he that violates his own body and makes way for the Soul to flye out with his own hands is damned by the very Act but if another doth it to him it is both his Salvation and his Crown The heathens esteemed it no honour for Captives to have their bonds loosed It was their freedome but not their glory When the jugde himself did break off their Chaines that they accounted honorable By this Ceremony did Vespasian and Titus acknowledge the worth of Joseph the Jew This vindicated his integrity By cutting his bonds with their Imperial hand they freed him both from captivity and disgrace Titus said that if they would break off his fetters and not stay to take them off his honour would be so perfectly repaired by it as if he had been never bound nor overcome The same difference in point of honour is betwixt the naturall death and the violent betwixt dying when wee are full of daies and the death which Tyrants impose upon us when we are mangled and grinded by their fury This honour is then greatest when the body is not dissolved but distorted and broken into peeces Certainly the best men have ever perished by the violence of Tyrants nature to preserve her innocence being very backward and unwilling as it were to take away such great and needfull examples of goodnesse Treachery and violence were ordained for the just in the dâ—ath of Abel who dyed by the wicked This better sort of death was in him consecrated to the best men those persons whom Nature respects and is loath to medle with envy laies hands upon Whom the one labours to preferre the other plotteth to destroy Nor deals she thus with the good only but with the eminent and mighty too thus she served Hector Alexander and Caesar the goodliest object is alwaies her aim When Thrasybulus the Astrologer told Alexander the Roman that he should end his daies by a violent death he answered that he was very glad of it for then said he I shall dye like an Emperour like the best and the greatest of men and not sneak out of the World like a worthlesse obscure fellow But the death of these Glorioli was not truly glorious I have onely mentioned them because that a passive death though wanting religion hath made their honour permanent That death is the truly glorious which is seald with the joy of the sufferers spirit whose Conscience is ravished with the kisses of the Dove Who can look upon his tormentour with delight and grow up to Heaven without diminution though made shorter on Earth by the head This is the death which growes pretious by contempt and glorious by disgrace Whose sufferer runs the race set before him with patience and finisheth it with joy We are carefull that those things which are our own may be improved to the utmost and why care wee not for death what is more ours then mortality Death should not be feared because it is simply or of it self a great good and is evill to none but to those that by living ill make their death bad What ever evil is in death it is attracted from life If thou preservest a good Conscience while thou livest thou wilt have no feare when thou dyest thou wilt rejoyce and walke homeward singing It is life therefore that makes thee fear death If thou didst not fear life if life had not blasted the joyes of death thou wouldst never be afraid of the end of sorrowes Death therefore is of it self innocent sincere healthfull and desirable It frees us from the malignancie and malice of life from the sad necessities and dangerous errours we are subject to in the body That death whose leaders are Integrity and virtue whose cause is Religion is the Elixir which gives this life its true tincture and makes it immortal To dye is a common and trivial thing for the good and the bad dye and the bad most of all but to dye willingly to dye gloriously is the peculiar priviledge of good men It is better to leave life voluntarily then to be driven out of it forcibly let us willingly give place unto posterity Esteem not life for its own sake but for the use of it Love it not because thou wouldst live but because thou mayst do good works while thou livest Now the greatest work of life is a good death If life then ought to be lesse esteemed then good works who would not purchase a good death with the losse of life why should we be afeared of politick irreligious Tyrants and an arm of flesh though guarded with steele Nature it selfe threatens us with death and frailty attends us every hour Why will we refuse to dye in a good cause when 't is offered us who may dye ill the very next day after let us not promise our selves a short life when our death assures us of eternal glory But if it were granted that death were neither good nor honourable but evill and fearfull why will not we take care for that which we fear Why do we neglect that which we suspect Why if it be evill do not wee arme and defend our selves against it we provide against dangerous contingencies we labour against casuall losses and we neglect this great and enevitable perill To neglect death and to contemn death are two things none are more carefull of it then those that contemne it none feare it more then those that neglect it and which is strange they fear it not because they have neglected it but they neglect it when they fear it they dare not prepare for it for fear of thinking of it O the madnesse and Idlenesse of mankind to that which they adjudge to be most Evill they come not onely unprepared but unadvisedly and without so much as forethought What mean we what do we look for Death is still working and wee are still idle it is still travelling towards us and we are still slumbering and folding our hands Let us awake out of this darke and sleepy state of mind let us shake off these dreams and vain propositions of diverse lusts let us approve of truth and realities let us follow after those things which are good let us have true joy made sure unto us and a firm security in life in death Sickness and death you are but sluggish things And cannot reach a heart that hath got wings FINIS THE WORLD CONTEMNED IN A Parenetical Epistle written by the Reverend Father EVCHERIVS Bishop of Lyons to his Kinsman VALERIANVS Love not the VVorld neither the things that arâ— in the world If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him 1 Ioh. 2.15 They are of the world therefore speake they of the world and the world heareth them Chap. 4. vers 5. If the world hate you ye know that it hated me before it hated you Ioh. 15. verse 18. If ye were of the world the world would love his own but because ye are not of the world out I
throughly so is if not Evill a neighbourhood to Evill True praise consists not in a bare abstinence from Evill but in the pursuance the performance of good It sufficeth not therefore that we doe nothing which may afflict us but we must withall doe something that may exhilarate us This we must remember that to do good is one thing and to become good is another Although we cannot become good unlesse wee doe good But we become good not because we have done good works but because we did them well Discretion which considers the manner of doing good orders the Action so excellently that oftentimes there is more goodnesse in the manner then in the Action What will it availe us to do good if it be not well done It is to write faire and then to poure the Inke upon it Actions cease to be good unlesse well acted they are like excellent colours ill-layed on The more glorious thy intention is the more carefully thou must manage it Indiscretion is most evident in matters of importance One drop of Oyle upon Purple is sooner seen then a whole quart that is spilt upon Sack-cloath The Ermyn keepes his whitenesse unstained with the hazard of his life Hee values himselfe at a most sordid rate that esteems lesse of Virtue then this beast doth of his skin that prefers a foule life to a fair death that loves his blood more then his honour and his body more then his Soule Ennius saith that the way to live is not to love life Life is given us for another cause then meerly to live he is unworthy of it that would live onely for the love of life the greatest cause of life is Virtue what more absolute madnesse can there be then to make life the cause of sin yea the cause of death And for lifes sake to lose the crowâ— of life What greater unhappinesse then to dye eternally by refusing death The Virtuous youth Pelagius rather then he woulâ—d lose his Innocence suffered the most exquisite and studyed torments of that impure Tyrant Habdarrhagmanus He suffered many deaths before he was permitted to dye Hee saw his limbs his hands and his sinewes cut in sunder and lying dead by him while he yet lived This preservation of their honour some chast beauties have paid dearly for It cost Nicetas his tongue Amianus his Eye Saint Briget her face Apollonia her teeth and Agatha her breasts The lovely Cyprian Virgin paid her life for it Nature even for herself doth lay a snare And handsome faces their own traitours are The beauty of Chastity is best preserved by deformity and the purity of life by a contemptible shape The Shoomaker is carefull of the neatnesse of a shooe which is made to be worn in durt and mire And shall man be negligent to adorn his Soul which is made for Heaven and the service of the deity Every artificer strives to do his worke so as none may find fault with it And shall we do the works of life perfunctorily and deceitfully All that makes man to be respected is his worke as the fruite doth make the Tree and a good work can never be too much respected Keepe thy selfe alwaies in respect by doing good Thy own dignity is in thy own power If thy works be good thou shalt be accounted good too If better then any thou shalt be acknowledged for the best Man is the effect of his own Act he is made by those things which he himself makes Hee is the work of his own hands A rare priviledge that permits men and impowers them to make themselves Thou