which he was wholly absorpt his senses suspended and tied up as it were in a sweet sleep by the content which he received from that consideration Seneca Epist 22. I delighted my self sayes he amongst other things to enquire into the Eternity of Souls and believing it as a thing assuredly true I delivered up my self wholly over unto so great a hope and I was now weary of my self and despised all that remained of age though with perfect and entire health that I might pass into that immense time and into the possession of an eternal world So much could the consideration of Eternity work in this Philosopher that it made him to despise the most precious of temporal things which is life Certainly amongst Christians it ought to produce a greater effect since they not onely know that they are to live eternally but that they are either to joy or suffer eternally according unto their works and life CAP. III. The Memory of Eternity is of it self more efficacious then that of Death ANd therefore it shall much import us to frame a lively conception of Eternity and having once framed it to retain it in continual memory which of it self is more efficacious then that of Death for although both the one and the other be very profitable yet that of Eternity is far more generous strong and fruitful of good works for by it did Virgins preserve their purity Anchorits perform their austere penances and Martyrs suffered their torments the which were not comforted and encouraged in their pains by the fear of death but by the holy reverence and hope of Eternity and the love of God It is true the Philosophers who hoped not for the immortality of the other life as we do yet with the memory of death retired themselves from the vanity of the world despised its greatness composed their actions and ordered their lives according to the rules of reason and vertue Epict. c. 28. apud S. Hier. in ca. 10. Math. Whereupon Epictetus advises us alwayes to have death in our mindes so sayes he Thou shalt never have base and low thoughts and desire any thing with trouble and anxiety And Plato said that by so much man were to be esteemed wiser by how much he more seriously thought of death and for this reason he commanded his Disciples that when they went any journey they should go barefoot signifying thereby that in the way of this life we should alwayes have the end of it discovered which is death and the end of all things But Christians who believe the other life are to add unto this contemplation of death the memory of Eternity the advantages whereof are as far above it as things eternal above those which are temporal The Philosophers were so much moved with the apprehension of death because with it all things of this mortal life were to end death being the limit whereunto they might enjoy their riches honours and delights and no further others desired to die because their evils and afflictions were to die with them If then death amaze some only because it deprives them of the goods of this life which by a thousand other wayes use to fail and which of themselves even before the death of the owner are corruptible dangerous and full of cares and if others hope for death onely because it frees them from the evils of life which in themselves are short and little as all things temporal are why should not we be moved by the thought of Eternity which secures us goods great and everlasting and threatens us with evils excessive and without end Without doubt then if we rightly conceive of Eternity the memory of it is much more powerful then that of death and if of this wise men have had so great an esteem and advised others to have the same much more ought to be had of that of Eternity Zenon desirous to know an efficacious means how to compose his life bridle his carnal appetites and observe the lawes of vertue had recourse unto the Oracle which remitted him unto the memory of death saying Go to the dead consult with them and there thou shalt learn what thou demandest There seeing the dead possess nothing of what they had and that with their lives they had breathed out all their felicity he might learn not to be puffed up with pride nor to value the vanities of the world For the same cause some Philosophers did use to drink in the skulls of dead men that they might keep in continual memory that they were to die and were not to enjoy the pleasures of this life although necessary unless alloid by some such sad remembrance In like manner many great Monarchs used it as an Antidote against the blandishments of fortune that their lives might not be corrupted by their too great prosperity Philip King of Macedonia commanded a Page to tell him three times every morning Philip thou art a man putting him in mind that he was to die and leave all The Emperor Maximilian the first four years before he died commanded his Coffin to be made which he carried along with him whither soever he went which with a mute voice might tell him as much Maximilian thou art to die and leave all The Emperors also of the East amongst other Ensignes of Majesty carried in their left hand a book with leaves of gold which they called Innocency the which was full of earth and dust in signification of humane mortality and to put them in minde hereby of that ancient doom of Mankind dust thou art and into dust thou shalt return And not without much conveniency was this memorial of death in the form of a book nothing being of more instruction and learning then the memory of death being the onely School of that great truth where we may best learn to undeceive our selves With reason also was the book called Innocency For who will dare to sin that knows he is to die Neither were the Emperors of the Abissins careless herein Nicol. God lib. 1. de rebus Abiss â—a 8. for at their Coronations amongst many other Ceremonies there was brought unto them a vessel fill'd with earth and a dead mans skull advertising them in the beginning that their Raign was to have a speedy end Finally all Philosophers agreed in this that all their Philosophy was the meditation of death But without doubt the contemplation of Eternity is far beyond all Philosophy it is a greater matter and of far more astonishment for the torments of Hell to last for ever then for the greatest Empires sodainly to have an end more horrible to suffer eternal evils then to be deprived of temporal goods greater marvel that our souls are immortal then that our bodies are to die Wherefore Christians especially those who aim to be perfect are rather to endeavour in themselves a strong conception of Eternity then to stir up the fear of death whose memory ought not to be needful for the
all living Creatures of so great variety all the Birds so curiously painted the Fishes so monstrous the Mettals so rich all People and Nations farthest remote certainly it would be a sight of wonderful satisfaction But what will it be to see all this whatever there is in the Earth together with all that there is in Heaven and above Heaven Some Philosophers in the discovery of a natural truth or the invention of some rare curiosity have been transported with a greater joy and content than their senses were capable of For this Aristotle spent so many sleepless nights for this Pythagoras travelled into so many strange Nations for this Crates deprived himself of all his wealth and Archimedes as Vitruvius writes never removed his thoughts night nor day from the inquisition of some Mathematical demonstration Such content he took in finding out some truth that when he eat his mind was busie in making lines and angles If he bathed and annointed himself as was the custome of those times his two fingers served him in the room of a compass to make circles in the oyl which was upon his skin He spent many dayes in finding out by his Mathematical rules how much gold would serve to gild a crown of silver that the Goldsmith might not deceive him and having found it as he was bathing in a Vessel of brass not able to contain his joy he fetcht divers skips and cried out I have found it I have found it If then the finding out of so mean a truth could so transport this great Artist what joy shall the Saints receive when the Creatour shall discover unto them those high secrets and above all that sublime mysterie of the Trinity of persons in the unity of essence This with the rest of those Divine knowledges wherewith the most simple of the Just shall be endued shall satiate their Souls with unspeakable joyes O ye wise of the World and ignorant before God why do you weary your selves in vain curiosities busie to understand and forgetful to love intent to know and slow to work Drye and barren speculation is not the way to knowledge but devout affection ardent love mortification of the senses and holy works in the service of God Labour therefore and deserve and you shall receive more knowledge in one instant than the wise of the world have obtained with all their watchings travails and experiences Aristotle for the great love he bore to knowledge held that the chief felicity of man consisted in contemplation If he found so great joy in natural speculations what shall we find in divine and the clear vision of God There shall the Memory also live representing unto us the Divine benefits and rendring eternal thanks unto the Author of all the Soul rejoycing in its own happiness to have received so great mercies for so small merits and remembring the dangers from which it hath been freed by Divine favour it shall sing the verse in the Psalm The snare is broken and we are delivered The remembrance likewise as St. Thomas teaches of the acts of vertue and good works by which Heaven was gained shall be a particular joy unto the Blessed both in respect they were a means of our happiness as also of pleasing so gracious and good a Lord. This joy which results from the memory of things past is so great as Epicurus prescribing a way to be ever joyful and pleasant advises us to preserve in memory and to think often of contents past But in Heaven we shall not onely joy in the memory of those things wherein we have pleased God in complying with his holy will and in ordering and disposing our life in his service but in the troubles also and dangers we have past The memory of a good lost without remedy causes great regret and torment and to the contrary the memory of some great evil avoided and danger escaped is most sweet and delectable The Wise-man said the memory of death was bitter as indeed it is to those who are to die but unto the Saints who have already past it and are secure in Heaven nothing can be more pleasant who now to their unspeakable joy know themselves to be free from death infirmity and danger There also shall live the Will in that true and vital life rejoycing to see all its desires accomplished with the abundance and sweet satiety of so many felicities being necessitated to love so admirable a beauty as the Soul enjoyes and possesses in God Almighty Love makes all things sweet and as it is a torment to be separated from what one loves so it is a great joy and felicity to remain with the beloved And therefore the Blessed loving God more than themselves how unspeakable a comfort must it be to enjoy God and the society of those whom they so much affect The love of the Mother makes her delight more in the sight of her own Son though foul and of worse conditions than in that of her neighbours The love then of Saints one towards another being greater than that of Mothers to their Children and every one of them being so perfect and worthy to be beloved and every one enjoying the sight of the same God how comfortable must be their conversation Sen. Ep. 6. Seneca said That the possession of what good soever was not pleasing without a Partner The possession then of the chief good mus be much more delightful with the society of such excellent companions If a man were to remain alone for many years in some beautiful Palace it would not please him so well as a Desert with company but the City of God is full of most noble Citizens who are all sharers of the same blessedness This conversation also being with wise holy and discreet personages shall much increase their joy For if one of the greatest troubles of humane life be to suffer the ill conditions follies and impertinencies of rude and ill-bred people and the greatest content to converse with sweet pious and learned friends what shall that Divine conversation be in Heaven where there is none ill conditioned none impious none froward but all peace piety love and sweetness in so much as Saint Austin sayes Aug. lib. de Spirittu anima Every one shall there rejoyce as much in the felicity of another as in his own ineffable joy and shall possess as many joyes as he shall find companions There are all things which are either requisite or delightful all riches ease and comfort Where God is nothing is wanting All there know God without errour behold him without end praise him without weariness love him without tediousness and in this love repose full of God Besides all this the Security which the will shall have in the eternal possession of this felicity is an unspeakable joy The fear that the good things which we enjoy are to end or at least may end mingles wormwood with our joyes and pleasures do not relish where there is
Prosperous and the Lovers of the World who are those which for the most part people Hell The Prophet Baruch sayes Baruc. 3. Where are the Princes of the Nations which commanded over the beasts of the earth and sported with the birds of the air which store up silver and gold in which men put their trust and there is no end of their seeking who stamp and work silver who are sollicitous and their works are not found They are exterminated they have sunk down into hell Jac. 5. and others have risen in their places St. James sayes Weep you who are rich and lament the miseries which are to fall upon you St. Paul not onely threatens those who are rich but those who desire to be so saying Those who desire to be rich fall into the snare and temptation of the Devil 1 Tim. 6. and into many unprofitable and hurtful desires which drown them in death and perdition With this counterpoise then and hazard who would desire the wealth of the World since onely the desire of it is so poisonous Let those who dote upon the World hear St. Bernard Bernard in Medit. who sayes Tell me now Where are those lovers of the world who a little while agoe were here with us there is nothing remaining of them but dust and worms Mark diligently what they once were and what they now are They were men as thou now art they did eat drink laugh and pass away their times in mirth and jollity and in a moment of time sunk down into hell Here are their Bodies eaten by worms and their Souls condemned to eternal flames until united again they both shall sink together into everlasting fire that so those who were companions in sin may be also in torments and that one pain involve them who were consorts in the love of the same offence What did their vain glory profit them their short mirth their worldly power their fleshly pleasure their false riches their numerous families where is now their laughter their jests their boasting their arrogance how great shall be their sorrow when such misery shall succeed so many pleasures when from the height of humane glory they shall fall into those grievous torments and eternal ruine where according to what the Wise-man said the mighty shall be mightily punished If then those who most enjoy the World run the greatest hazard of being damned what can more induce us to the contempt of it than the consideration of so lamentable an end And what can more set forth the malice of temporal goods than to be the occasion of eternal evils If a curious built house be subject to some notable inconveniency no man will dwell in it if a couragious horse have some vitious quality no body will buy him and if a Chrystal cup have a crack it shall not be placed upon a Royal Cupboard yet the pleasures and goods of the World though subject to all those faults how are they coveted loved and sought after and in them our perdition Certainly if we should consider seriously the eternal evils which correspond to the short pleasures of this life we should have all humane felicity in horrour and trembling to see our selves in fortunes favour should flye from the world as from death The reverend and zealous Father Frier Jordan being desirous to convert a certain Cavalier to God and from the love of the world for his last remedy had recourse unto this consideration Seeing him a beautiful young man active and well disposed of body he said unto him At least Sir since God hath bellowed so comely a face and personage upon you think what pity it were they should be the food of eternal fire and burn without end The Gentleman reflected upon his advice and this consideration wrought so much with him that abhorring the world and quitting all his possessions and hopes he became poor in Christ and entred into Religion §. 2. Let us now come to the consideration of Eternal Evils that from thence we may despise all which is temporal be it good or bad The evils of Hell are truly evils and so purely such that they have no mixture of good In that place of unhappiness all is eternal sorrow and complaint and there is no room for comfort Aelian lib. 3. varia Hist c. 18. Aelian relates a History which being taken as a Parable may serve to illustrate what we are about to speak of He sayes in the utmost borders of the Meropes there is a cetrain place called Anostos which is as much to say from whence there is no return There was to be seen a great Precipice and a deep opening of the earth from whence issued two Rivers the one of Joy and the other of Sadness upon the brinks of which grew divers trees of so different fruits that those who eat of the one forgot all that might cause grief but those who eat of the other were so possessed with an unconsolable sadness that all was weeping and lamentations until they at last died with signs and shedding of tears What do those Rivers signifie but the one of them that whereof David speaks which with his current rejoyced the City of God the other that Flood of evil which enters the Prison of Hell and fills it with groans tears and despite without the least hope of comfort for there shall the door be eternally shut to all good or expectation of ease in so much as one drop of water was denied the rich Glutton from so merciful and pitiful a man as Abraham There shall not be the least good that may give ease nor shall there want a concourse of all evils which may add affliction There is no good to be found there where all goods are wanting neither can there be want of any evil where all evils whatsoever are to be found and by the want of all good and the collection of all evils every evil is augmented In the creation of the World God gave a praise to every nature saying It was good without farther exaggeration but when all were created and joyned together he said They were very good because the conjunction of many goods advances the good of each particular and in the same manner the conjunction of many evils makes all of them worse What shall Heaven then be where there is a concourse of all goods and no evils And what Hell where there are all evils and no good Certainly the one must be exceeding good and the other exceeding evil In signification of which the Lord shewed unto the Prophet Jeremias two little Baskets of Figs Jer. 24. in the one of which were excessively good ones and in the other excessively bad both in extremity He does not content himself in saying they were bad or very bad but sayes they were over-bad because they represented the miserable state of the Damned where is to be the sink of all evils without mixture of any good at all And for this
