for their Redeemer A holy occasion one day drew him to a Church to hear excellent musick but he perceiving the words were of God and the tune according to the world he could not forbear to cry out aloud Cease profane men Cease to cast pearls into mire Impure airs are not fit for the King of virgins Some took delight to ask him many questions and he answered them nothing but the word love which he had perpetually in his mouth To whom belongest thou To love whence comest thou from love whither goest thou To love who begat thee Love Of what dost thou live upon love where dwellest thou In love He accounted them unworthy to live who died of any other death then of love and beholding a sick-man in an agony who shewed no feeling of joy to go unto God but onely complained of his pain he lamented him as a man most miserable At his entrance into a great Citie he asked who were the friends of God and a poor man being shewed him who continually wept for the love of heaven and heavenly things he instantly ranne to him and embracing him they mingled their tears together with unspeakable joy God often visited him by many lights and most sweet consolations as it happened at that time when he thought he saw a huge cloud between his Beloved and him which hindred and much troubled him but presently it seemed to him that love put it self between them both and gilded the cloud with great and admirable splendours in such sort that through this radiant beauty he saw a ray of the face of his well-beloved and for a long space spake to him with profusions of heart and admirations not to be expressed From this obsequious love he passed to obliging love and made a strong resolution to become profitable to all the world For which purpose feeling every moment to be replenished with sublime and divine thoughts which God had communicated to him and that he had no insight in Grammer nor other slight school-notions he resolved to learn the Latine tongue being now full fourty years old He hit upon a teacher one Master Thomas who taught him words conjugations and concords but he rendred him back again elate conceptions unheard of discourses and harmonies wholly celestiall so much honouring his Master that he dedicated the most part of his books to him wherein for the dead letter he offered unto him the spirit of life Not satisfied with this he added the Arabick tongue of purpose to convert the Mahumetans and for this end he bought a slave for whom having no other employment but to teach him it and he having therein already well profited and endeavouring to convert this wretched servant who had been his teacher the other found him so knowing and eloquent that he had an apprehension that through this industry he was able to confound the Mahumetan-law which was the cause that the Traitour espying his opportunity took a knife and sought to kill his Master but he stopt the blow and onely received a wound which proved not mortall All the house ran at the noise and there was not any one who would not have knocked down the ungratefull creature but he hindered it with all his might and heartily pardoned him in the greatest sharpnesse of his dolours Instantly the officers seized on this compassion and put him into prison where he was strangled repenting himself of nothing but that he had not finished his mischief which caused extreme sorrow in Raymond who bewailed him with many tender tears of compassion After this he undertook divers journies into France Spain Italy Greece and Africk wandring continually over the world and not ceasing to preach write and teach to advance the salvation of his neighbours Paris many times received him with all courtesie in such sort that the Chancellour Bertand who was infinitely affected to knowledges permitted him to reade them publickly in his hall The reverend Charter-house Monks whose houses have so often been sanctuaries for Learning and Devotion were his hoasts and so much he confided in their integrtty and sincerity that he with them deposed all which he had most precious The love of God which is as lightning in a cloud still striving to break forth suffered him not to rest but disposed him to undertake somewhat for the glory of God It is true he had first of all that purpose which afterwards our father S. Ignatius so gloriously accomplished for he was desirous to make Seminaries of learned and courageous spirits who should spread themselves throughout the world to preach the Gospel and to sacrifice themselves for the propagation of Faith For this cause he multiplied his voyages to Rome to Lions to Paris to Avignon incessantly solliciting Popes and Kings to so excellent a work without successe He used fervour and zeal therein but our father thereunto contributed more order and prudence The one undertook it in a crosse time during the passage of the holy See from Rome to Avignon where the Popes more thought upon their own preservation then tha conquests of Christianity The other knew how to take occasion by the fore-lock and he interessed Rome and the Popes thereof in his design The one made his first triall under Pope Boniface the Eighth who having dispossessed a Hermite of S. Peters Chair held those for suspected who were of the same profession fearing they a second time might make a head of the Church The other happened upon Paul the Third who was a benign Pope and he gained his good opinion by his ready services and submissions which tended to nothing but the humility of Jesus Christ The one embroiled himself too much in Sciences even unto curiosity and made them walk like Ladies and Mistresses the other held them as faithfull servants of the Crosse subjected to holy Humility The one stood too much upon his own wit and needs would beat out wayes not hitherto printed with any foot-steps nor conferred enough with the Doctours of his times in matters of Opinion and Concord the other passed through the surges of Universities and followed an ordinary trackt in the progression of his studies The one was of a humour very haughty the other of a spirit
that its depth was his exaltation He went back again into the kingdome of Sarazens in Africk where being known he was suddenly stoned to death in a popular commotion and buried under a great heap of stones in which place his body long remained unknown to all the world but it pleased God that certain merchants his countrey-men sailing into that countrey saw in the night a Pyramis of fire to rise up over his tomb which caused a curiosity in them to see what it was and coming to dig into it they found this venerable old man who was so gloriously buried in his own triumph they brought him back into his own countrey where he is all this time reverenced out of an antient Devotion of the people which the holy See permitteth rather by way of toleration then expresse Canonization The second Treatise Of HATRED § 1. It s Essence Degrees and Differences WHat a Comet is among stars Hatred is Hatred a hidenus Comet among virtues It is a passion maligne cold pernicious deadly which ever broodeth some egge of the serpent out of which it produceth infinite disastres It is not content to vent its poison in certain places and times but it hateth to the worlds end yea as farre as eternity To set before your eyes the havock it maketh in a soul it is necessary to understand it in all the degrees and dimensions thereof For which purpose you shall observe that Hatred being properly an hostility of the appetite against those things which it apprehendeth to be contrary It s nature to its contentment It hath some similitude with Choler but there is much difference as between pieces engraven and painted which may easily be defaced Choler is more sudden more particular more ardent and more easie to be cured Hatred more radicall more generall more extended more sad and more remedilesse It hath two notable properties whereof the one Its properties consisteth in aversion and flight the other in persecution and dammage There is a Hatred of aversion which is satisfied to flie from all that is contrary to it There is another Enmity which pursueth and avengeth and tends to the destruction of all whatsoever The first property hateth the evill the second wisheth it to the authour of the evill and when it hath once possessed a black soul it maketh terrible progressions and is especially augmented by four very considerable degrees First it beginneth in certain subjects by a simple Its degrees aversion and a hatred of humour which is the cause we have an horrour at all those things that oppose naturall harmony which appears as well in the good constitution of body as in the correspondencies of senses and the faculties of the soul with their objects And although this contrariety be not alwayes evident enough unto us yet there is some feeling which in the beginning maketh us many times to have an aversion from some person whom we never saw and from whom we have never received the least suspicion of affront or dammage Be it out of some disproportion of body of speech of behaviour or whether it be there is some secret disaccord we often hate not well knowing the cause thereof which very easily happeneth to the femall sex For women being full of imaginations the vivacity of fancy furnisheth them with infinite many species of conveniences and inconveniences that cause a diversity of humours which very seldome make a good harmony but if they do it is ever easie enough to be disturbed There are loves and hatreds which cannot be put on and put off as easily as a man would do a shirt which teacheth us it is very hard to make one to love by commands as if we went about to introduce love by cannon-shots The first degree of Hatred is properly called Antipathy and is so generall in nature that it The natural antipathies passeth into things inanimate and into bruit beasts which are no sooner born but they exercise their enmities and warre in the world A little chicken which yet drags her shell after her hath no horrour at a horse nor at an elephant which would seem so terrible creatures to those that know not their qualities but it already feareth the kite and doth no sooner espy him but it hasteneth to be hidden under the wings of the hen Drums made of sheep-skins crack as it is said if another Jo. ◠Por a in Chao ther be strucken near them made of a wolfs hide and such as are made of the skin of a camel scare horses The lion is troubled at the crowing of a cock Cabbages and herb-grace cannot endure each others neighbour-hood such enmity they have and a thousand other such like things are observed in nature wherein there are such expresse and irreconciliable hatreds If man who should moderate his passions by reason suffers himself to run into Antipathies and naturall aversions and doth not represse them by virtue it falleth out they increase and are enflamed out of interest contempt slander ill manners outrages offences or out of simple imaginations of offence which then causeth a second degree of hatred which is a humane hatred consented to with deliberation which putteth Humane hatred it self into the field to exercise its hostilities here by injuries there by wrangling here by forgery there by violence and by all the wayes which passion inventeth to do hurt by Abject courages hate with a cold and cloudy hatred which they long hatch in their hearts through impotency of vindicative strength The haughty and proud do it with noise accompanied Its differences with disdains affronts and insolency All they who love themselves tenderly perpetually swarm in hatreds and aversions seeing themselves countre-buffed and crossed in a thousand objects which they passionately affect All the most violent hatreds come out of love Hatred of love and namely when lovers the most passionate see themselves to be despised despair of amity transporteth them to a◠outrageous hatred finding they have afforded love the most precious thing that is in our dispose to receive scorn There are likewise who without receiving any injury begin to hate out of wearisomnesse in love and coming to know the defects of such as they had the most ardently loved they take revenge upon the abuse of their own judgement by the evill disposition of their own will and do as those people who Quintil. decl 17. Non habent proximorum odia regressum quaecunque nexus accepere naturae quae sanguine visceribúsque constructa sunt non laxantur diducta sed percunt burnt the Gods they had adored Whether hatred arises out of a weary love or whether it proceeds from an irritated love it is ever to be feared and there are not any worse aversions in the world then those which come from the sources of amity Quintillian also hath observed That the Hatreds of neighbours are enmities irrecoverable and wounds which never are cured because bands
de concent l. 38. I were created to live free from all worldly contrarieties I who commit so many fins on the other part will to day do an act of virtue in honour of my Master and in despite of passion Let us go to heaven by love since we cannot go thither by sufferings This is the true gate by which we enter into the sanctuary eternally to enjoy the sight of the inaccessible beauties of the holy and regall Trinity Hear you not the God of peace who saith to us If thou O unhappy soul wilt still persist in Hatred I pronounce unto thee the six punishments of Cain Banishment from the sight of God fear stupidity of mind the life of a beast the malediction of the earth and as Procopius addeth persecuting Angels armed with swords of fire who shall pursue thee like spectres and spirits in all places and shall make themselves visible and dreadfull to thee at the last day of thy life Behold here deservedly thy inheritance since being mortall thou makest thy enemies immortall and dost still persecute the afflicted widow and her children who are become orphans after the death of a husband and a father whom thou hatest The strongest enmities oft-times are appeased at the sight of a dead body and a tomb which we find exemplified in Josephus for Alexander was extremely hated by the Jews as having reigned over them with a rod of Iron But when death had closed up his eyes and that the Queen his wife most sorrowfully presented Joseph l. 3. c. 23. A notable example to appease hatred her self accompanied by two young children and exposed the body of her husband saying aloud Sirs I am not ignorant that my husband hath most unworthily used you but see to what death hath brought him if you be not satisfied tear his body in pieces and satisfie your own revenge but pardon a deplorable widow and her little innocent orphans who implore your mercy The most salvage spirits were so softned by this act that all their hatred turned into pity yet you Barbarian still persist to hate a man after his death to persecute him in a part of himself to tear him in pieces in his living members O good God if you renounce not this revenge you will be used like Cain as an enemy of mankind and a hang-man of Nature O flame O love O God! As thou art dispersed throughout us by love so banish all these cursed Hatreds of Hell and make us love all in thy goodnesse to possesse all in thy fruition § 6 Of the profit may be drawn from Hatred and the course we must hold to be freed from the Danger of being Hated THere now remains to consider here what profit may be derived from hatred and with what Oeconomy Utility of hatred it may be husbanded to render it in some sort profitable and in case it be hurtfull to prevent its assaults and sweeten its acerbities If the industry of men found out the way to make preservitives out of the most dangerous poysons why should it be impossible for us to make some notable utilities to arise out of a passion which seems not to be created but for the dammage and ruine of all things yet it is certain that Nature which never is idle in its productions hath given it us for a great good For it may serve love well rectified in its pretentions it furnisheth it with centinels and light-horse to hinder that which opposeth its inclination and to ruine all contrarieties banded against its contentments How often would Nature throw it self out of stupidity into uncertain dangers and most certain mischiefs were it not that naturall a version did awaken it did avert it from its misery and insensibly shew it the place of repose Is it not a wholesome Hatred to hate Pride Ryot Ambition and all ill Habits Is it not a reasonable Hatred discreetly to fly from maladies crosses incommodities which hurt the body and nothing advantage the mind This passion which in the beginning seemed so hideous teacheth us all this When it is well managed it conspireth against others by an according Discord to the lovely Harmony of totall Nature One may say there is happinesse and advantage to hate many things but what profit can one find in passive Hatred which makes a man many times to be hated and ill wished without cause or any demerit To that I answer with Saint Ambrose that it is That it is good to be honestly loved good to avoid such a kind of Hatred that it is fit to make ones self to be beloved with all honour by good men and to gain as much as possible the good opinion of all the world thereby to render glory to God as Rivers carry their tribute to the Ocean A publick Bonum est testimonium habere de multorum dilectione hinc nascitur fides ut committere se tuo affectul non vereatut alienus quem charum advertit pluribus Ambr. l. 2. offic c. 7. Means to gain the good will of the publick person who is in the employments and commerce of the great world may have all the treasures of the Indies and all the dignities of old Rome but if he have not the love and good-will of men I account him most indigent and poor Thence it is that confidence taketh beginning without which there is no fortune maketh any notable progression nor affair which can have such successe as might be expected It is infinitely profitable for great men that they may divert the Hatred of the people to have innocency of life greatnesse without contempt of inferiours revenues without injustice riches without avarice pleasures without ryot liberty without tyranny and splendour without rapine All the rich who live in the society of men as Pikes called the tyrants of rivers in the company of other fishes to ruine devour and fatten themselves with the bloud of the commons are ordinarily most odious but as there is a certain fish which Elians History calleth the Adonis of the Sea because Adonis an admirable fish Aelian l. 9. c. 16. de animal it liveth so innocently that it toucheth no living thing strictly preserving peace with all the off-spring of the sea which is the cause it is beloved and courted as the true darling of waters so we find in the world men of honour and estate who came to eminent fortunes by pure and innocent wayes wherein they demeaned themselves with much maturity sweetnesse and affability which put them into the possession of the good opinion of all the world But those who are hated ought diligently and carefully to consider from whence this hatred proceedeth and by what wayes it is fomented that fit remedies may thereunto be applyed There is a hatred which cometh from equals another How hatred is to be diverted from inferiours a third from great ones and sometimes from powerfull and subtile women which is little to be feared That which proceedeth