hast leave to be whatsoever thou wouldst be God would not limit thy happinesse He left thee power to encrease it to polish and beautifie thy selfe according to thy own mind Thy friend or thy neighbour cannot do it Thy owne good must be thy owne industry Virtue because she would be crosse to Fortune is not adventitious It is our great happinesse that this great good must not be borrowed Blessed be that Divine mercy which hath given us means to be saved without the assistance of our neighbours who have endeavoured to damn us That almighty hand which first Created man in the Image of his Creatour finished him not but left some things for him to doe that he might in all things resemble his maker It is one thing to be an Idol or Counterfeit and another to be a lively Figure and likenesse There are many Coppies which are not assimilant to their Originals like Pictures that have not so much as an ayre of those faces they were drawn by To the Politure and sweetning of the Divine Image there are some lines expected from thine owne hand If some expert Statuary suppose Phidias himselfe should leave unfinished some excellent peece like that Statue of Minerva at Athens and out of an incurious wearinesse give himself to some obscure and Artlesse imployment or to meere Idlenesse wouldst not thou much blame and rebuke him for it And canst thou deserve any lesse if by a loose and vitious life thou wilt either totally deface the Image of God in thy selfe or else leave it unfinished Doest thou think that God is maimed seeing thou doest leave his Image without hands I mean without good works Dost thou think that he is blind seeing thou dost extinguish or put quite out that discerning light and informing wisdome which hee hath given thee Hee that doth not integrally compose himself and will not carefully strive for perfection would represent God to be imperfect and a Monster Virtuous manners saith holy Maximus are types of the Divine goodnesse by which God descends to be represented by man assuming for a body those holy habits and for a soule the Innocent dictates of wisdome in the spirit by which he makes those that are worthy to become Gods and seals them with the true character of Virtue bestowing upon them the solid riches of his infallible and immortal Knowledge Work then while it is day while it is life-time work and cease not Finish this expectation this great spectacle not of men onely but of God and Angels Remember that the rewards and applause of this World are but a Paint of eternity The solid and permanent glory is given in Heaven When every man shall have praise of God The Limbner is carefull to beautifie and shew his utmost skill in that peece which hee knowes to be intended for judicious eyes Thou art not to paint but really to make a living Image of the Divine mind which also must be examined and judged by that searching eye from which nothing can be hidden have a care that no ill mixture nothing disproportionable nothing uneven or adulterate may be found in it The presents we offer to the true God must be true and solid works not the fictitious oblations of Jupiter Milichus Why wilt thou delight in a maimed Soule or which is worse in a Soul whose best part is dead Thou hadst rather have a
all difficulties and the wearisome extent of Sea and Land that you might appear before him and have your adoption ratified God Almighty the Maker and the Lord of Heaven and Earth and all that is in them calls you to this adoption and offers unto you if you will receive it that dear stile of a Sonne by which he calls his onely begotten and your glorious Redeemer And will you not be inflamed and ravished with his Divine love will you not make hast and begin your Journey towards Heaven lest swift destruction come upon you and the honors offered you be frustrated by a sad and sudden death And to obtain this adoption you shall not need to passe through the unfrequented and dangerous Solitudes of the Earth or to commit your selfe to the wide and perillous Sea When you will this adoption is within your reach and lodgeth with you And shall this blessing because it is as easie in the getting as it is great in the consequence find you therefore backward or unwilling to attain it How hard a matter to the lukewarme and the dissembler will the making sure of this adoption prove for as to the faithfull and obedient it is most easie so to the hypocrite and the rebellious it is most difficult Certainly it is the love of life that hath inslaved us so much to a delectation and dotage upon temporal things Therefore do I now advise you who are a lover of life to love it more It is the right way of perswading when we do it for no other end but to obtain that from you which of your owne accord you desire to grant us Now for this life which you love am I an Embassadour and intreat that this life which you love in its transient and momentary state you would also love in the Eternal But how or in what manner you may be said to love this present life unlesse you desire to have it made most excellent perfect and etternally permanent I cannot see for that which hath the power to please you when it is but short and uncertain will please you much more when it is made eternal and immutable And that which you dearly love and value though you have it but for a time will be much more deare and pretious to you when you shall enjoy it without end It is therefore but fit that the temporall life should look still towards the Eternal that though the one you may passe into the other You must not rob your selfe of the benefits of the life to come by a crooked and perverse use of the present This life must not oppose it selfe to the damage and hurt of the future For it were very absurd and unnatural that the love of life should causse the destruction and the death of life Therefore whither you judg this temporall life worthy of your love or your Contempt my present argument will be every way very reasonable For if you contemne it your reason to do so is that you may obtain a better and if you love it you must so much the more love that life which is eternall But I rather desire that you would esteem of it as you have found it and judge it to be as it is indeed full of bitternesse and trouble a race of tedious and various vexations and that you would utterly forsake and renounce both it and its occupations Cut off at last that wearisome and endlesse chain of secular imployments that one and the same slavery though in several negotiations Break in sunder those cords of vain cares in whose successive knots you are alwayes intangled and bound up and in every one of which you travell is renewed and begun again Let this rope of sands this coherencie of vaine causes be taken away In which as long as men live the tumult of affairs being still lengthen'd by an intervening succession of fresh cares is never ended but runnes on with a fretting and consuming sollicitousness which makes this present life that is already of it selfe short and miserable enough far more short and more miserable Which also according to the successe or crosnesse of affairs lets in divers times vain and sinfully rejoycings bitter sorrows anxious wishes and suspitious fears Let us last of all cast off all those things which make this life in respect of their imployment but very short but in respect of cares and sorrows very long Let us reject and resolutely contemn this uncertain world and the more úncertain manners of it wherein the Peasant as well as the Prince is seldom safe where things that lye low are trodden upon and the high and lofty totter and decline Chuse for your self what worldly estate you please There is no rest either in the mean or the mighty Both conditions have their miseries and their misfortunes The private and obscure is subject to disdain the publick and splendid unto envy Two prime things I suppose there are which strongly enchain and keep men bound in secular negotiations and having bewitch'd their understanding retaine them still in that dotage the pleasure of riches the dignity of honours The former of which ought not to be called pleasure but poverty and the latter is not dignity but vanity These two being joyn'd in one subtile league set upon man and with alternate insnaring knots disturb and intangle his goings These besides the vain desires which are peculiar to themselves infuse into the mind of man other deadly and pestiferous lustings which are their consequents and with a certaine pleasing inticement sollicite and overcome the hearts of Mankind As for Riches that I may speake first of them what is there I pray or what can there be more pernicious They are seldom gotten without Injustice by such an Administrator are they gathered and by such a Steward they must be kept for Covetousnesse is the root of all evils And there is indeed a very great familiarity betwixt these two Riches and Vices in their names as well as in their nature And are they not also very frequently matter of disgrace and an evill report Upon which consideration it was said by one that Riches were tokens of Injuries In the possession of corrupt persons they publish to the world their bribery and unrighteousnesse and elswhere they allure the eyes and incite the spirits of seditious men to rebellion and in the custody of such they bear witnesse of the sufferings and the murther of innocent persons the plundering of their goods But grant that these disasters should not happen can we have any certainty whither these things that make themselves wings will fly away after our decease He layeth up treasure saith the Psalmist and knoweth not for whom he gathers it But suppose that you should have an heir after your own heart doth hee not oftentimes destroy and scatter what the Father hath gathered doth not an ill-bred son or our ill choice of a Son-in-law prove the frequent ruin of all our
