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
at the pleasure of his enemies which was the more tenderly resented as I may say by our blessed Lord because his enemies cast it in his teeth saying He trusted in God let him deliver him if he will have him But for all this his Father would not then free him or afford him any comfort which our Saviour most lovingly complained of when he said My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Even a cup of water failed him to quench his scorching thirst so as the whole manner of his passion was the most grievous and opprobrious that could be imagned Lastly the Time of his Passion made it much more grievous It was the Eve of the Passover when the whole Nation was assembled when there was the greatest concourse of people to behold him It was at a time when he was known to all by the fame of his great works and miracles It was in the flower of his age and O what pity was it to behold so flourishing so beautiful so excellently composed a body reduced by the grievousness of his torments to such an exigent that as the Scripture sayes his tongue stuck to the pallat of his mouth so fallen in flesh that all his bones might be numbred the whole structure of his body so discomposed that he became as Melted wax or Spilt water resolved into the dust of death drie as a piece of an earthen pot insomuch as he seemed a Worm and not a Man the Scorn of the people and Shame of humane nature It is also worthy our admiration that in that short process of the Passion of Christ he suffered so many griefs and pains in so many kinds and with such circumstances to aggravate them as no man in the whole success of time since hath suffered any sort of calamity or adversity which our Redeemer did not then suffer in a more bitter manner In all circumstances were the pains of Christ most grievous because in all circumstances the offences of men were most hainous It was convenient that he who came to do us all good should suffer so much evil that he who had no sin of his own should undergoe the punishment due unto the sins of others and that he who was infinitely good should suffer the evil of so much grief and torment to the end we might be instructed that those are not evils which the world fears but those which sin brings along with it and that the goods of the world are so far from being real goods that they are rather to be esteemed as evils since the Redeemer of the world deprived himself of the goods and burthened himself with the evils to the end that we imitating in our lives his most precious death might despise all temporal goods which are so short and false that even the evils of the world are more true and real goods than they Let us then be ashamed seeing Christ in so much sorrow to seek after pleasures Let us have at least as great respect unto our Redeemer as Ethay the Gethite had to David who when the holy King fled from his Son Absolon and perswaded him not to follow him in that dangerous condition made him this answer The Lord live and my Lord the King live in what place soever thou shalt be either dead or alive there also shall thy servant be If this was spoken by a Stranger what ought to be the loyalty of a natural Subject Let us bear that faith unto our Saviour which Vrias did to Joab his General when he said The Ark of Gad and Judah and Israel lodge in Tents and my Lord Joab and the Servants of my Lord remain upon the earth and shall I enter into my house and eat and drink and sleep with my Wife by thy health and the health of thy Soul O King I will do no such thing If Christ remain upon the Cross and in sorrow how comest thou to seek for ease If Christ be poor why doest thou abound If Christ suffer why doest thou pamper thy flesh If Christ humble himself why doest thou swell in pride If Christ be in afflictions why art thou in delights Remember what he taught thee from the Cross and esteem onely that which he so much valued as to deprive himself of the transitory goods of this life Consider the afflictions and penance which the most innocent Jesus took upon him for thy sins that thou mayest undergoe some for thy self When the Jews were freed from the captivity of Babylon Esdras knowing the great sins they had fallen unto by their conversation with the Gentils out of a sense and feeling of their transgressions rent his garments and tore the hair off his head and beard afflicted himself and abstained from food praying unto the Lord and weeping for the sins of the people which resentment and penance of his for the sins of others so mored the Jews that they began to weep and do penance themselves for their own sins and that with so great compunction that they trembled for sorrow and publickly confest their offences Why are not Christians then moved with sorrow and repentance when they behold not an Esdras but the Son of God so overcharged with grief and sorrow for the sins of the world