give a sergeant leave to bring him a summons in the midst of the pleasures of his Table The two most triumphant daies of his mortall life seem to be that of his Transfiguration and that whereon he made his magnificent entrance into Jerusalem And yet on this he wept as moistning his triumph with tears from his eyes and on rhe other Moses and Elias who appeared by his sides to serve as Oratours in his praises spake of that he was to fulfill in Jerusalem to wit of his excessive sufferings as if one had proclaimed to Cesar the sentence of his death at the instant when he entred into his Ivory chariot to be drawn by four white horses Jesus Christ was at that time in a body all resplendent with lights which was as a chariot to his soul and he would to be enterteined with his passion mingle the Cypresse with the lawrell I do not wonder the Fathers have applyed to him the passage of Genesis I will put my Bowe in the clouds This verily was the Rainbowe of the Celestiall Father Arcum meum ponaâ—â— in nubibes Gen. 9. which shone and showred both at one time For we see this goodly Meteor all composed of clouds of glory which serve as a Mirrour for the sun ceaseth not to pour down it self in rain upon our heads so the Saviour of the world in the pavillion of the Beatitude of his soul all covered over with fires and lights had eyes weeping over the sins and miseries of men Where think you were his joyes S. Augustine will tell you the soul of Jesus Christ was perpetually content because Aug. l. de Incarnatio ne Verbi it was drenched in God his father as a drop of dew in the Ocean It was ever in the place of pleasures which were born with it All it thought all it did all it aimed at was nothing but God and from this so perfect union waited on by immortall ardours of his love it derived its Immutability The soul besides these delicious Torrents of beatifick vision which overflowed it drew its consolations from the very sufferings it endured for the glory of the Divine Majesty It drew them from the destruction of Idols and from the confusion of devils which yelled being now despoiled under its feet from the exaltation of the Church in sufferings and persecutions from the glory of so many souls who sailed from the red sea of their bloud to eternall rewards from so many holy Virgins who were to follow the standard of the purity which his Mother did first of all place on his Altars from so many Doctours who should be born to beat down heresie in so many battels which were to be waged throughout the revolution of Ages from so many Confessours who should bedew themselves with tears of penance and burn themselves in a Holocaust of sweetnesse All was presented unto it as in a burning-glasse the rayes whereof reflected in diametre upon its heart to set it all on fire in such sort that it was then like to the great Angell of whom the Prophet Zachary Zach. 1. 8. speaketh who sat upon a red horse among gardens of Myrrhe which are the Hieroglyphes of love his red horse was the ardour of his celestiall affection and the branches of Myrrhe so many elect souls which were even then in the Book of Prescience wherein he took unspeakable delight § 5. Against the Stupidity and Cruelty of worldly pleasures ANd now O disloyall soul to be called to the society of the joyes of the celestiall Father and of the sonne of God and to despise them for a miserable fansie of pleasure Ah illusion Ah witchcraft What sense is there to feast perpetually and to live in the profuse excesse of Taste and gourmandize which you shall one day have more cause to curse then cherish whilst so many poor Widows so many little Orphans and people heretofore fortunate now necessitous even to the extremity of penury have not dry bread to moisten it with their tears before they eat it When have you enquired after their Calamities When have you opened an eye to behold them When have you so much as made a ray of mercy to reflect on so pressing and deplorable miseries Go O thou ungratefull to God traitour to thy own salvation enemy Ingrate Deo tibi ne quam hostis panperum divitum nota carcer naturae Chrysol serm 104. of the poore scorn of the rich and prison of humane Nature who keepest it shut up in thy bowels of brasse not suffering it so much as to behold its like What wilt thou answer to the voice of the bloud of so many poor who will plead against thee at the day of judgement if thou from this time resolvest not to cut off thy superfluities to comfort their afflictions where wilt thou find any to receive thee into those celestiall mansions if thou dost not visit the poor in their Hospitals and Cabbins abandoned by all the world Where wilt thou find rewards from heaven if thou sowest not liberalities on earth O thou nice wanton who wiltst perpetually be observed according to the giddy fancies of the exorbitant spirit and the many sufferings which have covered and swallowed up the third part of man-kind never to enter into thy thoughts Of what flesh of what bloud of what bones dost thou think thou art made to desire here to be served like a demy-God and to walk on the heads of men Ignorant of thy self nay Hangman of thy self who canst not live without so much prodigality superfluities and services not knowing that the first imitation of God is to depend little in the world on ought which concerneth the service of the body O thou old raven of the Deluge who still art tied with a long chain of servitude to a wretched piece of Carrion which hath exhausted the wealth of thy purse and brain Is it then infamous pleasure for which thou hast renounced the delights of heaven for which thou hast betrayed thy salvation and trampled under foot the bloud of the Testament and thou not yet so vouchsafe to open thy eyes to see the headlong ruine which threatneth thee Unhappy Bacchanalians who make Temples to be consecrated among Christians to Idolatrize you where will you find any place to lodge you in unlesse you mean to leap and skip upon the bloud of the lamb Hence with riot curiosity sports feasts and dissolute delights I pronounce it I publish it aloud They are the Apostacies of Christianity if you daily go about to countenance their libertismes Traiterous pleasures pleasures enemies of the Crosse Num. 11. 34 see see at the door of the house of these Syrens the sepulchres of Concupiscence which stink and smoke still with the disastrous carrions of those unsatiable bellies which made warre against heaven to have dainties which they no sooner received into their throats but the anger of God fell on their criminall heads and do you think that following
gaudium sed Lazarus mortuus est inquir gaudeo propter vos quia non eram ibi An tristitiaâ—â— sed triâ—â—is est anima mea usque ad mortem An excellens observation upon the terming our Saviour a Lambe light of his glory Notwithstanding we must not think he would undergo all sorts of passions especially such as carry in them any uncomely misbeseeming but those he took upon him which were most decent and incident to man If love saith the oracle of Doctours be a humane passion Jesus hath taken it shewing many times tendernesse of affections towards persons of merit as it is said that seeing a young man who had strictly kept the commandments of God from his most innocent years he loved him and had some compassion of him for that he entred not directly into the way of the Gospel being withheld by the love of his riches If fear be accounted among the motions of nature had not he fear and anxiety when he was near unto his passion If you look for joy doth not he say Lazarus is dead but I rejoyce for your sake because by this means the Apostles faith must be confirmed Lastly if sadnesse be the inheritance of our condition hath he not said My soul is heavy to the death But there are other passions which he would never admit as sensuall Love Hatred of a neighbour Envie and Anger As for that which concerneth this last passion it is certain that our Lord was more meek and gentle then all men from whence it came that he would be called the lamb of God by a solemn title and that he in the primitive Church was represented under the same figure as it appeareth in the Christening Font of Constantine where the statue of a Lamb of massie gold poured out the water of Baptisme Never in his greatest sufferings hath he shewed one least spark of anger or impatience but was alwayes calme and peacefull even shewing an incomparable sweetnesse to a naughty servant who had cruelly wronged him at the time of his passion And as for that he did in the matter of buyers and sellers that ought not to be called anger but a servent and vigorous zeal which caused him to punish irreverences committed against his eternall Father Good God! Had we perpetually before our eyes this mirrour of meeknesse we need not seek for any other remedies His aspect would remedy all our anger as the brazen serpent cured the plagues of Israell This sacred fish would cause a Calm wheresoever it rested and the presence of his aspect would banish tempests but since passion so cloudeth our reason let us apply remedies more obvious against the motions of anger §. 5. Politick Remedies to appease such as are Angry ANger being a jealous passion ever grounded upon the opinion of contempt ought to be handled with much industry and dexterity There are some who very soon are cured by joy by the meeting of light-hearted people and by some pleasing and unexpected accident This notably appeared at the Coronation of Philip Augustus where there was a prodigious confluence Rigordus of many people who out of curiosity excessively flocking thither much hindered the Ceremony A certain Captain troubled to see this disorder was desirous to remedy it ceasing not to cry out and thunder with a loud voice to them to be quiet but the earnestnesse of those that thronged had no ears for Thunders which made him being much incensed with anger to throw a cudgell he had in his hand at the heads of such as were the most unruly and this cudgell being not well directed lighted upon three lamps of Chrystall hanging right over the King and Queens heads which breaking the oil abundantly poured down upon them All there present were troubled at an act so temerarious but the pleasure of the fight put off their anger The King with the Queen his wife instead of being offended laughed heartily seeing themselves so throughly besmeared and a Doctour thereupon inferring that it was a good presage and that it signified aboundance of unction both of honours and prosperities which should overflow in their sacred persons they had no power to be angry out of the Imagination of glory which drieth up the root of this passion Verily there is no better a remedy to appease such as are cholerick then to flatter them with honour and submission which likewise was to be seen in that which happened in the person of Carloman He was a virtuous religious man brother of King Pepin who had buried himself in humility Chronicon Cassinense that he might couragiously renounce all the greatnesse whereunto by birth he was called It fell out that being in a Monastery of Italy not discovering himself he begged he might serve in the Kitchin which was granted him But the Cholerick cook seeing him to do somewhat contrary to his liking not contented to use him harshly in words with much indignity strake him But there being not any thing which more vexeth a generous spirit then to see him ill treated whom he most loveth Carlomans companion who was present not remembring himself to be a religious man entereth into a violent anger and suddenly taketh a pestle and throws it at the cooks head to revenge the good father who bare this affront with incredible generosity But so soon as this his companion had declared his extraction and related all which had happened the whole convent fell at his feet who was affronted and begged pardon of him Where were to be seen sundry sorts of passions Some of indignation others of compassion the rest of Reverence But Carloman thought it a thing intolerable to see himself honoured in such a manner whilst his Companion laughed beholding the Cook beaten and the submissions yielded to his Prince There are others who seeing their friends much incensed seign to take their part and seem angry with them saying this wicked fellow must at leisure be chastised to render his punishment the more exemplary Mean while they give time and expect the return of reason and then they perswade the contrary Many also have in apparence pretended fear to flatter the anger of great ones who take pleasure to render themselves awfull in this passion as did Agrippa towards the Emperour Caligula §. 6. Morall Remedies against the same Passion I Will descend into more particulars against the three More particular remedies against the three sorts of anger kinds of choler which we infinuated As for the first which consisteth in that hastinesse and heat of liver that breaks forth in motions somewhat inordinate First I say God is offended to see persons who make profession of a life more pure and whose soul verily is not bad to be perpetually upon the extravagancies of passions unworthy of a well composed spirit Besides it causeth a notable detriment to our repose For by being often angry our gall increaseth as Philosophers observe and the encrease of gall maketh us the more
resembleth the Vulture whom carrions nourish and Greg. Nyss in vita Mosis perfumes kill All the evill it meeteth prepareth a refection of Serpents for its mind and all the good afflicteth it to death Accustome not your self likewise easily to believe those tale-tellers who to gain your good liking by base servitude relate the vices and disasters of the party whom you envie for that much avails to foment your Passion Prosper hath sagely said that the envious are ready to believe all the evils in the world which the Prosper l. 3. de contemplat c. 9. tongue of a complaining spirit telleth them touching the mishaps of such as they hate and if any one by chance not knowing the disease happen to speak good Omne malum quod mendax fama citaverie statim credunt feraliter el qui illud verum non esse probare volucrit contradicunt of them they sufficiently witnesse by their contradiction that they believe not what they say Secondly it is very behooffull incessantly to labour in the mortification of pride and the exorbitant appetite of ones own proper excellency as being the principall root of the passion of Envie as affirmeth the fore-alledged Authour saying that Sathan became envious out of pride and not proud through Envy we must inferre Pride is not the fruit of Envy but Envy a sprout Non superbia fructus invidiae fuit sed invidia de superbiae radice processit Prosper ib. of Pride The ambition you have every where to have the highest place to be in great esteem to possesse a petty sovereignty in all savours necessarily makes you envious and jealous so that one cannot praise any body in your presence but that this commendation instantly seems to tend to the diminution of your reputation Your heart bleeds at it the bloud flieth up into your face nature arms her self to beat back a good office which a charitable tongue would render a person of merit as if it were a great injury and a suit commenced against you It is a sign you deserve little praise since you cannot endure it in another How would you be esteemed since you first of all betray your own reputation shewing your self to be of so weak a judgement Multis abundar virtutibus qui alienas amat Vincen. Bel. 8. 2. l. 4. c. 7. that one cannot speak a good word of another but it ministers matter of an evil thought in you Were you as rich in merits as your mind figureth to you you would no more be moved when a good word is spoken of another then a man infinitely wealthy to give a small piece of coin to a poor creature who were in want I add also a third remedy that many have found to be very efficacious which is to know and much to esteem the gifts that God hath given us to content our selves with what we are and with the state the divine Providence allotteth us without attempting on forreign hopes which would perhaps be great evils unto us S. Chrysologus saith that Envie once shut up Terrestriall Paradise with a sword of fire but I may say it Paradisi nobis amoena flammeo custode seclusit daily stoppeth from us the sources of many contentments which would plentifully moysten all the parts of our life that many would be happy if they could tell how to manure their fortune could content themselves with their own mediocrity and take the felicities which Nature presenteth them without being troubled at others Miserable that they are not knowing how to be happy unlesse another be unhappy unfortunate that they are to forsake Roses which grow in their gardens to hasten to reap thorns in their neighbours Tertullian writeth the Pagans in his time were so Tantinon est bonum quanti est odium Christianorum enraged against the Christians that all their comforts seemed nothing to them in comparison of the pleasure they took to hate and torment them This is the fury which many envious now-a-dayes practise All their prosperities fade all their joyes languish and all their good successes never are accomplished whilst they see those to flourish whom they persecute It grieves them they are what they are that God hath fixed them in a mean condition and that they are not born to be of those great Colosses which shrink and daily fall by the sole burthen of their weight If they knew the black phantasmes of cares which leap on the top of silver pillars and go athwart gilded marbles to find out those pompous lives who most commonly have but the bark of happinesse they would every day a thousand times blesse their condition but this maligne ignorance which sealeth up their eyes makes them complain of all that they should love and causeth them to love all they ought to complain of Lastly to remedy the bitings of Envie you must entertain a spirit of love and correspondence often representing unto your self that a man who loveth none but himself and wholly lives to himself not able to endure the prosperities of another is a piece unlosened from this great universe which altogether bendeth to the unity of our sovereign God who is one in Essence and who gathereth all creatures into the union of his heart What would this jealous man have who is so desperately passionate concerning this creature Doth he not well see that loving so inordinately he takes the course to be no longer loved by her and looseth all he desireth most by the violence of desiring it A woman out of a desire to be beloved would not be tyrannized over She wisheth love not fury fire of Seraphins not of devils These Courtships are offences to her these suspitions injuries these prohibitions rigours these solitudes imprisonments How can she love a man who loves not any but himself who will play a God in the world who will fetter the freedome of creatures which is the will for which God himself hath made neither bands nor chains How can she affect an Argus who observeth her who watcheth her who reckoneth up her words who questeth at her thoughts who prepareth racks of the mind for her in the most innocent pleasures The sole consideration of the ruines and miseries which envie and jealousie do cause to themselves were able to stay these exorbitancies were it once well considered but if these humane reasons seem yet too weak raise your self to divine § 5. Divine Remedies drawn from the Benignity of God O Man Behold for a first remedy among all the Remedy by the consideration of the first modell divine ones thy first modell and contemplate the benignity of God opposed to thy malice It is an excellent thing to consider against an envious eye that God who will reform us to his likenesse doth all the good to the world by simple seeing and by being seen God doth all by seeing and by being seen For by seeing he giveth Essence and grace and by being seen he