it prepares for us are eternal whose greatness though it were not otherwise to be known might in this sufficiently appear that to free us from so many evils and crown us with so many goods it was necessary that he who was eternal should make himself temporal and should execute this great and stupendious work so much to his own loss CAP. IV. The baseness of Temporal goods may likewise appear by the Passion and Death of Christ Jesus THe greatness of eternal goods and evils is by the Incarnation of the Son of God made more apparent unto us then the Sun beams since for the freeing us from the one and gaining for us the other it was necessary so great a work should be performed and that God judged not his whole omnipotency ill imployed that man might gain eternity Yet doth not this great work so forcibly demonstrate unto us the baseness of things temporal and the contempt which is due unto them as the Passion and Death of the Son of God which was another work of his love an other excess of his affection another tenderness of our Creator and a most high expression of his good will towards us wherein we shall see how worthy to be despised are all the goods of the Earth since to the end we might contemn them the Son of God would not onely deprive himself of them but to the contrary embraced all the evils and incommodities this life was capable of Behold then how the Saviour of the world disesteemed temporal things since he calls the best of them and those which men most covet but thorns and to the contrary that which the world most hates and abhorrs he qualifies with the name of blessings favouring so much the Poor who want all things that he calls them blessed and sayes Of them is the Kingdom of heaven And of the Rich who enjoy the goods of the earth he sayes It is harder for them to enter into heaven then for a Camel to pass the eye of a needle And to perswade us yet more he not onely in words but in actions chose the afflictions and despised the prosperity of this life and to that end would suffer in all things as much as could be suffered In honour by being reputed infamous In riches by being despoyled of all even to his proper garments In his pleasures by being a spectacle of sorrow and afflicted in each particular part of his most sacred body This we ought to consider seriously that we may imitate him in that contempt of all things temporal which he principally exprest in his bitter death and passion This he would have us still to keep in memory as conducing much to our spiritual profit as an example which he left us and as a testimony of the love he bore us leaving his life for us and dying for us a publick death full of so many deaths and torments Zcnophon in Cyro lib. 3. Tigranes King of Armenia together with his Queen being prisoners unto Cyrus and one day admited to dine with him Cyrus demanded of Tigranes What he would give for the liberty of his wife to whom Tigranes answered That he would not onely give his Kingdom but his life and blood The woman not long after requited this expression of her husband For being both restored to their former condition One demanded of the Queene What she thought of the Majesty and Greatness of Cyrus to whom she answered Certainly I thought not on him nor fixt mine eyes on any but him who valued me so much as he doubted not to give his life for my ransom If this Lady were so grateful onely for the expression of her husbands affections that she looked upon nothing but him and neither admired nor desired the greatness of the Persians What ought the Spouse of Christ to do who not onely sees the love and affection of the King of Heaven but his deeds not his willingness to die but his actual dying a most horrid and cruel death for her ransom and redemption Certainly she ought not to place her eyes or thoughts upon any thing but Christ crucified for her Sabinus also extolls the loyalty and love of Vlysses to his Wife Penelope in regard that Circe and Calypso promising him immortality upon condition that he should forget Penelope and remain with them he utterly refused it not to be wanting to the love and affection he owed unto his Spouse who did also repay it him with great love and affection Let a Soul consider what great love and duty it owes to its Spouse Christ Jesus who being immortal did not onely become mortal but died also a most ignominious death Let us consider whether it be reasonable it should forget such an excessive love and whether it be fit it should ever be not remembring the same and not thankful for all eternity hazarding to lose the fruits of the passion of its Redeemer and Spouse Christ Jesus Upon this let thy Soul meditate day and night and the spiritual benefits which she will reap from thence will be innumerable Albertus Magnus used to say Lud. de Ponte P. 4. in introduc That the Soul profited more by one holy thought of the Passion of Christ than by reciting every day the whole Psalter by fasting all the year in bread and water or chastizing the Body even to the effusion of blood One day amongst others when Christ appeared unto St. Gertrude to confirm her in that devotion she had to his Passion he said unto her behold Daughter if in a few hours which I hung upon the Cross I so enobled it that the whole world hath ever since had it in reverence how shall I exalt that Soul in whose heart and memory I have continued many years Certainly it cannot be exprest what favour devout Souls obtain from Heaven in thinking often upon God and those pains by which he gained tor us eternal blessings and taught us to despise things temporal and transitory But that we may yet reap more profit by the holy remembrance of our Saviours passion we are to consider that Christ took upon him all our sins and being to satisfy the Father for them would do it by the way of suffering for which it was convenient that there should be a proportion betwixt the greatness of his pains and the greatness of our sins And certainly as our sins were without bound or limit so the pains of his torments were above all comparison shewing us by the greatness of those injuries he received in his passion the greatness of those injuries we did unto God by our inordinate pleasures We may also gather by the greatness of those pains and torments which were inflicted upon him by the Jews and Hangmen the greatness of those which he inflicted upon himself for certainly those pains which he took upon himself were not inferior to those he received from others But who can explicate the pains which our Saviour wounded by the grief he conceived at
it not deserve And if in benefits the good will wherewith they are conferred is most to be esteemed When the benefit is infinite and the will of infinite love what shall we do If when that Traitor who murthered Henry the Fourth King of France was justly sentenced to those cruel torments wherein he died the first begotten Son of the dead King and Heir unto his Kingdom had cloathed himselt in the habit of the Murtherer and offered to be torn in pieces for him and to die that he might be freed from his torments and not only offered but actually performed it What love and thanks would the Prince deserve from that Caitiff O King of Glory and onely begotten Son of the eternal Father in as much as lay in us we were desirous to murther thy Father and to destroy his Divine essence and being and therefore were most worthy of death and eternal flames But thou wert not onely willing to die for us but effectually gavest thy blood and life with so inhumane torments for us and wert prepared to suffer more and greater for our good How shall we repay so great a love what thanks what gratitude for so immense a benefit Let us also consider What we our selves are for whom he suffered For he suffered not for himself or because it imported him he suffered not for another God nor for some new creature of a superiour nature to all those who now are not for a Seraphin who had faithfully served him for an eternity of years but for a miserable vile creature the lowest of all those which are capable of reason composed of dirt and his Enemy This should make us more grateful that God suffered so much for us who least deserved it To this may be added that he suffered thus much for us not that his suffering was necessary tor our redemption and freedom out of the slavery of sin but took upon him all these pains and torments onely to shew his love unto us and to oblige us to imitate him in the contempt of the world and all humane felicity Let us then behold our selves in this Mirrour and reform our lives Let us suffer with him who suffered so much for us Let us be thankful unto him who did us so much good and so much to his own cost Let it grieve our very souls that we have offended so good a God who suffered so many evils that we should not be evil Let us admire the Divine goodness who being the honour of Angels would for so vile a creature abase himself to the reproach of the Cross Let us love him who so truly loved us Let us put our trust in him who without asking gave us more than we durst desire Let us imitate this great example proposed unto us by the Eternal Father upon Mount Calvarie Let us compose our lives conformable unto the death of his Son our Saviour in all humility and contempt of temporal felicity that we may thereby attain the eternal that humbling our selves now he may exalt us hereafter that suffering here he may in his good time comfort us that tasting in this life what is bitter we may in the other be satiated with all sweetness and that weeping in time we may rejoyce for all eternity To which end our Saviour said unto the great Imitator of his Passion St. Francis Francis take those things that are bitter in lieu of those that are sweet if thou intendest to be happy And accordingly St. Austin Brethren Augus Ser. 11. ad fra Know that after the pleasures of this life are to follow eternal lamentations for no man can rejoyce both in this world and the next And therefore it is necessary that he who will possess the one should lose the other If thou desirest to rejoyce here know that thou shalt be banisht from thy Celestial Country but if thou shalt here weep thou shalt even at present be counted as a Citizen of Heaven And therefore our Lord said Blessed are those who weep for they shall be comforted And for this reason it is not known that our Saviour ever laught but it is certain that he often wept and for this reason chose a life of pains and troubles to shew us that that was the right way to joy and repose CAP. V. The Importance of the Eternal because God hath made himself a means for our obtaining it and hath left his most holy Body as a Pledge of it in the Blessed Sacrament ANother most potent motive to induce us to the estimation of what is Eternal and the contempt of what is Temporal is That God hath in the most holy and venerable Sacrament of his body and blood made himself a means that we might attain the one by despising the other Which holy Mystery was instituted That it might serve as a Pledge of those eternal goods and therefore the holy Church calls it a Pledge of future glory and That it might also serve us as a Viaticum whereby we might the better pass this temporal life without the superfluous use of those goods which are so dangerons unto us Our Lord bestowing this Divine bread upon us Christians as he did that of Manna heretofore unto the Hebrews And therefore as we gave a beginning unto this work with a presentation of that temporal Manna which served as a Viaticum unto the children of Israel in the wilderness so we will now finish it with the truth of this spiritual Manna of the blessed Sacrament which is a Pledge of the eternal goods and given as a Viaticum unto Christian people in the peregrination of this life Let a Christian therefore know how much it imports him to obtain the Eternal and with what earnestness his Creator desires it that having obliged us by those high endearments of his Incarnation and Passion in suffering for us so grievous and cruel a death would yet add such an excess of love as to leave himself unto us in the most blessed Sacrament as a means of our Salvation Who sees not here the infinite goodness of God since he who as God omnipotent is the beginning of all things and as the chief good of all goods and most perfect in himself is likewise their utmost end would yet for our sakes make himself a Medium which is common to the creatures and argues no perfection Our Lord glories in the Scripture that he is the beginning and end of all And with reason for this is worthy of his greatness and declares a perfection whereof only God is capable But to make himself a Medium and such a Medium as was to be used according to humane will and subject to the power and despose of man was such a complyance with our nature and such a desire of our salvation as cannot be imagined the Means of our salvation may be considered either as they are on Gods part or on Mans part for both God and Man work for mans salvation That God should serve himself
much happiness he had not made use of it although the misfortune chanced without his fault But the miserable damned in hell when they shall perceive that by their own fault they have lost the occasion of so great blessings as are those of heaven it is incredible what grief and resentment shall possess them CAP. XV. What is Time according to Plato and Plotinus and how deceitful is all that which is temporal THat we may yet better understand the smalness and baseness of all which is temporal I will not pass in silence the description of Time made by Platinus a famous Philosopher amongst the Platonicks who sayes that Time is an Image or Shadow of Eternity The which is conformable unto holy Scripture not onely unto that of David when he sayes that Man passes in a figure that is in time but unto that of the Wise-man Sap. 2. who defines Time in these words Our Time is the passing of a Shadow The which is no other than the imperfect moveable and vain Image of a thing consistent and solid Job 8. Job also sayes As a shadow are our dayes upon the earth And the Prophet David elsewhere My dayes have slided away as a shadow And in many other places of Scripture the same comparison is used to signifie the swiftness of Time and the vanity of our life Neither is it without mystery that the same comparison is so often used in those sacred Writings For truly few comparisons can be found more apt and proportionable for the expressing of what is Time and Eternity than that of a Statue and the Swadow of it For as a Statue remains for many years and Ages firm stable and immoveable without encrease or diminution whilest the Shadow is in continual motion now greater now lesser So is it with Time and Eternity Eternity is firm fixed and immoveable without receiving less or more Time is ever moving and changing as the Shadow which is great in the morning less at mid-day and towards night returns to its former greatness every moment changing and moving from one side unto another In the same manner the life of man hath no instant fixt but still goes on in perpetual changes and in the greatest prosperity is for the most part shortest Aman the same day he thought to sit at the Table of King Assuerus Esth 3. 