that he distilled drops of blood from the pores of his blessed body and rent his garments not of wooll but of his sacred humanity which he willingly offered to be torn with scourges thorns and nails suffered himself to be pluckt by the hair of the head and beard and his sacred face to be buffetted and spit upon would not taste eat or drink any thing but gall and vinegar weeping from the Cross for the sins committed by us wretches Let us then weep afflict our selves and do penance for our own sins since we see our innocent Saviour did it for the sins of others that imitating him in submitting our selves to those temporal afflictions we may be partakers of his eternal glory § 3. Those seaven Circumstances which so much aggravate the pains and torments of our Saviour Jesus Christ in his passion ought to pierce our very hearts and souls with grief and sorrow But if they should not prevail with us to despise the world and love him onely who so infinitely loved us yet there are other Circumstances which with new obligations will not onely move but force us if we be not more hard than stones to love and die for him Whom would not the sweet manner of his passion move seeing the Son of God suffer with so much love and patience without complaint of any thing loving us with that fervour that what he did seemed little unto him ready if it had been necessary to suffer as much more for us yea such was his burning charity towards Mandkind that if there had been no other way left for our Redemption he would not have refused to continue in those bitter torments till the day of Judgement The affection of Jesus Christ what gratitude doth
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
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
as well as Subject owe to the sin of our first Parents May you then being translated hence to the embraces of your Creator experimentally finde the true difference between things temporal and eternal in the blisful vision and fruition of our great All our all-mighty all-lovely all-glorious God who is all wonders at one sight all joyes and comforts in their sourse all blessings in their center the end of all labours the reward of all services the desire of all hearts and the accomplishment of all hopes and wishes May he then be to your Majesty all this which is here briefly expressed and infinitely more which is beyond expression And may he secure all these blessings to you for ever and crown them with his glorious Attribute of Eternity This is the no less hearty then dutiful prayer of MADAM Your Majesties Most humbly devoted In Christ Jesus J. W. A Summary of the Chapters in this Book LIB I. Cap. 1. OVr Ignorance of what are the true goods and not onely of things Eternal but Temporal pa. 1. Cap. 2. How efficacious is the Consideration of Eternity for the change of our lives p. 6. Cap. 3. The memory of Eternity is of it self more efficacious than that of Death p. 12. Cap. 4. The estate of men in this life and the miserable forgetfulness which they have of Eternity p. 18. Cap. 5. What is Eternity according to St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. Dionysius p. 25. Cap. 6. What Eternity is according to Boetius and Plotinus p. 29. Cap. 7. Wherein is declared what Eternity is according to St. Bernard p. 33. Cap. 8. What it is in Eternity to have no end p. 41. Cap. 9. How Eternity is without change p. 52. Cap. 10. How Eternity is without comparison p. 60. Cap. 11. What is Time according to Aristotle and other Philosophers and the little consistence of life p. 68. Cap. 12. How short life is for which respect all things temporal are to be despised p. 74. Cap. 13. What is Time according to St. Augustine p. 82. Cap. 14. Time it the occasion of Eternity and how a Christian ought to benefit himself by it p. 89. Cap. 15. What is Time according to Plato and Plotinus and how deceitful is all that which is temporal p. 98. LIB II. Cap. 1. Of the End of Temporal Life p. 104. Cap. 2. Remarkable Conditions of the end of Temporal Life p. 121. Cap. 3. Of that moment which is the Medium betwixt Time and Eternity which being the end of Life is therefore most terrible p. 140. Cap. 4. Wherefore the End of Life is most terrible p. 147. Cap. 5. How God even in this Life passes a most rigorous Judgement p. 174. Cap. 6. Of the End of all Time p. 181. Cap. 7. How the Elements and the Heavens are to change at the end of Time p. 185. Cap. 8. How the World ought to conclude with so dreadful an End in which a general Judgement is to pass upon all that is in it p. 205. Cap. 9. Of the last day of Time p. 213. LIB III. Cap. 1. The mutability of things temporal makes them worthy of contempt p. 228. Cap. 2. How great and desperate soever our Temporal evils are yet hope may make them tolerable p. 238. Cap. 3. We ought to consider what we may come to be p. 243. Cap. 4. The Change of humane things shews clearly their vanity and