many remedilesse calamities and that this onely sonne disdaineth not to become its ransome delivered himself for it to torments so enormous and confusions so hideous The earth saith S. Augustine expecteth light and rain from heaven and we from a Messias expect truth and mercy He came after so long expectations and hath replenished the earth with his knowledge and the effects of his benignity What shall we now admire in the ineffable mystery of the Incarnation If we cast our eyes on the heavenly Father we there see a work of the power of his arm wherein he seems to have exhausted all his strength The heavens and the starres saith Saint Gregory Nyssen were but the works of the fingers of this divine Majesty But in the Incarnation he proccedeth with all the extent of his might with all the engines of his power and all the miracles of his Greatnesse It is a Maxime among Politicians that a man to appear very great should not waste all his force at an instant but still to reserve to himself somewhat to do wherein he may make his ability to be seen as it were by degrees by daily surpassing himself From whence it came that Seneca said to Nero Plutarch de Ira. who had caused a certain Pavillion infinitely precious to be made that he therein had shewed his weaknesse for if it should chance to perish he could not recover it and were it preserved it would be an everlasting reproch to him to have done to the uttermost of his power Behold the proceedings of humane prudence But our celestiall Father setting aside all other considerations and forgetting his greatnesse to be mindfull of his mercy did a work in our behalf which hath so limited his power that we may truly say that God cannot in the world in all Eternity make any thing greater then a Man-God And if we on the other part do reflect on the holy Ghost it seems that this third person which in the sphere of the Trinity had a mysterious barrennesse springing from the incomparability of a new production in the divine emanations would make recompense in this mystery pouring out at once heats lights and beauties in the blessed Virgin there to form the body of Jesus Christ and to raise his holy Humanity to the union of the Word Increate But what piece meriteth more admiration then to see the person of a God-man then to see a Jesus Christ who in himself uniteth Divine and Humane Nature who carries in himself the last lines of the love and power of his Father who beareth the consummation of all his designes for the government of man who includeth all possible communications to an inferiour nature in one inimitable communication who makes himself the source of Grace and Glory in Angelicall and humane nature as he is the source of life and love in the Trinity O what a goodly spectacle is it To behold how he blesseth by his presence how he replenisheth by his greatnesse how he governeth by his power how he sanctifieth by his influences both heaven and Earth If we yet doubt of his love and fatherly goodnesse let us look on his hands and we shall see that he hath written our name with his nails Let us see his heart which was opened for us by that lance which at the latter end of his dayes digg'd from out his entrails the remainder of his life and we shall observe how we therein live how we therein breathe and how we therein honourably burn as in a great fornace common to all intelligible Nature If you would know what you have cost and happily do not believe your Creatour Quà m preâ—iosus siâ— si factori forte non credâ—s interroga redemâ—torem Euseb Gal. Homil. 2. de Symbol ask your Redeemer and he will tell you Let us also behold the effects which have succeeded from the alliance of the Divine nature with the Humane and let us reverence the divine Goodnesse which hath raised up all the great Masse of men in a supernaturall Being to innocency to felicity to light and to life eternall Who was more destitute then Man more brutish and more ignorant in so great a night and in so horrible confusions of Idolatry and Jesus by his Incarnation hath revealed unto us the secrets and wisdome of heaven Who was more unfurnished of wise direction and he affordeth us his examples Who was more forlorn he adopteth us for his children Who was more needy and he gives us the treasure of his merits Who was more hungry and he nourisheth us with his flesh and bloud Who was more unhappy and he divideth his Beatitude among us If after so many benefits we remain still faithlesse to his fidelity he expecteth us with a singular long forbearance if we delay he stirreth us up if we fly he followeth us if we return he stretcheth forth his arm He washeth us in his bloud He regenerateth us in his love He makes it his trophey to have conquered us as if he entred afresh into the possession of an Empire causeth our proper sinnes to contribute to our glory If we endure somewhat for him he endureth with us he weepeth over us he prepareth eternall sources of consolations and as it is said that there is a certain fish which sweetens the water of the salt sea in its mouth so Jesus mingleth all our acerbities in the inexplicable Fasten apud Maiolum sweetnesses of his benignity And yet thou O Man wilt in presence of this Modell The source of charity still remain a little Tiger as irreconcileable to amities as streight-handed to works of liberality Believe me among all the Ensignes of Greatnesse which thou canst have there is not any more sensible then the charitable communication of one man to another by waies of liberality and alms which God receiveth in the nature Plin l. 2. c. 7 Deus est mortali benefacere mortalem haec ad aeternam gloriam via of victimes It is a Divinity for one man by his benefits to oblige another and this is properly the way of eternall glory Who are they in your opinion that first of all deserved the title of Cardinall which is now-a-dayes accounted among the great dignities of the Church Do From whence the Title of Cardinals cometh you think that nobility of extraction favour of great ones Eminency of wisdome prudence in the government of Empires gave these Titles to the primitive Church I say all these qualities are very considerable Fabianus Vide Concil Rom. sub Sylvestro Lacerdam adversar c. 35. Cardinales á Cardinibus seu vicis Rome yet neverthelesse it is true that the first fourteen Cardinals who were called by this name were fourteen personages of honour and merit who under Pope Sylvester were ranged in as many streets of the City of Rome to take care of the poor So true it is that they who begat us to Christianity placed the magnificence of men not
these Motives and the felicity of others who have gloriously surmounted them And to add a pleasing variety to this last piece I will conclude with many short and remarkable Examples suited to those four mentioned Passions THE DISASTERS OF SUCH As have yielded to the Passion OF LOVE AND The Glory of Souls which have overcome it 1. LEt us begin with that Passion which is the Source of the rest and which in all times hath caused trouble among men to give a ground to our discourse The children of great Clodoveus became not so soon tractable to the severity of Christian manners but suffered themselves very often to be transported with very violent exorbitancies and particularly with unlawful loves which caused ill example in their house and great disorder throughout their Kingdome Gregory of Tours l. 4. Gregory of Tours observeth fordid and shamefull affections in the person of King Caribert grand-child of Clodoveus which cast an Eclipse upon the lights of the Diademe of this great King and could never be rooted out but by patience by prayers and by the effects of the puissant hand of God Queen Ingobergua who knew the humours of her The plot of Queen Ingobergna to cure her husbands passion succeedeth ill out of too much affectation husband to be addicted to inconsiderate love and who was jealous enough of her bed took not among her attendant Ladies those nymphs of the Court which are full of attractives and deserve admiration but purposely chose out base and despicable wayters thinking it was a singular remedy against the Kings malady She had at that time in her Court and service two daughters of a Clothworker the eldest of which was called Marcovessa and the youngest Mirefleur Caribert whose love was more lustfull then ambitious became desperately in love and courted them to the prejudice of his honour and wedlock which wounded the soul of the Queen with a very sensible arrow seeing the havock this passion made in the mind of this Monarch Jealousie suggesteth her a trick which seemed sufficient to divert him from his infamous servitude if this passion might be cured by another and that a jealous woman did not irritate the wounds of love by its proper remedies She calleth the Father of her two servants commanded him secretly to practise his trade in some corner of the Court whither she very cunningly brought his Majesty to make him see the base extraction of his Mistresses and to throw shame confusion upon him But he who at distance saw this wile coming towards him and the solemn preparation of it was displeased saying that if nothing were wanting but nobility to render these maids worthy of his love he would sufficiently ennoble them by his person and that it onely belonged to him to raise inferiour things by loving them and as great ones will rather be flattered in their passions then censured instantly he made a shamefull divorce with the Queen contrary to laws both divine and humane to take to wife the younger of these sisters which was Mirefleur But love which being of its nature a slave faiâ—eth not to be disdainfull quickly put a distaste of her unto him to make him look after the elder who seemed the more modest and wear a religious habit whether desirous to enflame love by this pretext which ordinarily is eagre to pursue all it can least obtein or whether she did it to give lesse advantage and suspicion to the jealous spirit of Queen Ingobergua The fire of Concupiscence which spareth not to enflame Linsey-wolsey as well as Satin continually blowed by the wind of ambition which promised this creature a giddy Fancy of a Crown burnt so strongly that this spirit which had more cunning then beauty caused so much madnesse to creep into the heart of this miserable king that he resolved to marry her which he did qualifying a prodigious whoredome with the title of wedlock The Queen was ready to dy and addresseth her complaints to God and men The Bishops who were assembled in the Councell of Tours in favour of her made Canons against incestuous marriages but the Canons at that time were not strong enough against the arrows of love S. German Bishop of Paris sent forth thunders of excommunication but passion armed with authority made no more account of them then of flying fires which are quenched in their birth God thereto put his hand by the prayers of the Church and took away this religious woman by a horrible and sudden death which affrighted the King and he in the end conceived shame and sorrow for his fault deriving his salvation out of necessity since he could not gain it from the glory of his refistance That which remained him of life was short and miserable and his passion having rendred him contemptible to his own subjects he quickly left Crown and Scepter to pay a tribute to his Tombe 2. Another kind of sottish love appeared in the government Gregory of Tours l. 5. of young Meraveus which I will here relate as being able to minister matter of terrour to youth which takes liberty in clandestine marriages King Chilperic his father happened to bear away the bloody spoil of his brother Sigebert who had been traiterously murthered by the subtile practises of Fredegond when he was come to the Eve of his triumph The famous Brunhault widow of the deceased King as yet very young was become a party of this miserable booty and saw her pretious liberty enthralled in the hands of her brother in law and sister who was born for vengeance and exercised in massacres Her fortune represented nothing unto her but a thousand images of terrour and the cruelty of her adversaries made her apprehend all that which notable mischievous wickednesse can do when it hath the sword of power in hand Yet her bloud was spared to consume her with languors sentence of her Captivity was pronounced by giving her the City of Roan for prison A trusty man A notable example of Merouevs to dievrt youth from licentious mariages was sought for to execute this Commission and the King cast his eye on his son Meroveus a young Prince of a nature sweet and facile endowed wiht excellent parts which made him to be beloved and beheld as a rising star by all the eyes of France This was to put fire too near to stubble not considering that the calme of such natures is ordinarily the most turmoiled with storms of love So soon as Brunhault who according to the relation of S. Gregory of Torus was a very beautyfull and well spoken Princesse began to unciel her eyes which had hitherto been drenched in a deluge of tears she appeared to Meroveus as a blushing Morn which raiseth the more fair after a shower and the arrow of love sharpned by compassion made such flames to sparkle in his heart that he was enforced to quench them with his bloud He saw himself the captive of his fair prisoner
and already well felt he was not born to be predominant over a beauty so triumphant The easinesse of his nature suffered him not to be long in resolving to give way to his passion He instantly declares himself and coloureth his request with the title of marriage Brunhault gives ear whether for the love of Meroveus or whether out of the hatred of Fredegond his mother supposing it was an opportunity to carry fire very far into the Royall race They secretly marry the Nephue espouseth the Aunt by a crime unheard Love is their Pope and King from whom they take dispensation and leave Fury conceiveth this marriage Timerity signeth it but misery sealeth the contract Meroveus returneth from Roan stil hiding his fire under the ashes He gives account of his commission The King his father resolveth to send him to take possession of Guyenne which he judged to be fallen unto him by the death of Sigebert He fergneth to depart from the Court with intention to go to Bourdeaux but the countrepoise of love insensibly carryed him to Roan and he hastneth to court his pretended spouse and forgets all cares and affairs to please his passion which being not kept with in the limits of moderation made a great noyse and was carried to the ears of the Court. King Chilperic went to Roan with an army to quench the fire in its beginning thinking there was some notable plot contrived against his state but he finds these lovers had no other arms but those of Cupid and that the excesse of their passion had given them so little leisure to think on their own safety that seeing themselves beset by souldiers they had recourse to altars which were then secure refuges for the miserable Chilperic durst not violate Sanctuaries in the presence of Pretextatus Bishop of Roan a man courageous and zealous for things divine He promised himself to take this new married Couple by the want of victuall and other naturall neecessities But he seeing the businesse to be drawn at length patience slips from him and he made them to come out of the Church with promise of impunity His soul was softned seeing a young Queen a widdow and miserable by the cruelty of his wife Nature pleadeth in his heart for his own bloud he embraceth them both with tears in his eyes and not to affright them enterteins them with fair hopes whilest they little think of it he sends Brunhault into Austrasia her own Countrey and keeps Meroveus under good and sure guard judging one could not well trust him if he were at his own dispose In the mean time Fredegonda immeasurably displeased with the proceedings of this affair and supposing the King her husband went on too remissly made it a great crime of state and of manifest conspiracy wherein she involved the Archbishop Pretextatus He was Meroveus his God-father could not but have some tendernesse towards this Prince his God-child which being sinisterly interpreted drew much misery upon him He with his moveables and papers were seized on where they found certain packets of Queen Brunhaults which strengthened the suspition they conceived to his prejudice He is sent for to an assembly of Bishops where the King coming in chargeth him with the crime of rebellion accusing him to have withdrawn the people from their obedience to crown his son and thereupon roundly required the Prelates that justice might be done according to holy Canons The witnesses are heard and confronted who do not throughly enough prove the crime whereof he was accused Pretextatus justifieth himself by a solemne protestation of his innocency which caused compassion in many But these Prelates assembled were partly weak and partly sold to serve the Kings passions there was almost none but Gregory of Torus who having an invincible spirit in a little body encouraged the whole Assembly to the defence of the truth the menacies of the King and murthering flatteries of Queen Fredegonde being unable to shake his constancy Other batteries were likewise made to ruine a man half dead by stirring up against him divers calumnies from which he very happily vindicated himself untill at length some treacherous Bishops counselled him to accuse himself by way of humiliation of the offence of state which was objected against him They told him he must not appear too just before his Master that it was not reasonable the King should receive an affront in this affair that he was a mild Prince who would Pretextatus should owe his safety to his clemency and that he no sooner could speak one word of confession but he should be freed from this vexation and restored to his Dignity The unfortuante Prelate giving ear to the hissing of serpents made his tongue the snare of his soul and owned an imaginary crime to undergo a reall unhappinesse He had no sooner pronounced the word but the King transported with excessive joy prostrated himself on his knees before the assembly of Bishops demanding that his robe for ignominy should be cut off and the execrations thundring against Judas to be pronounced over him The compassion of some procured moderation therein Neverthelesse he was instantly degraded condemned to banishment and delivered to the Kings Guard who lead him to a little desert Island near the city of Constance in Normandy whence he esaped to be in the end massacred by the practises of Q. Fredegonde This step-mother was not content to see Meroveus confined to a prison but she violently urged he might be shaven and shut in a Monastery which was executed But it is a great errour to think to make a religious man by holding a poignard to his throan and by taking hair from his head when the consent of his heart cannot be had The thoughts which according to the Interpreters of Scripture are as the hairs of the soul were not taken away by the roots from this miserble Samson They much persecuted him about his passed Loves that hâ— quickly forsook Cowl and Monastery to begin new stirs He went directly to Torus which gave much trouble to good Saint Grogory and spent nights upon the tomb of Saint Martin fasting and praying to have a revelation which might promise him a crown But seeing Chilperic pursued him with armed hand he fled from town to town and from Sanctuary to Sanctuary finding not any one who would support his rebellion In the end he gets into Austrasia and returneth to the embracements of his Spouse as it were to end himself in those eyes which had enkindled his first flames But the cunning Queen considering that her subjects were raised in alarms upon his comming and fearing she might draw upon them the totall storm of Chilperics arms preferred reasons of state before those of love besought him to retire They of Tours who were suspected by the King for having first of all favoured his flight thinking not to find their own safety but in his ruine called him back again under colour to support his arms and to become