sicknes Give my Spirit health To the Reader CAndidus medicans Ignis deus est So sings the Poet and so must I affirme who have been tryed by that white and refining fire with healing under his wings Quarrelling with his light and wandring from that fresh and competent gourd which he had shadowed me with drew those Sun-beames upon my head whose strong and fervent vibrations made me oftentimes beg of him that I might dye In these sad Conflicts I dedicated the Remissions to thy use Reader now I offer them to thy view If the title shall offend thee because it was found in the woods and the wildernesse give mee leave to tell thee that Deserts and Mountaines were the Schooles of the Prophets and that Wild-hony was his diet who by the testimony of the Sonne of God was the greatest amongst those that are borne of women It may be thy spirit is such a popular phantastick flye as loves to gad in the shine of this world if so this light I live by in the shade is too great for thee I send it abroad to bee a companion of those wise Hermits who have withdrawne from the present generation to confirme them in their solitude and to make that rigid necessity their pleasant Choyse To leave the world when it leaves us is both sordid and sorrowfull and to quitt our station upon discontents is nothing else but to be the â—pes of those Melancholy Schismaticks who having burnt off their owne hands in setting the world on fire are now fallen out with it because they cannot rule it They are Spirits of a very poore inferiour order that have so much Sympathy with worldlie things as â—o weepe at Parting And of as low a Parentage are those that will be sick of Leap-yeares Sublunarie mutations I honour that temper which can lay by the garland when he may keepe it on which can passe by a Rosebud and bid it grow when he is invited to crop it Whose gentle measure Complyes and suits with all estates Which can let loose to a Crown and yet with pleasure Take up within a Cloyster gates This Soule doth Span the world and hang content From either pole unto the center Where in each Roome of the well-furnished tent He lyes warme and without adventure Prince Lewes the eldest Son of Charles King of Naples at the age of twenty one yeares and just when he should have been married to the youthfull Princesse of Majorica did suddenly at Barcellon put on the rouâ—h and severe habit of the Franciscans The Queens and Princesses theye met to solemnize the marriage of his sister Blanch with James King of Aragon imployed all their Rhetorick to disswade him from it but to no purpose he loved his Sack-cloth more then their silks and as Mounsier Mathieu alluding to that young Princesse speakes of him Left Roses to make Conserve of thornes Resolution Reader is the Sanctuary of Man and Saint Pauls content is that famous Elixir which turnes the rudest mettall into smooth and ductible gold It is the Philosophers secret fire that stomack of the Ostrich which digests Iron and dissolves the hardflint into bloud and nutriment It was an honest Reply that his Cook made unto the Duke of Millain when worsted in a great battell by the Florentines the over passionate resentment of so unexpected a repu'se made him quarrell with his meate If the Florentines said he have spoyled your tast that is no fault of mine the meate is pleasant and well drest but the good successe of your Enemies hath made your appetite ill I protest seriously unto thee and without Scepticisme that there is no such thing in this world as misfortune the foolish testinesse of man arising out of his misconstruction and ignorance of the wise method of Providence throwes him into many troubles The Spouse tells us that the fingers of the Bride-groome are deckt with Beryll and pretious stones what ever falls upon us from that Almighty hand it is a diamond It is celestiall treasure and the matter of some new blessing if we abuse it not God saith the wise King created not Evill but man who was created upright sought out many inventions these indeed be get that monster his ill digestion of his punishment which is a kinde of divine diet makes him to pine away in a sinfull discontent If thou art sick of such an Atrophie the precepts layd down in this little booke if rightly understood and faithfully practised will perfectly cure thee All that may bee objected is that I write unto thee out of a land of darkenesse out of that unfortunate region where the Inhabitants sit in the shadow of death where destruction passeth for propagation and a thick black night for the glorious day-spring If this discourage thee be pleased to remember that there are bright starrs under the most palpable clouds and light is never so beautifull as in the presence of darknes At least intreat God that the Sun may not goe down upon thy own dwelling which is hartily desired and prayed for by Hen Vaughan Newton by Vsk in South-vvales April 17. 1652. Two Excellent DISCOURSES Of 1. Temperance and Patience Of 2. Life and Death Written in Latin by Johan Euseb Nierembergius Englished by HENRY VAUGHAN Silurist Mors Vitam temperet vita Mortem LONDON Printed for Humphrey Moseley and are to be sold at the Princes Armes in St Paul's Church-yard 1654. OF TEMPERANCE AND PATIENCE THe Doctrine of good living is short but the work is long and hard to be perswaded though easie to bee learnt for to be good is of all things the most easie and the most ready if wee could learne but one other Art which Antisthenes termed the most necessary I will add the most difficult and that is to forget to doe Evill I find that peace and joy have two handles whereby we may take hold of them Patience and Temperance Rule thy Evil with these and then thy will may rule thee well Horses are ruled with bridles and spurs In prosperity use the first that is restraine or keepe in thy selfe In adversity the last that is Incite and use thy selfe to a gallant Apathie and contempt of misfortunes Generous and metlesome Coursers when they are breathed or rid abroad are compelled to trample upon those very things whose first sight startled and terrified them doe so with thy selfe tread under thy feet thy most hideous adversities so shalt thou forget the feare of fortune which makes men unfit for vertue Patience in adversity is temperance in prosperity Nor can it be easily resolved which of these two excells This is most certaine that noble sufferance is as necessary to man as the virtue of temperance Some few Crosses thou canst beare well but fortune can afflict thee with many and thou by patience the greatest of virtues must afflict her with more for The naked man too getts the field And often makes the armed foe to yeeld It costs not much
more as Bears Leopards Wolves Dragons Adders and Vipers were gathered together about him and ready to seize upon him what would not he give to be freed from the violence and rage of such destroyers What greater felicity could he desire then to be redeemed from such an horrid and fatall distressâ— And is it a lesser blessing to be delivered from greater evills We are surrounded with calamities torn by inordinate wishes hated by the world persecuted prest and trodden upon by our enemies disquieted with threatnings which also torture and dishearten some for in pusillanimous dispositions fear makes words to be actions and threats to be torments Death is a divine remedy which cures all these evil Death alone is the cause that temporal miseries are not eternal And I know not how that came to be feared which brings with it as many helps as the world brings damages Danger it self is a sufficient motive to make us in love w th security Death only secures us from troubles Death heals and glorifies all those wounds which are received in a good cause When Socrates had drank off his potion of hemlock he commanded that sacrifices should be offered to Aesculapius as the Genius of Medicine He knew that Death would cure him It was the Antidote against that poysonous Recipe of the Athenian Parliament Tyranny travels not beyond Death which is the Sanctuary of the good and the Lenitive of all their sorrows Most ridiculous were the tears of Xerxes and worthily checkt by his Captain Artabazus when seated on the top of an hill and viewing his great Army wherein were so many hands as would have served to overturn the world to levell mountains and drain the seas yea to violate Nature and disturb Heaven with their noyse and the smoak of their Camp he fell to a childish whining to consider in what a short portion of time all that haughty multitude which now trampled upon the face of the earth would be layd quietly under it He wept to think that all those men whose lives notwithstanding hee hastned to sacrifice to his mad ambition should dye within the compasse of an hundred yeares The secular death or common way of mortality seemed very swift unto him but the way of war slaughter he minded not It had been more rational in him to weep because death was so slow and lazie as to suffer so many impious inhumane souldiers to live an hundred years and disturb the peace and civill societies of Mankind If as hee saw his Army from that hill he had also seen the calamities and mischief they did with the tears and sorrows of those that suffered by them he had dried his eyes and would not have mourned though he had seen death seising upon all those salvages and easing the world of so vast an affliction He would not have feared that which takes away the cause of fear That is not evill which removes such violent and enormous evills If I might ask those that have made experiment of life and death whither they would chuse if it were granted them either to live again or to continue in their state of dissolution I am sure none would chuse life but the wicked those that are unworthy of it for no pious liver did ever repent of death and none ever will The Just desire not this life of the unjust which were it offered them they would fear it more now being at rest then ever they feared