how worthy they are to be contemned p. 253. Cap. 5. The baseness and disorder of Temporal things and how great a Monster men have made the World p. 261. Cap. 6. The Littleness of things Temporal p. 269. Cap. 7. How miserable a thing is this Temporal Life p. 285. Cap. 8. How little is Man whilest he is Temporal p. 309. Cap. 9. How deceitful are all things Temporal p. 319. Cap. 10. The dangers and prejudices of things Temporal p. 326. LIB IV. Cap. 1. Of the Greatness of things Eternal p. 337. Cap. 2. The Greatness of the Eternal honour of the Just p. 347. Cap. 3. The Riches of the Eternal Kingdom of Heaven p. 359. Cap. 4. The Greatness of Eternal Pleasures p. 368. Cap. 5. How happy is the Eternal Life of the Just p. 378. Cap. 6. The Excellency and Perfection of the Bodies of the Saints in the Life Eternal p. 389. Cap. 7. How we are to seek after Heaven and to preferr it before all the goods of the Earth p. 399. Cap. 8. Of Evils Eternal and especially of the great Poverty Dishonour and Ignominy of the Damned p. 411. Cap. 9. The Punishment of the Damned from the horribleness of the place into which they are banished from Heaven and made Prisoners in Hell p. 422. Cap. 10. Of the Slavery Chastisement and Pains Eternal p. 429. Cap. 11. Of Eternal Death and Punishment of Talion in the Damned p. 450. Cap. 12. The Fruit which may be drawn from the consideration of Eternal evils p. 459. Cap. 13. The infinite guilt of Mortal Sin by which we lose the felicity of Heaven and fall into eternal evils p. 467. LIB V. Cap. 1. Notable difference betwixt the Temporal and Eternal the one being the End and the other the Means Wherein also is treated of the End for which Man was created p. 487. Cap. 2. By the knowledge of our selves may be known the use of things Temporal and the little esteem we are to make of them p. 506. Cap. 3. The value of goods Eternal is made apparent unto us by the Incarnation of the Son of God p. 515. Cap. 4. The baseness of Temporal goods may likewise appear by the Passion and Death of Christ Jesus p. 524. Cap. 5. 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 p. 540. Cap. 6. Whether Temporal things are to be demanded of God And that we onely ought to aym in our prayers at goods Eternal p. 553. Cap. 7. How happy are those who renounce Temporal goods for the securing of the Eternal p. 561. Cap. 8. Many who have despised and renounced all that is Temporal p. 569. Cap. 9. The Love which we owe unto God ought so to fill our souls that it leave no place or power to love the Temporal p. 581. Faults escaped in the Print P. 8. L. 25. more R. of more P. 46. L. 28. resting R. rosting P. 65. L. 20. knowest R. knewest p. 139. L. 23. are die R. are to die P. 198. L. 27. Borosus R. Berosus P. 200. L. 29. hard R. hardness P. 232. L. 24. Persians R. Assyrians P. 232. L. 26. Assyrians R. Persians P. 338. L. 10. intention R. intension P. 416. L. 35. the depriving R. in the depriving P. 555. L. 38. know R. knew What else may be faulty the Pen may mend Moreover P. 386. L. 35. after those words any thing to maintain it you may add if you please These representations are to be understood
perish not for the paths of this life are full of dangers And with reason did Isidorus Clarius compare it to a narrow Bridge Isid Clar. juxt S. Greg. scarce broad enough to receive our feet under which was a Lake of black and filthy water full of serpents and of ugly and poisonous creatures which onely sustained themselves by feeding on those unfortunate people who fell from the Bridge on either side were pleasant Gardens Meadows Fountains and beautiful Buildings But as it were extream madness in him who was to pass so dangerous a Bridge to entertain himself with gazing upon those Gardens and Buildings without taking care where he set his foot so is it as great a fully in him who is to pass this transitory life to apply himself to pleasures and delights without taking care of his wayes or works To this Cesarius Arelatensis adds That the greatest danger of of this Bridge consisted towards the end where it was narrowest and this is the most streight passage of Death Let us therefore if we intend to gain Heaven look how we place our feet in this life least we misplace them in death and perish in that Eternity wherein our life is to conclude O Eternity Eternity how few there are that provide for thee O Eternity peril of perils and if we miss the mark whereat we ought to aim above all dangers whence comes it that we prepare not for thee whence comes it that we fear thee not which art to endure as long as God is God this present life is but to last a very little time our forces will fail us our senses wax dull our riches leave us the commodities of the world fly from us the want of breath make an end of us and the world at last call us out of it what then will become of us we are to be sent into a strange Countrey for a long time why do we not forecast what to do