affrightment in the towns and as many sackings as quarterings Those which sit at the Stern of Empires and Common-wealths are greatly accountable to God for that which hath past in this businesse Kings ought not onely to maintain Justice by their Arms but to teach it by their behaviour and to consecrate it by their examples The Doctour Navarrus hath set down divers sins against Justice by the which Princes Common-wealths and Lords may offend against God mortally as to take unlawfully the goods that belong not to them and to keep them without restitution To govern loosely and negligently their Kingdomes and Principalities To suffer their Countreys to be unprovided of victualls and defence necessary which may bring their Subjects in danger of being spoiled To wast and consume in charges either evil or unnecessary the goods which are for the defence of their estates To burden excessively their subjects with Imposts and Subsidies without propounding any good intent therefore and without having any necessity not pretended but true and reall To suffer the poor to die with famine and not to sustain them with their Revenues in that extremity Not to hearken to reasonable conditions for a just Peace and to give occasion to the enemies of the Christian name to invade their Lands and root out our Religion To dispense either with the Law of God or Nature To give judgement in the suits of their Subjects according to their own affection To deceive their creditours to suppresse the Liberty and Rights of the people to compell them by threatnings or importunate intreaties to give their goods or to make marriages against their wills or to their disadvantage To make unjust Wars to hinder the service of the Church to sell offices and places of Charge so dear that they give occasion to those that buy them to make ill use thereof To present to Benefices with Cure of Souls persons unworthy and scandalous To give Commissions and Offices to corrupt and unfit officers To tolerate and permit vices filthinesse and robberies by their servants and to condemne to death and cause to be slain unjustly without due order of Law and to violate the marriage-beds of their Subjects All these things and others which this Doctour hath noted cause great sins of Injustice in the persons of great ones unto which they ought especially to take heed and to prevent the same it is most necessary that they be instructed in the duties of their charge and in the estate of their affairs bending themselves thereto as the most important point of their safety and seeing that the passion of Hatred or Love which one may bear to some person will trouble the judgement and pervert Justice S. Lewis counselled the King his son strongly to keep his heart in quiet and in the uncertainty of any differences alwayes to restrain his own affection and to keep under all movings of the spirit as the most capitall enemy to Reason Many Princes have often lost both their life and Sceptre for giving themselves to some unjust action and there is no cause more ordinary for which God translates Kingdomes from one hand to another then Injustice as on the contrary those Princes which have been great Justiciaries do shine as the stars of the first magnitude within Gods Eternity and even their ashes do seem as yet to exhale from their Tombs a certain savour which rejoyceth people and keeps their memory for ever blessed But one cannot believe the rare mixture that Justice Goodnesse its Excellency and Goodnesse make joyned together Goodnesse is an essence profitable and helpfull which serves as a Nurse to Love it hath its originall in the Deity and from thence disperseth it self by little veins into all created Beings and mixeth it self with every object as the light with every Colour It drives away and stops up evil on every side and there is no place even to the lowest hell where it causeth not some beam of its brightnesse to shine Beauty which amazeth all mortall eyes is but the flower of its essence but Goodnesse is the fruit thereof and its savour is the savour of God which all creatures do taste and relish God which as Casiodore saith is the cause of all Beings the life of the senses the wisdome of understandings the love and glory of Angels having from all eternity his happinesse complete in his own bosome hath created man that he might have to whom to do good as Gregory Nyssen writes and S. Cyprian saith that this eternall Spirit did move upon the waters from the beginning of the world to unite and appropriate the Creature to its self and to dispose it for the loving inspirations of its Goodnesse The Prince which according to the obligement of his Charge would make himself an imitatour of God ought to be exceedingly good with four sorts of Goodnesse of Behaviour of Affability of Bounty and of Clemency I say first of Behaviour for that there is small hope of any great one which is not good towards God which keeps not his Law and rules not his life thereby if he have any virtues they are all sophisticate and if he do any good it is by ebbing and flowing by fits and for some ends No person can be truly good towards others which doth not begin with himself he must needs have Christian Love without which no man shall ever see God if he possesse this virtue he will first have a love of honour to those which have begot him a conjugall love for his wife a cordiall love to those of his bloud and all his kindred from thence it will spread it self over his whole house and through all his estate and will cause him to love his Subjects with a certain tendernesse as his own goods and as the good shepherd cherisheth his flocks He will imitate our Lord which looked from the top of the mountain upon the poor people of Judea that followed him and his heart melted for them with singular compassion Herein doth truly consist the virtue of Piety which gives so great a lustre to the life of Princes Now according to the Goodnesse that is in his heart he must needs pour it forth upon all his by these three conduit-pipes that I have said of Affability of Liberality and of Clemency Affability which is a well ordered sweetnesse both in words and converse ought to increase together with a Prince from his tender age This is a virtue which costeth nothing and yet brings forth great fruit it procures treasuries of hearts and wills which do assist great ones when need requires A good word that cometh forth of the mouth of a King is like the Manna that came from heaven and fell upon the desert It nourisheth and delighteth his Subjects it hath hands to frame and fashion their hearts as it pleaseth him it carrieth with it chains of gold sweetly to captivate their wills The command that cometh with sweetness is performed with strength invincible and every
his ambition did here bound it self and promised to speak to the King thereof very willingly which she did going expresly to visit him Solomon went forth to meet her made her very great reverence received her with most courteous entertainment and having ascended his Throne he caused another to be set at his right hand for his mother which said to him That she came to make a very little request unto him upon which it would be a displeasure to her to receive any deniall The son assured her and said That she might boldly demand and that he was no wayes intended to give her any discontent As soon as she had opened the businesse and named Abishag's name Solomon entred Solomons rigour into great anger and said she might have added thereto the Kingdome seeing that he was his eldest brother and that he had Joab and Abiathar on his side and without giving any other answer he swore that he would make Adonijah die before it was night whereupon presently he gave order to Benaiah who supplied the office of Captain of the Guard which failed not to slay this young Prince Those that think that Solomon might do this in conscience He cannot well be justified for the murder of his brother and that one may conjecture that God had revealed it unto him take very small reasons to excuse great crimes and see not that whosoever would have recourse to imaginary Revelations might justifie all the most wicked actions of Princes There is not one word alone in the Scripture that witnesses that after the establishment of Solomon this poor Prince did make the least trouble in the State he acknowledged Solomon for King he lived peaceable he was contented with the order that God permitted for the comfort of the losse of a Kingdome which according to the Law of Nations did belong to him he desired but a maid servant in marriage and he is put to death for it Who could excuse this I am of opinion of the The just punishment of God upon Solomon Dr Cajetan who saith that this command was not onely severe but unjust and I believe that hence came the misfortune of Solomon for that having shewed himself so little courteous towards his mother and so cruel towards his brother for the love of a woman God to punish him hath suffered that he should be lost by all that which he loved most After this murder he sent for Abiathar the chief Priest and gave Abiathar the high Priest deprived of his dignity by a very violent action him to understand that he was worthy to die but forasmuch as he had carried the Ark of the living God and had done infinite services for the King his father even from his youth he gave him his life upon such condition that he should be deprived of the dignity of the high Priest and should retire himself to his house The Scripture saith that this was to fulfill the word of the Lord which had been pronounced against the house of Eli but yet it follows not for all that that this depriving was very just on Solomon's side being done without mature consideration And although God ordains sometimes temporall afflictions upon children for the punishment of the fathers yet one cannot neverthelesse inferre from this that those which torment and persecute them without any other reason then their own satisfaction should not any wayes be faulty for otherwise one might avouch that the death of our Lord having come to passe by the ordinance of God Pilate and Caiaphas that did co-operate unto this order without any knowledge thereof should be without offence As for those that think that the Levites were accusers in those proceedings it is a conjecture of their own invention and if indeed it were so one might yet further reason by what Law could the Levites bring accusation against their chief Priest This jealousie of Government is a marvellous beast and those that would excuse it find for the most part that there is no stronger reasons then swords and prisons and banishments In the mean time the news comes to Joab that he was in great danger for having followed the party of Adonijah and as he saw himself on the sudden forsaken and faln from the great credit that he had in the Militia he had recourse to the Tabernacle which was the common refuge and taking hold of the Altar he asked mercy and his life Banaiah the executour of the murder goes to him by Solomons order and commands him to come forth for which he excuses himself protesting that he would rather die then forsake his refuge which was related to King Solomon who without regard to the holy place caused him to be massacred The death of Joab at the foot of the Altar to mingle his bloud with that of the sacrifices Behold what he got from the Court after fourty years services and one may affirm that if it had been sometimes a good mother to him now it acted a cruel step-mother at the last period of his life There remained no more but Shimei to make up the last Act of the Tragedy and although David had given commandment for his death Solomon seemed yet to make some scruple upon the promise of impunity that was made to him and this was the cause that he appointed him the city of Jerusalem for a prison with threatning that if he should go forth thence and onely go over the brook of Cedron he would put him to death The other that expected nothing but a bloudy death willingly received the condition and kept it three years until the time that on a day having received news of his servants that were fled to the Philistims it came into his mind to follow them without taking heed to that which was commanded him which caused that at his return he was murdered by the commandment of Solomon by the hand of Benaiah Behold the beginning of a reign tempestuous and one must not think to find Saints so easily at the Court especially in those which have liberty to do what they please many things slip from them which may better be justified by repentance then by any other apology That which follows in this history of Solomon is all peaceable and pleasing even unto his fall which may give cause of affrightment The third year of his reign he had an admirable Dream after the manner of those that are called Oracles A wonderfull Dream of Solomon It seemed to him that God appeared to him and spoke to him at the which he was in an extasie and seeing himself so near to him that could do all he desired of him with incredible ardency the gift of Wisdome to govern his people the which pleased so much the Sovereign Majesty that not onely he gave him a very great understanding above all the men of the world but further also added thereto Riches and Glory in so high an eminence that none should equall him There
and fourscore thousand crowns and the two sums taken together make one thousand one hundred ninety four millions of gold eight hundred fourscore thousand crowns and all this but to serve for that which should be wrought in gold and silver for the use of the Temple Josephus also in the eighth Book of his Antiquities Josep l. 8. cap. 3. saith That there was numbred there fourscore thousand cups and as many plates of gold twenty thousand cencers of the same materiall two hundred thousand trumpets of silver and fourty thousand instruments of musick fashioned of gold and silver garments of linnen and surplasses to the number of ten thousand Lastly the whole Temple from the top to the bottome and the pavement it self was covered with plates of gold fastned together with nails of gold which weighed every one five and twenty ounces To say the truth some Interpreters of the Scripture have taken that very high making the value of their moneys according as they will in this great obscurity of those that have written of the diversity of their values according to the diversity of their Ages and Nations but one may not doubt of the truth of the Scripture which raises this Temple to a heighth of magnificence which exceeds all other works After that the House of God was established Solomon made a solemne Dedication thereof for the which he sacrificed 2200. oxen and 20000. sheep He prayed to God aloud before all the people with a wisdome and zeal unparallel'd He blessed all his Subjects with an uncredible joy so that the face of Jerusalem that day seemed an anticipated Paradise He busied himself after in building for himself he made himself a palace wherein he spared nothing for gloriousnesse with the most sumptuous Kings of the earth When as the Scripture relates this with a plainnesse of its style it ceaseth not to fill our spirits with amazement and if we had not recourse to the sovereign power of God which doth all which pleaseth him we should scarce be able to believe that the Kingdome of Judea having begun but in Saul by so miserable beginnings that there was hardly found any iron to make swords of and that at sometimes there was but two to be found in a whole Army that it should on a sudden rise to so great an increase that silver was there as common as stones This gives a large entry to all sorts of delights and pleasures of stately Princes of the earth which Solomon soon caused to enter into his palace and which ruined him by a farre greater disastre then ever the armies of the Philistims Ammonites and Moabites could have done And as Juvenal said That luxury had taken room and had reserved unto it self the vengeance for all the evil usage wherewith the Romans had handled so many Kings and People of the habitable world So we may say That the Licenciousnesse of Solomon did revenge all the injuries of the Nations stirred up against the people of the Jews He which should see a starre fall from heaven into The fall of Solomon the dirt for to be trodden upon by the feet of men and beasts after it had shined amongst the celestial globes would he be more affrighted and amazed then in considering Solomon thrown down from the beautiful firmament of glory where the hand of God had placed him into those opprobrious passions labirynths of errours and unexplicable confusions Solomon that was as high lifted up above other Kings as Kings are above common men this man of wonders and miracles the well-beloved of God which had wisdome for his spouse virtue for his delight happinesse for his companion and glory for the assistant of his throne to disgrace by a detestable old age all the