death when they lived The story runnes that Stanislaus the Polonian a man of marvellous holinesse and constancy had the opportunity to put this question and the respondent told him that he had rather suffer the paines of dissolution twice over again then live once He feared one life but did not fear to dy thrice Having this Solution from the experienced it is needless and fruitlesse to question on the living If Soules were Praeexistent as one Origen dreamt as Cebes Plato Hermes and other Philosophers the great Fathers of Hereticks have affirmed Wee might have reason to conclude that they would obstinately refuse to be imprisoned in the wombs of women and wallow in Seminal humours What if it were told them that they must dwell nine monthes in a thick darknesse and more then nine years perhaps all the years of their sojourning in hallucinations and the darknesse of ignorance what if the paines the exigencies the hunger and thirst they must endure before they can be acquainted with the miseries of life were laid before thâ—m The Infant while he is yet in the womb is taught necessity Quest for foode makes him violate that living Prison and force his way into the World And now comes he forth according to the Sentiment of Hippocrates to seek for Victualls the provision which proceeded from his Mother being grown too little for him But he comes from one prison into another and breaks through the first to enlarge his own which he carries with him But if the Soules â—hus incarcerated like Prisoners through a grate might behold the various plagues and diseases of those that are at liberty as Palsies Passions of the heart Convulsions Stranguries the Stone the Gout the Wolfe the Phagedaena and an hundred other horrid incurable Evils such as Pherecides Antiochus and Herod were tormented with or that fearful sicknesse of Leuthare which was so raging and furious that she did eat her own flesh and drink her blood in the extremity of the pain Or if they might see those Evills which man himselfe hath sought and found out for himself as emulations warres bloodshed confusion and mutual destruction Is there any doubt to be made think you but they would wish themselves freed from such a miserable estate or that their intellectuall light were were quite extinguished that they might not behold such horrid and manifold calamities Plato imputed the suspension of Reason in Infants and the hallucinations of Childhood to the terrour and astonishment of the Soules which he supposed them to be possessed with because of their sudden translation from the Empyreal light into the darke and grosse prisons of flesh and this inferiour World as if such a strange and unexpected change like a great and violent fall had quite doated them and cast asleep their intellectuall faculties Proclus assisted this conjecture of Plato with another argument drawne from the mutability and the multitude of Worldly Events which in the uncertaine state of this life the Soules were made subject unto Adde to this that the merriest portion of life wihch is youth is in both sexes bedewed with tears and the flowers of it are sullied and fade away with much weeping and frequent sadneâ—se Children also want not their sorrowes The Rod blasteth all their innocent joyes and the sight of the School-master turnes their mirth into mourning Nay that last Act of life which is the most desirable to the Soul I mean old Age is the most miserable The plenteous Evills of frail life fill the old Their wasted
turning life out of doors before her lease was out and had not Ptolomie by a special Edict silenced his Doctrine he had robbed him of more subjects then ever War or the Plague could have taken from him Before the blessed Jesus had made his entrance through the veile and opened the way to heaven the reward of righteousnesse and sanctity was long life the peculiar blessing of the Paâ—riarchs It was a favour then not to appear before perfect purity a Judge of infinite and all-seeing brightnesse without an Advocate or friend to speak for us in the strength and heat of irregular youthfulnesse when not so much as time had subdued or reformed the affections but now bâ—cause Christ is gone thither before and hath provided a place for us the greatest blessing and highest reward of holynesse is short life and an unseasonable or a violent death For those harsh Epithets which are but the inventions of fearfull and sinful livers are swallowed up of immortâ—lity an unspeakable heavenly happinesse which crowns and overflowes all those that dye in Christ Wee consider not those blessings which death leads us to and therefore it is that we so frequently approve of our most frivolous wordly wishes and sit weeping under the burthens of life because we have not more laid upon us A certain groundlesse suspition that death is evill will not suffer us to believe it to be good though the troubles of life make us complement and wish for it every day This foolish fear and inconstancy of man Locmannus one of the most antient Sages of Persia and admitted also into the Society of the Arabian Magi hath pleasantly demonstrated in the person of an Old man loaded â—ith a grâ—at burthen of Wood which having quite tyred him he threw down and called for death to come and ease him Hee had no sooner called but death which seldome comes so quickly to those that call for it in earnest presently appeared and demands the reason why he called I did call thee said he to help me to lift this burthen oft wood upon my back which just now fell off So much are we in love with miseries that we fear to exchange them with true happiness we do so doate upon them that we long to resume them again after wee have once shaked them off being either faithlesse and wavering or else forgetfull of those future joyes which cannot be had without the funerall and the death of our present sorrowes What man distrest with hunger if hee sate upon some Barren and Rockie bank bounded with a deep River where nothing could be expected but Famine or the Fury of wild beasts and saw beyond that stream a most secure and pleasant Paradise stored with all kinds of bearing Trees whose yielding boughes were adorned and plenteously furnished with most fair and delicate fruites If it were told him that a little below there was a boate or a bridge to passe over would refuse that secure conveyance or be affeard to commit himself to the calm and perspicuous streames choosing rather to starve upon the brink then to passe over and be relieved O foolish men For Gold which is digged out of the Suburbs of Hell we trust our selves to the raging and unstable Seas guarded with a few planks and a little pitch where onely a Tree as Aratus faith is the partition betwixt death and us And after many rough disputes with violent perills and the fight â—f so many more wee perish in the unhappy acquisition of false happinesse the Sea either resisting or else punishing our covetousnesse But to passe into our Heavenly Country into the bosome and embraces of Divinity into a Realm where Fortune reigns not wee dare not so much as think of it Who after long banishment and a tedious pilgrimage being now come near to his native Country and the house of his Father where his Parents his brethren and friends expect him with longing would then turn back and choose to wander again when he might have joy when he might have rest God the Father expects us the blessed Jesus expects us the mild and mourning Dove doth long and grone for us The holy Virgin-mother the Angells our friends and the Saints our kindred are all ready to receive us It is through death that wee must passe unto them Why grieve we then yea why rejoyce wee not to have this passage opened But let us grant that death were not inevitable yea that it were in the power of man and that every one had a particular prerogative given him over destinie So that this greatest Necessity were the greatest freedome yea that man could not dye though he desired death Yet in this very state would hee be troubled with Fortune and Hope He would be a fool that would not venture to dye to enjoy true felicity That would choose rather to live alwaies in the changeable state of most unchangeable and lasting miseries then to put an end to them all by dying once It is madnesse to feare death which if it reigned not upon the Earth wee would both desire and pray for It was wisely adjudged by Zaleucus that death ought to be publickly proclaimed though men had been immortall Had death been arbitrary and at every mans pleasure I believe we had esteemed it as desireable as any other joy now because it is Imperial and above us let it not seem too much if wee grant it to be tollerable It was absurdly said by onâ— that death was a necessary Evill and ought therefore to be patiently born His Inference was good though from a bad Principle Death is rather a necessary good And if necessity makes Evils to be tolerable there is more reason it should make good so Death because it is good should be made much of and wee should rejoyce that it is necessary because that makes it certain How great a good is that by which it is necessary that we be not miserable Which frees the captive without ransome dismisseth the oppressed without the consent of the oppressour brings home the banished in spite of the banisher and healâ—s the sicke without the pain of Physick Which mends all that Fortune marred which is most just which repaires and makes even all the disorders and inequalities made by time and chance which is the blessed necessity that takes away necessary Evills He had erred lessâ— if he had mentioned a necessity of bearing life patiently whose more proper definition that sorry proverbe is for it casts us into necessary Evills against our will and is the cause that wee willfully meddle with Evills that are unnecessary It is a discreet method of nature that infuseth the Soules into the body in such a state that is not sensible of their captivity lest they should murmur at the decrees of the great Archiplast What wise man that were neare the terme of his appointed time if he were offered to have life renew'd would consent to be born again to be shut up in flesh