when we come thither But that we may the better see this our condition and so learn to be more cautious I will relate another Parable of the same St. John Damascen In vita Josaph There was saith he a City very great and populous whereof the Inhabitants had a Custom to elect for their King a stranger who had no knowledge of that Kingdom and Common-wealth This King for a year they suffered to do what he list but that being ended and he most secure without fear or apprehension of any thing amiss thinking he should raign as long as live they suddainly came upon him despoiled him of his royal apparel dragging him naked through the streets and banishing him into an Island far off where he came to suffer extream poverty not having wherewith to feed or cloth himself his fortune without thinking on it wholly changing into the contrary his riches into poverty his joy into sadness his dainties into hunger and his royal purple into nakedness But once it happened that he whom they elected was a prudent and a subtil man and having understood from one of his Counsellors this evil and wicked Custom of the Citizens and their notable inconstancy grew not proud and haughty with the Dignity of the Kingdom which they had conferred upon him but became careful in providing for himself that when he should be deposed and banished into that Island which he every moment expected he might not as his Predecessours perish with poverty and hunger The course he took was during his Reign to transport secretly into that Island all the Treasures of the City which were very great The year being ended the Citizens according to their Custome with his Predecessours came in an uproar to depose him of his Office and Royalty and to send him in exile into the Island whither he went without trouble having before-hand provided wherewith he might live in honour and plenty whilst the preceding Kings perish'd with want and penury This is that which passes in this world and the course which a wise man ought to take That City signifies this world foolish vain and most inconstant wherein when we think to reign we are suddenly despoiled of all we have and sent naked into our Graves when we least look for it and are most busie in enjoying and entertaining our selves with the fading and transitory pleasures of this life as if we were immortal without so much as thinking on Eternity whither we are in a short time to be banisht A Region far off and far removed from our thoughts whither we are to go naked and forsaken of all where we are to perish with an eternal death and shall only live to be tormented into a Land of the dead obscure and dark where no light enters but everlasting horrour and eternal sorrow inhabits He is therefore wise who foreseeing that he is to be despoiled of all he hath in this world provides for the next making such use of time in this life that he may finde the profit of it in Eternity and with the holy works of pennance charity and alms transports his Treasures into that Region where he is to dwell for ever Let us therefore think upon the Eternal and for it despise the Temporal and we shall gain both the one and the other The consideration of Eternity St. Gregory understood to be figured by the Store-house well furnished with precious wine into which the Spouse saith that the Bridegroom brought her and in her ordained Charity because saith he he who shall with a profound attention consider in his mind Eternity may glory in himself saying he hath ordained in me charity by which thought he shall better preserve the order of love loving himself the less and God and all things for God the more he shall not make use of the temporal things of this life not even of those which are most necessary but in order to the Eternal CAP. V. What is Eternity according to St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. Dionysius LEt us therefore begin to declare something of what is inexplicable and to frame some kind of conception of what is incomprehensible whereby Christians knowing or to speak more properly being less ignorant of what is Eternity they may have a horrour either to commit a sin or to omit an act of vertue trembling in themselves that for matters of so small value as are those of the Earth they are to lose things so great and precious as are those of Heaven Agrippina perceiving the great lavishness of her Son who poured out gold and silver as if it had been water desirous to reform his prodigality upon a time when the Emperour had commanded about a quarter of a Million to be bestowed upon some Minion of his caused that Money and as much more to be spread upon a Table and placed where he was to pass to the end that seeing with his own eyes the mighty mass of Treasure which he so wastfully mispent he might after with more discretion moderate his vast expences
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
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