comelinesse of his life to deface all the rare inventions of his mind to eclipse all the weak lights of his understanding O women alwayes fatal to the ruine of great men who will hereafter think it strange that you have changed the Gods of the heathens into beasts seeing that you have transported Solomon into a monster It is not almost imaginable into what a gulf of destruction Love plunged this miserable Prince and that Philosopher Antisthenes said true that if there were such a Venus as the Poets have made he would be her hang-man If there were such a Cupid as they have painted out he would pull off his wings and throw him down from the Heaven of heavens where they had placed him into the deepest of the bottomlesse pits for that this is the frenzy of the understanding the poison of the heart the corruption of the manners and the desolation of our life O true God! how ought all good understandings and all persons that make profession of knowledge of honour and virtue look upon Solomon as a mast broken on the top of a mountain which God hath placed there above to make them take heed of the shipwracks of Love One doth seldome begin wickednesses at the top The beginning of his debauchednesse vices have their degrees as well as virtues Solomon at first began to grow cool in the worship of the true God his conversations with him were not so often nor so pleasing the pleasures of the world invited him the delights of the Court charmed him actions that are too free soon become evill and evil ones turn themselves into custome and custome into an habit This child of God saw the daughters of men these strange beauties which pricked him by their novelty he became man and made of them his Goddesses The daughters of the Amorites and of the Moabites those of Egypt of Sidon of Idumea and so many others whereof God had forbidden him any alliance were the Idols of his heart after they had been the plague and poison of his understanding He which had pronounced so many excellent parables against love which had so many times advertised youth that the lips of an unchaste woman distilled honey at the beginning but at the end they gave a potion of wormwood was taken by the eyes enchained with infinite affections His love was pompous his luxury sumptuous he loved as much for glory as for concupiscence he would act the King in his unchastenesse as stately as in the furniture of his Temple He had about seven hundred women which were as his Queens and with that three hundred Concubines which is according to the account of the Scripture a thousand wives which he had shut up in a Seraglio for the pleasures of his eyes and of his flesh and of so many loves there is but one sonne to be found Rehoboam void of wisdome and understanding What could a Prince do amongst so many delights so many allurements so many charms and so many bewitchings A man is oft-times much hindered by the troublesome brain of one woman onely what serious businesse then could he set himself to that had them multiplied by hundreds These strangers came Their artifice each of
the evil spirits have their reign and their time which good men are not able to hinder no more then the winter and the night and that the sovereign Creatour and Governour of all things hath limited their powers and their endurings by certain celestiall periods which being not yet come to an end do make all the endeavours which can be used to destroy them unprofitable This is the cause why there is not taken in hand with such eagrenesse as might be wars in the East and Africa nor that we should undertake great designs against the powers of darknesse if we cannot see by very evident conjectures that God directs us as by the hand Neverthelesse as he reveals not alwayes to his Saints the times and seasons of Empires it happens that those that with great zeal and very rationall prudence do embark themselves in generous designs to advance the glory of God should not justly alwayes be commended even in the default of good successe And I may very well say that the most glorious action of S. Lewis was his prison and his death For to kill the Sarazens to make mountains of dead bodies rivers of bloud to overthrow Cities all in a smoke this is that which Chamgy and Tamerlan have done But to do that which S. Lewis hath done it is it which hath no compare it is that which the Angels would do willingly if they could merit it by a mortall body God which had drawn him from his Kingdome with the faith of Abraham which had lead him through so many dangers with the guiding of Moses gave him in the end to seal up his great actions the patience of Job And to countreballance that which the world esteems mishap he would have him to govern a great Kingdome a long time with an high wisdome and profound peace an exact justice for the good and repose of his people and an uncredible sweetnesse of spirit which hath made him the most amiable of all Kings on the earth and a great Saint in Paradise by the consent of all mortals and the Universall approbation of the Church Queens and Ladies JUDITH HESTER IVDITH HESTER ROYNE EXpect nothing Feminine in this Woman all in her is Male all in her is Generous all in her is full of Prodigies Nature hath put nothing in her but the Sex she hath left to Virtue to make up the rest who after she had laboured a long time in this her Master-piece incorporated her self in her work Never was beauty better placed then upon this face which bears a mixture of Terrour and of Love Lovely in its Graces Terrible in its Valour What a Court-Lady is this that came thither for nothing but to draw the sword Her hand did much by destroying an 100000 men in one onely head but her eye did much more then her hand it was that that first triumphed over Holophernes and with a little ray of its flames burnt up a whole army O what a magnificent employment had Love in this act of hers and to say truth he consecrated his arrows never was he so innocent in his Combats never was he so glorious in his Triumphs Represent to your selves a Nabuchodonozor in the flower of his age in the vigour of his Conquests holding a secret Councel wherein he makes a resolution to subdue the World After a short conclusion of an affair so great he calls Holophernes and commands him to march towards the West with an Army of 100000 Foot and 12000 Horse All the Captains assemble themselves together and in all places souldiers swarm It seems that that brave Generall did nothing but give a stamp with his foot to procreate armed men Behold him already invironed with Legions all glittering with fire and flames his Army is on foot with an horrible Artillery of military Engines and a great preparation of Victuall and Ammunition It seemed that heaven looked upon this Host with affrightment and that the earth ecchoed at every step under the clattering of its Arms. The motions of it give terrour to the stoutest sort and confusion to the weaker before it marches Noyses Affrights and Threats after it Weepings Ruins and Desolations Holophernes is in the middle as a Gyant with an hundred arms which promises to himself to demolish smoaking Cities to-overthrow Mountains and to beat all Arms to powder with the lightning of his eyes Ambassadours of all Nations are seen waiting at his gate who present unto him Crowns who offer him Tapers and Incense desire peace and mercy of him and beseech him to grant them servitude But this supercilious Generall would march upon the heads of men and make himself a river of Bloud to water therewith his Palms Fame that publishing with an hundred mouthes the wasts that that Army made on all sides failed not to fly unto Jerusalem and to carry that sad newes unto the people of God Nothing was then heard but the sighs and groans of a scared people who beholding that furious Tempest coming afar off had neither heart nor arms to oppose themselves against it Their courages were dismaied their hands weak their tongues mute they had no other defence but their tears which they powred out in abundance to begin the funeralls of their dear Countrey Manasseh reigned at that time in Jerusalem seven hundred years before the Nativity of our Lord who seeing no expedient to divert this misery abandoned himself to silence and to darknesse But Joachim the High Priest executing a Captains office together with a Priests encouraged his poore people and wiped off their tears to make them see the first ray of hope which they conceived of their dear Liberty He dispatches Posts to all parts and commands the cities that were menaced with the marches of that army to contribute all that they were able of Money Iron Men and Victuals to beat back the common Enemy and above all to prepossesse themselves of the streights of the mountains to stop up the passages where a few men would be able to do much rather then to expect them in the champain where so great forces would swallow up all that could be opposed against them After this he commands publick prayers to be made where the Altar of God was covered with sackcloth and the Priests with hair-cloth all the people were at their supplications tears and fastings even the children prostrated themselves on the earth and cryed to implore the mercy of God This excellent High-Priest not being ignorant that with Piety we ought to move the hand contented not himself onely to weep before the Altar but visited in person the Cities and the Burghs comforting the afflicted stirring up the slack strengthening the weak and doing that which the infusion of the soul doth in the Body in giving life and vigour to all the members of the State The newes comes to Holophernes that the Jews prepared themselves to make resistance to his Army whereat he entred into great fits of choler and called the Princes of the
continually and forget all the functions of the reasonable life So may you see abundance of such men who perceiving themselves raised upon the wings of fortune fall into such a madnesse of glory that they are as it were dizzy-headed by certain venimous fumigations of ambition and know themselves no more But this man sees himself at his going out of prison mounted to the highest point of honour that ever happened to a Favourite He hath the Kings Ring and Seal he triumphs upon his Chariot he sees the Nobles in admiration of his Fortune and the Commons in veneration he sees the applauses he hears the Clamours of those that highly publish him the saviour of the world And yet for all this great preparation there escapes not from him one onely word of vanity He expresses not any complacency in those honours and in that habit and it is not read that after the day of the Ceremony he ever used them He publickly a vouches that he is the son of a Shepheard he causes his Father and his Brothers to come into the Kingdome of Egypt not to give them the Offices of the Court and the Treasures of Pharaoh but he lets them alone in their vocation contenting himself to procure their quiet and some small commodities sutable to that Pastorall life He humbles himself before his Father he acknowledges and makes much of his Brethren he gains the heart of all the world and bears so actively that high top of glory that he seems to be no more laden with it then a Bird is with his Feathers The third perfection of Joseph is remarkable in the great and laborious services that he rendered to his Prince with an high Prudence an exquisite Diligence and an inviolable faithfulnesse He visited in person all the Provinces of Egypt and in the great fertility of those fortunate years when Corn was almost as cheap as sand he laid up a prodigious store in the Kings Magazines to relieve the necessities of the barrennesse that was to come and indeed it did not fail to happen but indured the space of seven years with such a violence and so great disasters that it seemed that the bowels of the Earth were iron and that God had resolved to destroy mankind by a Generall Famine It was then that all the People implored the mercy of the King who sent them back to Joseph who caused the Granaries of all Egypt to be set open and sold corn to all those that had need of it first for money afterward for Cattell and at last when both money and Cattell failed the Egyptians they sold their Lands in great number so that all Egypt was submitted to the discretion of the King to avoid that raging Famine They gave themselves and their little possessions with all their heart for Bread But Joseph takeing pity of their great miseries made them Conditions that were above all their hopes This people was of a spirit bright enough addicted to novelties and seditions which made them often shake off the yoak but Joseph tamed them insensibly by their own necessities and subjected all Egypt to his Master causing him to reign peaceably and with a great authority and yet for all this drew no envy upon himself but quite contrary he made his Government be admired and his memory blessed Amongst all this it is not said that he enriched his house with the great treasures that he heaped up for Pharaoh and although that his Master had put all things into his power yet he used them so moderately that when he had a mind to offer presents to his brother Benjamin whom he loved as his own heart he contented himself to give him five suits of Clothes and three hundred Livers making the same largesse to his Father with some Mules to transport their Baggage Yet is is very true that he caused the Land of Goshen to be given them but it was as it were by way of loan to dwell there and to husband it till the return that Jacob pretended to make to the Countrey of his Fathers In a word Joseph plainly shewed that he was little affected to all the Riches of the Egyptians when he received of his father and made reckoning of it a little piece of Land that he had gained from the Amorites A fourth quality of this wise Governour which is greatly to be priz'd is seen in the great prudence and singular sweetnesse which he used in his Government in such a manner that he gained the affection of all the great men of Egypt David speaking of this discretion and of this goodnesse saith according to the Hebrew Text That he tyed them all to his heart which is as much as to say That he united them to his person by a great affability by good offices and by honest yieldings They looked upon him as a Father and as a Master and had him in veneration and yet for all this he was not puffed with Pride nor inebriated with the opinion of his own sufficiency But in all the extraordinary favours that he received of the King his Master he was communicable and esteeming himself as one of them he saw them all under him To speak sincerely it is an admirable thing That a stranger should have held the Stern of a Kingdome the space of four score years in a Nation full of Spirit and sufficiently seditious without complaints without discontents and without intermissions in a calm so peaceable a Peace so amiable a Love so Universall How many do we see in Histories that being come to some dignity seem continually to hold a Wolf by the ears and as they love nothing but their own Interest so are they loved sincerely of no body which puts them in continuall frights and makes them fear even the very shadow of an hair They think not that there is any security for themselves unlesse they put the whole world in danger nor safety unlesse it be in the publick Ruines This makes them be hated of God and Men and causes cares to leap over Ramparts of Steel and Iron to beset their silver Ballisters and to call them to an account at every moment for the Calamity of the Living and for the Blood of the Dead This was a fifth Lineament of his good demeanour that he had bowels of Compassion for the poor People in that cruell Famine and generall despair of all Egypt And although one might imagine that he had promoted the Interests of the King in an excesse to the detriment of the Subject yet is it true that he that will well consider the estate and Lawes of that Monarchy will impute to Josephs favour that which he would have taken at first sight for Rigour in his Government It is certain that according to the Antient Histories which treat of the Policy of that Nation the Revenue of Egypt was divided into three parts the first of which was claimed by the Priests that were in great number and in great esteem in a