fed for nine months with excrementitious obscenities to bear all the ignominies of Nature all the abuses of Fortune to resume the ignorance of Infancie the feares of Childhood the dangers of youth the cares of manhood and the miseries of old age I am of â—eliefe that no man did ever live so happily as to be pleased with a repetition of past life These Evills which with our owne consent wee would not have reiterated wee are driven into without our consent They are necessarily inferred that they may be willingly borne to shew the necessity of Patience Wee are born on condition that wee must dye Death is the price or reward of life It is the Statute-law of mankind and that ought to be born as a publick good which were it not already enacted would be the spontaneous petition of all men Certainly if life were without the Jubile of death it were just to refuse it as a servitude which hath no year of release Let us now clearly prove that death is not Evill out of her assimilation and conformity to those things which are most excellently good None leade a better life then those that live so as if they were dead Rom. Câ—ap 6. ver 7. For he that is dead is freed from Sinne. Therefore that which is the exemplar of goodnesse cannot be Evill The onely true praise of the living is to assimilate death He is the most commendable liver whose life is dead to the World and he is the most honest that lives the least to it whose Soul listens not to the body but is at a constant distance from it as if they were dissolved or though it sojournes in it yet is not defiled by it but is separated from sensuality and united to Divinity What is the reason thinkest thou that the Divine Secrets are revealed to men most commonly in their sleep because that similitude of death is most pleasing to God Life is a wild and various madnesse disturbed with passions and distracted with objects Sleepe like death settles them all it is the minds Sabbath in which the Spirit freed from the Senses is well disposed and fitted for Divine intimations The Soul is then alive to it selfe while the body reigns not and the affections are ecclipsed in that short Interlunium of the temporall life Philosophie or humane Knowledge is nothing else but a Contemplation of death not to astonish or discourage men but first to informe and then to reform them for the fruit of Philosophy is Virtue and Virtue is nothing else but an imitation of death or the Art of dying well by beginning to dye while we are alive Virtue is a certain Primrose a prolusion or Assay of dying Therefore that by which man becomes immortall and eternall is the preface and the Inchâ—ation of death This is the main drift of Philosophy to make life comfortable by conforming it unto death and to make death immortality by regulating life Death is intollerable to him only that hath not mortified his desires while he yet lives but expects to swallow up death and all the powers of it at once that is to say in the hour of death We cut our meate and feed on it by bits lest we should be choaked by swallowing it whole so death if it be assayed and practised by degrees will be both pleasant in the tast and wholsome in the digestion if we mortifie one affection to day and another to morrow Hee that cannot carry a great burthen at once may carry it all by portions Philosophy acts the part of death upon the Stage of life it kills sensuality and makes death most easie to be born by teaching us to dye dayly What can be more grievous then death unto him who together with his own feeles the paine of a thousand other dying cupidities We faile not to bewaile the losse of one thing whither honour pleasure or a friend How much more when we loose all at a blow and loose eternal life in one short minute The Soule of the wise man frees her selfe from the body in an acceptable time she casts off the delectations of the flesh and the cares of this World while it is day-light that shee may enjoy her self and be acquainted with God before the night comes She finds by experience that her forces are more vigorous and her light more discerning when she is not sullied with Earthly negotiations and the grossâ— affections of the body she finds that covetousnesse love and feare permit her not to see the truth and that the affaires of the body are the Remora's of the Spirit and therefore she concludes that he must neglect the cryes of the flesh and be attentive onely to the voyce of God and upon these considerations shee shakes off that Bondage she deserts the familiarity and consultations of blood that she may advise with and discerne the most clear light of truth she casts off pleasures by which even Spirits are made subject to sense and pollution The truth is most pure and will not be manifested but to the pure and the undefiled Therefore all the scope and the end of Virtue is to separate the Soul from the body and to come as near death as possibly may be while wee are yet alive This is the cause that wise men do so much love and long for death at least they fear it not How can he feare death who by dying passeth into the life of the blessed Who hath already delivered himselfe from more feares and inconveniences then death can free him from Yea from those dangers which make death fearfull Who before his dying day hath disarmed and overcome death Shall he that all his life-time desired to be separated from the body repine at the performance and fullfilling of it It were most ridiculous if hasting towards home thou wouldst refuse the helpe of another to convey thee thither with more speed and be angry at thy arrival in that Port whither thou didst bend thy course since the first day thou didst set forth There is no man that seeking for a friend will not rejoyce when he hath found him No man will be angry if another perfects what he did begin but was not able to finish Nature by death perfects that which Virtue had begun in life and the endeavour dies not but is continued and thrives by a necessary transplantation While he yet lived he denyed himselfe the use of the body because it hindrâ—d the course of the Soul and the body dying he doth but persist in the same just denyall It is a greater pleasure to want then not to use what wee doe not want This Correlation of Death and Virtue I shall exhibite or lay out to your view by a discussion of those honours which each of them procures As Virtue by the Consideration of death ordereth and preserves her Majesty so by imitating death she obtaines the reverence and admiration of all What more reverend thing can wee labour for then that which
when it cannot go one step upon Earth and giving it the wings of a Dove to flye and be at rest before it can use its feet To these past arguments of the goodnesse of death I shall adde another Death in the old world before the manifestation of God in the flesh was the publick index or open signe of hidden divinity It is the gift of God who gives nothing but what is good The Divell playing the Ape and labouring to imitate the Inimitable Jehovah did by asserting death to be the greatest good mainly fortifie those abominable rites and honours conferred upon him by his blind worshipers When they petitioned him for the greatest blessing that the Gods could give to man he by the permission of the true God whom they had deserted would within three daies strangle them in their beds or use some other invisible meanes to set an end to their daies Thus he served Triphonius Agamedes and Argia for her three Sons This miserable mother requested of him that hee would give the best thing to her children that could be given to men her petition was granted and within a very short time they received that which she thought to be the worst namely death So great is the ods betwixt seeming to be and being really betwixt opinion and truth yea that death which we judge to be the worst I meane the immature is oftentimes the best What greater good had deckt great Pompey's Crown Then death if in his honours fully blown And mature glories he had dyed those piles Of huge successe lowd fame lofty stiles Built in his active youth long lazie life Saw quite demolished by ambitious strife He lived to weare the weake and melting snow Of lucklesse Age where garlands seldom grow But by repining fate torne from the head Which were them once are on another shed Neither could I ever grant that the death of Infants and Children though commonly bewail'd as unseasonable were the parents misfortunes but the courtesies rather and mercies of the almighty To omit Amphiaraus and other Ethnick instances I shall make use of a true and Christian History which in these later years was the great admiration of King Philips Court. Didacus Vergara a most noble hopefull â—outh adorned with all those vertues which â—eautifie a blooming life was famous in the mouths of all good men and as deare in their hearts But what was the reward thinkest thou of his virtuous life An immature and almost a sudden death So that it is not to be doubted but it was a divine favour Being to go into bed he spoke to his sister O what manner of night will this be unto me I beseech you deare sister furnish me with some candles and leave one to burn by me Abought midnight he suddenly called so that all the familie was awaked and got up to whom he told that he should dye that night and desired them to send presently for his Confessour They all imagined that he had been troubled with some dream especially his Father a most renowned Physitian when he felt his pulse to beate well and orderly But notwithstanding all this they omitted not to send for his Confessour who was Gasper Pedroza He as if touched with some Divine