7. by whom he had been exalted above all the Princes of his Kingdom was ignominiously hang'd Jud. 13. Holofernes when he hoped to enjoy the best day of his life was miserably beheaded by a woman King Baltassar in the most solemn and celebrated day of his whole raign Dan. 5. wherein he made ostentation of his great riches and royal entertainment was slain by the Persians Act. 12. Herod when he most desired to shew his Majesty being cloathed in a rich habit of Tissue embroidered with gold and by the acclamations of the people saluted as a God was mortally struck from heaven There is nothing constant in this life The Moon hath every Moneth her changes but the life of man hath them every day every hour Now he is sick now in health now sorrowful now merry now cholerick Sinesius hym 6. now fearful in so much as Sinesius not without reason compared his life unto Euripus a Streight of the Sea which ebbs and flows seaven times in a day as the most constant which is the most just man in the world falls every day seaven times The shadow wheresoever it passes leaves no track behinde it and of the greatest personages in the world when they are once dead there remains no more than if they had never lived How many preceding Emperors in the Assyrian Monarchy were Lords of the world as well as Alexander and now we remain not onely ignorant of their Monuments but know not so much as their names And of the same great Alexander what have we at this day except the vain noise of his fame Venus Alsâ—rsus Kikâ—â—ius de noviss art 4. Let that Company of Philosophers inform us who the day following assembled at his dead Corps One of them said Yesterday the whole circumference of the world sufficed not Alexander this day two yards of ground serve his turn Another in admiration cried out Yesterday Alexander was able to redeem innumerable people from the hands of death this day he cannot free himself A third exclaims Yesterday Alexander oppressed the whole earth and this day the earth oppresses him and there is no footstep in it left by which he passed Moreover how great is the difference betwixt a Statua of Gold or Marble and the Shadow That is solid and of a precious substance and this hath no being or body In the same manner the life eternal is most precious and of great concernment the temporal vain and miserable without substance The Shadow hath no other being but to be a privation of the most excellent quality in nature and of the most beautiful thing the world produces which is the light of the Sun In the same manner this life without substance or being is a privation of our greatest happiness Wherefore Job said Job 9. His dayes fled away and his eyes saw not what was good This said he who was a Prince and possessed great riches and many Servants and a numerous Family and yet he sayes that in his life he saw not what was good which he might say with much truth because the goods of this life are not to be called such and if they were yet the pleasure of them endures so short a space as they are done before we are sensible of them and if they should continue some time yet being subject to end they are to be esteemed as if they were not The which was confessed by a certain Cavalier called Rowland Hist de S. Dom. who having been present at a Feast celebrated with great cost and bravery to the high content and satisfaction of the invited Guests at night when he returned home cried out with much bitterness of spirit Where is the Feast we had to day where is the glory of it how is this day past without leaving any tract behinde it even so shall the rest of this life pass without leaving any thing to suceed it but eternal sorrow This consideration sufficed to make him change his life and the next day to enter into Religion And as in a shadow all is obscurity so this life is full of darkness and deceit Whereupon Zacharias said That men sat in darkness and in the shadow of death Much are we deceived whilest we live in this body of death since this life although short appears long unto us and being miserable yet we are pleased and content with it and being nothing yet it seems as if it were all things and there is not any danger which men undergoe not for the love they bear it even unto the hazard of Eternity Doubtless this is the most prejudicial
by birth by divine inspiration became a Cistercian Monk He entred upon this course of life and continued with such great courage that he stuck not to challenge the Devil and bid him defiance The Enemy made his Cell the field of battail Here he assaulted him first with whips then upon a certain occasion gave him such blows that the blood burst out at his mouth and nose At the noise the Monks came in and finding him half dead they carried him to his Bed where he lay for the space of three dayes without giving any signes of life In which time in the company of an Angel he descended into a very obscure place where he saw a Man seated in a Chair of fire and certain Women very beautiful thrusting into his mouth burning torches drawing them out at other parts of his body which had been the instruments of his sins The Monk being astonished at this spectacle the Angel told him This miserable wretch was a very powerful man in the world and much given to Women and for this reason the Devils in shape of Women do torment him as thou seest Pasing a little farther he beheld another whom the infernal spirits were fleaing alive and having rubbed all his body over with salt they put him to roast upon a Gridiron This man said the Angel was a great Lord so cruel to his Vassals as the Devils are now to him A little farther they met with other persons of divers states and conditions which were tormented with several kinds of torments Many Religious both men and women whose lives had been contrary to their profession Talkers Censurers of other mens lives Slaves to their bellies defiled with lust and other such like vices To these the Ministers of vengeance in shape of most ugly fellows gave many blows in such sort that they dashed out their brains and made their eyes flye out of their heads because in their works they were blind and without judgement a chastisement Prov. 19. which the Wise-man appoints for such like persons Afterwards he lifted up his eyes and beheld one fastned to a horrible Wheel turning in such a dreadful manner that the Monk here was almost besides himself That thou seest is terrible said the Angel but far more terrible will be what thou shalt now see At the instant the Wheel began to run from alost down to the most profound depths with such horrid joggs and with such noise as if all the World Earth Heaven and all were breaking in pieces At this so sudden and direful accident all the Prisoners and Goalers of Hell brake out into great cries cursing and damning him that came in the Wheel This man said the Angel is Judas the Apostle who betrayed his Master and as long as he shall raign in glory which shall be world without end so long shall this miserable wretch lye thus tormented With these Representations God hath given us to understand the proportion his Justice observes in his chastisements to make us form some lively apprehension of the greatness of those pains they being indeed far greater than what ever we can conceive by all the rigour imaginable exhibited to the senses And in regard what enters by the senses prevails more with us for this reason he represents unto us the torments of the soul sutably to those so horrible to our senses as is to dash out the brains and make the brains flye out of the head For though it be true that this effect is not wrought indeed yet the torments inflicted upon the damned Souls are without companion greater then it would be for a man in this life to be so beaten about the head till his brains and eyes flew out Let us therefore fear the Divine justice and let us understand that in those parts of the body we offend God Almighty with greater delight we shall be sure to be punished with greater torment And here may be given this further instruction that as these and many such like stories related for more variety of discourse in this Treatise oblige us not to a full and absolute belief of them so they desire the favour of so much credit at least as is allowed to Livy Justine or other Chronicle-writers especially the Recorders of these being such as are no less grave and wise and acknowledge moreover a greater obligation of conscience not to wrong the World with lies or empty relations taken up upon the account of frivolous reports especially in matters of such concernment And as we think it not amiss to make use as occasion serves of profane Examples and Authorities in confirmation of what we usually either speak or write so without all doubt the same use of Sacred and Ecclesiastical occurrences may be no less available in such matters as these CAP. XII The fruit which may be drawn front the consideration of Eternal Evils ALl which hath been said of the pains in Hell is far short of that which really they are There is great difference betwixt the knowledge we have by relation and that which we learn by experience The Machabees knew that the Temple of the Lord was already prophaned deserted and destroyed They had heard of it and lamented it but when they saw with their eyes the Sanctuary lye desolate the Altar prophaned and the Gates burnt there was then no measure in their tears They tore their garments cast ashes upon their heads threw themselves upon the ground and their complaints ascended as high as Heaven If then the relation and discourse of the pains of Hell makes us tremble what shall be the sight and experience This notwithstanding the consideration of what hath been said may help us to form some conception of the terrour and horrour of that place of eternal sorrow Let us as St. Bernard sayes descend into Hell whilest we live that we may not descend thither when we are dead Let us draw some fruit from thence during our lives from whence nothing but torment is to be had after death The principal fruits which may be drawn from that consideration are these In the first place an ardent love and sincere gratitude towards our Creator that having so often deserved Hell he hath not yet suffered us to fall into it How many be there now in Hell who for their first mortal sin and onely for that one have been sent thither and we notwithstanding the innumerable sins which we have committed are yet spared What did God find in us that he should use a mercy towards us for so many sins which he did not afford to others for so few Why are we not then more grateful for so many benefits which we have no wayes deserved How grateful would a damned person be if God should free him from those flames wherein he is tormented and place him in the same condition we now are What a life would he lead what penance would he undergoe what austerity would not appear a pleasure unto him and how grateful
bis life shall lose it and he who hates it in this world shall gain it for ever Hence it comes that we are now no more to look upon our selves as upon a thing of our own but onely Gods depending both in our spiritual and corporal being from that infinite Ocean of being and perfection Hence the Soul finding it self now free and unfetter'd flyes unto God with all its forces and affections not finding any thing to love and please it but in him in whom the beauty and perfections of all creatures are contained with infinite advantages When one hath once arrived unto this estate how dissonant and various soever his works be the end which he pretends is still the same and he ever obtains what he pretends if shutting his eyes to all creatures as if they were not he looks at nothing but God and how to please his Divine goodness and that onely for it self It may be that looking at the particular ends of each work our actions may be in several conditions sometimes they are in beginning sometimes in the middest sometimes in the end and oftentimes by impediments and cross accidents which happen they acquire not what they aim at but look upon the intention of him who works and they are still in their end For in what condition soever the work be he who does it with this intention onely to please God is ever in his end which no bad success or contradiction can hinder According to this which hath been said it is a great matter by Divine light to have arrived at this knowledge That all goods and gifts descend from above and that there is an infinite power goodness wisdom mercy and beauty from whence these properties which are here below participated by the creatures with such limitation are derived It is a great matter to have discovered the Sun by his rayes and guiding our selves by the stream to have arrived at the Fountains head or to have found the Centre where the multiplicity of created perfections meet and unite in one There our love shall rest as having nothing further to seek And this is to love God with all the heart all the soul all the mindâ— and all the powers And as those who arrive at this happy state have no other care no other thought than to doe the will of God here upon earth with the same perfection it is done in heaven So they have no other desires than by leaving earth to enter heaven there by sulfilling wholly the Divine will to supply what was defective upon earth Nothing detains them here but the will of God they have nothing begun which is not ended they are ever prepared all their business is dispatched like those servants who are alwayes expecting their Lord and still ready to open the door when he shall call Let us then prepare our selves by withdrawing our love from all which is temporal and created and placing it upon our Creator who is eternal let us love him not with a delicate and an effeminate love but with a strong and manly affection such a one as will support any weight overcome any difficulty and despise any interest rather than be separated from our beloved break his Laws or offend him though never so lightly Let this Love be strong as death that it may look death in the face and not flye from it which when it suffers it conquers Let thy fire be so enkindled that if whole rivers of tribulations fall upon it they may be but like drops of water falling upon a forge which the flame drinks up and consumes and is not quenched but quickned by them Be above thy self and above all that is below And if the world offer thee all it is Mistress of to despoil thee of this love tread it under thy feet and despise it as nothing To this love it belongs To accommodate ones self to poverty Not to repine at hunger nakedness cold or heat who as companions goe along with it To suffer injuries meekly To bear sickness and infirmities patiently Not to be dismayed in persecutions To endure temptations with longanimity To bear the burthens of our neighbours chearfully Not to be tired with their thwart conditions Not to be angry at their neglects nor overcome by their ingratitude In spiritual drynesses not to leave our ordinary devotions and in consolations and spiritual gusts not to forbear our obligations Finally that we may say with St. Paul Rom. 8. Who shall separate us from the charity of Christ tribulation or distress or famine or nakedness or danger or persecution or the sword I am sure that neither death nor life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers neither things present nor things to come neither might nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. FINIS
the place whither he is to goe How comest thou then to forget death whither thou travellest with speed and canst not though thou desirest rest one small minute by the way For time although against thy will will draw thee along with it The way of this life is not voluntary like that of Travellers but necessary like that of condemned persons from the prison unto the place of execution To death thou standest condemned whither thou art now going how canst thou laugh A Malefactor after sentence past is so surprised with the apprehension of death that he thinks of nothing but dying We are all condemned to die how come we then to rejoyce in those things which we are to leave so sodainly Who being led to the Gallows could please himself in some little flower that was given him by the way or play with the Halter which was shortly to strangle him Since then all of us even from the instant we issue out of our Mothers wombs walk condemned unto death and know not whether we shall from thence pass into hell at least we may how come we to please our selves with the flower or to say better with the hay of some short gust of our appetites since according to the Prophet all the glory of the flesh is no more than a little hay which quickly withers How come we to delight in riches which oftentimes hasten our deaths Why consider we not this when we are certain that all that we do in this life is vanity except our preparation for death In death when as there is no time nor remedy left us we shall too late perceive this truth when as all the goods of this life shall leave us by necessity which we will not now leave with merit Death is a general privation of all goods temporal an universal Pillager of all things which even despoils the body of the soul For this it is compared unto a Theef who not onely robs us of our treasure and substance but bereaves us of our lives Since therefore thou art to leave all Why doest thou load thy self in vain What Merchant knowing that so soon as he arrived unto the Ports his Ship and Goods should both be sunk would charge his Vessel with much Merchandise Arriving at death thou and all thou hast are to sink and perish why doest thou then burthen thy self with that which is not needful but rather a hinderance to thy salvation How many forbearing to throw their Goods over-board in some great Tempest have therefore both themselves and Goods been swallowed by the raging Sea How many who out of a wicked love to these Temporal riches have lost themselves in the hour of death and will not then leave their wealth when their wealth leaves them but even at that time busie their thoughts more about it than their Salvation Whereupon St. Gregory sayes That is never lost without grief which is possest with love Humbert in tract de Septemp timore Vmbertus writes of a certain man of great wealth who falling desperately sick and Plate of gold and silver to be brought before him and in this manner spake unto his Soul My Soul all this I promise thee and thou shalt enjoy it all if thou wilt not now leave my Body and greater things I will bestow upon thee rich Possessions and sumptuous Houses upon condition thou wilt yet stay with me But finding his infirmity still to encrease and no hope left of life in a great rage and fury he fell into these desperate speeches But since thou wilt not do what I desire thee nor abide with me I recommend thee unto the Devil and immediately with these words miserably expired In this story may be seen the vanity of Temporal things and the hurt he receives by them who possesses them with too much affection What greater vanity then not to profit us in a passage of the greatest necessity and importance and what greater hurt then when they cannot avail our bodies to prejudice our souls That they put an impediment to our salvation when our affections are too much set upon them were a sufficient motive not onely to contemn them but also to detest them Robertus de Licio writes that whilest he advised a sick person to make his Confession and take care of his Soul his Servants and other Domesticks went up and down the house laying hold every one of what they could the sick man taking notice of it and attending more to what They stole from him than to what He spake to him about the salvation of his Soul made deep sighs and cried out saying Wo be to me Wo be to me who have taken so much pains to gather riches and now am compelled to leave them and they snatch them from me violently before my eyes O my Riches O my Moneys O my Jewels into whose possession are you to fall and in these cries he gave up the ghost making no more account of his Soul than if he had been a Turk Vincentius Veluacensis relates also of one Vincen. in spec moral who having lent four pounds of money upon condition that at four years end they should pay him twelve he being in state of death a Priest went to him and exhorted him to confess his sins but could get no other words from the sick person than these Such a one is to pay me twelve pounds for four and having said this died immediately Much what to this purpose is a Story related by St. Bernardin of a certain Confessarius who earnestly perswading a rich man at the time of his death to a confession could get no other words from him but How sells Wool What price bears it at present and as the Priest spake unto him Sir for Gods sake leave off this discourse and have a care of your Soul the Sick man still persevered to inform himself of such things he might hope to gain by asking him Father when will the Ships come are they yet arrived for his thoughts were so wholly taken up with matters of gain and this world that he could neither speak nor think of any thing but what tended to his profit But die Priest still urging him to look to his Soul and confess all he could get from him was I cannot and in this manner died without confession This is the Salary which the goods of the earth bestow on those who serve them that if they do not leave or ruine them before their death they are then certain at least to leave them and often hazard the salvation of those that dote upon them O foolish Sons of Adam this short life Is bestowed upon us for gaining the goods of heaven which are to last eternally and we spend it in seeking those of the earth which are to perish instantly Wherefore do we not employ this short time for the purchasing eternal glory since we are to possess no more hereafter than what we provide for here Wherefore do we not