they preferred a flint before a pearl The first unhappinesse of his conduct was that he had not an heart for God but for his own interest and that he did not unite himself close enough to Samuel that had made him King and that was the Oracle from which he should have learned the divine Will The second was a furious State-jealousie his capitall devil that put his Reason into a disorder and infected all the pleasures and contentments of his life He was but weak to hold an Empire and govern with love and yet he loved passionately all that he could least compasse and would do every thing of his own head thinking that the assistance of a good Councel was the diminution of his Authority Sometimes he was sensible of his defects but instead of amending them he desired to take away the eyes of those men that perceived them His Spirit was little in a great body his Reason barren in a multitude of businesse his Passions violent with small reservednesse his Breakin gs out impetuous his Counsels sudden and his Life full of inequalities Samuel had prudently perceived that the Philistims were dangerous enemies to the State of Judea because they knew its weaknesse and kept it in subjection a long time depriving it of the means of thinking fully upon its liberty And therefore he maintained a peace with them and used them courteously gaining all that he could by good Treaties and would not precipitate a Warre which was to weaken the Israelites without recovery But Saul thought not himself an able man if he had not spoiled all and without making any other provision of necessary things he made a great levy of Souldiers and a mighty Army to go against the enemies in which there was but two swords It was a plot that permitted not the Hebrews to have Armorers nor other men that laboured in Iron totally to disarm them and at the least motion that they should make expose them for a pâ—ey These assaulted Philistims found him businesse enough through the whole course of his Government and Life and in the end buried him with his children in the ruines of his State But God that would give some credit to Samuel's choice sent at first prosperities to Gods people under the conduct of that new King wherein that which served for a glory to that holy man was a vain bait to Saul to make him enterprise things that could give him no other ability but to destroy himself About a moneth after his election Nahash the Ammonite raised an Army to fall upon the Jabites that were in league with the people of Israel and those seeing that they were not strong enough to resist so terrible an enemy dispatched an Embassage to him to treat about a Peace But that insolent Prince made answer to their Embassadours that he would not make any treaty of Peace with them on any other condition then by plucking out their right Eyes and covering them with a perpetuall ignominy These poor people that were reduc'd almost to a despair implored on all sides the assistance of their neighbours and failed not to supplicate to the Israelites their friends to do something in their favour Their Messengers being arriv'd at Gibeah related the sad news of the cruelty of Nahash that filled the people with fear and tears Saul returning from the fields was driving his oxen when hearing the groans of his Subjects demanded the cause of it and having been informed entred into so great a rage at the pitilesse extremities of that fierce Ammonite that he instantly tore in pieces his two oxen and sent the pieces of them through all the cities and villages of his Dominion commanding every one to follow him to revenge that injury otherwise their cattle should be dealt with as he had done with his two oxen The Israelites mov'd partly by compassion and partly also by fear of those menaces poured out themselves from all parts to this Warre in such a sort that he had got together three hundred thousand men He divided them into three Battalions and went to meet the Ammonite whom he set upon so vigorously and combated so valiantly that he totally defeated his Army and humbled that proud Giant that thought on nothing but putting out mens eyes making him know that pride goes before reproach as the lightning before the thunder All the great people that compos'd that Army returned unto their houses and Saul retained onely three thousand men whereof he gave one thousand to his son Jonathan that was a man full of spirit and generosity and farre better liked then his father Saul This Militia was too little considerable for so great enemies yet he had a courage to assault a place of the Philistims and routed their Garrison whereat they being pricked beyond measure betake themselves into the field with an Army in which there were thirty thousand chariots of warre and people without end whereat the Israelites were so affrighted that all scatter'd themselves and went to hide themselves in caves so that there remained but about six hundred men with Saul who marched with a small noise and durst not appear before his adversaries Samuel had promised to see him within seven dayes to sacrifice to God and encourage the people But Saul seeing that the seventh day was come without having any tidings of him takes himself the burnt offering offers the Sacrifice and playes the Priest without having any Mission either ordinary or extraordinary As soon as he had made an end of burning the Holocaust Samuel arrives to whom he related how that seeing all the people debauch themselves and quit the Army and how that being pressed by his enemies in a time wherein it behoved them to have recourse to prayer before they gave battle he was perswaded that God would like well enough that in the necessity and long absence of Samuel he should perform the office of a Priest by presenting the burnt offering which he had done with a good intention without pretending to usurp any thing upon his office Samuel rebuked him sharply for that action to shew that there is no pretense nor necessity that is able to justifie a sin and that it no way belongs to Lay-people to meddle with the Censer and to do the Functions that regard the Priests Then Samuel fore-told him that his Kingdome should not be stable and that God would provide himself another that should be a more religious observer of his Law thereupon he left him for a time and Saul having recollected all the people that he could endeavoured to oppose the enemy The brave Jonathan accompanied with his armour-bearer found a way to climb over rocks and to surprise a court-of-Guard of the Philistims which they thought had been inaccessible which put them in a terrible fright imagining that those that had got so farre had great forces though they did not yet appear This brought their Army into a confusion and God also putting his hand farre into the
Love for Nero and to divert him from that infamous passion towards his mother in which he demean'd himself as Lot who presented his daughters to the Sodomites to avoid the greater fury of their brutish lust This Acta played her part so well by the counsel of Seneca that mingling with her familiarities the considerations of State she gave Nero to understand that his great privaces with Agrippina would render him contemptible to the great ones of his Empire and to all his Subjects and would also give an advantage of power to his mother which she would abuse to his own destruction He believed her and became very amorous of her His mother inraged and that so furiously that he intended to prepare a Genealogy for her in which he would make her to be descended from the Kings of Asia and afterwards would marry her His mother was as much in rage on the other side that a slave was become her rivall her choler did so much boil over that she made horrible threatnings what she would say and what she would do She would go to the Army she would complain to the Senate she would discover the disastres of her infortunate house and the empoysonings by which she had ravished the Diadem which belonged to the sons of Claudius her husband to put on the head of ingratefull Nero. Nero whether he would appease her or else deride Nero's present to his mother her did send her a gown of the antient Emperours which was very rich but quite out of fashion at which she was much incensed and said she was no Comedian to be drest in such habiliments as those and that he ought not but give one part to her from whom he received the whole she would see she said if so poor a fellow as Burrus was or such a pedantick as was Seneca should govern the world at their pleasure in the disgrace of the bloud of the Cesars Sometimes again she would display her self so weakly that she would offer her self to be a procurer of Loves for her sonne and to hide in her own cabinet nay in her own breast whatsoever he would keep secret Behold how God doth punish all fond affections The fond love of parents chastned by God in their children and wickednesses by those themselves who have received the profit from their poysons What shall this miserable mother do She is no more in a condition to give content if there came by the by any small re-accommendation in their friendships it was but languishing and of a short continuance Nero desired nothing more then to eschew her company and if he was obliged to see her it was with a Complement as cold as ice he would kisse her indeed but rather out of ceremonies then out of love and would immediately forsake her It is recorded that beholding her self altogether Suer ca. 35. in Nero ne misprised her fury provoked her to love a young Prince on his mother side of the bloud of Augustus named Plantius whom she served for the satisfaction of her desires and to find a subject to imbroil the seat This was brought to the ears of the Prince who began to startle at the apprehension of it and could not be at rest untill he was rid of them both He killed Plantius having first violated his body and took a dismall resolution to infold his mother in the same calamity After a faint reconcilement which continued for a The horrible attempt of Nero upon his mother few dayes he sent her a letter full of fine Complements inviting her to Bajae where he then took his pleasures Aristotle saith That women are naturally credulous especially when they have something sent them to amuse their passion She immediately prepared to come to him who was as ready to entertain her and brought her to Baula where was his house of pleasure He had a desire to poyson her as he did his brother Britannicus but he knew she had an eye alwayes open for her own preservation and had with her antidotes to divert the operation of any poyson Therefore he consulted to put her to death on the sea which is the field of dangers where there is more of the effect and lesse of the suspicion To accommodate her on her return he caused a pompous vessel to be prepared the deck whereof was to fall down by artifice and charge was given to disloyall Anicetus who was to conduct it to put the device in practise and to drown the barge In the mean time he entertained the Queen in his Palace of delight with incomparable chear He would place her at the table above him he would comport and comply with her in a gallant and gracefull posture sometimes he would whisper some soft words in her ear sometimes he would openly renew the tendernesse of his first love and antient confidence he served her both with the gentle and with the serious to give her full satisfaction she poor woman in long draughts drank deeply of the sweets of those poysonous indearments and found her heart much inlarged at so unexpected a change At the hour of her departure he would conduct her to the boat and entertain her with suger'd words telling her that he would not live but onely for her love and that the greatest and the most acceptable office that she could do him was to be chearfull and to have a particular care of her health He seemed to look upon her with ravishments whether it were to put the better countenance on his perfidiousnesse or whether he were touched in mind at the near misfortune of his mother who being made a lamentable sacrifie was going now insensibly to her death At parting he was not onely content to kisse her mouth but taking her in his arms he in a lovers complement did embrace her and omitted nothing to cover his horrible design She entred into the barge in the evening The sea was calm the winds had faln asleep upon it The sky was full of stars as if it had opened all its eyes to behold the spectacle which it ought to revenge upon the Authour Agrippina had two Gentlemen which sate on each side of her and a Lady on whom she much relyed named Acroceraunia who was placed at her feet who entertained her with the rehearsall of many of the late passages at Court and the obligations and the protestations of her sonne when behold the sign being given the roof of the cabbin in which they were being covered with weights of lead with which their treason overcharged it did fall down and killed one of the Gentlemen and wounded Agrippina on the shoulder The Ingineers who undertook the charge that the deck should fall directly down being troubled in their consciences or counterchecked by those who knew nothing of the game they were to play did not perform it with that dexterity as was pretended but gave leisure to those whom they would destroy to provide for their safety
best testimony of full satisfaction As he departed the King came in and then it appeared Love and Piety how Grace and Nature wrought their effects for the innocent Queen fashioning her countenance and her words to the most sensible passion spake thus unto him Alas and wherefore thus SIR Is this that I have deserved for loving you above all the men in the world Must I be forced from your friendship to adhere to my most cruel Enemies If I have deserved death for doing you all the good that lay in the possibility of my power what hath this little Innocent in my womb commited whom I do not preserve but onely to increase your power The Excess of these violent proceedings will tear away the life both from the Mother and the child and then I am afraid you will too late discover the violence and rage of those who perswade you to destroy that which you should hold most dear and to bury your self in my ruins As she spake these words and mixed them with The King reconciled with the Queen her tears the Kings heart was softened into compassion Upon his knees he demanded pardon breathing forth many sighs accompanied with groans and tears of love And having declared to her the conspiracy that was plotted for her ruine he told her That he now came either to live or to die with her This confidence did greatly rejoyce her and having exhorted him above all things to appease the anger of God and particularly to have recourse unto his mercy she gave him instructions necessary for him she counselled him to dissemble this their love and make not the least discovery of it to the Conspiratours but onely to represent unto them that he had found the Queen very ill and that the violence of her malady might be as strong as poison or steel to take her out of the world That there was now no more need of keeping any Guard upon her for in passing affairs according to their advice he would answer for her if God should not otherwise dispose of her This counsel was followed and after the King had perswaded the Rebels to what he had desired he returned to his dear wife and about midnight both of them saved themselves nine or ten thousand armed men being drawn together by the diligence of the Earl of Bothuel who in one morning made the whole rebellion to vanish with the Rebels Now the Earl of Murray had re-possest himself Choller and Vengeance Nejudicial of the favour and good opinion of the Queen but the King who well understood the pernicious counsels of which he was the Authour and that he made him serve to be his instrument at the death of the Secretary could by no means endure him and though the good Queen who would have nothing done violently had expresly charged the contrary he was resolved to seize upon him But Murray apprehending the ill intent of the King towards him did by a most detestable crime prevent it by drawing to him the Earl of Bothuel a man bold of spirit and of hand and prevailing on him to massacre the King assuring him that he should marry the Queen if ever he arrived to the end of his fatal Enterprize This miserable King whom Jealousie had transported to the cruel murder of the Secretary was now again fully reconciled to his wife and loved her most tenderly and conceived an extream pitie to see her youth intangled among such pernicious counsels of her enemies He was then at Glasco sick of the Small-pox which the Queen understanding she immediately repaired thither to bring him unto Edingborough where were better accommodations for him At the same time Horrible inventions of Envy and Vengeance the Conspiratours assembled themselves to accomplish their Design and moreover they had a desire to involve the Queen and her Son in the same ruin but they feared that it would be too apparent and it would be more expedient for them to bring all the Envy of the death of the husband upon the head of his wife whom they conceived to be still highly offended for his ill demeanour towards her To which purpose they undertook to torment her spirit and prompt her to thoughts of vengeance which they never could effect so strong was the new knot of their reconciled love They deliberated amongst themselves to put this miserable Prince to death by fire and because it was inconvenient to perform it in the Palace they entered into counsel amongst themselves to remove him into a fair house which was at the upper end of the Citie where they had prepared a fatal Myne for his destruction His sickness being such the Queen accorded to his removal and very innocently did take her husband by the hand and did conduct him to the Entery of his Lodging where with a singular prudence she disposed of every thing which concerned the recovery of his health And not contented with that she stayed with him without the apprehension of any danger of infection which put the Plotters of this delicate conspiracy into fear but she seemed to be nothing troubled at it and staying with him until midnight she entertained him with all the satisfaction that he could expect from so bountifull a Nature As soon as she was retired behold by the secret The death of Henry Stuart artifice of the powder to which fire was given under the lodging of the King the chamber was blown into the Air and the bed all on fire He found himself to be desperately in wrapped in this calamity and the Authours of the Mischief conspiring with the Elements did dispatch him outright having found him half dead in a Garden into which place the violence of the fire had thrown him The Queen hearing of it was possessed with a wonderfull amazement and lost in the depth of sorrow she feared every thing and knew not what to do or what to hope every hour attending to see the end of that Tragedy to be the beginning of another on her own life The malicious Earl of Murray who now had given the blow by the instrument of his wickedness as he had spoken a little before to those that were nearest to him that the King should die the same night did cunningly retire himself The people murmured and knew not what to take to but the clearest sighted amongst them perceived that it was a work of this pernicious Brother who had a desire utterly to destroy the Royal Family to mount himself upon the Throne And this is that which Cambden assureth us in the Cambden in the first part of his History in the year 1567. first part of his History who though by Religion he was a Calvinist and by profession the Historiographer to the Queen of England yet he hath not dissembled the truth in confirmation whereof he produceth proofs as clear as the day with the attestations of the Earls of Huntley and Argathel two principal Lords of Scotland who