this should be done for man so vile a creature made of a little earth and of so small importance to God This was a work to be reserved for God himself if his own divinity life or salvation if it were possible should come in question let it be lawful to speak in this manner to express in some sort that which is inexplicable and to set forth this ineffable mystery and the incomprehenssible goodness of God But to do this for the life of a Traytor for the salvation of a Faith-breaker to advance an Enemy who could once hope or dare to imagin it If man for the service of God had as a faithfull servant hazarded his person and run himself into that miserable and sad condition it might have been presumed that God out of his goodness and acknowledgment would have stretched his power for his freedom but that man having rob'd God of his honour contemned him and made himself equal unto him and that God should yet after all this humble himself for him debase himself so low as to be made man and that for his Enemy who could think it But such is the goodness of God that he overcame our hopes with his benefits and did that for us which would have onely sufficed for himself and for himself he could have done no more O most stupendious love of God! O most immense charitie of our Creator who so much loved man that he stuck not to do what he could for him O ineffable goodness which would discharge that debt which his enemy owed O divine nobleness that would so much to his own cost do good to man from whom he had received so much evil To redeem man though it had cost him nothing had been much but at so great a rate who could imagin it But the thoughts of God are farr different from those of men §. 2. Let us now look upon the Greatness of this work great after divers manners great by the humbling of God so much below himself great in it self so great as the omnipotent power of God could work no greater Here the divine Attributes were drawn dry For as St. Austin sayes neither God could do a greater work nor knew how to determin it better there was found the bottom of the whole omnipotency of God for a greater work then this was neither possible nor imaginable For as nothing greater then God is possible so no work can possibly be greater then that whereby man is made God See then what thou owest him for this excess of favour that being his Enemy he did all for thee that his omnipotency could that his wisdome knew or his divine goodness and love could will All his Attributes thy Creator employed for thy good imploy thou all thy powers in his service God did all he could for thee do thou all thou canst for him He wrought the work of thy redemtion with all his forces and omnipotency do thou then with all thy power and forces observe his divine will and pleasure loving and serving him in all things Seest thou not here his infinite love and goodness made apparent and laid down before thine eyes doest thou yet doubt to love him with all thy powers and faculties who loved thee with all his omnipotency See what a love was this when he did that for thee being his enemy greater than which he could not do for his friend nor for himself if his own glory were at stake Seest thou not clearly his infinite goodness that overcame so infinite a malice man not being able to do a work against God of so stupendious wickedness but God would do a work for man of a more stupendious goodness not suffering his divine goodness to be overcome by humane malice God saw that man did a work so profoundly evil that there could not possible be a worse for nothing can be so bad as mortal sin He therefore determined to do a work so infinitely good that in goodness it was impossible to be a better and this for accursed Thee what sayest thou to it What sayest thou to such an overflowing bounty To such an excess of love Hear what the Apostle sayes If thy Enemy be a hungred Ad Roman 11. feed him if he be thirsty give him to drinks so shalt thou heap coales of fire up in his head Be mt overcome with evil but overcome evil with good This did thy Creator fully performe with thee although his enemy Yield thy self then vanquished and blush that thou lovest him not better then the Angels Thy estate was not onely necessitated by hunger and thirst but thou wast plunged into eternal miserie and want of all things that were good deprived of glory and eternal happiness If then to bestow a bit of bread or a Cup of water upon a necessitated enimie be sufficient to call colour into his face and are as coals to enflame him in love and charitie What is it for God to have communicated his Divinity unto man and to have given his life for him when he was his Enemy How comes not this to make us blush for shame and set us afire in his divine love These benefits are not to be coals but flames which ought to kindle in us the fire of true love and charitie Give thy self then for overcome and love