overwhelmed and themselves compell'd to escape the burning of their Country to struggle with the water and that which way soever they turned they perceived death still to follow them and were certain to perish What shall be then the streights and exigences of that general burning when those who shall escape Earthquakes Inundations of the Sea the fury of whirlwindes and lightning from Heaven shall fall into that universal Fire that Deluge of flames which shall consume all and make an end both of men and their memories Of those who lived before the Flood and were Masters of the World for so long a time except it be of some few which the Scripture mention we know nothing Those heroical actions which certainly some of them performed and gained by them incomparable fame lye buried in the waters and there remains no more memory of those who did them than if they had never been born No more permanent shall be the fame of those which now resounds in the ears of the whole World Cyrus Alexander Hannibal Scipio Caesar Augustus Plato Aristotle Hippocrates Euclid and the rest no more World no more Fame This Fire shall end all that smoke Nor is the World without convenient proportion to end in fire which is now so full of smoke There are few comparisons as hath been said in the beginning of this work which express better what the World is than that which St. Clement the Roman learned of St. Peter the Apostle who said the World was like a house full of smoke which in such manner blinds the eyes as it differs not those within it to see things as they are and so the World with its deceits so disguises the nature of humane things as we perceive not what they are Ambition and humane honour which the World so much dotes after are no more than smoke without substance which so blinds our understandings that we know not the truth of that we so much covet It is no marvail that so much smoke comes at last to end in flames The smoke of the Mountains Vesuvius and Aetna when it ends in fire and bursts forth into those innumerous flames hath amazed the World and rivers of fire have been seen to issue from their bowels Zon. In Tito Proc. l. 2. Vesuvius is near unto Naples and the fire hath sometimes sallyed forth with that impetuous violence that as grave Authors affirm the ashes have been seen in Constantinople and Alexandria And St. Augustine writes St. Aug. l. 3. de Civit. c. 31. that the ashes of Mount Aetna overwhelmed the City of Catanea and in our time when Vesuvius burst out the very flame of it terrified places far distant and secure And now lately in the year 1638. the third of July near the Island of St. Michael one of the Terceras the fire bursting out from the bottom of the Sea 150 fathomes deep and over-coming the weight of so huge a mass of water sent up his flames unto the clouds and made many places although far distant to tremble With what fury shen shall the general Conflagration of the World burst forth that part which shall issue forth of Hell and from beneath the Earth shall fill the World with ashes before it be involved in flames and when a crack of thunder or a flash of lightning amazes us so much that fire which falls from heaven what violence and noise shall it bring along with it Lot the Nephew of Abraham being secure in conscience and promised by the Angel of God that for his sake the City of Segor should not be burnt but that he might rest safe in it was notwithstanding so affrighted with the fire which fell upon other Cities in that Valley of Pentapolis that notwithstanding he saw it not yet he held himself not late but retired unto the Mountains What counsel shall sinners take in that extremity when their own Conscience shall be their accusors and when they shall behold the World all on fire about them whither shall they flye for safety when no place will afford it Shall they climb unto the Mountains thither the flames will follow them Shall they descend into the Valleys thither the fire will pursue them Shall they shut themselves up in strong Castles and Towns but there the wrath of God will assault them and that fire will pass their Fosses consume the Bulwarks and make an end both of them and their fortunes Besides the contempt of all things which the world esteems which we may draw from this general destruction of it by fire we may also perceive the abomination of sin since God to purifie the World from that uncleanness wherewith our offences have polluted it is resolved to cleanse it with fire as he anciently washt it with the waters of the Deluge Such are our sins that for being onely committed in the World the World it self is condemned to die what shall then become of those who sinned Less de perf div l. 13. c. 10. But from this so terrible a fire the Saints then alive shall be free that it may appear it was onely prepared for Sinners and that nothing can then avail but vertue and holiness The rich man shall not be delivered by his wealth nor the mighty by his power nor the crafty by his wiles onely the just shall be freed by his vertues none shall escape the terrour of that day by fast sailing ships or speed of horses the Sea it self shall burn and the fire shall overtake the swiftest Post onely holiness and charity shall defend the Servants of Christ unto whom the tribulations of those times shall serve to purifie their Souls by suffering that in this life with reward which they should otherwise have done for a time in the other without it Albertus Magnus observes the convenience of the two Elements by which God resolved twice to destroy the World The first by water against the fire of the flesh and heat of concupiscence which so inordinately tytannized over all vertue before the general Flood The second he hath appointed to be by fire against the coldness of charity which in those last dayes shall raign in the aged and decrepit World And as in the Deluge of waters onely the chaste Noah and his Wife who were most continent in Matrimony and his Sons and Daughters who observed chastity all the time they continued in the Ark escaped drowning so in that general fire of the World onely the Just who shall be replenished with charity shall be free from burning The Deluge of waters overwhelmed not him who was not burnt with the heat of carnal love neither shall the Deluge of fire destroy them who are enflamed with divine charity CAP. VIII How the World ought to conclude with so dreadful an end in which a general Judgment is to pass of all that is in it TO be subject to an end as hath been said were sufficient to breed in us a contempt of all things temporal for what is
we can carry nothing but our good works and let us not add unto our evil ones that of vain-glory in seeking to leave behind us a vain Fame and Renown Plin. l. 56. c. 13. What remains unto King Porsenna of that heavy burthen wherewith he grieved and afflicted his whole Kingdom in rearing him a Sepulchre of that rare and sumptuous workmanship but a testimony of his pride and folly In like manner the Monument of the Emperour Adrian which was the Beauty and Glory of Rome shall be then changed into a scorn Lastly St. Thomas teaches us that Temporal things on which we place our affections because some last a longer and some a shorter time after death shall all enter with us into Divine judgement Let us take heed therefore whereon we set our hearts since the accomplishing of what we wish may be a punishment of our desires Those things of the Earth which we most love and desire should continue if they be taken from us it is a chastisement of our earthly affection and if we be permitted to enjoy them let us fear that they be not the temporal Reward of some good Work which may either diminish or deprive us of the Eternal Besides this because not onely the Soul of man hath offended but the whole man both in Soul and Body it was fit that both Soul and Body should be judged and appear before the Tribunal of Christ and that in publique because none should presume to sin in secret since his sins are to be revealed and made known to all past present and to come A terrible case it is that this passage of Divine judgement which according as we have said out of holy Job appears unto the Saints more terrible than to suffer all the pains of Hell is twice to be acted and this so bitter trance to be again repeated the second time being unto sinners of greater horrour and confusion than the first CAP. IX Of the last day of Time THat we may now come to handle the manner of this universal Judgement which is to pass upon time and men we are to suppose that this fire which is to precede the coming of Christ is at his descent to continue in assistance of his Divine justice and after his return unto Heaven attended by all the just to remain until it hath purged and purified these inferiour Elements the which is noted by Albertus Magnus Albert. Magn. in comp Theol. lib. 7. c. 15. Less de perf div lib. 13. c. 30. 23. and collected from divers places of the Divine Scriptures We are also to suppose that this coming of Christ is to be with greater terrour and Majesty than hath been yet manifested by any of the Divine persons either in himself or any of his Creatures If an Angel which represented God and was onely to promulgate the Law came with that terrour and Majesty unto Mount Sinay as made the Hebrew people though purified and prepared for his coming to quake and tremble what shall the Lord of the Law doe when he himself comes to take an account of the Law and to revenge the breach of it With what terrour and Majesty shall he appear unto men plunged in sin and unprepared for his reception who are then to be all present and judged in that last day of time The day in which the Law was given was very memorable unto the Hebrews And this day where an account of the Law is to be given will be horrible and ought perpetually to remain in the memory of all mankind But before we declare what shall pass in this let us say something of what hath already passed in that that from the horrour of the first appearance we may gather something of what shall happen in the second and from the Majesty wherewith an Angel appeared when he gave the Law collect something of the Majesty of the Lord of Angels when he judges the Law Fifty dayes after the departure of the Sons of Israel out of Egypt after so many plagues and punishments poured upon that Kingdom after the burying of the unbelieving Egyptians who pursued them in the bottom of the Red Sea and that the Hebrews having escaped their enemies were lodged round about Mount Sinay Deut. 33. Vid. Barrad l. 6. itin c. 5. Ps 65. Deut. 33. There was seen to come in the Air from far that is from Mount Seir in Idumea a Lord of great power attended with an infinite multitude of Angels In so much as David sings that ten thousand compassed about his Chariot And Moses speaking of many thousands which attended him says also that he carried in his right hand the Law of God all of flaming fire and yet he who came in this height of Majesty waited on with those Celestial Spirits was not God Act. 7. but as we learn from St. Stephen onely an Angel and believed to be St. Michael who because he came in the Name of God the holy Scriptures calls the Lord. This Angel thus accompanied came seated on a dark condensed Cloud which cast forth frequent flashes of Lightning and resounded with dreadful cracks of Thunder Deut. 33. from Mount Seir unto Mount Haran in the Land of the Ishmaelites and from thence with the same Majesty passed through the Air unto Mount Sinay where the Children of Israel lay encamped who at the dawning of the day astonisht with that fearful noyse stood quaking and trembling in their Tents No sooner was the Angel arrived unto Mount Sinay which as the Apostle says Heb. 42. was covered with rain whirlwinds storms and tempests but he descended in flames which raught betwixt Heaven and Earth from whence issued forth a smoke black and thick as from a furnace during which time a Trumpet was heard to sound with that piercing vehemence that as it encreased in loudness so fear encreased in the amazed Israelites who now stood quaking at the foot of the Mountain but were by the Angel so much would he be respected commanded by the mouth of Mâ—ses not to approach it lest they died After which the Angel began with a dreadful voice to proclaim the Law which was pronounced with so much life and vigour that not withstanding the horrid noyse of Thunder the flashes of lightning and the shrill and penetrating sound of the Trumpet still continued yet all the Hebrews who with their Tents overspread those vast deserts and many thousands of Egyptians who were converted and followed them heard conceived and understood it clearly and distinctly Nay so piercing was the voyce that it entred and imprinted it self in their very bowels speaking unto every one of them as if it had spoken to him only which caused so great a fear and reverence in the people that they thought they could not live if the Angel continued speaking and therefore besought it as a grace that he would speak unto them by the way of Moses lest they should die Nay Moses himself accustomed to see
their Angel guardians shall assist by giving testimony how often they have disswaded them from their evil courses and how rebellious and refractory they have still been to their holy inspirations The Saints also shall accuse them that they have laughed at their good counsels and shall set forth the dangers whereunto they them-themselves have been subject by their ill example The just Judge shall then immediately pronounce Sentence in favour of the good in these words of love and mercy Come you blessed of my Father possess the Kingdom which was prepared for you from the creation of the world O what joy shall then fill the Saints Abul in Mat. Jansen Sot Les l. 13. c. 22. alii Isai 30. and what spight and envy shall burst the hearts of Sinners but more when they shall hear the contrary Sentence pronounced against themselves Christ speaking unto them with that severity which was signified by the Prophet Isaiah when he said His lips were filled with indignation and his tongue was a devouring fire More terrible than fire shall be those words of the Son of God unto those miserable wretches when they shall hear him say Depart from me ye cursed into eternal fire prepared for Satan and his Angels With this Sentence they shall remain for ever overthrown and covered with eternal sorrow and confusion Ananias and Saphira were struck dead only with the hearing the angry voice of St. Peter What shall the Reprobate be in hearing the incensed voice of Christ This may appear by what happened unto St. Catharine of Sienna who being reprehended by St. Paul In vita ejus c. 24. who appeared unto her onely because she did not better employ some little parcel of time said that she had rather be disgraced before the whole World than once more to suffer what she did by that reprehension But what is this in respect of that reprehension of the Son of God in the day of vengeance for if when he was led himself to be judged he with two onely words I am overthrew the astonisht multitude of Souldiers to the ground how shall he speak when he comes to judge In vita PP l. 5. apud Rosul In the book of the lives of the Fathers composed by Severus Sulpitius and Cassianus it is written of a certain young man desirous to become a Monk whom his Mother by many reasons which she alleadged pretended to disswade but all in vain for he would by no means alter his intention defending himself still from her importunity with this answer I will save my soul I will assure my salvation it is that which most imports nic She perceiving that her modest requests prevailed nothing gave him leave to do as he pleased and he according to his resolution entred into Religion but soon began to flag and fall from his fervour and to live with much carelesness and negligence Not long after his Mother died and he himself fell into a grievous infirmity and being one day in a Trance was rapt in spirit before the Judgement Seat of God He there found his Mother and divers others expecting his condemnation She turning her eyes and seeing