presension was at that dead time of the night awake and being come to the sorrowfull Father he told him that Didacus was expected in another World before day that the Virgin-Qâ—eene of Heaven had revealed so much to him and that hee would be gone as soon as the Sacraments could be administred unto him It fell out just so For those sacred solâ—mnities were no sooner ended but he was dissolved as if he had stayed onely for that spirituall refection to strengthen him in his Journey He left this dark and low World towards the first breakin gs of the day and ascending to eternity upon the wings of the morning He might have past from thence with lesser noise and in a shorter time but he expired more solemnly then so and yet without weary accessions and the Tyranny of sicknesse He stayed for the saving institutions of his redeemer the businesse that detain'd him so long was Heaven and not the tumults of a tyring and obstinate dissolution all this proves it to have been the hand of God and not an unfortunate sudden death the precise Actions of the deity must be attended with unusuall circumstances Whome God doth take care for and love He dies young here to live above There is room enough for life within the compasse of few years if they be not cast away Think not that to last long and to live long is the same thing every one that hath stayd long upon earth hath not lived long Some men find fault with death because no experiment can be made of it without an absolute dissolution they would dye twice to trye what kind of state it is that they may be fitly furnished against the second time when they must dye in earnest But this is madness and were it granted them the good they pretend would not be performed For he that will cast away one life without preparing for death wil not fear to hazard another desperate malefactors will take no warning by râ—prieves Besides what benefit would there be by dying twice seeing that of necessity they must live twice too and so be twice miserable if not twice impious It is strange that these men who fear death and adjudge it to be evill should desire to have it doubled and that which by their good will they would not tast once they will beg to chew and swallow downe twice whereas if death were an Evill it would be so much the lesser by comming but once The miseries of life are nothing so civill they are instant importunate and outragious they will reinforce themselves and set upon us twice or thrice yea a thousand times Death is more modest she wearies us not as long as wee are well When our disorders have turned the harmony of life into discord and noise then shee comes to cast those murmurers asleep and to give the Soul peace He is no troublesome guest that comes but once But it were a great happinesse thou wilt say if men did experimentally know what it is to dye Truely this Felicity is not wanting Death is a most admirable ingenious Excogitation Though we dye but once yet do not we dye at once We may make yea we do make many assaies or tryals of dying Death insinuates it selfe and seizeth upon us by peecemeals it gives us a tast of it self It is the Cronie or Consort of life So soon as we begin to be wâ—e begin to wast and vanish we cannot ascend to life without descending towards death Nay we begin to dye before we appeare to live the perfect shape of the Infant is the death of the Embryo childhood is the death of Infancie youth of Childhood Manhood of youth and old age of Manhood When we are arrived at this last
the death of a man legal or needfull There you shall hear this precept against unlawfull desires Resist lust as a most bitter enemy that useth to glory in the disgrace of those bodies he overcommeth There it will be told you of Covetousnesse That it is better not to wish for those things you want than to have all that you wish There you shall hear that he that is angry when he is provoked is never not angry but when not provoked There it will be told you of your Enemies Love them that hate you for all men love those that love them There you shall hear that he laies up his treasure safeliest who gives it to the poor for that cannot be lost which is lent to the Lord. There it will be told you that the fruite of holy marriage is chastity There you shall hear that the troubles of this World happen as well to the just as the unjust There it will be told you that it is a more dangerous sicknesse to have the mind infected with vices then the body with diseases There to shew you the way of peace and gentlenesse you shall hear that amongst impatient men their likenesse of manners is the cause of their discord There to keepe you from following the bad examples of others it will be told you That the wise man gains by the fool as well as by the prudent the one showes him what to imitate the other what to eschew There also you shall hear all these following precepts That the ignorance of many things is better then their Knowledge and that therefore the goodnesse or mercy of God is as great in his hidden will as in his revealed That you should give God thanks as well for adversity as for prosperity and confesse in prosperity that you have not deserved it That there is no such thing as Eare and for this let the Heathens examine their ownâ— Lawes which punish none but willfull and premeditating offenders There to keep you stable in faith it will be told you That he that will be faithfull must not be suspitious for we never suspect but what wee slowly believe There also you shall hear that Christians when they give any attention to the noyse and inticements of their passions fall headlong from Heaven unto Earth It will be also told you there that seeing the wicked do sometimes receive good things in this world and the just are afflicted by the unrighteous those that believe not the final Judgement of God after this life do as far as it lies in them make God unjust and far be this from your thoughts There it will be told you about your private affaires that what you would have hidden from men you should never do what from God ye should never think There you shall here this rebuke of deceivers It is lesser damage to be deceived then to deceive Lastly you shall hear this reproofe of self-conceit or a fond opinion of our owne worth flye vanity and so much the more the better thou art all other vices increase by vitiousnesse but vanity is oftentimes a bubble that swims upon the face of Virtue These few rules as a tast and invitation I have out of many more inserted here for your use But if you will now turn your Eyes towards the sacred Oracles and come your self to be a searcher of those Heavenly treasures I know not which will most ravish you the Casket or the Jewell the Language or the Matter For the Booke of God while it shines and glitters with glorious irradiations within doth after the manner of most pretious gems drive the beholders Eyes into a strong and restlesse admiration of its most rich and inscrutable brightnesse But let not the weaknesse of your Eyes make you shun this Divine light but warme your Soul at the beames of it and learne to feede your inward man with this mystical and healthfull foode I doubt not but by the powerful working of our mercifull God upon your heart I shall shortly find you an unfeyned lover of this true Philosophie and a resolute opposer of the false renouncing also all worldly oblectations and earnestly coveting the true and eternall For it is a point of great impiety and imprudence seeing God wrought so many marvellous things for the Salvation of man that he should do nothing for himself and seeing that in all his wonderfull works he had a most speciall reguard of our good we our selves should especially neglect it Now the right way to care for our Soules is to yeild our selves to the love and the service of God For true happinesse is obtained by contemning the false felicities of this World and by a wise abdication of all earthly dâ—lights that we may become the Chast and faithfull lovers of the Heavenly Wherefore henceforth let all your words and actions be done either to the glory of God or for Gods sake Get Innocence for your Companion and she is so faithfull that she will be also your defendresse It is a worthy enterprise to follow after Virtue and to perform something while we live for the example and the good of others nor is it to be doubted but the mind by a virtuous course of life will quickly free it selfe from those intanglements and deviations it hath been formerly accustomed to That great Physition to whose cure and care we offer our selves will daily strengthen and perfect our recovery And what estimation or value when in this state can you lay upon those glorious remunerations that will be laid up for you against the day of recompence You see that God even in this life hath mercifully distributed unto all without any difference his most pleasant and usefull light The pious and the impious are both allowed the same Sunne all the creatures obediently submit themselves to their service And the whole Earth with the fullnesse thereof is the indifferent possession of the just and unjust Seeing then that he hath given such excellent things unto the impious how much more glorious are those things which he reserves for the pious he that is so great in his free gifts how excellent will he be in his rewards He that is so Royal in his daily bounty and ordinary magnificence how transcendent will hee be in his remunerations and requitalls Ineffable and beyond all conception are those things which God hath prepared for those that love him And that they are so is most certain For it is altogether incomprehensible and passeth the understanding of his most chosen vessels to tell how great his reward shall be unto the just who hath given so much to the unthankfull and the unbelieving Take up your Eyes from the Earth and look about you my most dear Valerian spread forth your sailes and hasten from this stormy Sea of Secular negotiations into the calme and secure harbour of Christian Religion This is the onely Haven into which we all drive from the raging Surges of this malitious World This is our