that divine goodness which for thee being the worst of all his Creatures did the best work of his omnipotency O nobleness of God Almighty O divine sense of honour that I may so speak Man had overcome all works good or bad in malice but such was the immense goodness of God that he would not suffer man to do a work so excessive in evil but he would do a work for the salvation of traitorous and false man more excessive in good Wherefore O Lord did'st thou not this when the Angels sinned who were better then man What goodness is this that thou forbearest so fowl a sinner Is it perhaps that thy work might appear the greater Wouldest thou expect until man had first set up his rest in impudence and malice that thou mightest then set up thy rest in mercy and goodness Who sees not here O Lord the infinitness of thy love and the immenseness of thy bounty After all manners this excellent work proclaims thy excess of bounty because it is after all manners infinitly good and opens as many parts to the understanding of our souls to adore and admire thee For this work is not onely infinitely good in substance but in each particular circumstance In it self it is infinitly good For no work can be better than that which makes man so good as it makes him God It is good because by it the Divinity is communicated unto a creature and which is more unto the lowest and most vile of those who are capable of reason For as it is the propertie of what is good to be comunicative so here we see the infinite goodness of God who wholly and all what
1. Tertullian said The greatness of some goods were intolerable the which according to the Prophet Isaias is verified in this Divine good and benefit which we were not able to support Wherefore it is called in holy Scripture The good or the good thing of God because it is a good and a benefit which more clearly than the Sun discovers the infinite and ineffable goodness of God to the astonishment and amazement of a humane heart and therefore the Prophet Oseas sayes Osee 3. They shall be astonished at the Lord and at his Good because his Divine benefit amazes and astonishes the Soul of man to see how good the Lord is and how great the good which he communicates unto us All which tends to no other end than to make us despise the goods of the Earth and to esteem onely those of Heaven which we attain unto by this Divine mysterie For this therefore did Christ our Redeemer institute this most blessed Sacrament that by it we might withdraw our hearts from things temporal and settle our affections upon those which are eternal for which it is most particularly efficacious as those who worthily receive it have full experience §. 3. Wherefore let that Soul who goes to communicate consider Who it is that enters into him and Who he is himself who entertains so great a Guest Let him call to mind with what reverence the blessed Virgin received the Eternal Word when he entred into her holy Womb and let him know it is the same Word which a Christian receives into his entrails in this Divine Sacrament Let him therefore endeavour to approach this holy Table with all reverence love and gratitude which ought if possible to be greater than that of the blessed Mother For then the obligation of Mankind was not so great as now it is For neither she nor we were then indebted unto him for his dying upon the Cross Let him consider that he receives the same Christ who sits at the right hand of God the Father That it is he who is the supreme Lord of Heaven and Earth He whom the Angels adore He who created and redeemed us and is to judge the living and the dead He who is of infinite wisdom power beauty and goodness If a Soul should behold him as when St. Paul beheld him and was struck blind with his light and splendour how would he fear and reverence him Let him know that he is not now less glorious in the Host and that he is to approach him with as much reverence as if he saw him in his Throne of glory With much reason did St. Teresa of Jesus say unto a devout Soul unto whom she appeared after death That we upon earth ought to behave our selves unto the blessed Sacrament as the blessed in Heaven do towards the Divine Essence loving and adoring it with all our power and forces Consider also that he who comes in person to thee is that self same Lord that required so much reverence that he struck Oza dead because he did but touch with his hand the Ark of his Testament and slew 50000 Bethshamits for their looking on it And thou not onely seest and touchest but receivest him into thy very bowells See then with what reverence thou oughtest to approach him The Angels and Seraphins tremble before his greatness and the Just are afraid Do thou then tremble fear and adore him S. John standing but near unto an Angel remained without force astonisht at the greatness of his Beauty and Majesty and thou art not to receive an Angel but the Lord of Angels into