her Son amongst those who were to be damned seemed to remain astonisht and spake unto him in this manner Why how now Son is all come to end in this where are those words thou saidest unto me I will save nay soul was it for this thou didst enter into Religion The poor man being confounded and amazed knew not what to answer but soon after when he returned unto himself and the Lord was pleased that he recovered and escaped his infirmity and considering that this was a divine admonition he gave so great a turn that the rest of his life was wholly tears and repentance and when many wisht him that he would moderate and remit something of that rigour which might be prejudicial unto his health he would not admit of their advices but still answered I who could not endure the reprehension of my Mother how shall I in the day of judgement endure that of Christ and his Angels Let us often think of this and let not onely the angry voice of our Saviour make us tremble Raph. Columb Ser. 2. Domin in Quadr. but that terrible Sentence which shall separate the wicked from his presence Raphael Columba writes of Philip the second King of Spain that being at Mass he heard two of his Grandees who were near him in discourse about some worldly business which he then took no notice of but Mass being ended he called them with great gravity and said unto them onely these few words You two appear no more in my presence which were of that weight that the one of them died of grief and the other ever after remained stupified and amazed What shall it then be to hear the King of Heaven and Earth say Depart ye cursed and if the words of the Son of God be so much to be feared what shall be his works of justice At that instant the fire of that general burning shall invest those miserable creatures Less l. 13. c. 23. the Earth shall open and Hell shall enlarge his throat to swallow them for all eternity accomplishing the malediction of Christ and of the Psalm which saith Psal 54. Let death come upon them and let them sink alive into hell And in another place Coals of fire shall fall upon them Ps 139. and thou shalt cast them into the fire and they shall not subsist in their miseries And in another Psalm Psal 10. Snares fire and sulphur shall rain upon sinners Finally that shall be executed which was spoken by St. John That the Devil Death and Hell and all Apcc. 20. who were not written in the Book of life were cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where they shall be eternally tormented with Antichrist and his false Prophets And this is the second death bitter and eternal which comprehends both the Souls and the Bodies of them who have died the spiritual death of sin and the corporal death which is the effect of it The Just shall then rejoyce according to David Psal 57. beholding the vengeance which the Divine Justice shall take upon sinners and sing another song like that of Moses Exod. 15. when the Aegyptians were drowned in the red sea and that Song of the Lamb related by St. John Apoc. 15. Great and marvelous are thy works O Lord God omnipotent just and righteous are thy wayes King of all Eternity who will not fear thee O Lord and magnifie thy name With those and thousand other Songs of joy and jubilee they shall ascend above the Stars in a most glorious triumph until they arrive in the Empyrial Heaven where they shall be placed in thrones of glory which they shall enjoy for an eternity of eternities In the mean time the earth which was polluted for having sustained the Bodies of the damned shall be
to the Common-wealth known to posterity But in Heaven there is no need of this artifice because those who are there honoured are immortal and shall have in themselves some character engraved as an evident and clear testimony of their noble Victories and Atchievements The honour of the Just in Heaven depends not like that of the Earth upon accidents and reports nor is exposed to dangers or measured by the discourse of others but in it self contains its own glory and dignity Cuiac ad tit de dignit The dignities in the Roma Empire as may be gathered from the Civil Law were four expressed by these four Titles Perfectissimus Clariffimus Spectabilis Illustris most Perfect most Clear Specious and Illustrious These Honours were onely in name and reputation not in substance and truth For He was often called most perfect who was indiscreet foolish passionate and imperfect He most clear who had neither clearness nor serenitity of understanding but was infected with dark and obscure vices Those specious and beautiful from whom a man would flye twenty leagues rather than behold them and those illustrious who were enveloped in the darkness of vice and ignorance without the least light of vertue That we may therefore see the difference betwixt the honours of Heaven and those of the Earth which are as farre distant from one another as truth from falsehood we must know that in Heaven the Blessed are not onely called most Perfect but really are so both in soul and body without the least imperfection or defect are not onely called most Clear but are so each one being adorned with that gift of brightness that they shall cast out beams more clear than the Sun and if the Sun be the most bright thing in nature what shall they be who seaventimes out-shine it Nor shall they be onely said to be spectabilis or specious and worthy to be looked upon but their beauty and comeliness shall be such as shall not onely draw the eyes of all to behold them but shall stirre up their affections to love and admire them In the like manner they shall not be titularly but really Illustrious for every one with his own light shall be sufficient to illustrate and enlighten many Worlds If one onely false title of those which are truely enjoyed by the Blessed were capable of making the Roman Empire to respect and honour the possessor what shall the truth and substance of them all do in Heaven 1 Mac. 2. With reason did Mathathias call the glory of this World dung and filth because all honours and dignities of the Earth in respect of those in Heaven are base vile and despicable What greater honour than to be Friends of God Sons Heirs and Kings in the Realm of Heaven Apoc. 4. St. John in his Apocalyps sets forth this honour of the blessed in the 24 Elders who were placed about the Throne of God and in that Honour and Majesty as every one was seared in his presence and that upon a Throne cloathed in white and lucid Garments in signe of their perpetual joy and crowned with a crown of Gold in respect of their dignities To be covered in the presence of Kings is the greatest honour they conferre upon the chiefest Grandees but God causes his Servants to be crowned and seated upon Thrones before him and our Saviour in the Day of Judgement makes his Disciples his fellow Judges §. 4. Certainly greater honour cannot be imagined than that of the Predestinate For if we look upon him who honours It is God If with what With no less joy than his own Divinity and other most sublime gifts If before whom Before the whole Theater of Heaven now and in the Day of Judgement before Heaven Earth Angels Men and Devils If the continuance For all eternity If the titles which he gives them it is the truth and substance of the things not the empty word and vain name By all this may appear the cause why eternal happiness being a mass and an assembly of all goods imaginable yet is called by way of excellence by the name of Glory because that although it contain all pleasures contents joyes riches and what can be defired yet it seems the Glory and honour which God bestows upon the Just exceeds all the other The honour which God gives in Heaven to glorious Souls may be seen by that which he gives to their worm-eaten bones upon Earth whereof St. Chrysostom speaks these words Where is now the Sepulcher of the great Alexander In 2. ad Corinth Hom. 26. shew it me I beseech thee and tell me the day whereon he died The Sepulchers of the Servants of Christ are so famous that they possess the most Royal and Imperial City of the World and the day whereon they died is known and observed as festival by all The Sepulcher of Alexander is unknown even to his own Countrymen but that of these is known to the very Barbarians Besides the Sepulchers of the Servants of Christ excell in splendor and magnificence the Palaces of Kings not onely in respect of the beauty and sumptuousness of their buildings wherein they also exceed but which is much more in the reverence and joy of those who repair unto them For even he who is clothed in Purple frequents their Tombs and humbly kisses them and laying aside his Majesty and Pomp supplicates their prayers and assistance with God Almighty he who wears the Diadem taking a Fisherman and a Maker of Tents for his Patrons and Protectors What miracles hath not God wrought by the Reliques of his Servants and what prodigies have not been effected by their bodies St. Chrysostome writes of St. Juventius Chrysost in Serm. de Juven Max. Sever. in Ep. ad Socrum and St. Maximus that their bodies after death cast forth such beams of light that the eyes of those who were present were not able to suffer them Sulpicius Severus writes of St. Martin that his dead body remained in a manner glorified that his flesh was pure as Chrystal and white as milk What wonders did God work by the bodies of St. Edward the King and St. Francis Xavier preserving them incorrupted for so many years and if he do those great things with their Bodies who are under the Earth what will he do with their Souls which are above the Heavens and what with them both when their glorious Bodies shall arise and after the Day of Judgement united to their Souls enter in triumph into the holy and eternal City of God CAP. III. Of the Riches of the eternal Kingdom of Heaven THe Riches in Heaven are no less than the Honours though those as hath been said are inestimable There can be no greater riches than to want nothing which is good nor to need any thing which can be desired and in that blessed life no good shall fall nor no desire be unsatisfied And if as the Philosophers say he is not rich who possesseth much
but he who desires nothing There being in Heaven no desire unaccomplished there must needs be great riches It was also a position of the Stoicks That he was not poor who wanted but he who was necessitated Since then in the Celestial Kingdom there is necessity of nothing most rich is he who enters into it By reason of these Divine Riches Christ our Saviour when he speaks in his Parables of the Kingdom of Heaven doth often express it under Names and Enigma's of things that are rich sometimes calling it the Hidden Treasure and sometimes the Precious Pearl and other times the Lost Drachma For if Divine happiness consist in the eternal possession of God what riches may be compared with his who enjoyes him and what inheritance to that of the Kingdom of Heaven What Jewel more precious than the Divinity and what Gold more pure than the Creator of Gold and all things precious who gives himself for a Possession and Riches unto the Saints to the end they should abhorre those Riches which are temporal if by them the eternal are endangered Let not therefore those who are to die to morrow afflict themselves for that which may perish sooner than they Let them not toyl to enjoy that which they are shortly to leave nor let them with more fervour pray for those things which are transitory than those which are eternal preferring the Creature before the Creator not seeking God for what he is but for what he gives Wherefore St. Austin sayes Aug. in Psal 52. God will be served gratis will be beloved without interest that is purely for himself and not for any thing without himself and therefore he who in invokes God to make him rich does not invoke God but that which he desires should come unto him for what is invocation but calling something unto him wherefore when thou shalt say My God give me riches thou dost not desire that God but riches should come unto thee for if thou hadst invoked God he would have come unto thee and been thy riches but thou desiredst to have thy Coffers full and thy heart empty and God fills not Chests but breasts § 2. Besides the possession of God it imports us much to frame a conception of this Kingdom of Heaven which is that of the Just where they shall reign with Christ eternally whose riches must needs be immense since they are to be Kings of so great and ample a Kingdom The place then which the Blessed are to inhabit is called she Kingdom of Heaven because it is a most large Region and much greater than can perhaps fall under the capacity of our understanding And if the Earth compared with Heaven be but a point and yet contain so many Kingdoms what shall that be which is but one Kingdom and yet extended over the whole Heavens How poor and narrow a heart must that Christian have who confines his love to things present sweating and toyling for a small part of the goods of this World which it self is so little why does he content himself with some poor patch of the Earth when he may be Lord of the whole Heavens Although this Kingdom of God be so great and spacious yet it is not dispeopled but as full of Inhabitants of all Nations and conditions as if it were a City or some particular House There as the Apostle said are many thousands of Angels an infinite number of the Just even as many as have died since Abel and thither also shall repair all who are to die unto the end of the World and after judgement shall there remain for ever invested in their glorious bodies There shall inhabit the Angelical Spirits distinguished with great decency into their Nine Orders unto whom shall correspond Nine others of the Saints Patriarchs Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors Pastors Doctors Priests and Levites Monks and Hermits Virgins and other holy Women This populous City shall not be inhabited with mean and base People but with Citizens so noble rich just and discreet that all of them shall be most holy and wise Kings How happy shall it be to live with such persons The Queen of Saba onely to see Salomon came from the end of the Earth and to see Titus Livius Nations and Provinces far distant came to Rome To behold a King issue out of his Palace all the People flock together What shall it then be not onely to see but to live and raign with so many Angels and converse with so many eminent and holy Men If onely to see St. Anthony in the Desert men left their Houses and Countries what joy shall it be to discourse and converse with so many Saints in Heaven If there should now descend from thence one of the Prophets or Apostles with what earnestness and admiration would every one strive to see and hear him In the other World we shall hear and see them all St. Romane at the sight of one Angel when he was a Gentile left the world and his life to become a Christian How admirable shall it then be to see thousand of thousands in all their beauty and greatness and so many glorious bodies of Saints in all their lustre If one Sun be sufficient to clear up the whole World here below what joy shall it be to behold those innumerable Sum in that Region of light From this multitude of Inhabitants the place of glory is not only called the Kingdom of Heaven but the City of God It is called a Kingdom for its immense greatness and a City for its great beauty and population It is not like other Kingdoms and Provinces which contain huge Deserts inaccessible Mountains and thick Woods nor is it devided into many Cities and Villages distant one from another but this Kingdom of God although a most spacious Region is all one beautiful City Who would not wonder if all Spain or Italy were but one City and that as beautiful as Rome in the time of Augustus Caesar who found it of Brick and left it of Marble What a sight were that of Chaldaea if it were all a Babylon or that of Syria if all a Jerusalem What shall then be the Celestial City of Saints whose greatness possesses the whole Heavens and is as the holy Scripture describes it to exaggerate the riches of the Saints all of Gold and precious Stones The Gates pf this City were as St. John sayes one entire Pearl and the foundations of the Walls Jasper Saphire Calcedon Emerald Topaz Jacinth Amethist and other most precious Stones The Streets of fine Gold so pure as it seemed Chrystal joyning in one substance the firmness of Gold and transparency of Chryftal and the beauty both of one and the other If all Rome were of Saphire how would it amaze the world how marvelous then will the holy City be which though extended over so many millions of leagues is all of Gold Pearl and precious Stones or to say better of a matter of farre more value