was his condition of life assigned him from his nativity but by this most detestable murder he is now become the Regenet of a great Kingdom Who had a more labouring desire to see the King out of the world than he who daily expected from the hand of death the just reward of his disloyalty We are here ready to represent unto him a paper signed with his own hand and the hands of his Adherents where amongst them all they are obliged against all to defend that person who should attempt upon the person of the King That execrable writing was intrusted in the hands of Bolfou Captain of the Castle of Edinborough whom at the first they had drawn unto their side and being since incensed against some of the Conspiratours hath discovered all the business This is that which we now manifest with reasons more clear than the day and with assurances as strong as truth it self My Lords We demand what is that which the Rebels oppose against all these proofs nothing at all but frivolous conjectures which are not sufficient to condemn the vilest creature in the world although they are made use of to overthrow the person and Majesty of a Queen Ten thousand tongues such as Murrays are and his Accomplices ought not to serve to make half a proof against the honour of Mary and yet you have the patience to hear them rather than chastise them Her poor servants have bin examined again and again they have been torn to pieces and flead alive to accuse the Queen and could ever so much as one effectual word be racked from them to stain her innocence Have they not in the middle of their torments declared aloud and before all the people that she was ignorant of whatsoever was done and that they never heard the least word proceed from her which tended to the murder of the King All their Reasons are reduced into two Conjectures The first whereof is That the Queen committed the said Act in revenge of the death of her Secretary The second is Her Love and Marriage with the Earl of Bothuel the murderer of her husband these two are the inevitable charges against her But to answer to the first I demand If the Queen had any desires of revenge on whom should she exercise that vengeance Upon her husband whom she loved with incomparable affection whom in all companies she defended as a young man seduced by evil counsels to whom she had given a full forgetfulness and abolition of the murder of David Riccio for fear that one day he should be called to an account for it whom she very lately had received into favour and the strictest friendship to whom she had given the testimonies of a fervent love unto the last hour of his death Is it on him that she would discharge her choller or on those who were the Authours and Executioners of the act If she hath pardoned the Earls of Murray and Morton her sworn Enemies whom on a thousand occasions she could cut off here is it to be believed that a Lady who had ever a most tender conscience would destroy a husband so agreeable to her and whom she knew to have never offended but through the malice onely of these desperate spirits But why then hath she married him who made this attempt against the King her husband This is their second Objection and to speak the truth the onely one which they so much crie up For this it is that they have taken away her Rings and Jewels and put in the place of them infamous letters invented by Buchanan or some like unto him who treat of love not as in the person of a Princess but of a loose licentious woman And these Letters when they were produced did appear to be never made up or sealed but exposed to all the world as if so chaste and so wise a spirit as this Queen could be so stupid or so wicked as to publish her own infamy to the face of all the world But in the end they say the Marriage was accomplished And who did do it but these onely who now do make it a capital Crime These are they who did give advice to this match by reasons did sollicit it by pursuits did constrain it by force and did sign it by continuance Behold we are here ready in your presence to represent unto you the Contract which doth bear their names and seals of Arms which they cannot disprove The Queen hath protested before God and men that she had rather die ten thousand deaths than to have married Bothuel if she had thought he had been stained but with one drop of her husbands bloud and if he had not been proclaimed to be innocent And now judge My Lords with what impudence they dare appear before you and do believe that the Queen of England hath sent you hither to serve their passions and sacrifice so great a Princess to their vengeance We do hope all the contrary and do firmly perswade our selves that the great God the undoubted Judge of the living and the dead will inspire you with such counsels as shall give the Day to Truth for the glory of your own consciences and the comfort of the most afflicted of Queens who desireth not to breathe out the rest of her life that is left her but under the favour of your Goodness This in this manner being spoken the Agents and Deputies for the Queen having aloud protested that they here assembled not to acknowledge any power Superiour to the Crown of Scotland but onely to declare in the behalf of their Queen being unwilling to lose time in words they came to the proofs and did defend them with incredible vigour making in the first place the falsifications which were very ordinary with the Earl of Murray to appear in full Councel In the second place representing the Contract of the Marriage with Bothuel which he condemned to be signed by him and his Adherents Moreover producing the instrument of the Conspiracy against the King subscribed by their own hands and signed by their own Seals And lastly reporting the Depositions of John Hebron Paris and Daglis who being executed for this Act did fully discharge the Queen at the instant of their death before all the people After that the Commissioners had judged the Her justification Queen of Scots to be innocent of all the Cases and Crimes which falsely had been imposed on her by her traiterous and disloyal Accusers and that the proceedings which they made were for no other purpose but to exempt themselves from the crimes which they had committed and to cover the tyranny which they had exercised in the Kingdom of Scotland The Earl of Murray did flie away filled with The confusion of her Accusers fear and with confusion seeing that his life was in great danger if he had not been secretly protected by the Queen of England In the pursuit of this Sentence the most honest of the Councel did
catalogue of Kingdomes and Titles as provokes the emulous terrifieth their neighbours and pricketh even those that are removed from them by intervals of distance They apprehend the Dignity of one to presage the danger of all They conjecture that the extent of his jurisdiction bodeth an unattempted servitude to all Kingdomes they fear whatsoever the land provideth and whatsoever monsters the sea nourisheth Greedy Domination that could never yet overcome it self when it hath once been cherished by Fortune it unlearneth nature and forgetteth moderation Moreover the temperature of the Nations as they report is fiery hot and dry swelling with pride patient of hunger and well enduring labour thirsty after glory prone to admire it self and apt to continue the virtue and valour of other Nations I produce not these things as the emanations of my own judgement which for the present is addicted to no Nation but comprehendeth all in Christ but I commemorate the vulgar reports and such things as are openly bruted by many which if they were supprest by a removall of their Causes it could cut off the occasions of many controversies The French on the other side as they write who have had knowledge of them although they are forward to dart reproaches against others unable to endure them and most impatient of contempt yet they know they are of that Nation whereof it was said Animóqūe supersunt Jam propè post animam They boast that they filled the world with the fame of their Arms before the Spaniards could redeem themselves from the diuturnall servitude of the Goths and Vandals That they have managed the Empire of the East and West that they have vanquished Constantinople by assault restored Jerusalem to Christ and Rome to the Pope seven times deprived of it by his enemies They affirm that the Gospel was first preached unto them that the primigeniall adoption of the Sonnes of God was given to them that they have advanced Learning in all Christian Kingdomes the whole world almost becoming Students of our Academy at their Paris in a word they think they have nothing to be contemned they are more apt to desire admirers then able to dispence with contemners From hence it comes to passe that both the Nations being prodigall in the accumulations of their own and envious of the others glory such flames have of late been kindled as will it may be feared become unquenchable Would to God that that Charity which is diffused in us by the spirit would suffocate these super-seminated tares of contentions Oh that it would cut off the occasions of these inhumane strivings then should we have fewer anxieties and more supportable labours of heart knowing by what remedies we might resist so pestilent an evil This is frequently augmented by the servants and favourites of Princes whilst with a familiar but a direfull glory to the greatest Empires they desire to boast the power of their Lords they display all their offensive strength and ability to hurt they presse a secret beneficence and whilst they proceed in these ambitious circulations nay whilst they bewray a fear and discover in themselves a caution by that very sedulity and caution they provoke things not to be feared and act things not to be tolerated Here I appeal to you great Masters of Policy and Participatours of hidden Councels I speak more willingly to you then to your Fortunes Consider how much God hath given you and how much he requireth of you You sit as Gods among men the Arbiters of mankind what shall be each mans lot is the verdict of your Dispensations What good things Felicity intendeth to each individuall person she pronounceth by your mouths what Navies must be prepared what Warres must be prosecured what Cities destroyed what Nations depopulated are the ambiguous effects of your opinions You are judges of the fortunes and bloud of men and of your behaviours and existimation men are judges God the discerner of all things judgeth of your head at the terrible and inevitable audit Every one beholdeth many things by the deception of his own sense uttereth many things from the dictates of affection I cannot believe what is reported that so eminent persons blest with such admirable wits adorned with the glorious gift of prudence and conscious of this frailty of humane affairs can think themselves seated in that heighth to measure all things by the circle of their own advantage that publick plenty should quit the preheminence to their private profit that all things should be serviceable to their amplitude that they should dispose their trust according to the level coyl of love hatred and ambition and that they should sacrifice the bloud of the people to their Fortunes that they therefore love Warres and are affected with Divisions and Confusion hoping thereby to purchase to themselves more beneficiall or honourable commands to close with an opportunity of treasuring up large summes of money and by the necessity of their Ministration to wed themselves to a more faithfull office or to leap into an Authority of a more hopefull permanency but goodnesse forbid that such sordid earthly and narrow cares should be the dishonourable employment of such capacious souls I rather believe that you are incited by emulous anhelations after your Masters glory whereof you have ever been most zealous ever prepared to retaliate his injuries to assert his Majesty and to dilate his Empire but I beseech you by the immortall God and by so many beloved pledges of your Kingdomes to take heed and diligently to beware lest a supervehement appetite of Glory make them averse from the right pursuit of Glory You follow Glory by a muddy search but now all mortall men desire it by a clear acquist Consider where there is the greatest splendour of celestiall virtues either in the loud cracks of thunder possessing all men with sudden fear and when fires and thunderbolts are promiscuously hurl'd about or in a fair day the air being defecated and serene and the pleasure of the light dispelling sadnesse from mens hearts hitherto you have made the power of your Lords sufficiently fearfull now render it sweet and make it amiable for therein onely it is invincible This is not the greatnesse of Princes to be alwayes encompassed with the terrours of his armed men and busied in warlike preparations with a fiery mouth to be alwayes denouncing the cruelties of torments and tortures to condemne these men to fetters those to the sword perpetually to carry about him fire and darts to make his progresse thorow smoaking Cities over the trampled bodies of half dead men and to exhaust all things lest they should be exhausted How much more glorious is it like a fortunate Cornet to prevent and exceed the hopes of all men with causes of rejoycing To repair things ruinous and disordered to conveigh glad tydings of consolation to the pensive soul to recollect things scattered and to reunite things divided By this heavenly solicitude many Kings lending their succour
Saviour Jesus Christ to animate our constancy 80 The power of the name of Jesus ibid. The admirable effects of the Crosse of Jesus ibid. To know whether our Lord Jesus was subject to Anger 88 The eye of Jesus watching sparkling and weeping 96 Impatient men o◠divers qualities 54 The picture of Impudence 83 Divers spirits subject to impudencie ibid. The miserable end of an unhappy Impudent man 86 It is a hard thing not to feel some Incommodities life being so full of them 46 The kingdome of Inconstancy 24 Three sorts of Envious Indignation 93 The plot of Ingobergua to cure her husbands passion of love succeeded ill out of too much affectation 107 John Baptist apprehended 267 His rare qualities ibid. He is beheaded 269 Joab and Abner do strive for the government of Judah 144 Joab and Abner combat ib. Joab in his fault upon necessity is tolerated by David ib. Joabs insolency 149 The death of Joab 153 The courage and resolution of Joachim who executed the office both of a Priest and Captain 181 The good offices of Jonathan 141 Josiah slain 263 Joseph the son of a shepheard 219 His divine qualities 220 His brethren sell him ibid. Mervellous constancy of Joseph amidst those great temptations of the Court and of his Mistresse 221 He is accused for attempting to ravish that honour which he preserved ib. He is imprisoned ib. He is taken out of the prison and doth interpret Pharaohs dream 222 He is promoted to high preferment by Pharaoh ibid. Josephs deportment in Court a pattern for all Courtiers ibid. His singular piety and modesty 223 His fidelity to his Prince ibid. His demeanour in his government 224 His brethren came down to Egypt for food and their intertainment 225 He meeteth with his aged Father and apointeth him a place to live in 226 Josua his education 196 His familiarity with Moses ibid. He is made Generall of the Army of the Israelites ibid. His death 177 Three sorts of Joy 48 The art of Joy 51 The Israelites murmure against Moses 231 232 They have war with the Amalekites and worst them 233 The Israelites disrelish Samuel 236 A great famine in Israel which was caused by a very great drought 249 Judas Macchabeus the sonne of Mattathias made Generall over the Army of the Hebrews against the tyrannie of Antiochus 198 His piety for restoring the Temple ib. Particular favours which he received from God ib. He maketh peace with the Romans 199 He defeated nine Generals of Antiochus in pitched battell 200 Isaiah his vision 260 His eloquence as his birth is elevated ib. He is sawed alive 262 The kingdome of Judah divided by the ambition of favourites 144 The rare endowments of Judith 181 Her prayer to God 183 Her speech to Holophernes being brought before him 184 Her courteous entertainment ibid. Judith being conducted by Vagoa to Holophernes Pavillion in his sleep cut off his head 185 She returneth to the Bethulians with the head of Holophernes ibid. Her entertainment by the Citizens of Bethulia ibid. Her counsell to the people ibid. An excellent observation of Julian 58 Acts of Justice in punishment and reward  Justine who was born a Cow-heard mounted to the throne of the Emperours of Constantinople 158 The fidelity and goodnesse of Justinian ibid. His greatnesse 159 His nature and manners ibid. His manner of life was austere ib. Some abuse the belief of men in reporting that he could neither reade nor write mistaking Justinian for his uncle Justin ibid. His great love to learning but chiefly Law and Divinity ibid. A great conspiracy against him 160 A speech concerning the mutiny against him ibid. Justinian kept prisoner in his palace and Hypatius is proclaimed Emperour ibid. The stoutest men assail Justinian in his Palace 161 The sedition against Justinian is appeased ibid. The reflux of the affairs of Justinian 164 The defects of Justinian 168 Justinian in the latter end of his age fell into two great errours 169 K THe words of the Wise man directed to the Kings of the times Wisd 6. 131 Kings ought to professe the outward worship and service of God for the performance of his duty and the example of his people 133 Knowledge of ones self 18 Knowledge ought to be moderate 153 L THe prodigious victory which in the end Lotharius gained over himself after a great storm of the passion of love in becomming Religious 113 The cruell handling of Pope Leo. 175 Strange desire of Lewis the eleventh 113 Generous act of Lewis the eleventh 120 An excellent observation of Libanius 81 All happinesse included in Love 1 God the Father of Unions doth draw all to unitie by Love ibid. The sect of Philosophers of the indifferency of Love ibid. The first reason against the indifferency of Love is that thereby he maketh himself as chief end and the God of himself ibid. The second reason is drawn from the communication of creatures 2 A third real on against the indifferency of Love is drawn from the tenderness of great hearts ibid. Wherefore great hearts are most loving 3 Love is the soul of the universe ibid. Love is the superintendent of the great fornace of the world ibi The nature of Love ibid. The definition of Love with its division 4 The steps and progression of Love ibid. The causes of Love ibid. The means to make ones self to be worthily loved ibid. Notable effects of Love in three worlds ibid. Love includeth all blessings 5 There are miserable Lovers in the world ibid. Who loveth too much loveth too little 6 A notable comparison of S. Basil touching Love 9 Love is a strange malady 14 Disasters of evill Love 15 Division of Love ibid Love of humour ibid. Interiour causes of Love 16 The secret attractives of Love ibid. Modification of their opinion who place Love in transportation ib. The senses being well guarded shut up all the gates against Love 17 The miserable estate of one passionately in Love ib. The diversities of Love ib. Evill Angels intermeddle in the great tempests of Love 18 Cruelty of Love on the persons of Lovers ibid. Love is sometime the punishment of pride ib. Advices and remedies against Love in its full 19 The medall of Love hath two faces ib. An excellent conceit of Solomon concerning Love ibid. Disasters of Love in each age and condition 20 Advice to all sorts of persons concerning Love ibid. Diversitie of the maladies of Love and their cures 21 Remedies for the affection of Love which come against our wills ibid. Admirable example of the combate of Saints against Love ib. Separation the first remedie against Love 22 The counsell and assiduity of a good directour is an excellent antidote against Love ibid. The conversation of God with man by the mystery of the incarnation in the consummation of Love 24 The Eucharist the last degree of Love ibid. The Love of Saints towards Jesus ibid. The growth of Love like to pearls 25 The Empire and eminencies of