with misery and immortality with rust and rottennesse Such another Divine rapture is that in his Poems Et res magna videtur Merc ari propriam de re pereuntâ— salutem Perpetuis mutare caduca c. And is the bargain thought too dear To give for Heaven our fraile subsistence here To change our mortall with immortall homes And purchase the bright Stars with darksome stones Behold my God a rate great as his breath On the sad crosse bought me with bitter death Did put on flesh and suffe'rd for our good For ours vile slaves the losse of his dear blood Wee see by these Manifesto's what account he made of this great deed so great that none now adaies thinke of doing it Go thy way sell whatsoever thou hast and give to the poor is a commandement as well as take up the Crosse and follow me This last cannot be done but by doing the first Well sell oftentimes but seldome give and happily that is the reason we sell so often He that keeps all to himselfe takes not the right way to thrive The Corn that lies in the Granarie will bring no harvest It is most commonly the foode of vermine and some creatures of the night and darknesse Charity is a relique of Paradise and pitty is a strong argument that we are all descended from one man He that carries this rare Jewell about him will every where meete with some kindred He is quickly acquainted with distressed persons and their first sight warmes his blood I could believe that the word stranger is a notion received from the posterity of Cain who killed Abel The Hebrewes in their own tribes called those of the farthest degree brothers and sure they erred lesse from the law of pure Nature then the rest of the Nations which were left to their owne lusts The afflictions of man are more moving then of any other Creature for he onely is a stranger here where all things else are at home But the losing of his innocency and his device of Tyranny have made him unpittied and forfeited a prerogative that would have prevailed more by submission then all his posterity shall do by opposition Not to give to one that lacks is a kind of murther Want and famine are destroyers as well as the sword and rage very frequently in private when they are not thought of in the Publick The blessed JESUS who came into the World to rectifie Nature and to take away the inveterate corruptions of man was not more in any of his precepts then in that which bids us Love one another This is the cement not onely of this World but of that other which is to come Blessed are the mercifull and give to him that asketh thee proceeded from the same lips of truth And in his description of the last judgement he grounds the sentence of condemnation pronounced against the wicked upon no other fact but because they did not cloath the naked feed the hungry and take in the stranger Love covers a multitude of sins and God loves the chearfull giver But this is not our whole duty though we give our bodies to be burnt and give all our goods unto the poor yet without holinesse we shall never see the face of God Darknesse cannot stand in the presence of light and flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdome of God The great difficulty then as our holy Bishop here saith is to become a living sacrifice and truly the next way to it is by an Evangelical disposing of these outward incumbrances this will open and prepare the way before us though it takes nothing from the length of it The Hawke proines and rouseth before she flyes but that brings her not to the mark Preparations and the distant flourishes of Array will not get the field but action and the pursuance of it His Estate in France being thus disposed of he retyred into Italy where having done the like to his Patrimonies there hee came to Millaine and was honourably received by holy Ambrose then Bishop of that Sea But these gay feathers of the World being thus blown off him by the breath of that Spirit which makes the dry tree to become green and the spices of the Garden to flow out all his kindred and former acquaintance became his deadly Enemies Flyes of estate follow Fortune and the Sun-shine friendship is a thing much talked off but seldome found I never knew above two that loved without selfe-ends That which passeth for love in this age is the meere counter to it It is policie in the cloathes of love or the hands of Esau with the tongue of Jacob. These smooth Cheats the World abounds with There is Clay enough for the potter but little dust whereof commeth Gold The best direction is Religion find a true Christian and thou hast found a true friend He that fears not God will not feare to do thee a mischiefe From Millaine he came to Rome where he was honourably entertained by all but his own kindred and Siricius the great Bishop It was the ill Fortune of this zealous Pope to be offended not onely with Paulinus but with that glorious Father Saint Hierome It was a perillous dissolutenesse of some Bishops in that Century to admit of Lay-men and unseason'd persons into the Ministry This rash and impious practice Siricius had by severall strict Sanctions or decrees condemned and forbidden and it is probable that the reason of his strange carriage towards Paulinus and Hierome was because he would not seem to connive at any persons that were suddenly ordained though never so deserving lest he should seeme to offend against his own edicts It is a sad truth that this pernicious rashnesse of Bishops fighting ex diametro with the Apostolical cautions hath oftentimes brought boars into the Vineyard and Wolves into the sheepfold which complying afterwards with all manner of Interests have torne out the bowels of their Mother Wee need no examples Wee have lived to see all this our selves Ignorance and obstinacie make Hereticks And ambition makes Schismaticks when they are once at this passe they are on the way toward Atheisme I do not say that Ecclesiastical polâ—ty is an inviolable or sure sense against Church-rents because there is a necessity that offences must come though wo to them by whom but rules of prevention are given and therefore they should not be slighted The Bride-groom adviseth his spouse to take these foxes while they are litle In a pleasant field halfe a mile distant from Nola lies the Sepulcher of the blessed Martyr Felix To this place which from his youth hee was ever devoted to did Paulinus now retire It was the custom of holy men in that age noâ— onely to live near the Tombs of the Martyrs but to provide also for their buriall in those places because they were sure that in the Resurrection and the terrours of the day of Judgement God would descend upon those places in the soft voyce that is to say
in his love and mercies Eusebius is his fourth Book and the sixth Chapter of the life of Constantine tells us how that great Emperour gave strict order for his buriall amongst the Tombes of the Apostles and then adds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Saint Chrisostome in in that homilie which hee writ to prove that Christ is God gives the same relation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Emperors of Constantinople saith he esteeme it for a great honour if they be buried not within the shrines of the Apostles but at the Gates of their Temple that they may be the door-keepers of those poor fishers So Marcellina descended from the consular Nobility of Rome refused to be buried amongst her Ancestors that she might sleepe at Millaine with her great Brother Saint Ambrose where shee lies under this Epitaph Marcellina tuos cum vita resolveret artus Sprevisti patriis c. Life Marcellina leaving thy faire frame Thou didst contemne those Tombes of costly fame Built by thy Roman Ancestours and lyest At Millaine where great Ambrose sleeps in Christ Hope the deads life and faith wâ—ich never faints Made thee rest here that thou may'st rise with Saints To this place therefore near Nola in Campania a Country lying within the Realm of Naples and called now by the Inhabitants Terra di Lavoro as to a certain Harbour and recesse from the clamours of their friends and the tâ—mptations of the World did Paulinus and Therasia convey themselves His affection to this holy Martyr was very great for frequenting Nola when he was yet a youth he would oftentimes steale privately to visit his Sepulcher and he loved the possessions which his Father had left him in those parts above any other because that under pretence of looking to his estate there he had the convenience of resorting to the Tombe of Felix where he took in his first love and in the seaven and twentieâ—h year of his age made a private vow to become a Servant oâ— Jesus Christ This Felix was by a descent a Syrian though born in Nola where his Father trafficking from the East into Italie had purchased a very fair estate which he divided afterward betwixt him and his Brother Hermias but Felix following Christ gave all to his brother The frequent miracles manifested at his Tombe made the place famous and resorted to from most parts of the world Saint Augustine upon a Controversie betwixt his Presbyter Boniface and another fellow that accused him when the truth of either side could not be certainly known sent them both from Hippo to Nola to have the matter decided upon Oatâ— before the Tombe of Felix and in his 137th Epistle hee sets down the reason why he sent them so farre His words are these Multis notissima est sanctitas lo ci ubi Felicis Nolensis corpus conditum est quò volui ut peragrent quia inde nobis facilius fideliusque scribi potest quicquid in eorum aliquo divinitus fuerit propalatum The holinesse saith he of that place where the body of Felix of Nola lies interred is famously knowne to many I have therefore sent them