conferring perfect happiness upon the Soul and beauty and immortality upon the Body § 3. Finally all those joyes of the Blessed both in Soul and Body which are innumerable have their sourse and original from that unspeakable joy of the clear vision of God And how can the joy be less which proceeds from such a cause who gives himself being the sweetness and beauty of the world to be possessed by man that joy being the very same which God enjoyes and which suffices to make God himself blessed with a blessedness equal to himself Wherefore not without great mystery in those words by which our Saviour admits the faithful into Heaven it is said Enter into the joy of thy Lord. he said not simply into joy but to determine the greatness of it sayes it was his own joy that joy by which he himself becomes happy and truly the immensity of this joy could not better be declared We are therefore to consider that there is nothing in this World which hath not for his end some manner of perfection and that those things which are capable of reason and knowledge have in that perfection a particular joy and complacencie which joy is greater or lesser according as that end is more or less perfect Since therefore the Divine perfection is infinitely greater than that of all the Creatures the joy of God which is in himself for he hath no end not perfection distinct from himself is infinitely greater than that of all things besides This joy out of his infinite goodness and liberality he hath been pleased to make the holy Angels and blessed Souls partakers of communicating unto the Just although no wayes due unto their nature his own proper and special felicity And therefore the joy of Saints which is that of the beatifical vision wherein consists the joy and happiness of God must needs be infinite and unutterable and all contents of this World in respect of it are bitter as alloes gall and wormwood Besides by how much a delectable object is more nearly and straightly united to the faculty by so much greater is the joy and delight which it produces Therefore God who is the most excellent and delightful object being in the beatifical vision united to the Soul with the most intimate union that can be in a pure creature must necessarily cause a most inexplicable joy incomparably greater than all the joyes real or imaginable which can be produced either by the Creatures now existent or possible For as the Divine perfection incloseth within it self all the perfections of things created possible and imaginable so the joy which it causes in the Souls of the Blessed must be infinitely greater than all other joyes which either have or can be caused by the Creature If the Greeks warred ten years and lost so much blood for the beauty of Helen And if it seemed a small thing unto Jacob to serve fourteen years a Slave for that of Rachel what trouble can seem great unto us to enjoy God in comparison of whose beauty all which the World affords is but deformity Absolon and Adonis were most beautiful and with their very sight drew love and admiration from their beholders But it looking upon Absolon another ten times more lovely should appear we should quickly leave to gaze upon Absolon and fix our eyes upon the other and if a third should come a hundred times more graceful than the second we should serve the second in the same manner and our eyes and delight would still follow him who was the most agreeable God being then infinitely more beautiful than we can either see or think and although he should create some other Creature ten hundred thousand times more beautiful than these we know yet that and one another million of times exceeding it would both fall infinitely short of God himself especially that beauty not being alone but accompanied with perfections without limit with an infinite wisdom omnipotence holiness liberality bounty and all that can be imagined good beautiful and perfect which must necessarily force the hearts of those who see him although before his enemies to love and adore him Which is an other proof of the joy which springs from the beatifical vision in regard it works so powerfully upon the will of him that enjoyes it that it compels it by an absolute necessity to a most intense love although it had before detested it because the joy must equalize the love which it caused It there were in the World a Man as wise as an Angel we should all desire to see him as the Queen of Saba did Salmon but if to this wisdom were joyned the strength of Hercules or Sampson the victories of Machabeus or Alexander the affability and curtesie of David the friedliness of Jonathan the liberality of the Emperour Titus and to all this the beauty and comeliness of Absolon who would not love and desire to live and converse with this admirable person Why then do we not love and desire the sight of God in whom all those perfections and graces infinitely above these are united which also we our selves if we serve him are to enjoy as if they were our own O how great and delightful a Theater shall it be to see God as he is with all his infinite perfections and the perfections of all Creatures which are eminently contained in the Deity How admirable were that spectacle where were represented all that are or have been pleasant or admirable in the World If one were placed where he might behold the seaven Wonders of the World the sumptuous Banquets made by Assuerus and other Persian Kings the rare Shews and Feasts exhibited by the Romans the pleasant Trees and savoury Fruits of Paradise the Wealth of Craesus David and the Assyrian and Roman Monarchs and all those joyntly together who would not be transported with joy and wonder at so admirable a sight but more happy were he upon whom all these were bestowed together with the assurance of a thousand years of life wherein to enjoy them Yet all this were nothing in respect of the eternal sight of God in whom those and all the perfections that either are or have been or possibly can be are contained What ever else is great and delightful in the World together with all the pleasures and perfections that all the men in the World have obtained or shall obtain to the World's end all the wisdom of Salomon all the sciences of Plato and Aristotle all the strength of Aristomenes and Milo all the beauty of Paris and Adonis if they should give all these things to one person it would have no comparison and would seem to be a loathsome thing being compared onely to the delight which will be enjoyed in seeing God for all eternity because in him onely will be seen a Theater of Bliss and Greatness wherein are comprised as in one the greatness of all creatures In him will be found all the richness of Gold the delightfulness
is with so much impudence contempt of God and such a Luciferian pride After having heard so many examples of his chastisements executed upon sinners After having seen that the most beautiful and glorious of all the Angels and with him innumerable others were thrown from Heaven and made firebrands in Hell for one sin and that onely in thought After having seen the first man for one sin of gluttony banisht from the Paradise of pleasure into this valley of tears dispoyled of so many supernatural endowments and condemned to death After having seen the World drowned and the Cities of Pontapolis burnt with fire from Heaven After having seen those seditious against Moyses swallowed by the earth and with their Children Goods and Family sink alive into Hell After having known that so many have been damned for their offences After that the Son of God had suffered upon the Cross for our sins After all this to sin is an impudence never heard of and an intolerable contempt of the Divine Justice Besides what greater scorn and contempt of God than this that God who is worthy of all honour and love and the Devil who is our professed enemy pretending both to our Souls the one to save them the other to torment them in eternal flames yet we adhere to Satan and preferre him before Christ our Saviour and Redeemer and that so much to our prejudice as by the loss of eternal glory and captivating our selves unto eternal torments and slavery No way of injuring can be imagined more injurious than when by the interposing of some other vile and infamous he who is worthy of all love and honour is put by and slighted The manner also of sinning aggravates the sin as the sinner doth by losing thereby eternal goods Though he who sinneth lost nothing yet the offence against God were great and the affront to Reason it self not inconsiderable But well knowing the great damages and punishments likewise that attend sin and the evident hazard he runs and yet to sin is a strange temerity and impudency If we shall likewise consider When it is that we sin we shall sinde this circumstance no less to aggravate our offences than the former Because we now sin When we have seen the Son of God nailed unto the Cross that we should not sin When we have seen God so sweet unto us as to be incarnate for our good humbling himself to be made man and subjecting himself to death even the death of the Cross for our redemption having instituted the holy Sacraments for a remedy against sin especially that of his most holy Body and Blood which was a most immense expression of his love To sin after we had seen God so good unto us so obliging unto us with those not to be imagined favours is a Circumstance which ought much to be pondered in our hearts and might make us forbear the offending of so loving a Lord. And that Christian who sins after all this is to be esteemed worse than a Devil For the Devil never sinned against that God who had shed his blood for him or who had been made an Angel for him or who had pardoned so much as one sin of his When those sinned who were under the law of nature they also had not seen the Son of God die for their salvation as a Christian hath for which as St. Austin sayes There ought a new Hell to be made for him And there is no doubt but Christians will deserve new torments and greater than those who have not had the knowledge of God nor received so many benefits from him This is confirmed by what is written of St. Macarius the Abbot who finding in the Desert a dead mans head and removing it with his staffe out of the way it began to speak which he hearing demanded Who it was It answered I am a Priest of the Gentils which heretofore dwelt in this place and am now together with many of them in the middle of a burning fire so great that the flames encompass us both above and beneath And is there replyed the Saint any place of greater torment Yes said the dead Greater is that which they suffer who are below us For we who knew not God are not so severely dealt with as those who knowing have denied him or not complyed with his holy will These are below us and suffer far greater torments than we These are the Circumstances observed by Tully and are all found to aggravate the guilt of our sins Neither is that added by Aristotle wanting which is About what About what do we offend God About what happens this great presumption but about things which import not but rather endamage us About complying with a sensual gust which in the end bereaves us of health of honour of substance and even of pleasure it self suffering many dayes of grief for a moment of delight About things of the earth which are vile and transitory and about goods of the world which are false short and deceitful What would we say if for a thing of so small value as a straw one man should kill another No more than a straw are all the felicities of the world in respect of those of heaven and for a thing of so small consideration we are Traitors to God and crucifie Christ again and that a thousand times as often as we sin mortally against him Lastly Against whom we offend much aggravates our sins For besides that God is most perfect most wise beautiful immense omnipotent infinite we sin against him who infinitely loves us who suffers us who heaps his benefits and rewards upon us To do evil to those who make much of them even wilde beasts abhorre it What is it then for thee to injure him who loved thee more then himself who hath done thee all good that thou shouldest do no evil Fear then this Lord reverence his Majesty love his goodness and offend him no more This onely consideration To have sinned against so good a God was so grievous unto David that in his penitential Psalms he exclaims with tears and cries out from the bottom of his heart Against thee onely have I sinned For although he had sinned against Vrias and against all Israel by his ill example yet it seemed unto him he had onely sinned against God when he considered the infinity of his being the immenseness of that love which he had so grievously offended Sin then is on all parts most virulent on all parts spits forth venome Behold it on every side it still seems worse for being the chiefest evil it can on no part appear good all is monstrous all poison all detestable all most evil and therefore deserves all evil And it is not much that that should be chastised with eternal torments which opposes it self unto the sweetness of an infinite holiness § 4. Sin is so evil that it is every way evil It is not onely evil as it is an injury to God but it is
Crucifix Neither are the Elements left free from such representations Alfonso the first Portugal beheld in the air an Escucheon with the five wounds And the Emperour Constantine the principal Instrument of the Passion the Cross which hath also divers other times appeared But what more gratious and loving demonstration of the memorie which he desires we should still preserve of his torments then the wounds which he hath imprinted upon the persons of many of his servants Blos li. 15. c. 3. Tritem in Crim. ad an 1500. Surius 14. Aprilis Mosc in vita S. Clarae For besides St. Francis who was marked with the most evident signes of his favour the like were received by St. Gertrude and St. Lucia of Ferrara And what more express memorial of the passion of our Redeemer then the heart of St. Clara of Monte Falco in which was found the Image of Christ crucified the Pillar Whip Lance and other instruments of the Passion We should never make an end if we should recount all those several wayes by which Christ our Saviour hath represented unto us his death and passion to the end we should ever have it present and fixt in our memorie But above all the most blessed Sacrament in which divine mystery the lively representation of his death is as often repeated as his holy body is consecrated in the whole world was a great demonstration of his infinite love towards mankind Wherein he gives us to understand that he desires not onely once but a million of times to die for us and that though he cannot now return again to be crucified by reason of the impassibility of his glorifyed body yet his divine charity hath found a way after an unbloody and impassible manner to repeat the Sacrifice of the Cross and the fruit of our redemption How great a gratitude do we owe our Saviour for so infinite an expression of his good will towards us and how can we be grateful it forgetful of so profitable and advantageous a benefit Let not then his Passion depart from our thoughts but let us rather depart from our pleasures and despise all humane felicity since we behold the Lord of the world in such humility Moreover this most blessed Sacrament is not onely a Memorial of the Passion of Jesus Christ but of the Incarnation and wonderful works of God and not onely brings into our memory what Christ did when he suffered for us but what the Eternal Word did when he became flesh for us that immense God unto whom the whole Globe of the Earth serves but as a footstool descending from Heaven and so far lessening himself as to cover that infinite Majesty under the form of a Servant of which this Divine Sacrament is a most excellent and lively representation For in it also the God of Heaven being already incarnate and made man descends from Heaven and vails himself under the accidents of a little bread and wine and there is as it were annihilated for us and become nothing Besides as in the Eucharist we receive Christ crucified so in it also we receive the Word incarnate insomuch as these two great wonders of God the Passion and Incarnation are not onely represented but as it were multiplied unto us in this blessed Sacrament which was a high thought of God and according to what he said by his Prophet David Psal 39. Thou hast made thy wonders many O Lord And there is none who is like unto thee in thy cogitations Here God made his wonders that is his Passion and Incarnation many repeating and as it were multiplying them in this blessed Sacrament Which was a most high thought of him who is the supreme Wisdom nor could it enter into any understanding but that of the Divinity that that which was so extraordinary and so far above the reach of all created capacities as the Son of God to be sacrificed and the eternal Word to descend from Heaven and be made man should become so ordinary and familiar as we daily see it in the use of this Divine Mysterie But God did not onely here make his wonders many but made them great as the same David cries out How magnified are thy works O Lord Psal 91. Thy cogitations are most profound For although the works of the Passion and Incarnation are so great yet they are as it were enlarged and made greater by this holy Sacrament The greatness of the work of the Incarnation consisted in this that God abased himself and was made man and the greatness of that of the Passion in that he humbled himself unto death But in this Sacrament he abases and humbles himself yet lower becoming food for man which is less than to be man or to die which is natural unto man Besides this the general fruit of the Incarnation and Passion is after a most admirable manner particularly applyed in this blessed Sacrament to every one which receives it worthily The Death and Passion of Christ upon Mount Calvarie was no doubt a great work of God but in this Mysterie we behold the same Death Passion and Sacrifice after an unbloody and impassible manner which is certainly the greater miracle and expresses more the Divine power The Incarnation likewise when the Eternal Word entred into the womb of a Virgin was a great work of God but in this Mysterie it is in a certain manner extended and made greater and is therefore called an extension of the Incarnation our Lord here entring into the breast of every Christian and uniting himself unto him These are the marvails of the Law of Grace concerning which the Prophet Isaias said unto the Lord Isai 64. When thou shalt do wonders we shall not sustain them Thou hast descended and the mountains melted at thy presence From the beginning they have not heard nor understood with their ears neither hath the eye seen O God besides thee what thou hast prepared for those who expect thee The Prophet speaks of those wondrous works which were to be seen at the coming of the Messias which wore to be such as the world had never heard of nor had ever entred into any thought but that of God and therefore the Apostle alleadging this place saith That the eye hath not seen nor the ear hath heard neither hath it entred into the heart of man what God hath prepared for those who love him Since over and above those two stupendious wonders of taking flesh and dying for us he hath given himself as food unto those Souls who remain in his grace and love him which is so great and marvailous a work as onely God could think of it and besides God none And as onely God can truly value it so it is not in the power of man sufficiently to acknowledge it No humane heart being able to support the weight of such an obligation and the greatness of the Divine love which shines forth in this wonder of wonders Tertul. li. de Patien cap.