thy entrails It adds much to the endearment of this great benefit of our Saviour that it is not onely great by the greatness of that which is bestowed but by the meaneness of him who receives it For what art thou but a most vile creature composed of clay and dirt full of misery ignorance weakness and malice If the Centurion held himself unworthy to receive Christ under his roof and St. Peter when our Saviour was in this mortal life deemed himself not worthy to be in his presence saying Depart from me O Lord for I am a sinful man and St. John Baptist thought himself not worthy to unloose the latchet of his shoe How much more oughtest thou to judge thy self unworthy to receive him into thy bowels being now in his glory seated at the right hand of God the Father The Angels in heaven are not pure in his sight What purity shouldest thou have to entertain him in thy breast If a mighty King should visit a poor Beggar in his Cottage what honour what respects would it conferre upon him Behold God who is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords comes to visit thee not in thy house but within thy self Seaven years did Salomon spend in building a Temple wherein to place the Ark of the Testament Why doest thou not spend some time in making thy self a Temple of God himself Noah was a hundred years in preparing a Vessel wherein to save those who were to escape the Deluge Why doest thou not spare some dayes or hours to make thy self a Sacristy for the Saviour of the World Behold thy own unworthiness and what thou goest a-about Moyses when he was to make an Ark for the Tables of the Law not onely made choice of precious wood but covered it all with gold Thou miserable and vile Worm why doest thou not prepare and adorn thy self to receive the Lord of the Law Consider also what is the end for which thy Saviour comes unto thee It is by communicating his grace to make thee partaker of his Divinity He comes to cure thy sores and infirmities he comes to give remedy to thy necessities he comes to unite himself unto thee he comes to Deifie thee Behold then the infinity of his Divine goodness who thus melts himself in communication with his Creatures Behold what is here given thee and for what it is given thee God gives himself unto thee that thou mayest be all divine and nothing left in thee of earth In other benefits God bestows his particular gifts upon thee but here he gives thee himself that thou mightest also give thy self unto him and be wholly his If from the Incarnation of the Son of God we gather the great love he bore unto mankind passing for his sake from that height of greatness unto that depth of humiliation as to inclose himself in the Womb of a Virgin Behold how in this he loves thee since to sustain thee in the life of grace he hath made himself the true food of thy Soul and comes from the right hand of the eternal Father to enclose himself in thy most impure breast Jesus Christ comes also to make thee one body with himself that thou mayest after an admirable manner be united unto him and made partaker not onely of his spirit but of his bloud That which this Consideration ought to work in the breast of a
should receive a hundred fold and hereafter life eternal I now find true by experience For this grief and pain which I feel is so sweet unto me out of the hope I have of eternal happiness that I would not lose these pains and this hope not onely for what I have left already but for a hundred times more And if to me who am so great a sinner those pains which I deserve are a hundred times more sweet than any former power and pleasures in the world What are they to a just man and to the zealous and devout religious By this it evidently appears that spiritual joy though but in hope affords a thousand times more pleasure and content than the possession of all the carnal and temporal delights in the world At what this Servant of God said all who were present remained astonisht that an ignorant man wholly unlettered should understand and speak of so high matters §. 2. The joy of the poor in Christ Jesus who have renounced all for his love springs from two causes First from that content which Poverty it self by its freedom from temporal troubles and the imbroilments of life brings along with it And this even the Gentils confessed And therefore Apuleius called it Merry and and chearful Poverty And Seneca would say That a Turf of earth gave a sounder sleep than Wooll dyed in Tyrian Purple And Anaxagoras taught by experience That he found more content in sleeping upon the Earth and feeding upon Hearbs than in Down Beds and delicious Banquets accompanied with an unquiet mind The second cause of this joy is not the nature of poverty but the particular grace of God who rewards them with the pleasures of heaven who have renounced those of earth and fills with spiritual riches those who have left the temporal For in truth poverty is much