thither because that from thence I shall be more easily and truly informed about any thing that shall be miraculously discovered concerning either of them Paulinus had not lived very long in this place but it pleas'd God to visit him with a very sharpe and tedious sicknesse Hee had now upon Earth no Comforter but Therasia His Estate was gone and his contempt of that made the World contemne him In this solitude and poverty he that tries the reines and the heart begins to take notice of this his new servant and the first favour he conferred upon him was a disease Good Angels doe not appeare without the Ecstasie and passion of the Seere without afflictions and trialls God will not be familiar with us Fruit-trees if they be not pruned will first leave to beare and afterwards they will dye Nature without she be drest by the hand that made her will finally perish He that is not favour'd with visitations is in Saint Pauls phrase a bastard and no Son of the Superiour Jerusalem Paulinus had put from him all occasions of worldly sorrowes but he wanted matter for Heavenly Joyes Without this disease hee had not known so soone how acceptable his first Services were unto his Master This sicknesse was a pure stratagem of love God visited him with it for this very purpose that he himselfe might be his Cordial Man and the Eagle see best in the day-time they see by the light of this World but the night-Raven is a bird of Mysterie and sees in the darke by a light of her own Paulinus hought now like the servant of Elisha that hee had not a friend in all the World to be of his side but God removes the mist from his Eyes and shewed him a glorious Army of Saints and Confessours who during the time of his sicknesse did so throng and fill up his Cottage and the fields about it that neither his Palace in Rome nor his house in Burdeaux could ever boast of such a number These Comforters he hath recorded with his own pen in his first Epistle to Severus viderant pueri tui c. Your men saith he that were here with me have seen and can tell you with what constant diligence all the Bishops and my brethren the Clergy with the common people my neighbours did minister unto me all the time of my sicknesse Unto you who are unto me as my own soul I take leave to boast and glory in this mercy of the Lord whose goodnesse it is that I am so plentifully comforted There is not one Bishop in all Campania that did not come personally to visit me and those whom either a farther distance or their own infirmities would not permit to travel fai'd not to visit me by their Presbyters letters The Bishops of Africk allso with the beginning of the spring sent their particular letters and messengers to comfort me Thus he that forsakes houses and brethren and lands to follow Christ shall receive an hundred fold even in this World and in the world to come life everlasting As touching the letters or Embassage rather of the African Bishops to Paulinus it happened on this manner Alypius the Bishop of Tagasta in Africk had at Millain as I intimated before taken speciall notice of Paulinus And the rumour of his Conversion as the actions of eminent and noble personages passe quickly into the most distant regions had filled with joy not onely the Churches of Africk but the most remote corners of Christianity even the very wildernesse and the scattered Isles which in those daies were more frequented by Christians then populous Continents and splendid Cities Alypius upon this because he would not loose so fair an opportunity to ground his acquaintanec dispatcheth a letter from Tagasta to Paulinus to gratulate his conversion to the Faith encouraging him withall to
hold fast his Crown and for a token sent him five of Saint Augustines bookes against the Maâ—ichaeans which in that age when the Invention of the Presse was not so much as thought of was a rich present Paulinus was so taken with the reading of these Volumes that he conceived himself not onely engaged to Alypius but to Augustine also Whereupon he sent his servant from Nola with letters full of modestie and sweetnesse to them both and with particular commendations to other eminent lights of the Church then shining in Africk These letters received by Augustine and Alypius and communicated by them to the other Bishops and the African Clergy were presently Coppied out by all and nothing now was more desired by them then a sight of this great Senatour who was turned a poor Priest and a fool as Saint Paul saith for Christ his sake and the off-scouring of the World But above all the Soules of holy Augustine and Paulinus like Jonathan and David or Jacob and Joseph were knit together and the life of the one was bound up in the life of the other The perfect love and union of these two can by none be more faithfully or more elegantly describâ—d â—hen it is already by Saint Augustine himself I shall therefore insert his own words the words of that tongue of truth and Charity O bone vir O bone frater lei dico ut toleret quia adhuc lates oculos meos latebas animaÌ„ meaÌ„ vix obtemperat immo non obtemperat Quomodo ergo non doleaÌ„ quod nonduÌ„ faciem tuaÌ„ novi hoc est domuÌ„ animae tuae quam sicut meaÌ„ novi legi enim literas tuas fluentes lac mel praeferentes simplicitateÌ„ cordis in qua quaeris dominuÌ„ sentiens de illo in bonitate afferens ei claritateÌ„ honorem Legerunt fratres gaudent infatigabiliter ineffabiliter tam uberibus tam excellentibus donis dei bonis tuis Quotquot eas legerunt rapiunt quia rapiuntur cuÌ„ legunt Quà m suavis odor Christi quà m fragrat ex eis dici non potest illae literae cum te offerunt ut videaris quantuÌ„ nos excitent ut quaeraris nam et perspicabileÌ„ faciunt desiderabilem Quantò enim praesentiam tuam nobis quodammodò exhibent tantò absentiam nos ferre non sinunt Amant te omnes in eis amari abs te cupiunt Laudatur benedicitur deus cujus gratiâ tu talis es Ibi excitatur Christus ut ventos Maria tibi plasare tendenti ad stabilitatem suam dignetur Ibi conjux excitatur non dux ad mollitiem viro suo sed ad fortitudinem redux in ossa viri sui quam intuam unitatem redactam in spiritualibus tibi taus firmioribus quantò castioribus nexibus copulatam officijs vestrae sanctitati debitis ir te uno ore salutamus Ibi cedri Libani a terram depositae in arcae fabricam compagine charitatis erectae mundi hujus fluctus imputribilitèr secant Ibi gloria ut acquiratur contemnitur mundus ut obtineatur relinquitur Ibi parvuli siâ—e etiam grandiusculi filij Babylonis eliduntur ad petram vitia scilicet confusionis superbiaeque secularis Haec atque hujusmodi suavissima sacratissima spectacula literae tuâ— praebent legentibus literae fidei non fictae literae spei bonae literae purae charitatis Quomodo nobis anhelant sitim tuam desiderium defectumque animae tuae in atria domini Quid amoris sanctissiâ—i spirant Quantam opulentiam sinceri cordis exaestuant Quas agunt gratias deo Quas impetrant â deo blandiores sunt an ardentiores luminosiores an faecundiores Quid enim est quòd it a nos mulcent ita accendunt it a compluunt it a screnae sunt Quid est quaeso te aut quid tibi pro eis rependam nisi quia totus sum tuus in eo câ— us tot us es tu si parùm est plus certê non hâ—beo O good man O good brother you lay hidden from my Soul and I spoke to my Spirit that it should patiently bear it because you are also hidden from my Eyes but it scarse obeyes yea it refuseth to obey How then shall I not grieve because I have not as yet knowne your face the habitation of your Soul which I am as well acquainted with as my owne For I have read your letters flowing with milk and honey manifesting the simplicity of your heart in which you seek the Lord thinking rightly of him and bringing him glory and honor Your brethren here have read them and rejoyce with an unwearied and unspeakable Joy for the bountifull and excellent gifts of God in you which are your riches As many as have read them snatch them from me because when they read them they are ravished with them How sweet an Odour of Christ and how fragrant proceeds from them It cannot be exprest how much those letters while they offer you to be seen of us excite us to seek for you They make you both discerned and desired For the more they represent you unto us wee are the more impatient of your absence All men love you in them desire to be beloved of you God is blessed and praised by all through whose grace you are such There do we find that Christ is awaked by you and vouchsafeth tâ— rebuke the winds and the Seas that you may find them calme in your Course towards him There is your dear wife stirred up not to be your leader to softnesse and pleasures but to Christian fortitude becomming Masculine again and restored into the bones of her Husband whom we all with one voice salute and admire being now united unto you serving you in spiritual things wherein you are coupled with mutuall embraces which the more chast they be are by so much the more firm There do we see two Cedars of Libanus fell'd to the Earth which joyned tâ—gether by love make up one Arke that cuts through the Waves of this World without detriment or pâ—trefaction There glory that it may be acquired is contemned and the World that it may be obtained is forsaken There the Children of Babylon whither litle ones or of Maturer age I mean the Evils of Confusion and secular pride are dashed against the stones Such sacred and delightfull spectacles do your letters present unto us O those letters of yours Those letters of an unfained faith those letters of holy hope those letters of pure Charity How do they sigh and gaspe with your pious thirst your holy longings and the Ecstatical faintings of your Soul for the Courts of the Lord What a most sacred love do they breath with what treasures of a sincere heart do they abound How thankfull to God How earnest for more grace How mild How zealous How full of light How full of fruite Whence is it that they do so please us and