France There she taught her Brother how to order a Dairy milk Cows and make Cheeses and after found a way to have him received into a certain Grange of the Cistercians where he performed this office to such satisfaction of the Monks that in a short time he was admitted amongst them a Lay-Brother His Sister Matilda seeing him thus placed said one day unto him Brother certainly a great reward attends us from the Lord for having thus left our Parents and our Country for the love of him But we shall receive a far greater if for the short time of our lives we deprive our selves even of this content of seeing one another and that we so give our selves over to that Divine and Soveraign Majesty that we meet no more until we meet in Heaven where we shall see and converse one with another in true and eternal comfort Here the Brother fell a weeping apprehending this as the greatest difficulty he had hitherto encountred in the whole course of his life But at last he master'd it and they both parted never to see one another more upon earth The holy Virgin went unto a certain Town nine miles distant where she lived retired in a little Cottage and sustained her self wholly by the labour of her hands admitting neither present nor alms Her Bed was the ground or little better she eat upon her knees and in that posture spent many hours in prayer wherein she often was so rapt from her senses that she neither heard the noise of thunder nor perceived the flashes of lightning Alexander was never known whilest he lived But St. Matilda was nine years before her death and therefore attempted often to have left the place but was so strictly watched she could not She wrought many miracles both during her life and after death A certain Monk sick of an Imposthume in his breast offered up his prayers at the Tomb of Alexander and to him the Servant of God appeared more resplendent than the Sun adorned with two most beautiful Crowns The one of which he wore upon his head The other he carried in his hand And being demanded of the Monk what those two Crowns signified he answered This which I bear in my hands is given me for that temporal Kingdom which I forsook upon earth The other of my head is that which is commonly given to all the Saints of Heaven And that thou mayest give credit to what thou hast seen in this Vision thou shalt find thy self according to thy faith cured of thy infirmity In this manner God honours those who humble themselves for his glory CAP. IX The love which we owe unto God ought so to fill our Souls that it leave no place or power to love the Temporal WE have already produced sufficient motives and reasons to breed in us a contempt of the things of this world and to wean our affections from them as well for being in themselves vile transitory mutable little and dangerous as for that the Son of God hath done and suffered so much to the end we should despise them I will onely now add for the conclusion of this matter That though they were of some real worth or value as they are not yet for all this we ought not to love them since so great is that love and affection which is due from us unto God that it ought so fully to fill and possess our hearts that it leave no room for any other affection than it self For if it were commanded in the Law when men had not the obligation which we now have the Son of God not having then died for our redemption that we should love him with all our heart all our soul and all our powers how are we to love him when our debt is so much greater and that we have a further knowledge of his divine goodness If then there ought to be no place for any love but his how can we now turn our eyes unto the creature or set our hearts upon it when a million of hearts are not sufficient for our Creator There is no one Title for which God is amiable but upon that title we owe him a thousand wills a thousand loves and all what we are or can be What do we then owe him for all together Consider his benefits his love his goodness and thou shalt see that though thou hadst as many hearts as there are sands upon the Sea-shore or atoms in the Air all were not capable of that great love which is due unto him How canst thou then divide this one heart which thou hast amongst so many creatures Consider also the multitude and greatness of his divine blessings and deal but with God as one man doth with another If we say of humane benefits that gifts break rocks how comes it that divine benefits do not move a heart of flesh Prov. 22. And if as Salomon sayes Those who give gifts steal the hearts of the receivers how comes it that God robs not thee of thy soul who not onely gives thee gifts but himself for a gift Consider the benefits thou didst receive in thy Creation They were as many as thou hast members of thy body or faculties of thy soul Consider those of thy Conservation Thou hast received as many as there are distinct natures in Heaven and in Earth The Elements Stars and the whole world were created for thy preservation without which thou couldest not subsist Look upon the benefits of thy Redemption They are as many as are the evils of Hell from which they have freed thee Look upon those of thy Justification they are as many as the Sacraments which Christ hath instituted and the examples which he hath left thee Think what thou owest him for having made thee a Christian pardoned thee so often and given thee still fresh grace to renew thee All these and a thousand other benefits and obligations demand and sue for thy love And not onely these benefits from God but even those from men cry out unto thee to love him For there is no benefit which thou receivest from man but comes from God On all parts then and for all things thou art obliged to love God for it is he who does thee good in all and is worth unto thee more than all How comes it then that since he hath done all this for us we yet think not what we are to do for him nor how we shall express our thankfulness for such and so great benefits David was troubled with this care when he said What shall I return unto the Lord for all which he hath given me And yet the Lord had not then given him the Body and blood of his Son nor had his Son then been born or died for him Since then he hath done all this for us why doe we not study how we may be grateful for such infinite and unspeakable mercies But what can we return which we have not received Let us deliver him back our
souls hearts and bodies looking upon our selves hence forward as on a thing not ours but his acknowledging that we owe him more than what we are or can do So shall we not debase our love by placing it upon the creatures If we shall then consider the infinite love which God bears us we shall finde that we have no love left to bestow upon any thing but him no not upon our selves To know truly the greatness of this divine love we are to suppose that true and perfect Love consists much in action but is most apparent in patience and suffering and also in communication of its proper goods unto those whom it loves See then how great is his love who hath wrought such stupendious works for thee as are his Incarnation and thy Redemption and continues still untill this hour working for thy good after a thousand wayes in all his creatures making the Corn to grow which is to feed thee the Wooll to encrease which is to cloath thee supports the Sun which is to enlighten thee draws Waters from the veins of the earth to quench thy thirst and in every thing still operates for thee Consider how he gives a being unto the Elements life to Plants sense to Beasts understanding to Angels and all to thee working in thee alone all which he works in the other degrees of nature How apparent then is the love of God in his works who does so great things for the good of man who deserves to be forsaken by him and reduced to nothing Consider then the excess of love in his patience who hath endured such cruel torments and so painful a death for thee and hath born with thee as often as thou hast offended him And if patience be a tryal of love where shall we find so great an example How excessive were that love if a King who after his Vassal had a thousand times attempted to murther him should not onely pardon but continue stil to favour and enrich him with his own Rents and Revenues who would not be amazed at such a love and think that King infatuated O goodness and longaminity of God who suffers us a thousand times to turn again and crucifie thee our Redeemer the King of Glory and art still silent Behold also his love in communicating all the good he hath unto us The Father delivers up his onely Son the Son his Body and Blood for us and they both together send the Holy Ghost by whom we are by grace made partakers of the Divine Nature See if a more great more real or more tender love than this can be imagined wherein he shares with us all he has and gives us all he can And if love be to be paid with love what love doest thou owe him See if thou hast an affection yet free to be imployed apon any but thy Lover and thy God Requite then this excess of good will by having no other will but his and answer his love with a love like his of works and patience Our Lord is not content we should onely love him with our tongues but reprehends those who cry unto him Lord Lord and doe not what he commands For even good words if they want works are condemned as false and feigned Let us love him then in earnest let us suffer for him and communicate with him all we have Let us not think to come off with this love gratis it is to cost us all is ours If we love our God truely who so much loved us we must resolve to lose honours wealth and pleasure in serving and requiting him Above all if we consider him to be God who is infinitely beautiful good wise powerful eternal immense immutable there is no heart possible which can equal the love which he deserves for any one of those Divine Attributes What shall then his whole infinity deserve which eminently contains all the beauties and perfections of his Creatures either real or imaginable for all are but as a drop in respect of an immense Ocean all depend upon God who so communicates his beauties and perfections to the Creatures as they still remain in himself after a more excellent manner and in such sort distributes them as he parts not from them but unites them all in one simple perfection From whence as from a fountain all that is good flows and is yet still in the Original in a more high and transcendent manner And if men as the wise man sayes admiring the beauty of some creatures adored them as Gods let them hence understand how beautiful is the Lord of all things since he who made them is the Author and Father of Beauty And if they wonder at their force and vertue in their operations let them know that he who made them is more powerful than they And by the beauty and greatness of the created let the understanding climbe to the knowledge of the Creator and hence collect that if the effect be good the cause must needs be so too for nothing can give what it hath not And therefore he who made things so beautiful and so good cannot choose but be most beautiful and most excellently good himself So as if the imagination should joyn in one piece all the good and all the perfection of all creatures possible or imaginable yet God were infinitely more perfect and more beautiful than that From hence it follows that as God is infinitely perfect and beautiful so he must be infinitely amiable and if infinitely amiable we are to love him with an infinite love so as if the capacity of our heart were infinite it were wholly to be employed in loving him How can we then since our hearts are limited and the object infinite spare any part of it for the things of this life Besides such is the loveliness of God that we are not to love our selves but because he loves us and if we are not to love our selves but for his sake how are we diverted to love other things for their own sake O infinite God! how doe I rejoyce that thou art so good so perfect so beautiful the source and original of all beauty and perfection as that I ought not onely to withdraw my love and affection from all other creatures but even from my self and place it wholly upon thee from whom my being and all the good I have is derived as the beams from the Sun or water from the Fountain For as the conservation of the rayes according to a mystick Doctor depends more upon the Sun than upon themselves and the current of the stream more from the Fountain than it self In such manner the good of man depends wholly upon God who is the Spring and Fountain of all his good and perfection from whence it follows that man when he relies upon himself is sure to fall and when he loves himself loses himself but flying and abhorring himself preserves himself according to what is written in the holy Gospel He who loves
quality of temporal life that having in it self no truth or reality yet it paints and sets forth that false ware which it hath with much beauty and lustre to our perdition Wherefore Aeschylus said That it was not onely a shadow of life but also a shadow of smoak which blindes and smuts and is a thing so inconstant and vain which is also suitable to that of David when he said That his dayes vanished like smoak and grew towards an end like a shadow joyning together the shadow and smoak two things the most vain of any in the world Even Pindarus exaggerates it yet more saying That it was no shadow but the dream of a shadow and what is it else but to dream to perswade ones self that this life is long and hope for prosperity in it This certainly is the greatest deceit which is put upon man and the chief cause of all his evils that he suffers not himself to be perswaded what life is and the shortness of it For as the Shadow is nothing less than the Statua whole Shadow it is yet appears like it and is the figure of it so although this life be most short and nothing less than eternity yet it looks like it and unto us it seems as if it were eternal This is a most hurtful and costly cosenage For if life should appear what it is and not lie unto us we should not put our trust in it nor make such esteem of those goods and blessings which it promises which in themselves are so deceitful and uncertain but being as it is an image and a shadow all which it proposes unto us is but feigned and dissembled promising great happiness when it is onely full of misery and calamity although disguis'd in such manner as we know them not How contented goes the Bride unto her Marriage Bed and yet within a short time laments her unfortunate choice with what gust does the ambitious man enter upon his office which is but a Seminary of future sorrow and vexation what joy doe those riches bring along with them which in the end are to be the death of the possessor All is deceit dissimulation falshood and prejudice and yet we like frantick people are not sensible of our mischiefs Unto how many infirmities is the body of a man exposed with what imaginations is he afflicted and deceived with how many labours and toyls does he daily wrestle with what thoughts and apprehensions doth he torment himself what dangers of soul and body doth he run into what fopperies is he forced to behold what injuries to suffer what necessities and afflictions Nay such is our whole life that it seemed unto St. Bernard little less evil than that of hell Sermo de ascen Domini but onely for the hope we have of heaven Our Infancy is full of ignorance and fears our Youth of sins our Age of sorrow and our whole life of dangers There is none content with his condition but he who will die whilst he lives in so much as life cannot be good unless it must resemble death Finally as the Shadow is in such manner an image as it represents all things to the contrary so as he who shall place himself betwixt the Statua and the Shadow shall perceive that that which is upon the right hand of the Statua the Shadow represents upon the left and what it has upon the left the Shadow hath upon the right so Time is in such manner the Image of Eternity as it has all its properties to the contrary Eternity hath no end but Life and Time have a speedy one Eternity hath no change but nothing is more mutable than Time Eternity suffers no comparison by reason of its infinite greatness but Life and all the goods of it are short and little and derived from the earth which is but a point THE SECOND BOOK OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWIXT THE TEMPORAL and ETERNAL CAP. I. Of the End of Temporal Life LEt us now consider how contrary unto the conditions of Eternity are those which accompany this our miserable life Let us begin with the first Which is to be limited and subject to an end In the which two things are to be considered The End and the Manner of it which perhaps is of more misery than the end it self And truly although the end of life should fall under humane election and that it were in the power of Man to make choice how many years he would continue in life and after what manner he would then leave it and that it might conclude some other way than by death or sickness yet the consideration that it and all things temporal were to perish and at last to have an end were sufficient to make us despise it and that very thought would drown all the pleasures and contents which it could afford us For as all things are of greater or lesser esteem according to the length and shortness of their duration so life being to end be it in what manner soever is much to be disvalued A fair Vessel of Chrystal if it were as consistent and durable as Gold were more precious than Gold it self but being frail and subject to break it loses its estimation and although of it self it might last long yet being capable by some careless mischance of being broken it becomes of much less value In the same manner our life which is much more frail than glass being subject to perish by a thousand accidents and though none of them should happen could not long continue since it consumes it self must needs together with those temporal goods which attend it be most contemptible But considering that the ending of it is by the way of death infirmities and misfortunes which are the Harbingers and prepare the way for death it is to be admired that Man who knows he is to die makes account of temporal felicity seeing the misery in which the prosperity of this world and the Majesty of the greatest Monarchs are at last to finish Wherein ended King Antiochus Lord of so many Provinces 1 Machab 6. 