beloved and priviledged by Christ and therefore he rewards the poor even in this life with many particular graces and favours Besides this the many and great commodities which this contempt of earthly things brings along with it may serve as a reward equivalent to a hundred yea a thousand-fold For if all the world were given to escape the committing of one sin it were not an equal value and by Evangelical poverty and contempt of the world the sins which we avoid are innumerable For by it we not onely pluck up the root but quit the instruments of sinning Take away abundance and you take away insolence arrogance and pride which spring from it as smoke from fire you take away also the means of committing many other sins which riches feed and nourish Neither is the attaining of many vertues which accompany Poverty as Humility Modesty and Temperance of less value than the avoidance of those sins And therefore it is a great truth Homil. 8. in Ep. ad Hebr. which Saint Chrysostome notes and ponders That in Poverty we possess Vertues more easily Neither is it sleightly to be valued That the state of Poverty assists much toward our satisfaction for those sins we have committed according to what is spoken to the just man by Isaias the Prophet I have chosen thee that is I have purified thee in the furnace of poverty It is likewise a great matter to be free and uninterressed in the base and unprofitable employments of the earth whereby the poor have time to exercise vertue to converse with God and his Angels and contemplate Eternity The honour also and dignity to command these things below which is attained by the poor in spirit may well be valued at a hundred-fold For as it is a great baseness in the rich to be slaves to their avarice and to things so vile as riches So it is a great honour to the poor to exempt themselves from this slavery and servitude and to lord it over all and as the Apostle sayes by contemning all to possess all so as there is no Riches no Kingdom comparable to this of Poverty Kingdoms have their limits and boundeties which they pass not but this Kingdom of Poverty is not straightned by any bounds but for the same reason that it hath nothing hath all things for the heart cannot be said to possess any thing without being Lord of it and it cannot be Lord of it without being superiour unto it and not that unless it subject and subjugate it unto it self So as it is by so much more a possessor by how much it is more Lord and Superiour Now he who desires to be rich must needs love those things without which he cannot be rich nor can he love them without care sollicitude and slavery but he who contemns them is not onely Lord but Possessor of them And for this cause St. John Climacus said very well Grad 17. That the poor religious person who casts all his care upon God is Lord of all the world and all men are his Servants Moreover the true love of poverty doth not basely cleave unto these temporal things for all it hath or can have it respects nothing and if it want any thing it is no more troubled than if it wanted so much dung and dirt But above all rewards is that of God who is possest by poverty In Psal 118. and in St. Ambrose his opinion is that hundred-fold which is received for what we leave For as the Tribe of Levie which had no part in the distribution of the Land of Palestine received this promise from God that he would be their Share and Possession of inheritance So with much reason unto those who voluntarily refuse their parts in the goods of the earth God himself becomes their possession riches and all good even in this world and passes so much further as to give them in the other the Kingdom of Heaven Aug. Ser. 28. de Ver. Apost Whereupon St. Austin speaks in this manner Great happiness and felicity is that of a Christian who with the rich price of poverty purchases the precious reward of glory Wilt thou see how rich and precious it is The poor man buyes and obtains that by poverty which the rich man cannot with all his treasures And it was certainly a most high counsel in our Lord God and an act worthy of his divine understanding to make Poverty the price of his Glory that none might want wherewith to purchase it Wherefore many of the Saints have been so enamoured of Poverty that they have purchased it with more eagerness than the rich have fled from it and have had this advantage over them to be more voluntarily poor than the other could be rich CAP. VIII Many who have despised and renounced all that is Temporal SO evident is the baseness of temporal goods and the mischiefs they occasion in humane life so apparent that many Philosophers without the light of faith or doctrine of the Son of God were not ignorant of it and many so deeply apprehended the importance not onely of contemning but renouncing of
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
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