Divine Love ib Qualities of Divine Love by which we may know whether it inhabiteth a soul 26 Pliantnesse Liberality and Patience three principall marks of Love ibid. Twelve effects of Love ibid. Three orders of true Lovers in the world ib. Nine degrees of Seraphical Love for the conterplative ib. That it is good to be honestly Loved 38 We most ardently Love the things we most lose 58 The scandalous of the Emperour Lotharius and Valdrada 109 The Love of David and Jonathan 140 Excellent loyaltie of a Ladie 8 Lysias his speech before the raising of the siege of Hierusalem 203 Lysias is taken and slain by the souldiers ibid. M THe gallant resolution of Maccabeus who with a handfull of men gave battell to a great army wherein being over powered he lost not his honour but his life 204 Some Men are in the world as dislocated bones in the body 52 Man terrible above all terribles 72 Man as he is the most miserable of all creatures so he is the most Mercifull 98 Man hath no greater evil then himself ibid. An observation of Bernardine concerning Marriage 35 Mattathias the father of Judas Machabeus opposeth the tyranny of Antiochus 197 He refuseth to offer incense to Idols ibid. His courage for Religion 198 His glorious death ibid. Utility of Melancholy 55 A notable example of Meroven to divert youth from Marriage 106 The first Mervell in the life of S. Lewis is the joyning of the wisdome of State with the Gospell 177 The second is of the union of Humility and Greatnesse 179 The third is his devotion and courage ibid. Incomparable Mildnesse of Lewis the sonne of Charlemaign 120 Mildnesse of the first men 99 The beauty and utility of Mildnesse 100 Sin and Folly the chief evils of the Mind 58 Remedies for Minds full of scruple 56 Moderation of the Kings of France 117 Great Moderation in S. King Robert 119 Mordecai his excellent personage 187 His entertainment in the Court of Ahashuerus ib. He discovereth the treason which was plotted against Ahashuerus ib. Moses flooted in the river of Nile in a cradle of bull-rushes 227 His education 228 He killeth an Egyptian 229 He withdraweth into the countrey of Midian ib He talketh with God ibid. He dyeth having first seen the land of promise from mount Nebo 234 Gods judgement on wicked Murray 300 N NAaman the Assyrian commanded by Elisha to wash seven times in the river Jordan 257 His leprosie stayes upon Gehezi 258 Naboth unjustly condemned and slain 251 Nathan and Bathsheba's advice 151 Nature necessarily brings with it its sympathies and antipathies 46 Nebuchadonozar his dream 242 He worshippeth Daniel 241 He erecteth a statue of gold of sixty cubits high 243 He commandeth all his nobles to do homage to it ib. He commandeth the three children that disobeyed his command therein to be cast into the fornace 244 His second dream and the interpretation by Daniel ibid. His misfortune is bewailed by the whole Court 245 He is again found out and reinvested in his throne ib. The birth and education of Nero. 271 The perfidiousnesse of his mother ibid. His cruelty towards Britanicus 272 The love of his mother did degenerate to misprision ibid. His present to his mother ibid. His horrible attempt upon his mother ibid. The amazement of Nero. 273 Nero continueth his cruelties ibid. He falls in love with Poppea and doth estrange himself from his wife Octavia 274 Nero grows worse and worse 284 The conspiracy against him is detected ibid. The image of Nice-ones 49 Treason against the Duke of Norfolk and his ruine 299 The horrible Catastrophe of the Duke of Norfolk 300 O FLight from Occasions is the most assured bulwark for chastity 18 Octavia calumniated by Poppea 274 Ozias Prince of the people in the presence of Joachim appeaseth the people of Bethulia 182 P THe over-fond love of Parents to their children is chastised in them 272 The exercise of Patience what it is 37 Necessitie forceth Patience 58 S. Paul tender in holy affections 8 He came to Rome 279 He is falsly accused ibid. His conversation with Peter ib. He preacheth the Gospel ib. He is threatned and persecuted 280 He is condemned to the whip but diverted that punishment ib. He is committed to the hands of Felix ibid. He appears before the Tribunal of Felix ibid. Drusilla comes to hear him ib. S. Paul appeals to Rome 281 The young Agrippa king of Judea with his sister Bernice assist at the judgement of S. Paul ib. Festus is touched with his words ibid. He is imbarqued for Rome ibid. He arrives there and treateth with the Jews ibid. S. Paul is undoubtedly known by Seneca ibid. His Oration to the Senate of Rome 282 The effect of his Oration ibid. The paralel betwixt S. Paul and Seneca 283 The grace of Jesus and the Crosse are the two principles of S. Paul ibid. His perfection and high knowledge 284 He leaveth Rome ibid. The politick counsell of Pharaoh 227 He dreameth 222 He fails in his purposes 228 Marks of reprobation in Pharaoh 230 The plagues of Egypt ibid. An excellent conceit of Plato concerning terrestriall love 222 An excellent conceit of Platonists  The secrets of the Divine Policy of God 238 The birth and education of Cardinall Pool 313 His love of solitude ibid. His travels and return to England ibid. The combat in his spirit 314 He took part with God ibid. He is made Cardinall ib. He is considered on to be made Pope 315 He retireth again into solitude ibid. He travels to the reducement of England to the antient faith 317 His speech to the States 318 Princes the workmanship of God 132 What the wisdome of a Prince should be 133 Princes should not give too much authority to their subjects 144 Whether learning be fitting for Princes 153 That learning is fitting for Princes defended ibid. The favour of Princes is very uncertain 219 Procopius his extravagant fables of Justinian and Theodora disproved 168 The secrets of Providence 164 The great Providence of God in Josephs entring and negotiating in Egypt 218 R REason remedieth all humane actions 57 The love of Reputation is a strong spur 81 The wicked Revenge of an Abbot and of John Proclytas against the French 119 Rigour misbecometh persons Ecclesiasticall 99 The causes of differences of Rigour ibid. Elogy of the city of Rome 79 The estate of Rome and court of Nero when Paul came to it 271 The Practise of Romulus 131 The end o◠Royaltie 131 Royalty a glorious servitude 132 Royalty a mervellous profession ibid. S THe Essence and Image of Sadnesse 54 Four kinds of Sadnesse 55 The remedies against Sadnesse 57 The three Sadnesses of our Blessed Saviour 60 Samuel from his infancy was conversant in the Tabernacle 235 His zeal and other rare qualities 236 His speech to the people ibid. His wisdome in concluding a peace with the Philistims ibid. He dieth 240 The widow of Sarepta's oyl and meal fails not during the
is daily and the victory very rare If you regard the third ingredient of this perfume which is the Onyx solid and permanent the symbole of constancy where can you meet with a virginity more bravely defended than among Christians For if constancy as Saint Thomas teacheth consist in surmounting all difficulties and obstacles which offer to cross a good affair who hath overcome more innumerable in quantity more sharp in kind more various in quality than virginity Domestick enemies are ever most to be feared and such there are who have torn Lions that could not rend from their hearts the least passion But virginity how many times hath it within its own body extinguished the flames of concupiscence by couragious and magnanimous acts as are those which we find in the lives of so many holy creatures How often did some roul themselves in ice and snow as Saint Francis How often did others drag themselves over thorns all torn and bloudy as Saint Benet How often did others fight against fire with another fire taking in open hand the prime element to vanquish the principal passion as Saint Marcian It seems to me when I hear of these combats I may apply a notable place of the Seventy fourth Psalm to them Help O my God help the earth of this mortal flesh is all Liquefacta est terra ego confirmavi columnas ejus confregi potentiaâ— arcum scutum gladium bellum Factum est in pace locus ejus Illuminans tu mi rabiliter de montibus aeternis Psal 74. 75 on fire it is consumed if you assist not What have you to fear faithfull soul answereth the God of hosts Be firm in your good purpose it is I who will strengthen the columns and foundations of the earth It is I who will shiver in pieces the bows arrows quivers bucklers and swords yea all the temptations and powers of hell opposed against thee My God thou madest it O what peace I now find in my heart what great and divine lights descend upon me from the eternal mountains Behold the interiour combats but if you regard the exteriour what violences what warlike engines have not been employed against virginity The teeth of Lions and Tigers were onely to be feared in beasts yet they have been sought out in forrests and wildernesses to be encouraged against virgins and virgins have vanquished them How many times hath a Lion been seen let loose against a silly Christian maid in an Amphitheater to lick her feet and in fight of four-score thousand people adore his prey taking upon him that courtesie which in men was wanting Coals which cast up devouring flames frying-pans boyling cauldrons made their hair stand an end who afar off beheld them without danger yet virgins felt them on their bodies virgins overcame them virgins stood free from hurt in the midst of these horrours singing the praises of God and the triumphs of chastity Wheels armed with sharp irons to make bodies flie in pieces by gobbets were O quà m pulchra est casta generatio cum claritate immortalis est enim memoria illius c. Et in perpetuum coronata triumphat in coinquinatorum certamine praemium vincens Sapient 4. the practises of Satan never seen heard or thought on yet being applied to the bodies of virgins virgins blunted and rebated them with their tender and delicate flesh Now that none may object all this to be done by wily tricks of extatick souls and that there could not be a true constancy observed therein which is onely seen when there is a firm setling for some good space in the exercise of a virtue you find an infinite number of them who waxed old in great combats great afflictions great austerities great flatteries yet never left their resolution And to let others pass under silence who are innumerable I will onely remember a maid of Alexandria endowed with an exquisite beauty and sued unto with all possible importunities who hid her self in a sepulchre of the dead and lived twelve years in a little cell made to lodge such as had nothing to do with the world she being found in this manner and asked what she meant to do made answer I preserve the treasure Thesaurum castitatis sâ—rv inter arenâ—s calvarias undâ— nulla flamma erumpit Raderus of chastity amongst these dead carkases from whence I behold not the sparkles of concupiscence to flie O my God what constancy is this what vigour of spirit what adamantine courage and what may weak souls say to this who yield at the first brunt and seem to have nothing in the world more easie and familiar than to loose that which can never be recovered To conclude constancy being never consummate without perseverance to the last breath behold the fourth ingredient of the perfume of God which is incense and you shall see that as incense is melted on coals so many have been dissolved in torments for the defence of chastity Some have presently yielded up their lives others were burned with a slow fire delivering their bodies up to flames as freely as one would be dispoiled of a garment Witness that young man mentioned by S. Hierom fast tyed with silken cords upon a bed all strewed over with flowers who in such posture having nothing at liberty but his tongue spit it out all bloudy in the face of a lewd woman who came to tempt him Witness Raderus in viridario another maid called Lucie who lived a virgin among many others and whose exquisite beauty was sought unto with vehement sollicitations by a powerfull Lord who having command and authority in his hands sent messengers of his fury to seize on this innocent lamb and whilest they were at the gate menacing to kill her and to set all on fire if this poor creature were not delivered into their hands the maid came forth who is there Sirs said she What demand you I beseech you tell me whether there be any thing in my power to purchase your Lord and Masters love Yea answered they in a flouting manner your eyes have gained him nor ever can he have rest till he enjoy them Well go to then saith she onely suffer me to go to my chamber and I will give satisfaction in this point The poor maid seeing herself between the hammer and the anvile acted a thing at that time which could never have been done without the particular revelation of God she spake to her eyes and said How my eyes are you then guilty I know the reservedness and simplicity of your glances nor have I in that kind any remorse of conscience But howsoever it be you appear to me not innocent enough since you have kindled fire in the heart of a man whose hatred I have ever more esteemed than his love Quench with your bloud the flames you have raised Whereupon with a hand piously cruel she digged out her eyes and sent the torn reliques embrewed in her bloud to him who
not be possible to God he being Omnipotent Immense Infinite How according to the confession of ancient Philosophers can he replenish all the world with his Divnity and is not able to accommodate himself with enough of it to divinize his holy Humanity Is it because we say it is united to the Word in this mystery in a quite other fashion than the Spirit of God is with the world I admit it For the union of it is truely personal But must it not be confessed the Word in this divine Essence as under title of efficient cause it hath an influence infinite over all the effects of the world and as under title of final cause it hath a capacity to limit and measure all the inclinations of creatures so under title of substantial bound it may confine and accomplish by its personality all possible Essence Why shall we tie the hands of Divine bounty in its communications since it binds not our understanding in its conceptions Is it not a shamefull thing that man will estimate and set a value upon the Divine Essence If God please not man he shall not be God Should we say man is incapable of this communication And how is it that the holy Humanity resisted the Omnipotency of God to the prejudice of his own exaltation since it is found as soon in the union of the Word as in the possession of Essence See we not in nature that the rays of the Sun draw up vapours from the earth and incorporated with them do create Meteors in the air not any one making resistance to his exaltation What contradiction can there be in our understanding against such a maxim seeing it appears the most famous Philosopher said This union of God with man might be very fit and Plutarch also Plutarch in Numa 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 speaking of the communication of the Creatour with the creature pronounced these words That God was not a lover of birds nor other living creatures but a lover of men and that it is a very reasonable matter that be communicate himself to his loves and delights But this would seem to abase the Divinity Hear what Volusianus said I wonder that he to whom this whole Volusianus Miror si intra corpus vagientis infantiae latetâ— cui parva putatur universilas c. universe is so small can be shut up within the bodie of a little child having a mouth open to crie as others What uncomeliness is there if God be united to a little body Have not Plinie (a) (a) (a) Plin. Natura nusquam magis quà m in minimis tota est and Seneca (b) (b) (b) Servitus magnitudinis non posse fieri minorem Senec. Homo quippe ad Deum accessit Deus à se non decessit August said That nature was ever so admirable as in little bodies and that it was a slavery in Great-ones to be unable to be little I wonder the Sovereign Lord of all things is so long absent from Heaven and that all the government of the world is transferred to so little a creature From whence proceedeth this amazement but from the baseness of our thoughts If we said God being made man ceased to be God and were despoiled of his Empire Greatness Essence there would be somewhat wherewith to question this Mystery but when we say God came to Man by inclination of a Sovereign bounty and mercy not leaving himself when we say humane nature is received into the Word as a small source into a huge river and not loosing its Essence is fixed upon the personality of the Word it self is it not to honour the power majesty and wisdom of God 5. In what were the Divinity abased Can it be in doing a work so noble so singular so divine that it deserveth to entertain the thoughts of men and Angels through times and eternity What is more specious and more sweet than to represent to ones self the Person of our Saviour who in himself makes an alliance of all was most eminent in spiritual and corporal nature to wit of God and man verily say I one composed of an unheard-of composition to render the majesty of his father palbable and visible to the hands and eyes of mortals What dignity to behold in the world a Man-God become a part of the world to possess the Spirit of God from all eternity who proposed this person as the end of his communications the bound of his power the first-born of all creatures who held all Ages in breath for him all hearts in desires all minds in expectation all creatures in prophesies The Book of God hath written me In copite libri scriptum est de me Psal 39. 8. in the beginning of its first page said the Word with the Psalmist All creatures of this great universe all predictions and conceptions of these two great books the world and the Bible tended to the accomplishment and revelation of this God-Man who should set a golden head upon all nature intelligent sensitive and vegetative All creatures were but leaves and flowers that promised the great fruit which the Prophet calleth The fruit of earth sublime Isaiah 4. 20. We must religiously speak what deserveth to be heard Religiose dicendum reverentér audiendum est quis propter hunc hominon gloris honâ—re coronandum Deus omnis creavit Rupert l. 13. de glor Trinit proces Spi. Sancti with reverence It is for this incomparable man that God created the world and all creatures are but as silly rays from the Diadem of glory which covereth his head What a spectacle to see them all wound up as the strings of a harp to praise and declare unto men the Name of God to behold the nine Quires of Angels enter into this consort and every one of them to honour this first Essence by so many distinct perfections notwithstanding all to confess their ability cannot reach that degree which the Divine greatness meriteth And thereupon behold here the Word Incarnate which passing through all the spheres of nature grace and glory enter into the new sphere of the hypostatical union where it appears as a rainbow imprinted with all the beauties of the father he manifesteth them to men and making himself an adoring God a loving God an honouring God he adoreth he loveth he honoureth God so much as he is adorable amiable and honourable through all Ages for evermore Let us unfold our hearts in the knowledge and love of the Word revealed Let us adore this great sign this eternal character of the living God for whom all signs are Let us make a firm purpose not to pass over a day of our life wherein we afford him not three things due to him by titles so lawfull Homage Love Imitation Homage by adoring him and offering him some small service directed according to times in acknowledgement of the dependence we have of him by an entire comformity of our wils to his Love