2 Machab 9. but in a disconsolate and mortal Melancholy in a perpetual waking which with want of sleep bereft him of his judgment in a grievous torture in his belly which forced him to void his very entrails in a perpetual pain in his bones that he was not able to move And he who seemed to command the waves of the Sea and that the highest mountains of the Earth hung upon his finger ends whose Majesty was once lifted up above all humane power could not then preserve himself in his own Kingdom nor move one pace from the place where they layd him he who cloathed himself in soft Silks and pure Linnens he whose Garments were more fragrant than the most precious spices cast now such a smell from his putrified members that none could endure his presence and being yet alive his whole body swarmed with loathsome vermin his flesh dropped away by
therefore intend in this place to say something of the malice of it the rather because it conduces much to the knowledge of those differences which are betwixt things temporal and things eternal Whereof the most notable is that as temporal goods are of that nature that he who loves and seeks them with sollicitude most commonly falls into that horrible evil of sin So he who loves and sets his heart on things eternal secures himself against it Besides having treated of the eternal pains of hell that we may not wonder at the severity of the Divine Justice it was necessary that we should say something of the horrible and grievous malice of sin for which so infinite a punishment is inflicted Many admire that a sin committed in an instant should deserve the eternal punishment of so terrible and cruel torments But this proceeds from their ignorance because they know not the malice of a mortal sin St. Austin whose deep understanding was enlightned by an especial grace wondered rather that there were not two Hells and that a new one was not created for that Christian who durst offend his God after he was incarnated for his redemption And Divines generally affirm that the chastisement of sin in hell is much less than it deserves Who will not then admire this Monster of mischief that being but one evil draws after it so many and that one sin should deserve so many punishments and yet have a malice capable of more A terrible case that for a sin which past onely in thought which none knew but God and he who committed it and perhaps not he neither as being uncertain and doubtful of his own consent and which endured no longer than an instant should yet be punished with so real and eternal pains The reason is That such is the intension of malice in sin that it is equivalent to the extension of an infinite evil The punishment and the sin are like the shadow and the body The sin is the body and the solid evil The punishment but as the shadow And in the reason of a true and real evil the sin as far exceeds the punishment of hell fire as a man exceeds his shadow For as that is truly and really a man and this but a man in appearance so sin is truly an evil the pain onely appears so but is in truth a good being an act of justice caused by God who can cause no evil Hence you may trace the malignity of a sin in comparison whereof the pains of hell although so terrible are not evils but their shadow and may also learn that the commission of a mortal sin is asmuch to be feared above the pains of eternity as a real sword before its shadow The sword kills the shadow at most can but fright So a mortal sin is that which takes away the life of the Soul the pains can onely fear us but without sin the torments of hell are not of power to kill or hurt us See then what a fool thou art if to avoid some temporal evil thou presumest to commit a mortal sin which is as great a folly as to stye from the shadow of a sword and run thy selt upon the point It is true that sin is really an evil and the eternal fire of Hell in comparison of it but a shadow but by this shadow we may judge the greatness of the substance and by the terribleness of the punishment the grievousness of the sin For as by the shadow we know the bulk of the body although we see it not so by the pains of Hell we conjecture the malice and enormity of sin which appears not What would we say of a body which the Sun being at midday and in his height should cast a shadow of an infinite extension This could not be unless the height of that body should rise unto the Sphear of the Sun and being placed opposite unto it should thence produce so vast a shadow In this manner sin causeth a pain of infinite extension because the intension of its malice reaches so high as to oppose it self unto God who being the chief good sin must needs become the chief evil I speak of mortal sin If we therefore tremble at the thought of Hell we may shake at that of sin Who is not amazed that God should behold a creature of his own burning in flames and should there leave him without compassion for all eternity But this is not caused by want of goodness in God but by excess of malice in sin not because the mercy of God hath limits but because the wickedness of man hath none So hainous then is the offence of a mortal sin that eternal flames cannot purge it nor torments give a greater satisfaction than what is due unto the Di-Justice This is that which the Lord said by Oseas Osee 12. Ephraim provoked me to wrath in his bitternesses That is us St. Jerome interprets it with his wickedness he made me bitter and rigorous who of my self was sweet and merciful Such is the grievousness of sin that it makes the sweetness bounty and divine pity of God not to companionate that Soul which is in the bitterness of Hell § 2. Sin is then an infinite offence against God Let it not therefore appear much unto him who knows the ineffable greatness and perfection of the Divine essence that though committed in an instant it should deserve an eternity of punishment For by how much greater is the Majesty of God which is despised by so much greater is the injury offered him and therefore as the Majesty of God which is despised by sin is infinite so the despite of it must contain in it self a certain kinde of infinity By how much greater is the reverence due to a person by so much greater is the disrespect and affront offered him And as to God there is due an infinite reverence so the injurie done him is of an inexplicable malice which with no good works of a pure creature how many and great soever can be expiated Less de perfec divi li. 13. cap. 16. nu 187. So great saith a grave Doctor is the malignity of a mortal sin that being put in the ballance of Divine Justice it would out-waigh all the good works of all the Saints although they were a thousand times more and greater than they are Which consideration although most fearful yet it ought not to seem incredible because the good works with which God is honoured by his Saints although considered in themselves they are of great value and by his grace worthy of eternal life yet in respect of God unto whom they add nothing and who is nothing better by them they are not valuable Unto whose divine goodness not onely they but infinitely more and greater are but a debt But for God to be despised by his Creature who by infinite titles is obliged to serve him and who ought to bear him if he could an infinite love and
reverence him with an infinite honour is a thing so highly repugnant to his Majesty and benefits that he apprehends it more in the nature of evil than all the good works of the world in the nature of good and if God were capable of grief would more afflict him than all the pious actions of the Saints content him Certainly amongst men the honour which is given to one who deserves it takes not so much as a contempt done unto him who merits it not A King values not much the honour which is given him by his Vassals because he takes it not for a courtesie but a duty but to be outraged and scorned by one especially whom he had favoured with his benefits sticks near unto his heart for not onely Kings but all men think honour due unto them and disrespect an injurie And as fire being inordinately applyed to the hand makes it sensible of a greater grief that it can receive delight by being sound because excessive heat is repugnant and a natural temper due unto it so disrespects and affronts offered to a noble personage which are repugnant to his worth grieves him more than he can be pleased with all the honours and respects due unto him There is no resentment amongst men so quick as that of dishonour nor any thing which causes more grief and vexation If some person of quality should have his hat pluckt off from his head in scorn and receive a dozen of bastonadoes from some base fellow that affront would not be recompensed although a thousand should put off their caps to him and kiss his hand By this may in some sort appear the stupendious irreverence and incivility towards God in a mortal sin in so much as St. Paul calls it kicking or spurning the Son of God And therefore it is no marvel if one onely grievous offence over-weigh all the service and honours done by the Saints and holy Angels and that all that they have or can do cannot in rigour satisfie for one mortal sin This is the reason why it was necessary that God should become man being the Divine Justice could not be appeased with less than the satisfaction of a Divine person Let those therefore cease to marvel that a momentary sin should be punisht with eternal torments who see that for sin God was made man and died for man And certainly it is a far greater wonder that God should die for the sin of another than that man should for his own sin suffer an eternal punishment And if the malice of sin be so exorbitant that nothing could satisfie for it less than God it is nothing strange that that which hath no limit nor bound in evil should have no limit in punishment but should exceed all time and be eternal And if a treason committed against a temporal Prince be chastised with loss of life and goods of the Traitor and with the punishment also of his posterity which in as much as concerns the Prince is eternal Why should not the offence of a vile worm against his Creator be tormented with eternal pains The greatness of honour decreases and grows less according to the height and dignity of the person honoured so as that honour which done to an ordinary person would seem excessive given unto a Prince is nothing And to the contrary the greatness of an injury rises and grows higher according to the worth of him who is injured so as God who is infinite being the person offended deserves that the injury done unto him should be chastised with an infinite punishment at least in time or that he who satisfies for it should be a person of infinite worth and perfection From hence it follows that the guilt of mortal sin being so horrid there can be no satisfaction of a pure creature sufficient to expiate it nor any merit which can deserve the pardon Let us grant that Adam had never offended nor contaminated the whole race of mankind with his sin Let us grant that there had never been a sin of David St. Paul St. Austin St. Mary Magdalene or any other Man or Angel whatsoever and that there had been but one onely mortal sin the least of all others committed by a man in a wilderness without witness by night and that onely in thought yet such were the grievousness of this one sin that for it no punishment of the creatures were sufficient to satisfie the Divine Justice If God should ruine Heaven throw down the Stars drie up the Sea confound the Elements and strike whole mankinde with thunder all would not give an equal satisfaction to the Divine Justice for this one sin For this destruction of Heaven and Earth and Man were but of things finite and limited and the injured person is God who is infinite and betwixt finit and infinite there is no proportion In like manner no merit of meer creatures were sufficient to deserve pardon for it If all mankind should cloath themselves in sackcloth and fast with bread and water If all the Martyrs should offer up their torments and all the Confessours their penances and the very Mother of God all her vertues and should dissolve her self into tears all were not enough to deserve the pardon of that one sin Onely the Son of God could be sufficient satisfaction Let men consider this let them weigh the grievousness of a sin against God and let them tremble at the very thought that possibly they may commit it §. 3. The offence which is done to God Almighty by a mortal sin is in it self and in its own substance most grievous as we have already observed yet there are certain Circumstances which do much encrease the good or evil of that action whereunto they are annexed And that of sin is so accursed and abominable on all parts that not one or two but all circumstances joyned together concurre to make the insolence and malice of it most insupportable We will therefore consider them Tull. in Rhet◠S. The. 1.2 q. 7. ar 3. one by one Tully whom St. Thomas and the rest of Divines follow makes them seaven which contribute much to the qualification of a moral action The first Who it is that doth it The second What it is he doth The third Where he does it The fourth With what helps The fifth Wherefore The sixth After what manner and The seaventh When he does it Aristot Eth. 3. Unto these seaven Aristotle adds another About what it is These circumstances are in absolute actions which have no relation to another For in actions which have a respect to a third person another circumstance ought much to be considered which is Against whom it is Let us now see how in all those circumstances sin is most abhominable and accursed For if we consider Who it is that sins it is a most vile and wretched man who presumes to lift up his hands against his Creator And what is Man but a Vessel of dung a Sink of